60 free Tarzan trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
52 free Tarzan trivia questions with answers. Tarzan has swung through pulp magazines, silent films, MGM talkies, a Disney animated musical, a Broadway show and a 2016 blockbuster, and this quiz covers the lot. Fifty-two questions range across Edgar Rice Burroughs's 1912 original and its ape language, Johnny Weissmuller's twelve films and the famous yell, Elmo Lincoln, Ron Ely and Christopher Lambert, Disney's 1999 film with Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver, Glenn Close and Rosie O'Donnell, the Phil Collins songs and their Oscar, Alexander Skarsgård's The Legend of Tarzan, the Broadway musical, and the Los Angeles neighborhood named after the character. The easy questions ask who created Tarzan and who voiced Jane; the hard ones want the name of the sound recordist behind the yell, the swimmer a producer wanted for the 2016 film, and the actor who was Tarzan for five weeks before Elmo Lincoln. It suits Disney kids who grew up with the songs as much as pulp collectors. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the character, the books, the films and the people involved, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who created Tarzan?
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Burroughs also created John Carter of Mars, and at his death was thought to have earned more from films than any other writer.
Q 02In the language of the great apes, what does the name 'Tarzan' mean?
White skin
Burroughs built a partial ape vocabulary for the books; 'Tarmangani' is the apes' word for white humans in general.
Q 03What is the name of the she-ape who adopts and raises the infant Tarzan?
Kala
In the novel she has just lost her own baby, dropped from a treetop while she fled the ape king.
Q 04Which Los Angeles neighborhood sits on Burroughs's former ranch and is named after Tarzan?
Tarzana
Burroughs bought the ranch in 1919 and is buried there.
Q 05What is the name of Tarzan's chimpanzee sidekick in the classic Hollywood films?
Cheeta
No chimpanzee appears in Burroughs's novels at all; the character was invented for the movies.
Q 06Who voices Tarzan in Disney's 1999 animated film?
Tony Goldwyn
Co-director Kevin Lima said he won the part for 'the animal sense' in his readings and some killer baboon imitations.
Q 07Which actress voices Jane in Disney's Tarzan?
Minnie Driver
She improvised the scene where Jane recounts meeting Tarzan, which took seven weeks to animate.
Q 08Who voices Tarzan's adoptive gorilla mother in Disney's Tarzan?
Glenn Close
She also sings a duet version of the film's lullaby with Collins on the soundtrack.
Q 09Rosie O'Donnell voices which character in Disney's Tarzan?
Terk
The full name is Terkina; she is Kala's niece, making her Tarzan's adoptive cousin.
Q 10Who wrote and performed the songs for Disney's Tarzan?
Phil Collins
He was hired as early as 1995, partly because the team felt a drummer could bring a jungle beat.
Q 11Which song from Disney's Tarzan won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?
You'll Be in My Heart
It also became Collins's last US top-40 single, peaking at number 21.
Q 12Burroughs's Tarzan is raised by the fictional Mangani apes. What animals raise him in Disney's film?
Gorillas
The animators visited Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park to watch the real thing.
Q 13Who plays Tarzan in the 2016 film The Legend of Tarzan?
Alexander Skarsgård
All three of the other names were early contenders for the part.
Q 21How many Tarzan books did Burroughs write?
24
He wrote almost 80 novels in total, including the John Carter and Pellucidar series.
Q 22Who was the first actor to play the adult Tarzan on film, in 1918?
Elmo Lincoln
Burroughs objected to the casting, but the actor played the role twice more.
Q 23How many Tarzan feature films did Johnny Weissmuller star in between 1932 and 1948?
12
Six were made by MGM and six by RKO before he moved on to Jungle Jim.
Q 24Which actress played Jane opposite Weissmuller from 1932 to 1942?
Q 14Who plays Jane in The Legend of Tarzan (2016)?
Margot Robbie
Director David Yates had originally wanted Jessica Chastain for the role.
Q 15Which Rudyard Kipling character is often cited as an influence on Tarzan?
Mowgli
Burroughs himself denied it and said his only inspiration was the myth of Romulus and Remus.
Q 16In the novels, Jane Porter comes from which American city?
Baltimore
The 1932 films rewrote her as an Englishwoman named Jane Parker.
Q 17Tarzan first appeared in October 1912 in which pulp magazine?
The All-Story
The book edition did not follow until June 1914.
Q 18In Burroughs's first novel, which ape king kills Tarzan's father?
Kerchak
Tarzan later kills him and takes his place as king of the apes.
Q 19What is Tarzan's birth name in the novels?
John Clayton
The narrator admits both 'Clayton' and 'Greystoke' are fictitious names, hinting his real name is something else.
Q 20Tarzan and Jane's son takes which ape name?
Korak
It means 'the Killer'; his given name is Jack.
Maureen O'Sullivan
She was later the mother of Mia Farrow.
Q 25What is unusual about the Tarzan yell as heard in the six MGM Weissmuller films?
It is a palindrome that sounds the same backwards
The first half plays normally and the second half is the same sound in reverse, a sign of studio editing.
Q 26Which actor played Tarzan in the NBC television series that ran from 1966 to 1968?
Ron Ely
He did nearly all his own stunts and suffered two broken shoulders and several lion bites.
Q 27Who played Tarzan in the 1984 film Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes?
Christopher Lambert
The name 'Tarzan' is never actually spoken in the film's dialogue.
Q 28In Disney's Tarzan, what is the name of the leopard that kills Tarzan's parents?
Sabor
The same leopard killed Kala's own baby, which is why she takes in the human infant.
Q 29Who plays the Belgian villain Captain Léon Rom in The Legend of Tarzan (2016)?
Christoph Waltz
Rom was a real official in King Leopold II's Congo Free State.
Q 30Which comic-book hero did Jerry Siegel say was partly inspired by Tarzan?
Superman
Siegel named Burroughs's John Carter of Mars as another early inspiration.