FORGOTTEN FILM: SHAME OF THE JUNGLE (1979)

Imagine there was a film featuring the talents of Bill Murray, John Belushi, and Christopher Guest.

Imagine that film was written by the great Michael O'Donoghue (who helped create both NATIONAL LAMPOON and SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE) and Anne Beatts (a writer of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and creator of SQUARE PEGS).

Imagine it was an animated film.

And imagine that it was an X rated film.

You have all of that?

Well, such a film exists. It is called SHAME OF THE JUNGLE and was released in 1979.

In 1975, Belgian cartoonist Picha released a film called TARZOON. It was an X rated cartoon about Tarzan.

Jane (or June as she is called) is kidnapped by an army of, ummm, you wouldn't believe me if I told you so I will just link to this YouTube clip (which is NOT safe for work).

O'Donoghue and Beatts then took that film, wrote English dialogue for it, and had much of the SNL cast record voices. Johnny Weissmuller Jr. voiced Tarzan and Brian Doyle Murray were also in the cast.

Sadly, the film you are likely to imagine isn't quite what is up on the screen. I only saw the R rated cut (I don't even know if the above scene was in it) but it wasn't what I hoped it would be with the talent involved.


The R-rated version was released on VHS in the 90's, but it had several minutes cut. It was most likely a bootleg as I had never heard of the studio that released it.

I am surprised that one of the cult DVD companies hasn't pursued this title for an official release. They could release the original French language cut as well as the US cut. The talent involved would surely sell some copies, even if the film wasn't the greatest. It does appear that there are copies available in other regions, but not in the US.

In looking, I can't find who owns the film today, or even released it in the 70's, which may be why a bootleg managed to get released without anyone picking up on it.

You can find more NSFW clips here.