I don’t think ERB had Tarzan doing much vine swinging in the books, but he got around that way a lot in the old Johnny Weissmuller movies. But seriously, conditions would have to be just right in order to actually get anywhere by swinging on vines. I seem to recall a few times when he extended his swing time by grabbing another vine and continuing on. But isn’t all of this vine swinging totally absurd? The vines would have to grow at an angle to the ground- you’re not going to get much swinging out of a vertical vine.
Maybe his minions arranged the vines ahead of time so they’d be in the right place when Tarzan needed them.
Yea and in the novel Frankenstein’s monster is educated and sophisticated, more like Roy Batty in Blade Runner than the GRRR ARGGH monster he is in the movies.
I haven’t watched most of the Weismuller Tarzan movies in a long time (used to love them), but I remember at least one of them having a rather long distance shot of big T swinging through the trees on what are obviously trapeze bars. Even to an eleven year-old numbskull it was a little insulting.
My memory being what it is, I’m not positive it was a Weismuller film-- I guess it might have been one of the Lex Barker imitations.
There were some swings that didn’t use trapeze bars or other aids. Sometimes real vines were used. The triple vine swing was the peak of the art form, I believe it was done by Weismuller but I’d have to check. It was attempted by Ron Ely at the beginning of the TVarzan series, and he injured himself badly, cutting down on a lot of his stunts and requiring frequent re-use of film. Several of Weismuller’s stunts were resused in his own and other’s movies, not just vine swinging.
The books didn’t portray him swinging on vines all the time, it described more of the motions used by monkeys and apes moving through branches and grasping vines that hung more horizontally in the jungle forest, in addition to lots of running on the ground.
At least in “the woods” I had access to as a kid in Alabama there was never a vine that had the ropelike appearance and suppleness of the ones Weissmuller always had access to. Even so, we kids would use whatever we had to try the Tarzan tricks we saw, but with only random success. As often as not the goddamn vine would come crashing down in mid-swing and we’d fall and cuss and go practice throwing knives or something else.
We did discover that it was more effective just to hang a rope (or several of them) if we wanted to try the vine-to-vine transfer. We made that work enough to realize the movies were fake!
We did get the yodel-yell-holler down pretty well though.
Watching gibbons playing at the zoo, I certainly see where they got the idea.
However as others have pointed out it doesn’t work well when using as a method of travel. Watching American Ninja Warrior shows how difficult it is to transfer your weight from one rope/vine to the next.
Oh, for Pete’s sake–
I used to live near Ocala, FL. Tourist attraction called Silver Springs is there. Several Tarzan movies were filmed there (Sea Hunt, too.) When you take one of the tours, the guide tells you vines grow from the ground up and if Weismuller tried swinging from vines he would have landed on his loincloth (their spiel).
He’s free as the breeze
He’s always at ease
He lives in the jungle and hangs by his knees
As he swings through the trees
Without a trapeze
In his B V.D.s.
– “Gitarzan”, Ray Stevens
At each other? 
The vine swinging thing was created for the movies. This was discussed in one of Cecil’s columns.
Sort of, on occasion. Remember Mumblety-peg - Wikipedia ? 
Not to mention that he’d have to watch out for that tree.
+1
Thanks, haven’t seen that cartoon in 25(?) years. Always good to get back into the classics.
Can’t miss a chance to show off a rare word. The term for this type of locomotion is brachiation.
You’re welcome. 
I’m still trying to figure out how Spiderman gets that whole webslinging thing to work in NYC. You’d have to figure that after a while he’d be just dangling there saying “Could someone give me a push please?”
^ Plus, since he’s been doing this for 50 years, NYC should look like the final shot in Kingdom Of The Spiders.
Spider-Man’s webbing evaporates in about an hour.
For mortals. Tarzan’s a god.