Jet Jungle

Jet Jungle was the name of a superhero radio play and its main character, broadcast on the former Springbok Radio station in South Africa in the 1970s. Jet Jungle (voiced by Brian O'Shaughnessy), his black panther Jupiter, his girlfriend Samantha Muller (Diane Appleby) and faithful scientist friend Prof. Giuseppe "Spaghetti" Valetti (Gordon Mulholland), would fly off from their island headquarters in a Vertijet at the behest of their government liaison "the Minister", to battle criminal masterminds and the occasional extraterrestrial menace.

The show was broadcast every weekday at 6 p.m. on Springbok Radio. It was also broadcast on the former Radio Rhodesia in the then Rhodesia (the present day Zimbabwe). The show was sponsored by Jungle Oats and Jet Jungle was used to promote their breakfast food.

The show had a children's fan club with regular newsletter featuring a one page black and white comic strip serial. A short lived full colour Sunday newspaper comic strip followed. A Jet Jungle action figure was produced by Mego Corporation in the 1970s and rediscovered by the Mego Museum in 2005.

In images, Jet Jungle was portrayed as a muscular man in his prime with a full head of neatly cropped prematurely white hair wearing a jet black superhero body suit with boots leaving only his hands and face exposed. Red haired Samantha Muller always wore a green one-piece short sleeved legless jumpsuit and green boots. The slim bespectacled late middle aged Prof. Valetti with wavy black greying hair and moustache was always smartly attired in a white Italian suit and bow tie.

External links

* [http://www.megomuseum.com/wgsh/jetjungle/jet.html Jet Jungle action figure at the Mego Museum]
* [http://aor.theavengers.tv/bio_diane_appleby.htm Diane Appleby]
* [http://www.myspace.com/jetjungle]
* [http://pumamouse.com/radiosoundfiles.html Springbok Radio Sound files including the Jet Jungle Theme!]