Note that you don't have to untar a single file at a time, tar is quite happy to accept multiple files at the same time:

Uhm... no.

Arguments after the tarball filename are expected to be files to untar from the tarball. So, that won't work at all. Instead, you'll get an error like "foo.tar: Not found in archive."

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";