Proto-Hunk

Ah, Tarzan.

It was as if Rousseau’s noble savage mixed with the barely suppressed kink that was the real nature of Victorian sexuality. But in that barely suppressed land we call early 20th century American pop culture.

… Underneath it all, of course, is a sense of sex and love that cannot exist in Europe with the same kind of freedom. That might well have been the attraction of the series for adults: Jane and her guy were making the beast with two backs unencumbered by the vestiges of the Victorian age. Always seeming fresh from an assignation, they were close to nude, they lived off the land, and the animals loved and obeyed Tarzan—especially herds of elephants and gaggles of chimps—stopping whatever they were doing to run off and arrive at the command of his yodel. If not, they were dispatched by Tarzan in hand-to-claw combat. …

The Tarzan Collection on DVD