''Jana of the Jungle'' is an American

animated television series An animated series is a set of animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can have eith ...

created by comic strip artist

Doug Wildey Douglas S. Wildey He recalled his professional start as freelancing for the magazine and comic book company Street & Smith in 1947. Because comic-book writer and artist credits were not routinely given during this era, the earliest confirmed Wilde ...

and produced by

Hanna-Barbera Productions Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to c ...

which aired on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

from September 9 to December 2, 1978. It was originally broadcast as a half-hour segment of ''

The Godzilla Power Hour ''Godzilla'' is an American animated monster television series produced by Hanna-Barbera, in association with Henry G. Saperstein. The series aired on NBC on September 9, 1978 with the title ''The Godzilla Power Hour''. The series continued to ...

'' (1978) and its later expanded form ''The Godzilla Super 90'' (1978–79).

Overview

Jana (voiced by B.J. Ward) is essentially a female version of Tarzan who traveled to the

rain forest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainforest ...

s of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

in search of her lost father (whom she never finds). Her father vanished in a boating accident when she was still a child, but the introduction shows that he survived. She is very beautiful, has long blonde hair, wears a dress made of unspecified animal skin and a necklace which doubles as a throwable weapon and makes a high-pitched resonating sound when thrown (somewhat similar to the

chakram Chakram ( sa, , script=latn; pa, , script=latn) is a throwing weapon from the Indian subcontinent. One of its major purposes is to protect the turban and the head from sword/melee attacks. It is circular with a sharpened outer edge and a diame ...

that would be the weapon of choice for the later, live-action '' Xena, Warrior Princess'') given to her by her father before the boating accident. She also has a yell that is a slightly altered version of Tarzan’s which she uses to call many types of animals. Besides her animal friends (Ghost, a sleek

white jaguar White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

and Tico, a pesky water opossum), Jana has two human friends: Dr. Ben Cooper (voiced by Michael Bell), a young wildlife biologist who maintained the preserve started by Jana's father and helped in her continuing search for her father; and Montaro (voiced by

Ted Cassidy Theodore Crawford Cassidy (July 31, 1932 – January 16, 1979) was an American actor noted for his tall stature at and deep voice. He tended to play unusual characters in offbeat or science-fiction series such as ''Star Trek'' and ''I Dream of ...

), a descendant of a lost warrior tribe armed with a supernatural weapon known as the Staff of Power that can cause

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

shockwaves when it strikes the ground. Montaro rescued Jana from the boating accident in which her father disappeared. These are some of the jungle animals Jana called to, many for help: * Croco, a

crocodile Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant me ...

* Kachi, a

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...

* Peechu,

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s (parrots, macaws) * Nacto, a bat * Slithor, a

snake Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more ...

Episodes

Broadcast history

''Jana of the Jungle'' was originally broadcast in these following formats on

: * ''The Godzilla Power Hour'' (September 9, 1978 – October 28, 1978, NBC Saturday 9:30-10:30 AM) * ''The Godzilla Super 90'' (November 4, 1978 – September 1, 1979, NBC Saturday 9:00-10:30 AM) A total of 13 original episodes of ''Jana of the Jungle'' were produced in 1978, with the first eight broadcast as part of the second half of ''

'' from September 9 to October 28. In November 1978, when ''The Godzilla Power Hour'' was expanded to 90 minutes (with the addition of '' Jonny Quest'' reruns) and re-titled ''The Godzilla Super 90'', the five remaining episodes of ''Jana of the Jungle'' continued on this new format until December 2. The Jana character also made a

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...

piloting a rocket-car in an episode of ''

Yogi's Space Race ''Yogi's Space Race'' is a 90-minute American animated television series and the third entry in the ''Yogi Bear'' franchise. Thirteen episodes were broadcast on NBC from September 9, 1978, to December 2, 1978, and featured the following four segme ...

'' in 1978. ''Jana of the Jungle'' resurfaced in 1985 as part of USA Cartoon Express which is the last time any of the original 13 episodes were shown on television. This is one of the very few Hanna-Barbera series that has yet to be seen on either

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, ...

Boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning ...

; however, one of the episodes, "The Cordillera Volcano", was available for a limited time on WB's Hanna-Barbera online stream.

Voices

* B.J. Ward as Jana * Michael Bell as Dr. Ben Cooper *

as Montaro

Additional voices

* Marlene Aragon * Bill Boyett * Jeff David * Virginia Eilea *

Ron Feinberg Ronald Aaron Feinberg (October 10, 1932 – January 29, 2005) was an American character and voice actor who appeared in films and on television. Career At 6' 7", the towering Feinberg played the character Fellini, opposite Don Johnson, in the ...

* Jane James *

Casey Kasem Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem (April 27, 1932 – June 15, 2014) was an American disc jockey, actor, and radio personality, who created and hosted several radio countdown programs, notably ''American Top 40''. He was the first actor to voice No ...

* Ross Martin * Vic Perrin *

Barney Phillips Bernard Philip Ofner (October 20, 1913 – August 17, 1982), better known by his stage name Barney Phillips, was an American film, television, and radio actor. His most prominent roles include that of Sgt. Ed Jacobs on the 1950s '' Dragnet' ...

* Michael Rye * Bill Woodson

Jana in comic books

In January 2007,

Dynamite Entertainment Dynamite Entertainment is an American comic book publisher founded by Nick Barrucci in 2004 at Mount Laurel, New Jersey. It is best known as the owners of '' The Boys'' franchise across several IP medias. Dynamite primarily publishes adaptations ...

launched a comic book, with plot by

Frank Cho Frank Cho, born Duk Hyun Cho, (born 1971) is a Korean-American comic strip and comic book writer and illustrator, known for his series ''Liberty Meadows'', as well as for books such as ''Shanna the She-Devil'', ''Mighty Avengers'' and ''Hulk'' for ...

and script by Doug Murray, called ''Jungle Girl'', featuring a blond female character called Jana. She is a Tarzan-esque heroine that lives in some kind of "

Lost World The lost world is a subgenre of the fantasy or science fiction genres that involves the discovery of an unknown Earth civilization. It began as a subgenre of the late- Victorian adventure romance and remains popular into the 21st century. The ...

", a jungle inhabited by strange creatures including dinosaurs and cavemen. While bearing the same name and taking place in a jungle setting, the Cho/Murray comic character is not connected with the TV series, and wears a skimpier outfit.

References

External links

*
''Jana of the Jungle''
at the

Big Cartoon DataBase The Big Cartoon DataBase (or BCDB for short) is an online database of information about animated cartoons, Feature film, animated feature films, Animated television series, animated television shows, and cartoon Short film, shorts. The BCDB proj ...

(''The Godzilla Power Hour'')
''Jana of the Jungle''
at the

(''The Godzilla Super 90'')
''Jana of the Jungle'' at Toonarific Cartoons
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jana of the Jungle 1978 American television series debuts 1979 American television series endings 1970s American animated television series American children's animated action television series American children's animated adventure television series American children's animated fantasy television series NBC original programming Jungle girls Hanna-Barbera characters Television series by Hanna-Barbera Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios