Take A Look at Disney

5/25/16

Dino-Rama: Tarzan and The Hidden World (The Legend of Tarzan Episode Review)

Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney and today, we continue our Dino-Rama as we head to the jungles of Africa. With that out of the way, let's begin.



Episode  Title


Tarzan and The Hidden World


The episode title refers to a place below the jungles of Africa, where dinosaurs  still roam.



The Plot


We open at the academy, where Professor Porter used to work as his arch rival,  Samuel T. Philander is rummaging through his office, speculating as to why Professor Porter is still in Africa after a year.  

After the credits roll, we see Tantor being scared by a butterfly that Jane and Professor were chasing and soon they come across Philander, who has brought along his two oafish lackeys,  who if I remember the show right became recurring characters as the show went on.


Philander says that he has discovered something in the jungles of Africa and is surprised that his rival has yet to discover it.  This gets Professor Porter furious and he along with Jane and Tarzan head back to the treehouse and Professor Porter wonders what his rival could be doing here and mentions how even since they were boys, he would steal credit from him.  One such example was find a tyrannosaurus femur and it got Philander on the covers of the Times.  This leads Tarzan to ask what a  tyrannosaurus femur is and the Porters explain, it's a bone of a T-Rex and how they study it.  Tarzan nonchalantly asks why don't they study live ones.   The Porters explain that they are extinct but Tarzan replies by saying not in Africa as he tells them of a place that the gorillas told him of that is actually under the jungles of Africa, Pellucidar.












 Professor Porter coaxes his son-in-law to taking him there .  We later see The Porters and Tarzan head down to The Hidden World and there, they see the dinosaurs and it is a majestic sight.

Professor Porter is in awe of all the dinosaurs that are before him.  Philander sees the rope that Tarzan and The Porters used to get down to The Hidden World, taking with him, a camera to have photographic evidence but unbeknownst to him, a baby chimp used to take the world's first selfies.


We also see some cool shots of Tarzan having to fight off dinosaurs, which is admittedly pretty cool and have to get away from a triceratops and Jane helps her husband by throwing her headlight into a geyser creating a fire to block the dino.





 










Which is actually pretty neat and later, they come across a nest of eggs that we later find out belongs to a mother T-Rex and Philander thinks of taking one but Tarzan suggests that it may be harder to protect the greedy Professor, if he takes it and in an act of desperation, Professor Porter takes the egg that his rival was going to take.


















Professor Porter places the egg in his backpack and as they head off with it, they are chased by the mother T-Rex and it just so happens that the baby hatches in the Professor's backpack.













They are chased through the Hidden World by the mother T-Rex but soon, Professor Porter returns the baby T-Rex and everything seems fine but they're still chased but they use Jane's fire tactic from earlier to escape but it appears that Philander still has the upper hand as it appears that he still has the photographs and it seems that he one upped Professor Porter once again but as the episode ends, we get a rather predictable ending with him giving a lecture but all the pictures of the baby chimp.


In all, this episode is just okay. Not bad but nothing too special.




Characters


Main Character


Professor Porter voiced by Jeff Bennett


















Professor Porter is rather likable here and you do feel bad for him as he's just an old man that wants his big break but was always one upped by his rather annoying rival and you saw him stoop to levels that he knew were beneath but it was an act of desperation.



Supporting Characters


Tarzan voiced by Michael T. Weiss



















Tarzan fighting off dinosaurs is awesome and I wish that had been the main focus of the episode because the idea of Tarzan going up against dinosaurs sounds really cool.  I'm not mad about what the show isn't but still, that would have been a lot more fun.


Jane voiced by Olivia d'Abo


Jane really didn't do much in the whole episode.  Sure, she helped to save Tarzan but I feel like you could have cut her out of the episode and nothing would have been lost.




Antagonist


Professor Samuel T. Philander voiced by Craig Ferguson



















There really wasn't much to Philander other than being a stereotypical rival that stole everything from one of the good guys and took all the credit.  He was okay but hardly memorable.



My Final Thoughts


In all, this episode is okay but nothing worth tracking down. If you are a fan of Tarzan, maybe check it out but it's not really anything special.  Join me next time as we close out this event as I look at...



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