None of that “me Tarzan, you Jane” stuff had anything to do with the real Ape-Man, as far as my father was concerned. He just happened to like the real Tarzan - the one that Burroughs wrote about, who was the sophisticated British Lord Greystoke as well as the savage and lethal lord of the jungle who was as fluent in French as he was in the King’s English (even if his first language was Great Ape). Not that Dad didn’t like Tarzan - far from it. How come? I’m not 100% sure, but I figure it was probably because of my dad. Still, I may have been in a minority among my peers in at least one Tarzan-related area: I never saw a single Tarzan movie in my formative years, despite their showing up regularly on television. Your humble blogger was no exception in this regard. Even if you never once heard the name “Edgar Rice Burroughs”, you’d inevitably learn to recognize that author’s most famous hero by sight, as his loincloth-clad form swung by on a vine - or by sound, per his distinctive, (literally) trademarked yell. I’m not sure if it would have been possible for an American kid of my generation to grow up not knowing who Tarzan was.
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