A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: Shrunken Ned’s Junior Jungle Boats
By Dave Shute
Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.
SHRUNKEN NED
By Jim Korkis
A totem of Shrunken Ned’s head is hung in Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto in Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort, where his voice is provided by Imagineer Brandon Kleyla who designed the location.
Few Disney fans know that Shrunken Ned was a character that actually originated at Walt Disney World. I wrote a book, Secret Stories of Extinct Walt Disney World, about things that no longer exist at the vacation destination, but I wasn’t able to include this story.
Shrunken Ned’s Junior Jungle Boats, a remote control miniature boat experience, existed next to the Jungle Cruise attraction in Adventureland from 1997 to 2012. It occupied the area between the Jungle Cruise and the Swiss Family Treehouse and was eventually replaced in spring 2013 by stations for the interactive game, A Pirate’s Adventure: Treasures of the Seven Seas.
A sign identified the game as the “Jungle Expedition Skipper Training School, established 1854”. Named for and apparently owned by Shrunken Ned, the attraction gave guests a way to experience maneuvering miniate models of the famous Jungle Cruise launches through a variety of obstacles.
The game was not part of the regular admission to the park but cost two tokens (with a nearby machine exchanging one dollar for one token so it cost two dollars to buy time to play with the boats) and featured sixteen individual control stations each featuring a big steering wheel and throttle.
Each station was numbered and corresponded to the same numbered boat.
Guests could attempt to navigate through an obstacle course containing such features as a volcano, spears, Tiki God statues, an Elephant Shrine, ancient ruins, and headhunters. A path to guide the boats was lined with the spears sticking out of the water. Guests could steer the boat in any direction along the designated path.
It was so popular that a similar experience called Safari Adventure was operated at the Disneyland Hotel from 1999 to 2010.
The boats were named Amazon Annie, Congo Connie, Bomokandi Bertha, Mongala Millie, Ganges Gertie, Kwango Kate, Volta Val, Nile Nellie, Orinoco Ida, Ucyali Lolly, Sankuru Sadie, Rutshuru Ruby, Irrawaddy Irma, Senegal Sal, Wamba Wanda and Zambesi Zelda.
Shrunken Ned was meant to be play on the words “shrunken head” that also referenced that guests were playing with shrunken boats. The Walt Disney World attraction sparked a mythology behind the named character.
Colonel Nedley Lostmore was a British colonist, reportedly from the late 1800s/early 1900s, who had some connection to the company that ran the Jungle Cruise. It is surmised that he had something to do with the training and possible hiring of new skippers. He had a distinctively huge white mustache and wore a monocle.
At some unknown point in time, Ned was decapitated and had his head shrunk–but in an unusual supernatural process. His sentient but preserved shrunken head was mounted in the South Seas Traders shop at Disneyland’s Adventureland.
Apparently the experience somehow helped him to become a fortune-teller and witch doctor. He identifies himself as “The Jungle’s Only Self-Service Witch Doctor”, diagnosing guests with strange jungle diseases and offering equally strange solutions.
He might diagnose a guest with some type of fever who is hallucinating that he was in Disneyland, when he is just lost in the jungle and sleepwalking.
He is one of four fortune telling machines found in Disneyland park, and his voice is provided by Imagineer Eddie Sotto.
Dropping two quarters into his “office,” Ned prompts the guest to place their hand on a carved hand-shaped plaque in front of the glass. Guests will feel an eerie pulsing heartbeat and then be told to take the prescription card that is produced. There are twelve different versions.
One one side is the face of Ned and on the other the advice on twelve different cards.
* * * * *
Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!
In the meantime, check out his books, including his new books Vault of Walt Volume 9: Halloween Edition, and Hidden Treasures of the Disney Cruise Line.
Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest!!
0 comments
Comment by typing in the form below.
Leave a Comment | Ask a Question | Note a Problem