Jungle Drums (1943) User Reviews

Another WWII Superman cartoon

[preppy-3 · 7/10 · 11 March 2005]

For reasons never explained Lois Lane is flying with some man over a jungle with top secret American war secrets. Unknown to them the Nazis have taken over the native tribe in the jungle (for some reason the Nazis dress like the Ku Klux Klan!). They shot down the plane--the man dies but Lois lives--she hides the plans and is captured. The Nazis threaten to torture her but she won't tell them a thing. So they decide to have the natives burn her at a stake (!!!). Will Superman find her in time to save her.

Vague story and plot loopholes galore mar this cartoon. But it is VERY colorful with the expected great animation. Also there are some real surreal scenes when Lois is being burned. It's worth seeing just for that. I give this a 7.

Jungle Drums is another Superman cartoon made during World War II

[tavm · 6/10 · 24 June 2011]

This is another in the Fleischer/Famous series of Superman cartoons. In this one, Lois Lane is flying over a jungle with the pilot when the plane crashes into the place with Ms. Lane ending up with the dying man's papers. Unfortunately, the white hooded men that turn out to be Nazis have tortured Lois at the stake in order to make her give up those papers' hiding place. Forturnately, her colleague Clark Kent finds out about that and...well, you probably know what happens next. Meant as a propaganda piece, Jungle Drums get points for providing some very exciting scenes of fire and bombings of enemy submarines and of seeing Adolf Hitler wince at the Americans' triumphant turn at battle. Otherwise, you'd probably be confused at why things happened the way they're depicted in this short...

So...Nazis are hiding out in the jungle in a fake temple....I am sure this happened all the time!

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 12 January 2014]

"Jungle Drums" is probably the weirdest and most contrived Superman cartoon from the Fleischer Brothers. While having Superman battling the Nazis is not unusual, so much about this cartoon is just plain weird.

It begins with Lois and a pilot having their plan knocked out of the sky by some weird device that looks like a temple in the jungle! However, it's actually a Nazi facility and all their minions are dark-skinned natives. Why they are in the middle of the jungle and how this will benefit them in the war is anyone's guess!! A bit later, Clark just happens to fly overhead in a plane and spots the wreckage of the previous plane--so he goes to investigate. However, he has to fight not only the local savages but Nazis in weird white hooded robes (did they team up with the Klan?!). Here's the kicker. After Superman saves the day once again, the cartoon ends with Hitler sitting at home listening to broadcasts telling about this latest Allied victory! Strange but enjoyable, it does lose a point or two because the plot is so ridiculous--even for a superhero cartoon.

Superman #15

[Michael_Elliott · 17 May 2009]

Jungle Drums (1943)

** (out of 4)

Lois is flying over the African jungle for some reason when she ends up on the ground with a native tribe. For some reason the Nazi party have taken over the tribe and of course Superman must come save the day. If you're looking for logic then you had better keep going because nothing in this short makes any sense. I could go even further by questioning why the Nazies appear to be wearing KKK outfits and I'm still not clear what their mission was suppose to have been. The animation is once again pretty good throughout but this, again, doesn't make up for the rather weak story.

Superman vs Nazis

[utgard14 · 6/10 · 15 December 2013]

I love the Fleischer Superman cartoons. The animation is smooth and fluid with vivid colors. The distinct art-deco style, vintage science fiction imagery, and use of noirish shadows gave them a look unlike any other cartoons. The music and voice work is superb. They're fun, accessible, enduring animation classics. While this is a cartoon from Fleischer Studios' successor, Famous Studios, it still tries to maintain the Fleischer style.

Fifteenth in the Superman series is about a group of Nazis hiding out in the jungle, masquerading as some kind of cult leaders to a (presumably) African tribe. Lois Lane's plane is shot down and she is taken prisoner by the Nazis. When she refuses to tell them the location of some top secret papers, they turn her over to the native tribe, which plans to burn her at the stake. Will Superman show up in time to save her? Some cool visuals with the temple and statues and the tribal stuff but there's surprisingly little Superman or action in this. Still, some good bits and the last bit with Hitler was a plus.

Nazis in the jungle

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 6 May 2016]

"Jungle Drums" is one of the final Superman cartoons made during the days of World War II and after the Japanese got their fair share already, it is time for the Germans this time. And it is all very absurd. They are dressed like KKK members and apparently operating a cult somewhere in the jungle right next to indigenous tribes. So yeah, the story and backgrounds don't make much sense. And it's also nothing new unfortunately. Lois gets in the middle of trouble again and Superman comes to her rescue. The only somewhat interesting thing at the end here is the depiction of Adolf Hitler himself, which is nice to compare to how he has been depicted in other works from that era. Especially cartoon makers loved to make fun of him and it's the same here too. This is one of the Superman cartoons that were neither directed by Fleischer or Sparber. Not one of the best, not one of the worst either. Overall, not recommended.

Lois Was Born to Be in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 27 December 2016]

Lois was a good soldier. As she travels with a man in a plane over a jungled area, the plane is shot down. She survives and manages to ditch a file of secret information. She is captured by Germans (I believe) who are disguising themselves as Natives (I guess that was the term for black indigenous persons). They seem to be wearing the conical white hoods that typify the KKK. I don't know if this was deliberate or not (hard to imagine that is wasn't deliberate. Anyway, Superman has to get into the act because Lois, refusing to talk, is going to be burned at the stake. Will he get there in time? How will he know precisely where she is? These issues haunt these cartoons.

"It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman!"

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 10 June 2000]

A SUPERMAN Cartoon.

Intrepid girl reporter Lois Lane uncovers a dastardly Nazi plot in Darkest Africa. But when she falls into the clutches of the villains & JUNGLE DRUMS pound out the revelry attending her imminent immolation, it begins to look like a job for Superman...

This was another in the series of excellent cartoons initially created by Max Fleischer for Paramount Studio. They feature great animation and taut, fast-moving plots. Meant to be shown in movie theaters, they are miles ahead of their Saturday Morning counterparts. Bud Collyer is the voice of Superman; Joan Alexander does the honors for Lois Lane.

Due to popular demand, the Perils of "Lois" . . .

[tadpole-596-918256 · 8/10 · 7 January 2020]

. . . "Lane" continue in Superman's JUNGLE DRUMS episode. After being pulverized in DESTRUCTION, INC. and batted around like a tetherball as THE MUMMY STRIKES, JUNGLE DRUMS finds a bound Lois being tortured by a German S.S. officer. Not content to merely disfigure her face in a permanent propane flame fashion, this prurient Prussian forces the DAILY PLANET's Femme Fatale to endure that sort of "Fate Worse than Death" which rhymes with clang-clang at the trolleys of the indigenous percussionists. Having learned his lesson about the value of a well-timed intervention from his earlier outings, Superman allows Lois to savor her just desserts until the cremation flames are licking at her used-up carcass. (His main delaying tactic involves a leisurely parachute descent, rather than darting away from an Allied aircraft like a bat out of Hell--as he surely would to "save" anybody else!) It's clear that animators struggling under the joint censorship of a Morality Code and War Department minders have pushed the Trials and Tribulations of Lois Lane about as far as she can go, which may be why there were only two more Superman classic cartoons following JUNGLE DRUMS.