Jungle Cruise enhancements at Disneyland 2005 (large pics)

In the ongoing 50th celebration ceremonies, the rehab & addition/enhancement to the scenes in Disneyland's Jungle Cruise seem to have gone a little bit unnoticed!

Looks like a general clean up of things, some reshuffling of animals, and 2 new-ish experiences.

Oh yeah - and the new spiel is supposedly more serious, and less corny. If things are anything like they were when I worked there, the "skips" will most likely get back to the cornball routines soon enough!

Big change #1:
The return of (non-pc) guns to the Gorilla Camp! YES! This time, it looks like not only do they have their guns back - but active dynamite as well!

BOOM!!!!

Check out this video clip:
http://mousetimes.com/media/dlr/jc_enhancements.wmv

The other interesting change is the addition of a piranha attack in the "rapids" corridor, towards the end of the attraction (which, to be honest, was never very thrilling).

A warning ahead....

What tha......!

Sweet merciful crap!!!!!!!!!!
I've read that you actually get wet from the piranha attack...

The Native Village looks nice & clean - great rehab all around...

Strangely, Trader Sam has lost his mask! Maybe a trade that went wrong.... Also - he now has a pet elephant! Hmmmmm...

Yesterday, during park festvities, Pixar honcho John Lasseter actually piloted several trips through the Jungle...


I wish I could have been there - I would have liked to hear his spiel!

I worked there in 1990, the year before I went to college - mainly on Jungle.... I made $5.05 an hour & lived in mortal terror of the daytime "lead" - Don Chapman, an ex-cop from Alaska.

Here's me after 7 hours driving boats through the Jungle:

I can't wait to take my daughter back to Disneyland - she's finally at the point where she can interact & talk about what she is experiencing!

Thanks for that.

Trader Sam, if I'm correct, had no mask in the good/bad/borderline racist old days.

I seem to recall he was kind of a Kelbo's like figure, a black-skinned native with a black top hat and tuxedo front and bow tie.
You know that cliche image, kind of a minstrel-show throwback, the civilized cannibal.

I'd always assumed that the racist Sam was still behind that mask if you were to lift it up.

[ Edited by: BarkerBird on 2005-05-05 22:51 ]

I think the "top hat & tuxedo" version was always at Walt Disney World - but I may be wrong....

Yeah, I have no idea where I saw the photo of the top-hatted Sam.

What does Sam look like in the DVD old footage of Disneyland? I'd have to look at that. I seem to recall an old episode of Disneyland that's on the DVD has a whole ride through.

Barker,
I believe you are thinking of Walt Disney World's Trader Sam:

In the 1955 plans for the JC, there is no mention of Trader Sam, nor an indication of him on any 1955 videos I've seen.

This plan view from May of 1957 shows an interesting addition, however.

Notice figure "18-A" - Native Selling Souveniers (sp)

All the film footage from Walt Disney Presents that I have seen seems to recycle the 1955-era Jungle Cruise footage - I had to go to 1969 to find an early screen cap of him - here from "The Magic Of Disneyland", which aired in October of 1969...

I'm sure he wasn't "Trader Sam" from the get-go, but was a joke that the "skips" made up as time went by....

Eventually (possibly as early as the 1970s) he donned that mask he used to wear - probably out of political correctness:

Looks like he's back in all his maskless glory!

Lastly - as a treat for those of us who can't go to Oasis, here's a mid-70s Marc Davis concept for the queue! I wish they had done it!

Cool pix Tangaroa! And mahalo for the details. I was fortunate enough to be there on Wednesday as part of the media. I was pleasantly surprised by the Jungle Cruise enhancements, especially the animatronics.

The movements of the elephants were impressive and the skin appeared about as close to real one can imagine. I also think the pirannah attack was a nice touch. It really caught us off guard, so I wasn't able to grab a picture of it. And yes, you do get very wet!

The tour operator played it fairly straight and most of the punchlines fell short. But It might have been our tour guide in particular. I really hope they will return to the wackiness because that was my favorite part of the old ride. But overall, I think the improvements are first rate.

Thanks again for the great pix and info.

He had been called Trader Sam at Walt Disney World up until the mid-'90s, when he suddenly began going by the name Chief Nami(sp?).

The name Trader Sam appeared on souvenir slides sold in the park and on Viewmaster reels.

Piranhas?!
Fish on sticks!

That is sooooo cool! Kids love piranhas (and piranhas love everyone...) especially for the standard quote, "piranhas can skeletonize a cow in 20 minutes." One of the standard facts of kid-dom. The Jungle Cruise is now even more impossibly cool!

I think that new "pet" elephant of the Trader looks suspiciously like the one that was last seen frolicking at the base of Tarzan's Swiss Family Mortgage Assumption Treehouse.

A new photo as of this morning......

Come on - you have to love the monkeys with guns!!!!!!!!