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Jungle Jim |
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"Jungle"
Jim Bradley was not of the
loincloth set, like Tarzan. He was more the "white hunter" type,
with jodhpurs, side-arms and suchlike. Jim meets with shifty traders, mad
despots, unscrupulous international agitators, and pirates. By the late
1930s, Jim was getting involved with urban law enforcement officers, and
became more urban himself. When the U.S. entered World War II, he turned his
attention away from the slave traders, river pirates and other jungle menaces
he'd previously subsisted on, and started taking on the Japanese and the
Nazis. The Jungle Jim comic
strip debuted in January 7, 1934 and spawned a number of other incarnations:
comic books, two Big Little Books, a movie serial, a motion picture series
and a TV series. The
radio program had an interesting genesis. Firstly, as a15 minute serial it
only played once per week (instead of the usual 3 to 5 times per week for a
15 minute serial) - it must have been hard to remember "what happened
last week". Secondly the radio show not only promoted the comic strip,
it usually "portrayed" it - in other words one could listen to
Jungle Jim on Saturday nite and then read and look at the pictures of that
which had transpired in the Comic Weekly as part of the Hearst Sunday Newspaper. Thirdly Jungle Jim was "phased in" over
three weeks wherein the radio show "metamorphosed" from Flash
Gordon to Jungle Jim! The
Amazing Interplanetary Adventures of Flash Gordon premiered on 27th April 1935 and ran for 26 weekly
episodes (until 26th October 1935), but on 12th October 1935 (Episode No. 24)
it became (mysteriously?) The Adventures of Flash Gordon & Jungle Jim.
We briefly meet Jim and his friend
and associate, Kolu during this
episode whilst Flash, Dale and Zarkov are escaping back to Earth. The trio
crash-land in the jungle and meet up with Jim, Kolu and the Rev. Chalmers. By
the 26th October 1935 (Episode No. 26) Flash & Dale are married by
Chalmers and the Flash Gordon radio show concludes with Flash, Dale &
Zarkov returning to the US by sea! The following week's timeslot is then
taken up with The Adventures of Jungle Jim - a neat though strange segue. Jungle
Jim featured Matt Crowley as the
intrepid adventurer with Juano Hernandez playing his faithful Hindu servant Kolu and Vicki Vola played Shanghai Lil -
the first adventure "The Bat Woman" was also the basis for the
first Whitman Big Little Book. Want
to check out some episodes of one of this radio serial? - why not "taste
& try"? Below
are the first three episodes of the The Bat Woman adventure - fabulous! These
episode can be freely downloaded to your computer - just right button click
on any link below and chose "Download Linked File" (or words to
that effect). The file is on an average about 9Mb - download time will depend
on your (broadband) speed JJBW_1935-11-02
- EpisodeNo.1.mp3 JJBW_1935-11-09
- EpisodeNo.2.mp3 JJBW_1935-11-16
- EpisodeNo.3.mp3 Note: Jim's War Time Adventures episodes have him fighting "Japs" &
Nazis as Capt. Jim Bradley - these episodes contained many "short stories",
mostly of about 3 to 5 episodes - the 20 episodes which appear as part of
Jim's War Time Adventures which appear on the 3rd CD here, have
several of these stories all linked and with a proper conclusion at the end
of episode No. 20. These three MP3 Discs contains 11 complete Jungle Jim adventures - all
episodes are of 15 minutes duration: A. The
Bat Woman (22 episodes) B. The
Purple Triangle (31 episodes) C. The
Tiger's Claw (43 episodes) D. The
Afghan Hills (28 episodes) E. The
Ghost of the Java Sea (24 episodes) F. Karnak
the Killer (37 episodes) G. Stacey
(29 episodes) H. In
Quest of Peter Stone (39 episodes) I. The Panama Canal (36 episodes) J. Thorson's
Island (45 episodes) K. Jim's
War Time Adventures (20 episodes) |