Johnny Sheffield began playing Boy, adopted son to Johnny Weissmuller's iconic Tarzan, in 1939, when he eight years old, and finished in 1947, when he had grown bigger, taller, and far more muscular than his movie Dad and could hardly be called a "Boy" anymore.A couple of years later, he started on a series of 12 Bomba the Jungle Boy movies (1949-55), ostensibly based on the series of boys' adventure novels, but really about a teenage Tarzan -- Bomba borrowed Weissmuller's trademark loincloth and "Me Tarzan" patois, and the short-lived comic book spin-off was subtitled "TV's Teenage Jungle Star."
The Bomba movies, which I saw on tv during the rare Saturday afternoons in the 1960s that didn't have a game or a repeat of The Magic Sword, seemed to have the same plot, with minor variations.
Bomba is summoned by a scientist or colonial administrator, who tells him about the bad guys and introduces his attractive teenage niece, visiting from America. Bomba and niece flirt. Bomba is captured by the bad guys, but escapes. The niece is captured, but Bomba rescues her and defeats the bad guys. The niece goes back to America. Bomba goes back to the jungle.The 30 or so minutes of action was turned into a feature-length movie through some stock footage of African wildlife and 20-30 minutes of close-ups of Johnny Sheffield's body.
When Bomba takes a nap, we don't get an establishing shot and then a switch to the next scene: the camera slowly travels down the length of his body for a good five minutes.
When he is tied up by the bad guys, he struggles with his bonds for the amount of time it takes the cameraman to go down to the commisary for a sandwich.
When he goes back into the jungle, he climbs a tree, and the camera obligingly zooms in on his semi-nude butt.
Not that the audience, comprised primarily of preteen gay boys and straight girls, was complaining. They could think of lots worse ways to spend a dull Saturday afternoon than gazing at Johnny Sheffield.
He influenced a generation of muscular, semi-nude jungle boys, such as Gunga on Andy's Gang and Terry on Maya
There's a gay celebrity story about him on Tales of West Hollywood, but it might be apocryphal.
He died in 2010.
See also: Why is Bomba the Jungle Boy always tied up?
Yeah, for us, there was Teen Tarzan's Eco Adventures, which featured young bodybuilder and dancing bear Richard Sandrak. But it didn't last long. Actually, I don't think any post-Boomer generation had a lot of Tarzan fans. RPGs had a few Tarzan parodies, like Gau from Final Fantasy 6, where "so many characters we start just homaging pop culture" is a thing, and I think an episode of Pokémon had a boy raised by Kangaskhan. (You were expecting Primeape?) I know Filmation did Tarzan cartoons in the 70s, but I never saw them. (The lack of Filmation bara on Rule 34 is disturbing.)
ReplyDeleteI have seen Jungle King Tar-chan manga, but it's more "a loincloth allows for dick jokes". (Tar-chan's penis is a propeller underwater, and he can use his foreskin as a hang glider. His erection also tents his loincloth; a friendly tribesman's erection breaks penis gourds. The whole thing has him unaware that his used-to-be-hot wife Jane is salty over this young woman he rescued. Classic heterosexist storyline.)
Perhaps a gay Tarzan parody serial in the vein of Robin Hoog should be made? Combine as many Tarzan and Tarzan clone tropes as you want. Just because Boy is MGM property and non-canon, Tarzan GT if you will, doesn't mean he can't be in the parody.
Tarzan was insanely popular in the 1950s and 1960s, the same time as the sword-and-sandal peplums, mainly because he was the only major fictional character who could be displayed half-naked. Now every tv show has half-naked guys in every episode, so what's the point of vine-swinging?
ReplyDeleteHad a HUGE crush on Johnny Sheffield when I as a Gay kid encountered the Tarzan movies in reruns. And it scared me. I knew Weismuller was supposed to be the hunk but he didn't do it for me. Johnny, however, did and I was bothered about preferring a kid to an adult.
ReplyDeleteAs I got older, however, I realized that was not just because I was a kid myself but that Boy's loincloth was far more revealing than Tarzan's and both Johnny and the directors apparently had no qualms about his buttcheeks being exposed incessantly.
Of course Bomba was a comfort, with a now legal Johnny to drool over. His loincloth wasn't as skimpy, sadly, but at least now what it covered was worth looking at.
There should have been a movie in which Bomba meets an attractive visiting nephew- after their jungle bonding adventure they would have moved back to the states and opened a jungle theme gay resort in Key West
ReplyDeleteFinally, someone else share's my Bomba appreciation. I watch the reruns, usually Saturday mornings on TCM, whenever they run. Following him from boy to muscley man is a treat and, yes, I've also heard he was a great guy, too.
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