Film: Jungle Burger
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 79 mins
Director: Picha, Boris Szulzinger
Starring: John Belushi, Billy Murray, Christopher Guest, Johnny Weissmuller Jr.
Genre: Animation
Studio: Lace
Format: DVD
Country: France/Belgium
This is an English-Language release.
As the first foreign-animated film to receive an X-rating and a wide distribution in the United States, Jungle Burger (or Tarzoon: Shame Of The Jungle as it’s known outside of the UK) has quite the reputation. With voice acting by comedy legends John Belushi and Bill Murray, and created by cartoonists Picha and Boris Szulzinger, Jungle Burger is an outrageous play on the Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Deep in the heart of the African jungle lives Shame – a timid, weak and sexually impaired ape-man with his mate, the sexually demanding and mostly nude June. But elsewhere, the evil Queen Bazonga is looking to take over the world, if she can get rid of her baldness first!
Her underlings agree that the best course of action is a scalp transplant, and June is chosen as the most suitable match. June is subsequently kidnapped, and it is up to Shame to race to Bazonga’s lair and save the day! Along the way Shame goes must go head to head with hunters, cannibals and a legion of anthropomorphic penises if he is to save his mate and put a stop to the Queen.
In 1976, Tarzoon: Shame Of The Jungle and its French distributor, 20th Century Fox, faced a lawsuit from Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs for alleged plagiarism. The case was unsuccessful as it was found to be a legitimate parody. The film was subsequently brought over to the United States in 1978 and, following a reedit and dub, released under an R-rating. Once again it faced lawsuits from the Burroughs estate, and the film was forced to drop the ‘Tarzoon’ in its name…
It’s clear almost immediately that Jungle Burger is devoted to delivering visual humour non-stop rather than a witty narrative. Within the first five minutes, the film has already descended into a mosquito raping a fly and racist stereotypes of jungle aborigines – and the film doesn’t get any cleverer from there. From a masturbating chimpanzee to semen-firing penis soldiers, Jungle Burger really scrapes the bottom of the barrel for laughs. Not only that, but several scenes are horrifically drawn out to the point where if the viewer were finding them funny to begin they would have lost all effect by the time they finish. It doesn’t take long for jokes to start being recycled either, which immediately gives the idea that the filmmakers were merely making something for the X-rated factor than something that could be genuinely funny.
Jungle Burger has the potential to be a strong parody of Tarzan. Portraying Shame as a clumsy weakling instead of an athletic, masculine hero, and June as a sexually strong female lead instead of a token damsel in distress are interesting role reversals. Unfortunately, this is about as close to Tarzan as it gets, opting not to create any further parallels in favour of its own brand of toilet humour. With that in mind, Jungle Burger is actually at its funniest when it is parodying other animated features rather than the Tarzan fiction. Moments include a nude Flintstones-esque shower sequence with an elephant and a bizarre cameo by Belgian cartoon superstar Tintin.
The characters are thin and one dimensional, and aside from Shame, June, Queen Bazonga and main henchman Charles of the Pits have an average screen-time of about five to ten minutes. It’s impossible to engage with most of the characters due to the sheer lack of dialogue in the film (and in some cases, the dialogue is almost incomprehensible). The voice talents of comedy legends Murray and Belushi go to complete waste, and if their names weren’t on the film’s credits it would be difficult to identify them in the first place. The only real highlight character-wise is Charles of the Pits – a crazed two headed beautician who seems all too aware that he’s starring in a cartoon.
There’s not a lot to say about the animation either – it’s about as crude and basic as an animated film can get. The characters are simple and the backgrounds mostly amount to simply one colour at a time. However, this actually compliments the film given its simplicity in both structure and intelligence.
Jungle Burger is lewd, crude and vulgar – and it has no shame in being so. Those with the most juvenile sense of humour may find some entertaining factor, but even then, most will be left confused by what on Earth they had just watched. A forgotten relic that’s best left in the past. AJ
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