Bad jokes and puns are part of a Disneyland job that has been immortalized in a new film. Those who’ve held the role at the theme park never really leave it behind.
In 1916 Brazil, Skipper Frank Wolff runs the most affordable jungle cruise on the Amazon. And undoubtedly the cheesiest, as he introduces vacationers to the river’s wondrous sights with a spiel overflowing with doozies.
“If you look to the left of the boat, you’ll see some very playful toucans. They’re playing their favorite game of beak-wrestling. The only drawback is, only two can play.”
“The rocks you see here in the river are sandstone. But some people just take them for granite. It’s one of my boulder attractions.”
And the spotlight of the tour: “Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for the eighth wonder of the world,” he says, constructing towards the climax, as his rickety steamboat passes behind a makeshift waterfall. “Wait for it … the backside of water!”
Frank’s friends might groan and roll their eyes at his droll banter in Disney’s “Jungle Cruise,” starring Dwayne Johnson because the swaggering skipper and arriving July 30 on Disney+ and in theaters. However the skippers and their spiels — corny jokes and unhealthy puns, the cringier the higher — have been the true stars of the Jungle Cruise attraction because the first one opened at Disneyland in 1955. Take them away and the seven-minute fantasy boat journey alongside rivers in South America, Asia and Africa, impressed partly by “The African Queen,” is likely to be simply one other trip down a faux waterway with faux surroundings.
It’s additionally one of many uncommon performing jobs at a Disney theme park the place the skippers can weave their very own personalities into the script — from dry and geeky to animated and flamboyant — and get friends in on the motion. “It’s this alchemy that happens” that few sights can replicate, stated Alex Williams, a former skipper who now works for the Disney fan membership D23.
With the brand new film in addition to the trip’s freshly reimagined story line, the Jungle Cruise is within the highlight now, and nobody is feeling it greater than the skippers themselves.
“We’re all just really excited about being able to share this experience with everyone and being the inspiration for the movie,” stated Flor Torres, a “lead” on the attraction.
“Once a skip, always a skip.” That’s the motto of skippers who’ve held a job requiring them to maneuver a ship whereas performing a stand-up routine dozens of instances throughout an eight-hour day.
“People really take that to heart,” Torres added of the motto. “I know skippers that have worked here maybe 20, 30 years ago, and they still come by and talk to us like they were just here yesterday.”
A handful have wisecracked their solution to greater phases, like Ron Ziegler, the White Home press secretary for President Richard M. Nixon; the filmmaker John Lasseter; Steve Franks, a screenwriter and the creator of the TV sequence “Psych”; and, it’s stated, the actor Kevin Costner. (Alas, tales that Robin Williams and Steve Martin honed their humor on the helm are apparently solely myths.)
Different former skippers have recounted their experiences on podcasts like “Tales From the Jungle Crews” and “The Backside of Water,” or offered pandemic uplift in Freddy Martin’s “World Famous Jungle Cruise” video and its sequel.
And a daring few have revealed some not-Disney-approved antics in books like “Skipper Stories: True Tales From Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise,” a compilation of six many years of anecdotes from former skippers, together with the writer, David John Marley.
To wit: The ritual of changing into a “real skipper” by peeing within the river at night time. The Jungle Justice inflicted on skippers who abused their break time (they discovered themselves abruptly scheduled for upward of 90 minutes of nonstop cruises with out water or a toilet cease). The off-hours social gathering the place $2,000 was spent on alcohol and condoms.
A very good skipper is an extrovert, a nut and considerably of a rogue. At the least that’s how Bill Sullivan, who joined the Jungle Cruise in 1955, once put it. His personal skipper colleagues included a person who arrived one morning with chameleons round his neck.
They didn’t have a lot of a script to start with so the lads wrote their very own, Sullivan, who finally grew to become vp of the Magic Kingdom, recalled in 2008. (Girls didn’t turn into skippers till the mid-Nineteen Nineties.)
The spiel had been repeatedly fine-tuned by the point Franks landed his gig within the late Nineteen Eighties. And venturing from it was ill-advised.
“You would hear these stories about supervisors hiding in the jungle, listening for people going off-book, but if that was true, they would have canned me on Day 2,” he stated. “I knew I wanted to make movies, and I was doing stand-up at the time. And as soon as we got around the first corner, I was working in material.”
Franks stayed at Disneyland for eight and a half years, writing the script for Adam Sandler’s “Big Daddy” whereas monitoring the Enchanted Tiki Room.
Crews might have been rowdier again within the day, however “today we’re much more conservative, a little less the Wild West,” stated Kevin Energetic, considered one of two skippers chosen to characterize Disneyland at Tokyo Disney Resort’s twenty fifth anniversary celebration in 2009. (There’s additionally a Jungle Cruise at Walt Disney World and Hong Kong Disneyland.)
Energetic now works as a Disney Imagineer, growing skipper spiels and contributing “gnu” magic to the attraction, which has replaced racist elements like spear-throwing African “headhunters” with a narrative about Felix Pechman XIII, “the unluckiest skipper on the dock.”
And when the “Jungle Cruise” film wanted an injection of humor, Energetic was on it.
“I shotgun-blast puns and references and Easter eggs to them, and let them kind of just run amok,” he stated. “There’s stuff in there that I think all these skippers will get, which just makes me over-the-moon happy. They really showed their love of the attraction in that film.”
Skipper Frank’s ersatz Amazon tour wasn’t within the unique script, stated Jaume Collet-Serra, the film’s director. However as soon as the filmmaker had ridden the precise Jungle Cruise and witnessed reactions to that “backside of water” joke, he knew what he needed to do.
Deal with the viewers to a mini-Jungle Cruise expertise.
“I was like, let me give them what they want for two minutes and then I’ll give them more, but at least they’ll be happy early,” he stated. “You know, ‘Here is what you came for — now let the movie begin.’”
In 1916 Brazil, Skipper Frank Wolff runs the most affordable jungle cruise on the Amazon. And undoubtedly the cheesiest, as he introduces vacationers to the river’s wondrous sights with a spiel overflowing with doozies.
“If you look to the left of the boat, you’ll see some very playful toucans. They’re playing their favorite game of beak-wrestling. The only drawback is, only two can play.”
“The rocks you see here in the river are sandstone. But some people just take them for granite. It’s one of my boulder attractions.”
And the spotlight of the tour: “Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for the eighth wonder of the world,” he says, constructing towards the climax, as his rickety steamboat passes behind a makeshift waterfall. “Wait for it … the backside of water!”
Frank’s friends might groan and roll their eyes at his droll banter in Disney’s “Jungle Cruise,” starring Dwayne Johnson because the swaggering skipper and arriving July 30 on Disney+ and in theaters. However the skippers and their spiels — corny jokes and unhealthy puns, the cringier the higher — have been the true stars of the Jungle Cruise attraction because the first one opened at Disneyland in 1955. Take them away and the seven-minute fantasy boat journey alongside rivers in South America, Asia and Africa, impressed partly by “The African Queen,” is likely to be simply one other trip down a faux waterway with faux surroundings.
It’s additionally one of many uncommon performing jobs at a Disney theme park the place the skippers can weave their very own personalities into the script — from dry and geeky to animated and flamboyant — and get friends in on the motion. “It’s this alchemy that happens” that few sights can replicate, stated Alex Williams, a former skipper who now works for the Disney fan membership D23.
With the brand new film in addition to the trip’s freshly reimagined story line, the Jungle Cruise is within the highlight now, and nobody is feeling it greater than the skippers themselves.
“We’re all just really excited about being able to share this experience with everyone and being the inspiration for the movie,” stated Flor Torres, a “lead” on the attraction.
“Once a skip, always a skip.” That’s the motto of skippers who’ve held a job requiring them to maneuver a ship whereas performing a stand-up routine dozens of instances throughout an eight-hour day.
“People really take that to heart,” Torres added of the motto. “I know skippers that have worked here maybe 20, 30 years ago, and they still come by and talk to us like they were just here yesterday.”
A handful have wisecracked their solution to greater phases, like Ron Ziegler, the White Home press secretary for President Richard M. Nixon; the filmmaker John Lasseter; Steve Franks, a screenwriter and the creator of the TV sequence “Psych”; and, it’s stated, the actor Kevin Costner. (Alas, tales that Robin Williams and Steve Martin honed their humor on the helm are apparently solely myths.)
Different former skippers have recounted their experiences on podcasts like “Tales From the Jungle Crews” and “The Backside of Water,” or offered pandemic uplift in Freddy Martin’s “World Famous Jungle Cruise” video and its sequel.
And a daring few have revealed some not-Disney-approved antics in books like “Skipper Stories: True Tales From Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise,” a compilation of six many years of anecdotes from former skippers, together with the writer, David John Marley.
To wit: The ritual of changing into a “real skipper” by peeing within the river at night time. The Jungle Justice inflicted on skippers who abused their break time (they discovered themselves abruptly scheduled for upward of 90 minutes of nonstop cruises with out water or a toilet cease). The off-hours social gathering the place $2,000 was spent on alcohol and condoms.
A very good skipper is an extrovert, a nut and considerably of a rogue. At the least that’s how Bill Sullivan, who joined the Jungle Cruise in 1955, once put it. His personal skipper colleagues included a person who arrived one morning with chameleons round his neck.
They didn’t have a lot of a script to start with so the lads wrote their very own, Sullivan, who finally grew to become vp of the Magic Kingdom, recalled in 2008. (Girls didn’t turn into skippers till the mid-Nineteen Nineties.)
The spiel had been repeatedly fine-tuned by the point Franks landed his gig within the late Nineteen Eighties. And venturing from it was ill-advised.
“You would hear these stories about supervisors hiding in the jungle, listening for people going off-book, but if that was true, they would have canned me on Day 2,” he stated. “I knew I wanted to make movies, and I was doing stand-up at the time. And as soon as we got around the first corner, I was working in material.”
Franks stayed at Disneyland for eight and a half years, writing the script for Adam Sandler’s “Big Daddy” whereas monitoring the Enchanted Tiki Room.
Crews might have been rowdier again within the day, however “today we’re much more conservative, a little less the Wild West,” stated Kevin Energetic, considered one of two skippers chosen to characterize Disneyland at Tokyo Disney Resort’s twenty fifth anniversary celebration in 2009. (There’s additionally a Jungle Cruise at Walt Disney World and Hong Kong Disneyland.)
Energetic now works as a Disney Imagineer, growing skipper spiels and contributing “gnu” magic to the attraction, which has replaced racist elements like spear-throwing African “headhunters” with a narrative about Felix Pechman XIII, “the unluckiest skipper on the dock.”
And when the “Jungle Cruise” film wanted an injection of humor, Energetic was on it.
“I shotgun-blast puns and references and Easter eggs to them, and let them kind of just run amok,” he stated. “There’s stuff in there that I think all these skippers will get, which just makes me over-the-moon happy. They really showed their love of the attraction in that film.”
Skipper Frank’s ersatz Amazon tour wasn’t within the unique script, stated Jaume Collet-Serra, the film’s director. However as soon as the filmmaker had ridden the precise Jungle Cruise and witnessed reactions to that “backside of water” joke, he knew what he needed to do.
Deal with the viewers to a mini-Jungle Cruise expertise.
“I was like, let me give them what they want for two minutes and then I’ll give them more, but at least they’ll be happy early,” he stated. “You know, ‘Here is what you came for — now let the movie begin.’”