Once again, the indispensable Sue B. has suggested a subject for a blog post that would have never occurred to me in a million years. Like... Albert Schweitzer's birthday! WHO KNEW? Sue did. Albert was born on January 14th, 1875, and was (according to Wikipedia) a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. But he wasn't a blogger, was he? WAS HE??
Sue sent along some Jungle Cruise photos taken by her dad, Lou Perry, back in April of 1963. I especially love this beautiful shot of the load dock, with a line of naphtha-fueled boats returning to civilization. Just eight years earlier, this had been orange and walnut groves. Amazing.
Schweitzer became especially famous for giving benefit concerts and lectures in Europe as a means of fundraising for his hospital back in Africa. His philosophy, he often stated, was built upon the principle of a “reverence for life” and the religious and ethical imperatives of helping others. He was also good friends with Dr. Albert Falls, who had a famous Anaheim waterfall named after him.
There's some of the bathing elephants who spend all day at the Sacred Elephant Bathing Pool. They like Irish Spring, but some of them prefer Dove. That one baby has decided to try to squirt us. Why you little...!
While the view is largely obscured by silhouetted heads, this boat is on its way back to the docks, just like the boats in the first picture.
This seemed like a good excuse to use up some of my own Jungle Cruise slides, so here we go! I've always been impressed by the fairly realistic hippos on this ride - more believable than the elephants, if you ask me.
Old Smiley was kind of a celebrity around those parts, kind of like the greeter at a nightclub in the Poconos. "You look great! How's the missus? Try the veal!". People love him.
And finally, the shy (and gassy) rhinoceroses think that they can't be seen behind that bare tree trunk. Rhinos are not known for their smarts. (Sorry about the weird light-leak discoloration).
AND NOW, for a last-minute addition, Sue B. included this scan to round things out.
Thanks to Lou and Sue for the heads up about Albert Schweitzer's birthday!
Major-
ReplyDeleteDr. Falls AND a crocodile concierge-! This is a post for the ages. Yes, that first image tells so many stories.
Thanks to Lou, Sue and The Major.
In the third pic, we get a nice view of, I think, the Dominguez Palm, growing out of the top of that guy's head.
ReplyDeleteMajor, the hippos are definitely more realistic. The elephants' expressions are somewhat cartoony; too smiley. This is a really nice photo of the hippos.
I see we have the J. J. Abrams lens flare in Lou & Sue's final photo. Sort of like Spielberg's meteors shooting across a night sky.
Thank you Lou and Sue, and Albert Schweitzer, and Major for today's fine pics.
Happy Birthday, Al!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a nice set of J.C. pics, for today! Thank you Lou, Sue, and Major!
By the way.....something tells me that last photo might be flipped. It just feels right, when I reverse it. (The photo looks right that way, too.)
Happy birthday, Al!
ReplyDeleteThese are great photos, Lou & Sue and Major. Thank you!
In the first picture, it looks like something has built a nest atop a dock piling. Based on its contents, I'd say it's a fruit bat.
The Sacred Elephant Bathing Pool (or "SEBP") was so new that the background foliage hadn't had time to fill in yet. I bet it still had that "new sacred elephant bathing pool smell." You all know what I'm talking about.
Old Smiley worked primarily for tips. He always appreciated a generous hand out from guests. With jokes like that, he would have been a fantastic Jungle Cruise skipper. If only he'd had opposable thumbs...
That charging rhino tableau always makes me think of this (that rear-projection stock footage was used in at least three Tarzan movies) and this.
JB, few people remember it now, but Dominguez Palm-shaped headpieces were all the rage in 1963. Within a year the fad would be usurped by the Beatle cut.
TM!, I tried flipping that last photo, but the watermark comes out backwards.
Ah, the Alberts. It is widely known that after they both became celebrities on the African continent, the started competing African talk shows. Unfortunately for Dr. Schweitzer, Dr. Fall's publicity team was much better and Dr. Schweitzer is all but forgotten. It's also known that for decades most Africans assumed that all Europeans were named "Albert."
ReplyDeleteFun Fact: The Jungle Cruise boats are pulled by teams of trained piranha.
Thanks for the suggestion, Sue- and the post, Major!
Excellent post and topic!
ReplyDeleteAlso timely for me since I just sat through the JC movie (won’t say watched). The first hour was pretty good, but if it were a book, “it’s covers were too far apart.” It’s like the writers said “too much is still not enough”.
I’ve seen many pictures of the elephant in the waterfall posted in social media by people who think it’s a real animal. Good thing her hide has “Copyright WED 1959” stamped on it.
Bonus points to Griffyndor for the Dominguez Palm sighting. However, still no sign of Dominguez wrists, elbows, or fingers, to say nothing of the forearms or biceps. We remain in hope.
I often wonder if the Dr. Falls gag arose because Disney couldn’t copyright Dr. Schweitzer?
Thanks Lou, Sue and Major too!
JG
Great Friday Jungle Cruise pics, from the guru of wonderful photos.
ReplyDeleteThere's one thing I can always remember when trying to dredge up memories of trips to the park when I was young. The sound of the Jungle Cruise boat engines and the spiel.
I got nothing else this morning. An old Henny Youngman joke maybe?
"My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn't need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle". I cheated and looked up Henny Youngman jokes. Tried to channel him but nothing was coming through this morning.
Many thanks to Lou & Sue and Major D.
Hey everyone, sorry I was AWOL yesterday, it was a busy day. And today will be busy too! I am hoping I will be able to respond to comments in the afternoon when I get back home from today's event. Thanks to all of you for your fun comments!
ReplyDeleteAbout time you showed up to your own blog... ;-)
ReplyDelete@ Chuck-
ReplyDelete"...it looks like something has built a nest atop a dock piling. Based on its contents, I'd say it's a fruit bat". I'd say it's more-likely Carmen Miranda-!
Nanook, that almost resulted in a spray of water all over my computer. That made my morning.
ReplyDeleteYep...that first picture is a beauty. Now if you look closely, there is no spur to the right of the main line. No dock at all. So sometime later, and I am not sure when, it was constructed allowing us to park up to 3 JC boats in the event more were needed for the day...or could be removed out of service. A switch is placed on either end for boats to be moved in or out...one being called the Dominguez Switch. The tale is told when the JC skippers pulled a prank on one of their own who was returning to civilization making the turn away from Trader Sam. With the spur being unoccupied, both switches, rear and forward were pulled putting the skipper, boat and crew onto the spur, the boat running the length of the spur and back into the Jungle for another trip. Of course the skipper had to come up with additional material because the Jungle looked the same! Fortunately, the elephants kept their trunks on while they were laughing as they saw the the boat go by for a second time. KS
ReplyDelete@ Chuck-
ReplyDeleteA 'Danny Thomas Spit Take®' is apropos just about anywhere-!
HERE's Miss. Carmen in all her regalia.
Tokyo, I dunno, that photo struck me about the same, flipped or unflipped. I can't tell.
ReplyDeleteChuck, no wonder rhinos are nearly extinct. TARZAN KILLED 'EM ALL! (the putz)
I think I still have my Dominguez Palm headpiece in my bedroom closet somewhere.
Stu, I wonder how one goes about training piranhas? I guess you toss them bits and pieces of body parts as a reward for desired behavior.
JG, actually, I consider myself to be more of a Ravenclaw, or maybe a Hufflepuff. Not Slytherin, though. Definitely NOT Slytherin.
As for the other body parts, (see above, concerning piranhas).
Nanook, Ha! Now I'm picturing Carmen Miranda sitting on that 'fruit nest'. (It's an awkward picture and I'm desperately trying to replace it something else.)
Nanook, GDB HAS IT ALL!
ReplyDeleteJB, I once had a palm tree growing out of my head, and let me tell you, it was no fun. Monkeys kept wanting to live in it, and I’d already leased it to a family. I don’t mind the way the elephants in the bathing pool look, they are an improvement on the “mother in law” sculpts that aren’t quite there. I didn’t want to mention it, but J.J. Abrams sometimes takes care of my blog for me when I am busy!
TokyoMagic!, I will take your word for it, since you are so knowledgeable about details like that!
Chuck, if you find yourself in the jungle without food, always try to find a fruit bat’s nest. So delicious, and often made with fruits from several continents. I DO know what you’re talking about re: that new sacred elephant bathing pool smell”, it’s sort of a popcorn smell. Thank goodness crocodiles don’t have opposable thumbs, they would have had their own civilization by now. Seeing Tarzan stab that rhino makes me want Tarzan to be trampled. Hopefully the rhino just needed a band-aid. Hungawa!
Stu29573, I wish I was an Albert, but at least my mom didn’t name me “Leslie”. Didn’t Dr. Schweitzer have a famous nephew named Alfalfa? I might have my names wrong. Trained piranhas are cool, but you can’t trust them.
JG, oh boy, I hate to say it, but I just could not get into that Jungle Cruise movie. “The Rock” had a certain charm, and I like Emily Blunt (who doesn’t?), but the whole thing was a CGI mess, with a story that was a muddle. And I guess we were supposed to buy romantic chemistry between the two stars. Nope. I’ve also seen people online who believed that the elephant under the waterfall was real. I thought they had the Dharma Initiative logo on the hide? I’m glad we don’t see other pieces of the Dominguez family, that is way too gruesome.
DrGoat, you make a good point, some of the magic of certain rides goes beyond just the ride itself. The Jungle Cruise makes such an impression when you are young, just being on a boat is a wonderful start. I like your Henny Youngman (?) jokes!
Chuck, I didn’t have a thing to wear.
Nanook, once Carmen Miranda stopped wearing her hot dog hat and went for the fruit hat, her career skyrocketed.
KS, thank you for pointing out the detail about the lack of the spur line! Only something that a cast member would notice (I sure didn’t). The Dominguez Switch, I’ve never heard of that before! I know Ron Dominguez worked at Disneyland for many years, he must have been honored (I hope so anyway). I love the story of the prank on that poor Skipper, though it sounds like he did OK. You have to be fast on your feet!
Nanook, my classic “vomit take” never caught on, even though I debuted it on Johnny Carson.
JB, I can’t tell either, and because the slide is Sue’s, she’ll have to check it herself. I have a fuzzy memory that maybe she said that it might be flipped (or is it flopped?). Back in the day it was “cool” to kill all of those beautiful animals, but I hate to see it, even though those movies are “B”-grade at best. HUNGAWA! You know, I was a real fan of the Harry Potter books, but for some reason I never bothered to see which house I belonged to. Maybe Hufflepuff? Can you still do the sorting?
Thanks Lou and Sue for more great photos! I do love a great birthday party for a great...organist?...who knew? How much fun it would be to spend time with oodles of organs. Naphtha fueled boats actually sounds better than smelly Autopia cars. I do agree that it's amazing that an orange grove and Ron's house could become a jungle cruise. In Hollywood, anything is possible, and I think Hollywood types would be the only ones to start such a folly such as Disneyland and actually pull it off. The fruit on a stick was a precursor to "Edible Arrangements" which for the life of me, I can't understand how it is a legitimate business- but good for them. This fruit on a stick thing is an actually a real thing, and there generally is a stack of fruit like that all over Kenya- there is also such things on street corners in LA. I've been on the Jungle Cruise hundreds of times, and I think I've heard it all...but there is always a zinger, or a very very inside joke where I would be the only one hysterically laughing. The physical comedy was also hilarious. Only a few did that, and the newbies stuck to the script for the most part. Then there were those that there was no semblance of script- only at the dock starting...and at the dock unloading where they were in earshot of someone- good for them, I am a big proponent of shenanigans as the regulars might know. Going around a second time...I see some meltdowns there, but back in the day, it might have been a simple slap on the wrist. Don't know...different area than me. I did have to give feedback once, I felt a certain responsibility...it was a bit of an unintelligle train wreck...but I kept my mouth shut after that, they only person that got a talking to behind closed doors was me. "Zip the lip" or "don't concern yourself with things that don't concern you". I forget the exact words, but it was a great life and business lesson going forward.
ReplyDeleteHey, Chris Merritt! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TOO! I just saw your tweet.
ReplyDeleteMajor, I've never been Sorted either. I assume there is a place (or a hundred) online where you can get yourself all Sorted out. And yeah, I've read the books, including the British version of Sorcerer's Stone/Philosopher's Stone, and seen all the movies.
ReplyDeleteI never really considered myself to be Griffyndor material; not courageous enough or outgoing enough I guess.
Thanks for all the laughs and nice comments today, everyone!
ReplyDeleteAnd, Chris M., we're saving a piece of birthday cake for you!