Feature Interview:
Joel Halberstadt

This month's Feature Interview is another 'really' old school (sorry, Joel) Skipper from Disneyland, Joel Halberstadt. His trainer was Walt's personal favorite Jungle Cruise Guide. No pressure!!!

JGR: Tell us about getting into working for Disney, and then getting to Jungle - did you train elsewhere first? Did you always want to be a Skipper?

JH: Just like most kids, I had always been fascinated with the uniqueness of Disneyland and most things Disney. I remember sitting in front of the TV in 1955, watching the opening. I eventually became a Davy Crockett addict because of Disney, and would watch Disney's weekly program every Sunday night. Years later, in 1964, I took a week's vacation to Southern California to find out for myself if the Beach Boy's image of paradise was really true (it was). I walked through Disneyland and ended up in the back of the Congo Queen thinking, "...these guys actually get paid to have this much fun??? This is amazing." I became hooked on the whole California experience, and a year later moved to Huntington Beach. In December 1967, I took a date to Disneyland, pretty much sealing my fate as a Skipper---I remember thinking as we walked off the Jungle Cruise, "I want to be a part of this."

I filled out an application and was soon contacted for an interview. That was more than 30 years ago.Things were much different then. And Disney was much different. They had thousands of kids who applied for a job - any job - each year: Only one out of ten was hired. When the interviewer asked me where I was interested in working (as in foods, merchandising, etc.) I uttered two words: Jungle Cruise. He said, "Fine, here's the 9 page spiel, take a minute to look it over and then read a page back to me..." So I actually had to audition in the personnel office. Fifteen minutes later, I walked out of his office with the job I wanted (Years later, the standards for hiring for this unique role would change to anyone who could mumble and walk upright, but in the late '60's it was considered THE place to be if you were male, well-spoken, personable ...a group who were generally known throughout the Park).

After three evenings of training (done after the Park closed) and several months on the job, I found that my perspective on this new experience was somewhat different than most of the other skippers. For the majority of them, the Jungle Cruise was just a job...just another attraction to work...while they got through college on their way to becoming a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer. Most didn't care if they were assigned to Pirates, the Mark Twain or the Tiki Room from week-to-week, which was fine and understandable. My particular outlook, however, was based on an enthusiasm and an appreciation that I had from the first time I rode the JC: "Let me get this straight. I'm working at the number one attraction in the number one vacation destination in the world, working outside, entertaining people from all over the world, making them laugh, get to meet some of the best looking girls I could imagine (remember that 1 out of 10 rule), wear a themed costume that is provided free...and they actually pay me to do this???!!! I must be hallucinating."

That appreciation stayed with me through the next six years and some 20,000 trips, until I was promoted in August 1974.

JGR: Tell us about that promotion that took you out of the Jungle.

JH: My "escape" from the Jungle Cruise actually came about as the result of a newsletter I authored called "Jungle Drums." For several summers, I put together a 5-6 page weekly summary of Adventureland news--a tongue-in-cheek assessment of who-is-doing-what-to-who-and-where-and-how-many-times, skipper-written stories, and upcoming parties - particularly the infamous end-of-summer mating ritual called the Banana Ball. Apparently, several copies of "Drums" got into the hands of a Disney University staffer and an assistant to Dick Nunis.

Coincidentally, the current editor of the Disneyland Line, the Park's employee newsletter, was leaving. In July, 1974, I was minding my own business, spieling my brains out and loving it, when a call led to an interview which led to an offer I would have been foolish to turn down. True to form, as I pulled up to the dock after my final trip, the area manager (kind of a Colonel Klink who hadn't smiled since the Eisenhower administration)
announced, "Well, that's the end of an era..." To this day, I think what he actually said was, "Well, that's the end of an error..."

JGR: So management was a little different back then?

JH: Back in the late 60's, Disneyland was run in a true "mom & pop" fashion. Most of the managers then were ex-ride operators or had worked their way up from somewhere else within the Disneyland. Few had any formal outside training or expertise in successful people-relations or sophisticated management skills. Consequently, when a situation arose - no matter what kind of job you did, you were pretty much "guilty until proven innocent." I remember a variety of incidents on the Jungle Cruise where people were blamed for things -and disciplined - without ever getting the chance to explain the true facts. Positive reinforcement was unheard of, and verbal reprimands were given out freely, many times to be followed by written reprimands which became a permanent part of your file- deserved or not.

From a show standpoint, supervision never acknowledged a consistently good spiel, in spite of boatload after boatload of applauding guests. It was not the best environment to entertain people in, to say the least. I remember in 1973 when an unsupervised two-year-old girl ducked under the queue area railing, adjacent to the Dominguez palm tree, lost her balance and fell upside down into 5 feet of filthy jungle water- and didn't come up. The front load ride operator (or "cast member" as they became called in later years) saw her losing her balance and falling, made an immediate, running 14-foot leap fully-clothed from front load, swam under the dock, and after groping around for what seemed like minutes, found her and pulled her up to safety.

A child's certain drowning, to say nothing of a major lawsuit, were avoided thanks to a vigilant skipper who took decisive action. Do you think he ever got so much as a thank you, a "job-well-done", even an acknowledgement that the incident even happened from supervision or the on-duty foreman? He received nothing...I know --that ride operator was me. So much for Disneyland management 30 years ago.Please tell me it has changed.

JGR: Wow - how did that affect the camaraderie of the Skippers?

JH: There was a certain amount of camaraderie that we skippers enjoyed, especially during the busy summer months: canoe races, dinners out, sports, parties, after-work beers at Ho-Jo's (Howard Johnson's) across the street, and of course, the Banana Ball, a rite of passage I'm not sure is even practiced anymore. It started out in the mid-60's as a Jungle Cruise-Tour Guide end-of-summer frenzy, with a live band, several kegs, Hawaiian shirts and incredible silliness. Put the Beach Boys and the Spice Girls together, and you have the Banana Ball. That was when there were only males on the Jungle, and only female tour guides -- years later that would change, of course.

JGR: What's your favorite jungle Cruise moment? Most embarrassing?

JH: The most memorable moments could have been the dozens of celebrities we would meet on our boats though the years...the summer parties... trying out a new line that worked well....the ego boost you got when your crew gave you a standing ovation -- but they were not. My best memories came from a handful of special crews that had just the right combination of people...little kids, grandmothers, families...and who expressed their appreciation that because of you, they would never forget their Jungle Cruise experience. A little corny to some perhaps, but an inherited feeling. You see, in early 1968, I was lucky enough to be trained by an older, retiring skipper who not only knew Walt before his 1966 death, but who Walt would specifically ask for when he would ride the Jungle-- Lee David, originally from Hawaii. He passed a lot on to me. Much of that had to do with the fact that the "show" was the Jungle Cruise-the boats, the plants, the animation, the water, the overall themeing. The skipper's role was to present this show - through humor, suspense, and a fresh sense of the unexpected...involving the crew at every opportunity. While you see it 25 times a day, for many of your crew, it's their first time. Standup comedians resorting to topical, tasteless humor that detracts from the experience with some cheap laughs don't deserve to be a Jungle Cruise skipper. Walt taught Lee that...and Lee taught me.

Under the heading of "Awkward Moments" would be the case of the man who took my spiel just a little too seriously. Along with 2-3 other skippers who shared my enthusiasm for the JC, we would constantly invent new lines that we shared with each other. While we were only encouraged to "interject" our personality into the WED-approved spiel, we took the concept of "interjecting" to new heights.One of the lines that we came up with - and used extremely successfully at the yelling and attacking natives - was telling a husband that the natives "wanted to trade 3 coconuts for his wife..." The end line, of course was "I'd hold out for four if I were you, sir!!!" I used a number of variations, but it always got a great response, that is, until a foreign tourist (country of origin unknown) informed me in a middle-eastern accent as he disembarked that he did not appreciate me trying to trade his wife for any amount of coconuts. He was deadly serious. I was speechless. Go figure.

Years later, at Walt Disney Imagineering in charge of D/L and WDW narrations, I would rewrite that original spiel, taking great pleasure I might add, in including the "coconut line" in memory of that guy.

JGR: What are you doing now-a-days, and does being an ex skipper ever come into play, either in getting the job or performing it?

JH: After I left the Jungle in 1974, I spent two years as Disneyland's internal communications manager, and four years in show development at WED. In 1981, my advertising/marketing direction led me to running a variety of ad agencies within several large corporations. Today, I am semi-retired, and live part-time on a palm-filled, tropical island off the southwest Florida coast, accessible only by seaplane or boat. I know...I know..."You can take the skipper out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out..."

Whether you were a skipper in 1968 or 1998, and if you were good, the qualities that made you good are timeless: sense of humor, good eye contact, voice projection, perfect timing, knowing your material, ability to think on your feet. Invaluable qualities, I'd say, that have helped hundreds of ex-skippers succeed when they entered the real world.

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