If you ever find a dusty VHS copy at a garage sale, grab it. Not because it’s valuable, but because you’ll never look at a loincloth the same way again.
If you grew up in the 90s, you probably remember the golden age of direct-to-video animation. Studios like Disney were dominating the box office, and everyone else was desperately trying to catch the coattail—often with bizarre, low-budget results. tarzan shame of jane 1995
For collectors of weird animation history, this is a must-see (once). For fans of actual Tarzan lore, it’s an affront. For everyone else? It’s a 70-minute time capsule of a moment when the jungle got very, very weird. If you ever find a dusty VHS copy at a garage sale, grab it
Is it entertaining? In a so-bad-it’s-hilarious way, absolutely. The dialogue is pure cheese (“Jane shame. Tarzan no shame. Tarzan… free.”). The musical interludes are bizarre Casio-keyboard ballads. And the voice acting ranges from “overly dramatic” to “sounds like they recorded this in a closet between sandwiches.” Studios like Disney were dominating the box office,
The mid-90s were a weird time. The VHS market had exploded, and rental stores had entire back aisles dedicated to “adult animation.” Studios realized they could take public domain characters (Tarzan entered the public domain in some territories by then) and slap a risqué title on the box. Shame of Jane wasn’t trying to win Oscars. It was trying to get rented on a Friday night by someone looking for a laugh and a cheap thrill.
Released in 1995 by a now-defunct studio (often misattributed to low-budget houses like Cal Vista or Video X Pix), Tarzan: Shame of Jane is exactly what the title implies: a tongue-in-cheek, adults-only retelling of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic.
Is Tarzan: Shame of Jane good? No. Not by any traditional metric.