Sheena had something for everyone. For kids, it was full of jungle excitement, with wild animals and brave heroes battling the bad guys; for adults, it was so trite it was absolutely hilarious (a cliché-ridden parody of Tarzan); and for boys just entering adolescence – well, Sheena, with her voluptuous figure and skimpy leopard skin dress, was something else entirely.
The setting was Kenya, where statuesque Sheena (Irish McCalla) had been rescued from a plane crash (in which she was the only survivor) many years ago as a young girl and raised by Logi, the noble chief of the Inoma tribe, who taught her to respect good men and hate bad ones.
Now, aged 28, Sheena played White Jungle Goddess and protector to the beasts and natives. Since she couldn’t manage the Tarzan yell, she carried an ivory horn to summon her animal friends for help. She also carried a spear and a knife.
Her pet chimpanzee was called Chim, and Bob Rayburn (Christian Drake) was her trader friend.
Robbers and interlopers turned up regularly, often capturing Bob, who Sheena always rescued.
The series – based on the popular comic strip created by S. M. Iger and Will Eisner in the late 1930s – was shot in Mexico, where some of Sheena’s tree-swinging stunts were actually performed by (male) Mexican acrobat Raul Gaona in a blonde wig and filmed from the back and from a distance.
Irish McCalla made a few B-movies in the late 1950s and early 1960s and then became a successful painter.
The series was revived in 2000 with Gena Lee Nolin in the title role. The show was even sillier than the original and ratings were as skimpy as Sheena’s outfit. Production was shut down halfway through the second season.
