Archimedes Q. Porter

―Archimedes Q. Porter

**Archimedes Q. Porter**, more commonly known as the **Professor Porter**, is one of the major characters in Disney's 1999 animated Tarzan film. He is a famous British scientist in the Victoria-era period.

Archimedes is also the father of **Jane Porter** and the father-in-law of **Tarzan,** who came to the African jungles to study the gorillas, which he said, has been his goal for thirty years.

## Background

### Physical Appearance

Being first introduced in the movie, Archimedes wore a tan explorer's hat, with a brown stripe in the middle, a light yellow polo shirt, with a blue bow tie, a brown belt, and some dark yellow shorts.

But when Archimedes takes his explorer's hat off, it is shown that he has white hair, with a bald spot in the middle, and a thick whitish-greyish moustache, and fair skin, along with some blue eyes.

### Personality

Archimedes is an intelligent scientist coming from England, who is quite gullible and easy to deceive at times, but means well.

He is shown to have an incredible love for his daughter, Jane, and only wants her to be happy, whatever her happiness is. Professor Porter is also shown to have sympathy for the ape group that raised Tarzan, and thinks badly of Clayton by saying, "*Those magnificent creatures shivering in cages. What is this world coming to?!?*" when Clayton revealed his true intentions.

## Appearances

### Tarzan 1999

Archimedes Porter is a well-known British scientist who came all the way to the African jungles, along with his only daughter Jane Porter. It is also shown that Professor Porter hired a man, Clayton, to "protect" him and Jane from the threats of the jungle, not knowing Clayton's true intentions.

When Jane was able to spot a gorilla's nest, Porter was extremely ecstatic, and continued to talk about some facts to Clayton, while Jane followed behind sketching a baby baboon.

Upon learning of Jane being missing, Archimedes begins to worry, and feels glad upon seeing Jane back in their destroyed camp. Jane talks about a flying man in a loincloth saving her, which at first, Archimedes believes as a story that Jane made up saying that she says many things, just like her mother.

The next day, Jane was sketching a picture of Tarzan, which leads to Archimedes believing that Tarzan is the missing link, when suddenly Tarzan steps in the middle of an argument between Jane and Clayton about Tarzan being a reality.

Intrigued by this ape man, Archimedes begins to observe Tarzan, while Clayton tries to get Tarzan to say where the gorillas were.

In the song, "Strangers Like Me", it is shown that Archimedes and Jane began to teach Tarzan on how to be more civilized, like teaching him how to speak English, read books, learning about the galaxy, inventions, and other places.

By the end of the musical number, Tarzan learns to speak in proper English, so Jane asks him if Tarzan could show them the gorillas' current nest before they leave for England at any day. But Tarzan disagrees to this statement saying that he could not because of Kerchak has a strong hatred of humans, and might end up killing Porter, Jane, and Clayton, and runs away.

One day, the ship finally arrives to take the English people back to England because the time was over, and the experiment was a fail. But Archimedes tries to persuade the men to let him stay for a few more days. Tarzan sees this and tries to persuade Jane not to go back, which results in Jane being torn and runs away, leading to Tarzan getting tricked by Clayton.

When Tarzan shows Archimedes the gorillas, Porter was ecstatic and fainted at first, but was then awoken by the gorillas who begun to play with gadgets that Archimedes possessed. But, in the middle of the trio's fun, Terk and Tantor go running back into the nest, wearing the clothes of Jane and Archimedes, which was then promptly followed by the angry Kerchak, who is about to kill Archimedes, Jane, and Clayton. Although Tarzan stops Kerchak for a little while, allowing them to go back to their boat.

That night, Archimedes sees Tarzan in his biological father's suit, as Tarzan wanted to go to London with Jane. But upon boarding the ship, Archimedes and Jane were captured by Clayton's men, which led to them, along with an enraged Tarzan, the captain, and some crewmates, to be held captive under the boat's storage room. Luckily, Terk and Tantor ends up saving the day and freeing the captives.

Archimedes joined the fight to stop Clayton from selling the gorillas for money, it is unknown what happened next as the next scene cuts off to Archimedes seeing Tarzan with a dying Kerchak. As Kerchak dies and makes Tarzan the new leader, Jane and Archimedes celebrate this, along with some grief of Kerchak's death.

The following day, Jane and Archimedes were going to leave Africa for sure, but inside the rowboat, Archimedes could sense that his daughter did not want to go back to England, so he let her go. Seeing Tarzan and Jane being reunited, Archimedes exclaims that he wanted to join them too, and tells the captain that he and Jane just got missing.

At the end of the movie, it is seen that Archimedes, along with Jane and Tarzan, was swinging through vines wearing his own fur loincloth.

### The Legend of Tarzan

In the series, it is shown that Archimedes and Jane had been adjusting well to the African jungle, and begin slowly adapting to it, with the help of Tarzan. At some episodes, however, it can be seen that Archimedes would wear his loincloth, from the end of the film, to study the gorillas' traits. But he stops this habit, due to Terk's insistence.

The series also highlighted more on his past and introduced Archimedes to some new characters like RM Doyle, whom he would soon have a love interest, and his enemy since childhood, Samuel T. Philander.

## Trvia

* When Professor Porter is being shaken upside down by the gorillas in the first movie, a stuffed toy of Little Brother (Mulan's dog) can be seen.
* In *Tarzan*, Professor Porter, on Jane's description of how Tarzan walks, says "Oh, like Aunt Isabelle". Whether Isabelle is his sister or that of his late wife's is unknown.
* Professor Porter is one of Nigel Hawthorne's final feature film roles before his death in 2001.
* Professor Porter's fur loincloth seen in the TV series looks different from the one seen at the end of the original film, as in the TV series his fur loincloth has a long thick strap circling around his right shoulder, something which his fur loincloth in the original film doesn't have.
* Professor Porter is the second father of a heroine to have Val Bettin replace the original voice actor at any point, the first being the Sultan of Agrabah (for the *Aladdin* sequels, he replaces the late Douglas Seale); Bettin takes on the role in video games.