Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Native Uprising on the Jungle Cruise
Publicity photograph of the native uprising during the Jungle Cruise. I believe this image is from 1955 or 1956 based upon the caption. The caption on the back of the photograph reads: Spear upraised to "attack" Disneyland jungle explorers, a tall Watusi warrior "threatens" a passing boat along the Rivers of the World in Adventureland. This true-life safari into deepest Asia and Africa is complete with huge hippos and alligators charging the jungle craft, trumpeting elephants, lions, tigers, tall giraffe and other jungle dwellers-- designed especially for the stay-at-home big game hunter.
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5 comments:
Great picture, and it makes me wish that I could explore the "shore" of the Jungle Cruise!
My assumption has always been that the Jungle Cruise was meant to be taken seriously at first, then slowly evolved into the corny jokefest as individual skippers improvised. Not sure if that's true, though. Maybe it was funny from the start? Any idea when we started experiencing the back side of water?
Cool vantage point! When I worked Jungle we explored the various shores many times....
I remember the corny jokes from my childhood in the early 60's. I also remember that this part of the ride always scared me.
I worked the ride in the 50's and it was expected to be a serious narration by the skippers. Dave Young, the Voice of Disneyland in the early days, use to ride with each skipper and record his spiel and then pointed out the good and bad parts of the spiel. The only joke at that time was the one calling the head hunter at the end of the ride the "head salesman". We were to keep the narration serious and true to life.
At the time I worked the ride, Walt had a particular driver that he liked and usually it was arranged that he rode or took his guests with that driver. As I recall this driver was an older man who gave a realistic natural narration of what everyone in the boat was seeing. Now some of the more recent drivers have gone on to be popular standup comedians. In the winter we wore black turtleneck shirts, white pants and yacht cap. Summers we wore 3/4 length bermuda shorts and thonged sandals. I found them great once your toes got use to wearing them.
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