Neanderthal Man. Java Man. Peking Man. Piltdown Man.Nebraska Man.Encino Man. Our cousins or predecessors. What were they like? What did they eat, where did they live, how did they behave? What dreams might they have had, what primal gods did they revere? The fact is, most pulp authors justdo not do the research, and lump these worthies into a mass of savage, knuckle-draggingthugs:Beast Man.Ape Man.Frazetta Man.

Named for the art ofFrank Frazetta, Frazetta Man is the generic subhuman native of theLost World. He most likelyWants Our Women, and is prepared to pursue them across hundreds of miles of jungle and savanna. He is applied inhordes, canrarely be reasoned with, and basically exists to be triumphed over byMighty Whitey so the locals may be properly awed. Yes, Frazetta Man truly brings all kinds ofUnfortunate Implications to the table in this enlightened age.

Your basic Frazetta Man has the wiry build of a chimpanzee, though he is generally around human size if not larger. He'll be covered in hair (usually not fur) and will rarely wield any weapon more sophisticated than aknobkerrie. Seldom if everwill females or children of the species be seen, perhaps explaining his fixation on theNubile Savage in theFur Bikini.^[1] His language, if he has progressed beyond the grunting stage, will besimple andbrutal, and his gods will exist primarily to excuse his bloodthirsty nature.

More intelligent species of Frazetta Man exist, physically little different but typically adorned in primitive jewelry and using weapons as advanced as swords or axes. Such varieties often function asMooks for the localBig Bad, and may shade over intoorcish orBeast Man territory.

Film - Animated

• The sub-humans ofFire and Ice, character designs byFrank Frazetta himself.

Film - Live-Action

• The wendol, apparently relict Neanderthals, inMichael Crichton'sThe 13th Warrior.
  • This applies more to thebook.In the movie it is eventually discovered that the wendol are 100% human, just dressed in bearskins
    • But they are described by one character aslooking like the mating of a man and a beast, so are presumably intended to be a physically primative human.
• Trog! has the title character as such a being, though he's more sympathetic than most.
• One Million Years BC Features these hairy bipeds in a shadowy bit part.
• The Land that Time Forgot (a Burroughs adaptation—see below) and its sequel feature various forms of primitive humans fromAll Cavemen Were Neanderthals to these guys to recognizably modern humans.
• Moonwatcher and the gang from2001: A Space Odyssey. They were just your ordinaryButt Monkeys Apes of the savannah until theSufficiently Advanced Alien artifact taught them basic tool-use andthey learned how to fight off predators as a group and use weapons against rival tribes.
• Although it's intended (in-universe) to be an orc, the denuded skeleton whichFrodo trips over in Shelob's lair appears to be a chimpanzee's. This suggests that the movie series' orc designs owe more than a nod to this trope.
• The Crawlers fromThe Descent are meant to be cavemen that never left the caves, and years of evolution have turned them into savageMorlocks that will happily kill and eat any humans unfortunate enough to stumble upon their hunting grounds.
• The Troglodytes fromBone Tomahawk are a brutalHuman Subspecies of cavemen whose culture revolves entirely around gruesome murder, torture, and rape. They're far more durable and physically powerful than humans, don't speak any sort of identifiable language aside from bestial roars, and are as savage as it can get.

Literature

• Edgar Rice Burroughs made liberal use of Frazetta Man in a myriad of incarnations; the best known and best developed are the Mangani, a missing-link "anthropoid ape" species who raisedTarzan.
  • Pellucidar alone has the Sagoths, an advanced breed of Frazetta Man who act asMooks to the ruling Mahars, along with separate species dubbed Ape Men, Gorilla Men, and Brute Men.
• The Wergu (literally "beastmen") fromThe Lords of Creation, Neanderthals transplanted to theLost World jungles of terraformed Venus. Played absolutely straight, as vile and filthy creatures who are nothing but menaces to humanity.
• Trolls, Ogres, and Dawn-men fromThe Elenium byDavid Eddings are Frazetta Man on steroids, and (at least the Trolls) backed by genuinely powerful (if stupid) gods.
• The Morlocks fromH. G. Wells'The Time Machine in appearance, though they're actually more sophisticated and technologically advanced than the more human-like Eloi.
• These become the primary antagonists for much ofThe Lost World, though it is perhaps a bit lessMighty Whitey than some examples because the outsider main characters would be toast without the army of the more human natives of the plateau. Much is made of Professor Challenger's resemblance to the chief of the ape-men.
• InRobert E. Howard's "Shadows in The Moonlight"Conan the Barbarian fights one.

"A gray man-ape," he grunted. "Dumb, and man-eating. They dwell in the hills that border the eastern shore of this sea.

• • There's also Thak from "Rogues in the House", though he may be a mild subversion—he's dangerous explicitlybecause he's smart as well as strong even though he doesn't speak, and Conan himself acknowledges after defeating him that he has "slain aman tonight, not abeast."
  • It gets a bit more complex than that when you readHoward's essay on the Hyborian Age and other related materials - it turns out that after the cataclysm that destroyed the previous Thurian Age, several human groups (including KingKull's birth people,Atlanteans), devolved into Frazetta Men shortly after falling back to savagery. Those from Conan's time are the descendants of those who didn't re-evolveback into humans.
• Subverted in theDoc Savage series. In appearance Monk fits this trope to a tee. However he's of normal human ancestry and a genius.
• In-universe in the Isaac Asimov short story,The Ugly Little Boy, the press make out that a Neanderthal boy (which has been brought forward in time) is an "Ape Boy" to sell more newspapers to the ignorant public. Averted by the boy himself, as he is intelligent, learns to speak English and read, and likes playing.

Video Games

• InBrutal Legend, the Headbangers are a silly version of Frazetta Men. They are built like Neanderthals, and only know how to bang their heads against rocks for mining purposes, so they are used as slave labor without the need of bars and chains.The Hero then introduces them toHeavy Metal, and compels them to bang their heads for freedom instead. They gain intelligence as the story goes by, building cars and weapons.
• Common foes in the jungles ofQuest for Glory III.

Real Life

• Homo Heidelbergensis, an ancestor of both modern humans and neanderthals, stood at an average height of 1.8m and an estimated weight of 100 kg. In southern Africa numerous individuals have been found that surpassed heights of 2.1m.

• Trope
• All the Tropes Superhero Team
• Tropesaurus Index
• Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes
• Frazetta Man