Recently, Balladeer’s Blog examined the 1937 Jungle Jim serial and all sixteen Johnny Weissmuller movies in which he was technically in the role. In this third and final Jungle Jim blog post I will look at the one-season series from 1955-1956. Each episode was 30 minutes with commercials.
Jim’s chimp was back to being called Tamba, and the series added a son named Skipper (Martin Huston) for the hero. Fans will remember that Skipper was originally the name of Jungle Jim’s pet dog. Norman Fredric was added to the cast as Jim’s turbaned assistant Kaseem.
EPISODE ONE: MAN KILLER
Synopsis: Jungle Jim tussles with an inexperienced hunter (Dick Rich) who, while shooting at big game from a riverboat, wounds a lion but fails to kill it, setting the pained animal on a reign of terror. Jim, Skipper, Kaseem and (groan) Tamba must save the locals AND the careless hunter from the lion.
EPISODE TWO: LAND OF TERROR
Synopsis: Helene Marshall, playing the sister of a famous botanist, interrupts Jungle Jim and Skipper’s census of wild animals to help her search for her missing brother. Our heroes and Tamba rescue the botanist from yet another remote African locale teeming with dinosaurs. (The usual stock footage from One Million B.C. that showed up in countless movies.) This time the area gets wiped out by lava after a volcano eruption.
EPISODE THREE: TREASURE OF THE AMAZON
Synopsis: A pair of murderous plunderers posing as archeologists trick Jungle Jim into flying to Brazil with them to lead their expedition. They are searching for a lost city built by the Incas long ago, but naturally just want to loot the place’s treasure. Jim and the villains find it, but face headhunters, piranha, warthogs, jungle cats and boa constrictors. The bad guys get killed as a consequence of their own greed. Continue reading
Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog, as always, welcomes everyone no matter who they vote for. Revelation after revelation keeps surfacing from the way Elon Musk has overturned a figurative rock, thus exposing all of the corrupt, 
Moreover, the past several years have also seen de facto Third Party President Donald Trump overturn a figurative rock exposing the cesspool of corruption that career politicians have made of America’s political system. 
Both of them are in the sights of the powerful totalitarians they have angered, Trump for far longer than Musk, of course. Those two non-politicians have exposed the Banana Republic conditions in which the Joe Bidens and George W. Bushes of the country have mired America. 
dropping from above to perform such civic duties, and regular readers know I sure as hell don’t advocate for such action, but there’s no denying that Trump and Musk are waging the kind of battles that our elected officials, judicial appointees and “law enforcement” (LMAO) personnel should have been waging long before the corruption spread as far as it has. 
CALL OF CTHULHU: THE SILENT MOVIE (2005) – A very clever black & white film presented like a silent movie as it would have been produced in a 1928 adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s story The Call of Cthulhu. 
MONDO MIKE HAMMER MOVIES – My look at some of the straightforward AND the bizarre Mike Hammer detective movies from America and Japan, where the character was called Maiku Hama. And the Japanese versions are just part of the story. The full article 
AFRICAN EPIC MYTH: AIWEL LONGAR – You can read my examination of it 
LUKE CAGE, HERO FOR HIRE – My look at his early adventures as he battled villains like Diamondback, Gideon Mace, Black Mariah, Chemistro, Stiletto, Cottonmouth and more. You can read the article 
The competing teams are the NORTH-WESTERN (IA) COLLEGE RED RAIDERS and the KEISER UNIVERSITY SEA HAWKS. Kickoff is scheduled for 12 Noon ET. 
FIRST SEMIFINAL – The COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES OREDIGGERS took the field against the SHEPHERD UNIVERSITY RAMS in this game. A 3-0 1st Quarter edge for the Orediggers turned into a 17-3 advantage by Halftime. After the break the Colorado School of Mines limited the Rams to just 10 points in the 4th Quarter while piling up points for themselves. The final score was Orediggers 44 Shepherd U. 13. 
Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, like so many of us former Democrats, disgusted with how fascistic and intolerant the Democrats have become, has officially left that political party to register as an Independent. 
THE SUPERMAN MUSICAL FROM 1975 – This stage musical from the 1960s was trying for that intentionally campy and overdone feel of the Adam West Batman series. The official title is It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Superman! In this 1975 made for tv staging, David Wilson plays Clark Kent/ Superman, Lesley Ann Warren is Lois Lane, Loretta Swit portrays a femme fatale, plus David Wayne and Kenneth Mars play the main villains. Allen Ludden fills the Perry White role, while Malachi Throne, Harvey Lembeck and Al Molinaro play gangsters. You can read the full review 
THE AFTERMAN (1985) – This post-apocalypse film from Belgium is not for the squeamish. The story presents 1991 as the year nuclear war broke out, and in 2011 our lead character has run out of provisions in the radiation-proof shelter he’s been in for 20 years. The rest of the flick deals with his often violent and depraved encounters with the barbaric world that’s left. My full review is 
DEATH GAME (1977) – This horror/ suspense film is OUT THERE. From the bizarrely inappropriate opening song to the home invasion aspect to the exploitative middle section all the way up to the surreal ending. Sondra Locke, Colleen Camp, Bill Paxton and Sissy Spacek were all involved with this weird flick. Death Game inspired a much later remake starring Keanu Reeves. My full review is 
JUNGLE MANHUNT (October 1951) – This seventh Jungle Jim feature film is one of the best examples of how the franchise combined fun escapism with outlandish “So Bad They’re Good” film antics. After rescuing female reporter Anne Lawrence (Sheila Ryan) when her boat overturns, Jungle Jim agrees to guide her on her search for Bob Miller – played by real-life football star Bob Waterfield, Jane Russell’s husband. 
Our hero and Anne also encounter dinosaurs – yes, dinosaurs – in the jungle region where Bob Miller’s plane went down. Much of it is stock footage from One Million B.C. but at one point, Jungle Jim clashes with an upright-walking, man-sized dinosaur who looks like the model for the Gorn Captain fought by Captain Kirk years later. Or maybe Barney the Dinosaur.
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