WOLF LARSON’S TARZAN-49-THE EARTHLY CHALLENGE

 

WOLF LARSON’S TARZAN-49-THE EARTHLY CHALLENGE

“Women can also be kind. Like Jane.”

 

Jack’s journal: Tuesday the 1^st: 1992 has Sept and Dec; 1993 has June (this being the second to last episode filmed in the second season this is the likely candidate); 1997 has April and July; 1998 has Sept and Dec.

 

Jane and Roger are in dark caves with flashlights. Jane wants a good night’s sleep for tomorrow’s Earth Day Challenge-the Great Earth Day Showdown. Roger believes he has it “licked.” Jack calls via radio and tells Roger that he has a letter from Julie Markwell. They have been looking for bats. They find a skeleton and a lion comes running at them. Roger thought Julie wanted to return his ID bracelet to him. Predictably, the two of them end up screaming for Tarzan as the lion is below them and they end up on a ledge. He swings to the caves and goes in with a torch (no headband like all of the last episode). He calls this loin Terrack and fights it with the torch. Jane claims they got lost and that Roger was a little distracted. This lion’s family was killed by hunters and now he hunts for revenge. Jack knows that Roger hasn’t heard from Julie in almost a year.

 

Julie’s dumped Roger three times. Tarzan thinks Roger is strong but Jane thinks that when it comes to women, men are weak. Tarzan just smiles at that. Wolf has some bump on his right shoulder? Tarzan does not want to judge the contest tomorrow. Jane asks him, rather sexually, “If I win, what will my prize be?” Jack and Roger return before he can answer.

 

Tarzan, just before that says this curious line, “Tarzan already knows that Jane cannot live a day without doing harm to the jungle.” What?

 

Roger reads Julie’s letter outside against a tree while Cheetah listens and reacts. Uhm, is there a truck backing up nearby? The sound of that alarm that goes off slightly when a truck backs up is heard? WTF? Is that a bird sounding that way? She wants him to come back as college life and dating has been great but just reminds her that she wants him.

 

Jane tries to get Roger interested in the Earth Day Showdown again. She tells him that in their lifetime an average person throws away about 600 times their weight in garbage. Roger wishes everyone would mind their own business and storms into his tent.

 

Jane thinks the challenge should be cancelled but Tarzan tells her when the tiger is tested it only grows stronger and that women can be kind, like Jane is.

 

In honor of Earth Day, they are going to see which of them can get through the day without doing damage to the environment. Roger has his shirt open again showing off his stomach and chest. He’s being cynical due to his issues with Julie. Earlier he said life stinks. Jane uses biodegradable soap. Roger has to go the bathroom and Cheetah will not allow him to use toilet paper that’s not recyclable. Okay are they trying to imply that Cheetah accidentally took a photo with Jane’s camera of…Roger going to the bathroom with his pants down?

 

Jane tells Jack that Bendali gets its meat from South America which destroys rainforests for grazing land. Roger snaps at Cheetah and waves him off. Jane scolds Roger that he’s been acting like a teenager. He says, “I am a teenager.”  He is? I thought by now he’d be at least 20?

 

Roger tells Jane when she pushes him that he’s sick and tired of being the entertainment around here and that he knows what everyone thinks of him: like what kind of trouble will Roger get into today and/or maybe he’ll get one thing right this time. He asks her if she would hire him if his father were not funding the project. She does not answer. He storms off that home offers college, pizza, movies, and MTV. He IS thinking of leaving.

 

We see Roger go onto his bicycle for the first time. He puts a cap on (Justin Boot Company). It’s not 15 seconds before he crashes it and the lion comes upon him. For one of those rare times we see it in the same frame as him. In another of those wonderful stunts, Roger races his bike over the bridge as the lion gives chase AND then jumps off his bike over the rail of the bridge. It’s impressive. He ends up holding on over a ravine or a fall with the lion over him.

 

Sigh…and calling for Tarzan.

 

Tarzan saves Roger and promises Tarack that the lion can trust Tarzan. He tells Roger some day he will teach the lion that not all men are bad. Tarzan takes Roger on canoe. Roger feels his life is not working out here. Tarzan tells him the river follows one course. The weather may change but it follows one course. This is not altogether true. In any case, Roger agrees to finish the contest but then says after it is over, it is “hasta la viesta,” which is a phrase popularized by TERMINATOR 2. Roger takes a 1990s version of a selfie with Cheetah. Jane comes to his tent and tells him that he finds simple ways to do things that make him smart and also that she’s not afraid when she sees he is not. She also does not see him as lazy and always wanted a younger brother and now feels like she is losing him. They hug.

 

Roger has on his necklace and charm. In the swim in the ocean scenes last ep he was not wearing it and some of the subsequent scenes he also did not have it on. In the shower or near shower scene he DID have it on.

 

We see the parrot again.

 

Jane, upset that Roger is packing, goes for a walk but when Roger looks for her a few moments later, he realizes she forgot about the lion. He runs off to help her. With Jane stuck in a tree, the lion just under her, Roger swings to her after climbing up another tree. Of course, this show is TARZAN so Tarzan has to come to save them both and scare/ward the lion off. Actually Tarak lays down at Tarzan’s feet, trusting him. “Tarak, because some men are bad does not mean all men are bad. We all share the jungle. Together, as friends.”

 

“Julie may want me for my looks and possibly my charm but you guys, would be dead without me.”

 

Uhm, Roger says that, not Tarzan.

 

While I found the opposite, Jack tells Roger that friendship is forever and Jane tells Roger that love doesn’t always last. Roger feels that they didn’t need him before but now he feels they can’t get along without him.

 

Roger turns his butt to them and tells them if they want him to leave they’re going to have to kick his butt out of here. When he turns, Jack and Jane kick his butt. They laugh.

 

Production 224.

 

Not sure how I feel about this episode. I love Roger themed episodes. Truth is however, Jack, Jane, and Roger, not to mention Cheetah (not so much this season or lately) and even Numa (last episode only) ALL are liabilities to living in a jungle full of manmade and natural dangers.

 

This has been a problem with the series from the start, though Simon had more sense last season, even he did some dopey things to get him into trouble so that hero Tarzan could save him. Jane forgets about a killer lion, goes off for a walk on her own with no protection, and generally seems ill fit to live in the jungle, even getting lost in the bat caves and blaming Roger who knew about the cave routes but gets lost anyway.

 

Roger should be about 19 or 20 so him calling himself a teenager is a stretch though many males that age (females too) consider themselves teens even though they know they’re too old to be or just out of their teens. No one wants to really get older these days.

 

At least this ep is more consistent than last episode but not as exciting. As ever, the ep is not a bad one but a bit predictable. I mean since it was nearing the end of the season (and back then who knew if the show was coming back for a third; it did), it might mean Roger WAS really going to leave the show and go home (New York?). As it stands, we know that Tarzan will have to have at least two rescues this episode and so it happens. And Roger will stay. And there will be a laugh at the end.

 

Nothing totally memorable but not bad either. I DO like the idea of a killer lion who wants revenge but this is almost a secondary plot line there for the rescues and some “danger.” It works. This episode works and that’s more than saying most about some shows’ scripts. If you buy this show, you buy the premises. I guess.

 

 

Oddly, Wolf no longer wears the headband for the last two episodes so far and we shall see the next episode if he does and his body seems to change here from one scene to another. At times (stock?) he looks more bulk muscled and at others more lean. And I’m not talking about the stunt man, that’s obvious but not so much back in the 1990s before DVD and blu ray (video tape couldn’t help much either as it is not as clear as DVD and blu ray) and the show hardly came out on video tape anyway.