Disneyland’s Swiss Family May Remodel for Tarzan

It looks like someone may finally get the Swiss Family Robinson off that deserted island paradise.

Disneyland is nearing final approval for a make-over of its venerable Swiss Family Treehouse, themed to this summer’s release of Walt Disney Co.’s movie version of Tarzan, a park official said Wednesday.

“We always do something to complement our animated features,” the official noted. He said he couldn’t provide details, but park workers and designers familiar with the new look said it will be more than just monkeying around.

One park employee said drawings of the revamped walk-through attraction included robotic gorillas and cheetahs, a new tree to be installed at the nearby River Belle Terrace restaurant, and a suspension bridge connecting the two trees.

“The second tree and bridge is for a new entrance, to allow for better guest flow and reduce congestion in the area,” a Walt Disney Imagineering source said.

The tentative plans also called for a Disney cast member costumed as Tarzan to be posted nearby when the new treehouse opens, probably in July.

“The Swiss Family Robinson,” an adventure novel by Johann David Wyss, became a Disney live-action movie in 1960. A shipwrecked family (headed by John Mills, father of Disney child star Hayley Mills) battled sharks, pirates and river snakes, rode elephants and ostriches--and built themselves a house with rooms nestled in the branches of a giant tree.

The Disneyland version opened in 1962, just down the path from the Jungle Cruise in the park’s Adventureland section.