George of the Jungle

George of the Jungle started life as a 1967 animated series from Jay Ward and Bill Scott — the Rocky and Bullwinkle team — spoofing Tarzan with a jungle king whose signature move was swinging face-first into trees. Thirty years later, Walt Disney Pictures turned it into a live-action comedy, released July 16, 1997, directed by Sam Weisman from a screenplay by Dana Olsen and Audrey Wells.

The casting was the masterstroke. Brendan Fraser played George as a big-hearted, thick-skulled golden retriever of a man, opposite Leslie Mann as San Francisco heiress Ursula Stanhope and Thomas Haden Church as her insufferable fiancé Lyle. John Cleese supplied the voice of Ape, George's erudite gorilla mentor, while the animal cast mixed live animals, puppetry, and CGI. The film's best running gag came straight from the cartoon: a narrator (voiced by Keith Scott) who not only describes the action but argues with the characters, rewinds scenes, and takes sides — fourth-wall demolition that kids found endlessly quotable.

Critics were split, but the ones who counted most in 1997 weren't: Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs up, with Ebert awarding three stars and calling it good-natured. Audiences agreed to the tune of $174.4 million worldwide against a $55 million budget, cementing Fraser's run as the decade's most lovable himbo leading man. A direct-to-video sequel followed in 2003, but the original stands as one of those rare 90s family comedies that's exactly as dumb as it means to be — and all the better for it.