A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: Indiana Jones Adventure Outpost

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.

THE INDIANA JONES ADVENTURE OUTPOST

By Jim Korkis

The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular opened on at what is now Disney’s Hollywood Studios on August 25, 1989, the same year the film Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade  was released to theaters. In 2004, Nazi swastikas were removed from costuming and props and were replaced by a stylized Greek Cross.

(c) Disney

At the exit of the attraction is a merchandise location called the Indiana Jones Adventure Outpost. The plans for the stunt show always included some type of souvenir venue but originally it was going to be a re-creation of Indiana Jones’ pre-World War II suburban Chicago house filled with artifacts from his many expeditions.

Another proposal was to have a Ford tri-motor airplane as an eating area adjoining a small merchandise shop but that was also abandoned.

“We had to come up with an idea that thematically fit the left block building which meant that one side had to look like Hollywood buildings in the 1930s but the other side had to fit the Indiana Jones story,” said Imagineering concept architect Joe Kilanowski.

“So we came up with a house in Hollywood that has one side propped and dressed to look like it is being used for a movie that takes place in the Middle East. The front of the building looks like a normal house but the other side looks like an outpost.”

To tie-in with the film, the outpost was meant to be a location where Indiana’s crew sets out to find the Holy Grail. To aid in that illustion, Disney acquired from Lucasfilm the tank, two trucks and two cars from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The vehicles were meant to be part of a motor pool that were parked waiting for mechanics to work on them. To reinforce that concept, a fuel dump and machine gun nest (to protect the vehicles from being stolen or sabotaged) were added.

For the interior of the building, not just the Indiana Jones’ films served as inspiration. The Imagineers studied a number of films with a foreign legion theme like Beau Geste (1939) to achieve a sense of the appropriate time with period maps of the Middle East, old rifles, scimitars and barracks-type furniture.

The interior designer was Kate Zovich, who said “Instead of doing normal merchandise fixtures, we really wanted to accentuate the theme. Usually when an attraction has an annexed shop, the function of the shop takes precedence over the theming.

“But we wanted to go the whole nine yards with the Outpost and I think we succeeded. We put together old gun cases and hung shirts off of them. We actually modified half of a wing from a biplane in order to hang clothes.”

Imagineer Arden Ashley purchased many of the props that decorate the building. He noted of the exit from the attraction that “The landscaping and architecture work so well together. The exterior really draws your eye and the landscaping points you right into the shop.”

Senior concept designer Tim Kirk explained, “When people exit out of the stunt show, they go right past all this stuff. It’s a great way to sell merchandise because their blood is boiling after seeing the show and they want to buy something. The Outpost sells hats, videos, postcards, jewelry and leather jackets – some pretty nice stuff.”

Over the last two and half decades, the offerings expanded to pins, fedora hats and pith helmets, t-shirts, mugs, figures featuring Mickey Mouse as Indiana Jones and much more. A Disneyland version of the merchandise shop opened in March 1995 but was removed in 2017 to be repurposed as a new indoor seating area attached to the nearby Bengal Barbecue.

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Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Call Me Walt, and his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

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