It has been suggested that there’s something Arloish going on here. I’m thinking not — though I did have the same thought — but in either case what does it mean?
- Comment
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Tarzan was raised by apes. Apes like bananas. Every time Jane goes there, dinner consists of bananas, which is boring and repetitive.
LikeLike
I don’t believe it is an Arlo because if you look closely you’ll see that his legs are on one side of the vine and hers are on the other side resting against the side of his hip.
LikeLike
What WW says is what I thought, but neither of their facial expressions match up: she seems angry and he seems… surprised?
(The Arlo aspect was just a fanciful thought)
LikeLike
Bill: I agree the facial expressions don’t match up well, but I’d instead say that she’s aggravated (“Mother-in-laws, amirite?”), and he has classic comic overreaction face.
LikeLike
He seems surprised she’s complaining. I mean, bananas, what else would mom be serving?
Of course the “apes” in the original novels weren’t gorillas or any extant species. They had language, for instance.
LikeLike
He really likes bananas.
LikeLike
“They had language, for instance.”
So the Ronald Colman-sounding Ape on George of the Jungle is pretty much canonical?
LikeLike
King Louie doesn’t just have language, he has his own song in “Jungle Book”. And it swings, even if it’s been hugely overshadowed by Balu’s song.
The cartoon looks like it was drawn for the caption “Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?”, except that isn’t how Tarzan speaks (in the movies, anyway, he does just fine in the books). (yes, I know it would be Jane speaking that particular line.)
LikeLike
Now I wish I had noted where it was recently that I first heard the question “So who taught him to shave?”.
LikeLike
The first time I heard that question was before *I* shaved.
LikeLike
Ah well, I just have never been much into the Burroughs universe.
LikeLike
Actually, the only Tarzan book I ever read was the Philip Jose Farmer classic.
Which, come to think of it, might very well have addressed the shaving question (I read it a long time ago).
LikeLike
If I remember — Jane taught Tarzan to shave. Tarzan taught himself to read and write from the books left in the cabin his bio-parents left, but didn’t know spoken language, clothing, or grooming, until Jane showed him. They had to communicate by writing until she got the whole “verbal” idea across, but since he was nearly-superhumanly intelligent (c.f., teaching himself to read and write in English and French, despite having never been exposed to the idea of written language), it all worked out just fine.
LikeLike
I assume then that his father left behind his shaving kit?
Well, actually, he was British, so of course he did.
LikeLike
No, Tarzan taught himself to shave, pre-Jane, with the knife he’d inherited from his late father (and based on images from the picture books he found in the cabin also inherited from his parents). All because he was a Snob who thought he was Too Good For His Ape Peers:
TARZAN OF THE APES, Chapter 13:
But of these things Tarzan did not think. He was worried because he had not clothing to indicate to all the jungle folks that he was a man and not an ape, and grave doubt often entered his mind as to whether he might not yet become an ape.
Was not hair commencing to grow upon his face? All the apes had hair upon theirs but the black men were entirely hairless, with very few exceptions.
True, he had seen pictures in his books of men with great masses of hair upon lip and cheek and chin, but, nevertheless, Tarzan was afraid. Almost daily he whetted his keen knife and scraped and whittled at his young beard to eradicate this degrading emblem of apehood.
And so he learned to shave—rudely and painfully, it is true—but, nevertheless, effectively.
LikeLike
“And so he learned to shave—rudely and painfully, it is true—but, nevertheless, effectively.”
Is that “rude” as in primitive or discourteous towards his ape family?
LikeLike
It looks like he is in a hurry and just grabbed her. She’s thinking that it must be his favorite meal because he’s so excited and got her so quickly?
LikeLike
Brian in STL – “rude” as in discourteous would require that the book have been written with a much less colonial mindset.
LikeLike
Hmmmpph… *I* think the Arlo interpretation is correct.
She thinks he thinks bananas are an aphrodisiac and she’s irritated he’s aroused and he’s slightly shocked she’s so blunt and critical about it.
LikeLike
Old joke: Two English gentlemen in a club.
“Have you heard about Lord Greystoke? They found him in Africa, living in a tree with a gorilla.”
“A male gorilla or a female gorilla?”
“Female, of course. Nothing funny about the Greystokes.”
LikeLike
I think “rude” here just means in an unrefined or rough manner.
In Emerson’s “Concord Hymn” the opening line “By the rude bridge that arched the flood” he was not suggesting the bridge over the Concord River wast acting discourteously to those who walked across it.
That sense of “rude” does not appear to be popularly used these days, does it?.
LikeLike
“That sense of “rude” does not appear to be popularly used these days, does it?.”
I think it was subsumed into “crude”.
LikeLike
This cartoon has qualified for a repeat appearance on the Arlo page.
LikeLike