Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle (1975) Poster

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5/10
SHAME OF THE JUNGLE (Picha and Boris Szulzinger, 1975) **
Bunuel197611 December 2008
I was first intrigued by this via a still in "The Movie", an early 1980s British film periodical, where it was mentioned in an entry dedicated to animation; I also recall my father renting it on VHS – under its U.K. title of JUNGLE BURGER – in the mid-1980s but, of course, I was too young to be allowed to watch this or even understand it. The edition I acquired had the benefit of the English-dubbed soundtrack (with the hero, spoofing the popular character of Tarzan, voiced by Johnny Weissmuller Jr.[!] – son of the screen's most famous "Ape Man" – and the participation of many a "Saturday Night Live" exponent) but I opted to watch the original French version (accompanied by Italian rather than English subtitles).

Anyway, while the film is moderately amusing, it's in no way a classic (falling far below the standard of even contemporary artist/film-maker Ralph Bakshi); incidentally, it exhibits a similar predilection for explicit violence and sexuality (indeed it's swamped by the latter, particularly during the second half, with the hero depicted as impotent and where both characters and landscape are shaped like male and female genitalia)! The villainess, then, is a bald lady with fourteen breasts (perhaps a nod to the then-latest Bond adventure THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN [1974] – speaking of cinematic references, there's an obscure one involving the maligned but not-too-bad religious epic THE SILVER CHALICE [1954], which I watched for the first time only last month): she's flanked by a mad scientist with two heads who, typically for such evil "Siamese twins" caricatures, are constantly quarrelling among themselves.
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5/10
Boring, Weird and Unfunny, but it did have it's moments
gangstahippie15 April 2009
I am fairly interested in adult animation.I usually enjoy them.South Park is my favorite show(as my username would suggest), I enjoyed "Fritz The Cat" and other bakshi films as well as tons of adult anime's from japan such as "Akira", so I decided to check this film out.This is a french film from the 1970's, directed by Picha who seemed to be France's answer to Ralph Bakshi.The original version originally had to be cut down by 5min in order to obtain an R-rating.The English version also features comedians like John Belushi and Bill Murray dubbing the voices.However there is not much dialogue in this film, it's mostly just a bunch of random, unfunny little skits.The basic plot features a bald woman and a sziemise scientist who wants a special kind of hair from Tarzoon(Tarzan)'s wife June(Jane).She gets kidnapped and now it's up to Tarzoon to save her.The film is fairly short, and the majority of the film is just random skits involving jungle animals.Some of them are a bit funny, but overall the film is just boring and unfunny.It's pretty rare so check it out if you want, but I personally did not like it.
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6/10
Bashki's take on Tarzan- shame shame shame
videorama-759-85939110 December 2013
I'll be honest. This film doesn't live up to Bashki's work. Something went amiss here. The script is surprisingly good, the V'O 's are great and it has many inventive moments too. May'be it tries too hard, by putting so much in. It just doesn't measure up to Bashki's other work. Nonetheless I'll run down the plot. In the adult world, Shame is the Tarzan, but really doesn't have much upstairs. His wife June (his Jane) is very unfulfilled sexually. Shame's quite the impotent one. They have a pet monkey, and use water from an elephant's trunk as their daily mean of showering. Enter the bad bald nasty Queen who desperately needs a head of hair. She has fourteen breasts too, poor dear. After combing through a book of hopeless possibilities, guess who she spots- June. So she sends her johnsons, and their attached nuts, at her order to carry out the abduction of June, and it's Shame to the rescue, where he meets some quite weird characters, on the way. The bouncing balls and penises are great to watch, in an "Are you fu..ing kidding me?" way. No you're not mistaken. We have a separate safari team, one a compulsive swearer, blurting out a chain of non stop f words. He hates flies too. If you're into adult cartoons, or are fans of Bakshi's work, this will still entertain, but some of you might be sold short or on a comedown with this, as it not being in the same vein of other Bashki flicks, but still it's a very inventive, and at times humorous adult pic.
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As a 14 yr old I thought JUNGLE BURGER was so COOL!
mad-mclean11 April 2003
I saw JUNGLE BURGER when I was 14 - with a group of friends and a very naughty can of beer (I think 2.5% is now classed as low alcohol!). We thought this film was SO COOL!! And watched it several times over the space of couple of years. There are some funny visual jokes - especially if you happen to be 14 years old! I'll always remember with a grin, the monkey and the troops of penis-soldiers..! We liked it - it was naughty - it was funny! I dare say that as an adult I expect the jokes may be a bit tired and predictable...
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2/10
What exactly is a 'Jungle Burger'?
world_of_weird30 November 2005
Not quite awful but very far from good, this odd little movie wears out its welcome a lot sooner than you might imagine. It's like one of those sub-standard VIZ clones that cluttered up newsagent's shelves from the late eighties onward come to life, with a screenplay apparently written by an unreconstructed nightclub comedian who aims for the lowest common denominator and hits his target every time. It might be funny to see marching genitalia, a monkey poking a woman's naked breasts or the Tarzan character getting his penis stretched to impossible lengths the first couple of times, but that's really all the film has going for it in the humour department. A shame, because the animation is actually pretty good, and whoever came up with the rich soundtrack score deserved to see his work put to better use. The film achieved a minor cult following in the early days of home video in England due to its explicit (for the time) subject matter and the novelty value of seeing cute characters behaving badly.
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3/10
Skip it
Groverdox4 July 2021
"Shame of the Jungle" did nothing for me. I found it remarkably tedious and was unable to focus on it for a few moments. Apparently some SNL greats such as Bill Murray and John Belushi are supposed to have voiced characters here but I never recognised their voices. The animation is appalling, which I guess you have to forgive for a cartoon from the mid-seventies. But the lack of characters, plot, story, identifiable humour? I say give this one a miss.
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2/10
The US version of Shame of the Jungle leaves a lot to be desired but is worth at least one look
tavm28 July 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Four years after the original French release of this adult animated feature, this movie arrived in the US with some cuts and new dialogue written by a couple of "Saturday Night Live" staffers: Michael O'Donoghue and Anne Beatts. Many of the cast from that show were involved with the voices: John Belushi, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Christopher Guest though the last one had joined the show several years later. I was initially highly amused by many of the blatant imagery concerning certain body parts and some of the dialogue about lack of sexual power concerning Shame and June, but the meandering nature of the narrative and not-so-clever wordplay among the characters just threatened to bring things down to a bore for me. Oh, and I also wasn't crazy about the pointless cameos by Tintin and his dog Snowy. The animation was interesting throughout, however, and I did like the clever disco music that was played in some sequences. So on that note, Shame of the Jungle is at the least worth a look.
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7/10
Juicy laughathon
Macholic5 June 2004
Shame comes home and find his mate, June, abducted by...well..peckers! His ape explains in graphic details how June was aroused and abducted by the penises and demonstrated how it...well...spanked the monkey when the peckers aroused June. Lotsa slapstick, politically incorrect humor, not just about sex, but also about colonization ("Africa - the continent where life is spun by a thinner thread than other places"). The animation is fluent and rich, the soundtrack is rock'nrolling and this is really a bellylaugh-a-minute movie. Some people are likely to find the movie quite provocative but this is better natured than Fritz the Cat, which on occation turned quite violent without the redeeming humor, but there is certainly a kinship. The humor occationally gets quite elephantine, quite literary! Highly entertaining. 7/10
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7/10
Good, not so clean fun.
GiraffeDoor8 June 2019
This is a movie for people that love gratuitous cartoon sexuality, large anthropomorphic genitals and general grotesquerie.

It's fun and imaginative with a lot to offer.

I especially love a sight gag of Tintin forcing the bible on the natives.
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10/10
Classic must see for every teenager
kev-fellows26 November 2009
Classic cult movie that everyone remembers as a teenager.

My memory of the film still makes me laugh and have not seen it for 30 years or so! I wonder what I would think if I watched it again now aged 45.

It's playground humour will not appeal to everybody, but anyone one who hasn't seen it should give it a go.

It will entertain anybody who finds VIZ funny or people who giggle when they fart in a lift and then leave at the next floor, or people who get into a lift just to fart and then leave on the same floor!

The animation is very good for it's time and it is what it is.

Great.
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8/10
A great adult movie that SOUNDS much ruder than it WATCHES!
ulrichburke14 October 2016
Warning: Spoilers
O.K. Everyone. For starters - this film is nothing to do with Ralph Bakshi (or 'Bashki' as the guy above put!) It's made by Pichu Animation, I think it's about their only film, can't find out anything else about them. And yes - spoiler alert - it's got bouncing genitals, O.T.T. imagery and a queen with more boobs than a squadron of can-can girls - but the point is, weirdly, when you watch it all in context it's not rude, it's not even that sexual (because none of it's used in sexual ways.) It's just very, very funny. And very, very inventive, in a way I've never seen before or since.

MAYBE another spoiler alert - All the genitals have their own little personalities - you're laughing with them more than at them. The queen's intentionally ridiculous, not at all 'sexy' - which I'm pretty sure is intentional - just O.T.T. and hilarious because of the ridiculousness. You feel for Shane - he's a well-meaning dork but everything's out of his control all the way through. And Jayne's full-on blowup-doll fun! If you're expecting a French Hentai, wrong movie. BUT - if you're after an extremely CLEVER flick that takes all the elements that SHOULD be a hentai and makes a great slapstick and oddly non-sexual comedy out of them that will have you howling with laughter, you've found your Promised Land. It's not a cartoon porno, it's not meant to be. It's just a full-on, great fun, raunchy comedy with a belly-laugh every couple of scenes and images that are so crazy you won't forget them for a long time. I loved it when I schneaked into the cinema when it first came out (I was WAAY underage!) and it's lost none of its humour for me still. Vive le Jungleburger!! Chris.
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Forgotten animated film with writers of SNL.
Serpent-510 November 1999
The creative writers of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE wrote the English version of this extreme unfunny cartoon from France. The film was barely released (played in Seattle as TARZOON;SHAME OF THE JUNGLE in only one drive-in with a small ad in 1979) This film only got any kind of release was because of the voice talent of John Belushi who has a thankless voice role in a unfunny material he wrote (!). I don't know what voice Bill Murray did, and the late Adolf Ceasar also has a nothing voice role also. All the joke do not work, and it's a suprise since MR. MIKE'S MONDO VIDEO worked very well. Only highlight is a amusing march segment these soldiers did with a funky catchy french/african tune on. It a watered down 70mins print for the U.S., but I guess the french has more explicit cartoon version. Not recommended, unless you like to check out Belushi's forgotten work.
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9/10
Tarzoon, shame of the jungle
elie-music17 July 2016
Warning: Spoilers
I din't think it was a bad movie actually, it may not be the greatest animated film ever but it still good and a classic adult animated movies.

I listen to this movie with the original voice (in french) even thought that it had Bill Murray and John Belushi (their first thing in their career) and whatever I don't really understand why is it called Jungle Burger in the English version.

It had good scenes on it and hilarious characters on it like the guy who complain/swear too much, the Belgian in the flying ha mac, a female villain with 14 boobs and penis soldiers(?) I mean wow! it is a classic!
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Long repressed Tarzan animated comedy
gortx13 July 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Odd that just a couple of years before the Bo Derek soft-core sex romp version of TARZAN, that this French animated version got into so much controversy that it virtually disappeared upon arrival to these shores. Not that an under-appreciated classic was being unfairly smited, but there have been far worse spoofs of "sacred" texts.

The US version is shorter and has a few familiar voices such as John Belushi, Chris Guest and Bill Murray on the voice track, but it's the son of the original 1932's film adaptation, Johnny Weissmuller Jr., who voices "Tarzoon" (the censored new name in this version). Weissmuller does a credible job, but his participation further annoyed the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate.

There are some amusing moments, both R and NC-17 rated, to be had in the film, but the jokes are mostly obvious and it is too long-winded to sustain momentum. The US version also uses the annoying technique of playing the sound backwards every time the word "Tarzan" is spoken (they even blur out the T-word when written). There is an insanely catchy tune by an army of, ahem, Phallic Soldiers towards the end which stuck in my head for weeks. Also, a witty breaking the fourth wall running gag on Animated Characters is pretty amusing.
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