The evil, bald, and multi-breasted Queen Bazonga, who resides in a blimp, inside a cave shaped like a woman’s legs spread open revealing her vagina, plans to conquer Earth.
As he swings through the jungle, an airplane crashes in a giant mud pit, containing a crew of four explorers set out to find Shame.
The crew include the eccentric Professor Cedric Addlepate, the ditzy Stephanie Starlet, the grumbling Brutish (who only wants to find Shame for fame), and his assistant Short, a nervous black man.
Before they can get acquainted, Brutish and Short step in to take Shame back to the plane, leaving the Professor to be eaten alive by savage monkeys known as "Molarman" while Stephanie is tied up to a tree.
Shame is saved by a beer-guzzling fratboy named Craig Baker who flies on a carpet run by a flock of birds.
Bazonga's soldiers try to stop Shame, which results in the blimp moving and main generator exploding, which sets the place on fire.
The two find an emergency two-seated parachute, and spring out of the blimp, which finally crashes onto Bazonga's cave, destroying it forever.
As June kisses Shame for his bravery, they both spot Stephanie Starlet, who becomes the leader of the Molar Men, and plans to conquer Hollywood.
The film contains the zeuhl song "Tarzoon's March", which was written and performed by Teddy Lasry of the band Magma, featuring lyrics sung in Kobaïan.
[3] The English version was written and directed by Michael O'Donoghue, who would later go on to be involved in Saturday Night Live, and it featured various well known actors in the cast, including Christopher Guest, Brian Doyle-Murray, Adolph Caesar, Bill Murray and John Belushi.
[4] The following year, the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs sued the producer of Tarzoon and 20th Century Fox, the film's distributor in France, for alleged plagiarism.
Much of its success was credited to International Harmony's ad campaign created by writer Edwin Heaven who, similar to Cinemation with Fritz the Cat, used the film's disadvantage (rated X) to its marketing advantage; radio ads and giant posters plastered all over San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Michigan proclaimed: "YOU'RE GOING TO LAUGH YOUR X OFF!
The Burroughs estate filed another lawsuit demanding that the name of the film be changed when their lawyer found a New York State statute covering disillusion of trademark.
Vincent Canby of The New York Times said that the film was an "unsuccessful attempt to parody the life and adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan.
"[1] Tam Allen in The Village Voice called the film "an uncomfortably accurate reflection of that civic eyesore known as toilet art," and compared it unfavorably to Fritz the Cat and Down and Dirty Duck.