LM: First of all, let me say that it is an honor to be interviewed for junglecruise.com. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of interaction between the Skippers of the East Coast and those of the West, but I believe we are all Brothers and Sisters of the Jungle and I hope through this website, we can be a little closer.

To start off with, I was a Jungle Cruise Ride Operator at Disneyland from
April, 1985 to August, 1996. It was the first Attraction that I learned when I hired in, mostly because I was a Theatre Arts major at the University of California at Irvine at the time and was used to being up in front of people, spieling. I remained Seasonal status until September of 1986, just a month after I got married, when I became Casual Regular status. The following Spring, I applied for Trainer and thanks to favorable reviews from my Leads, I was accepted. A few months later, in preparation for Summer, my
Supervisors started taking applications for Leads. I applied for that
position as well. The Supervisors said that there were four openings for
Leads and all applicants were to be rated by the current Leads and ranked
numerically. The top four applicants would get the positions. I was Number
5.

Although I was disappointed, I wasn't surprised. After all I had been Regular status less than a year. A few days later, I received a phone call from a Supervisor. It seems they had taken a closer look at the scheduling requirements for JC Leads and they would need a fifth for the Summer. I got the job.

I remained a Lead and Trainer for the rest of my stay at Disneyland and at one point, considered applying for the Management Training program. I got as far as the intelligence test, but I couldn't become a Supervisor, because I passed. LOL.

JGR: Do you have a favorite Jungle Story or Memory?

LM: If I related every fun, interesting, tragic or just plain weird event that I was witness to in my eleven plus years on JC, a new website would have to be created, just to keep track of them all.

Some of the most memorable ones, though:

Summer of 1995 - I got a call on the radio from a boat in the Elephant Pool that had derailed. (Derails, I found out, are far more prevalent in California than in Florida because of the design of the guide system.) It was night and Fantasmic! was in progress, so our line was pretty much non-existent. As I'm waiting for the Maintenance guys to arrive to put the boat back on the rail, I took a deadhead out to the Elephant Pool to check
it out. Right away, I noticed something was wrong. The boat only had about eight guests on board, yet it was sitting extremely low in the water. Also, the boat was listing to starboard, even though the Guests were distributed
evenly. My suspicions were confirmed when the Skipper started yelling 'Oh my God! We're Sinking!' Sure enough, when the boat derailed, it had swung around and bumped into one of the metal platforms that hold up the elephants. The platform punched a hole about the size of a silver dollar in
the side of the boat and it was slowly sinking. I evacuated the guests onto the deadhead boat that I had come out on and waited with the 'Titanic's' Skipper for Maintenance to arrive. By that time, the water had reached the engine compartment and 'flooded' the engine, so the boat wasn't going anywhere under its own power. We towed the boat into the dock and pulled it into boat storage, where it sunk.

January 1987 - Disneyland celebrates the Grand Opening of Star Tours with a 60-hour party. The park is open from 10 am Friday straight through to 10 PM Sunday. There is a special dedication ceremony featuring many of the stars of the Star Wars movie. I was working JC and was quite surprised to see Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, get onto my boat! He and his family had ditched his escort and was bopping around the park incognito. He was very down to earth and seemed to enjoy himself during the cruise. He even thanked me as he got off my boat.

Through the course of my stay at Disneyland, I made several videos featuring the Jungle Cruise and the talented folks who work there. We got permission from Supervision to come into the park before it opened to the guests and shot these videos to show at the End-of-Summer and Christmas banquets. I made three: 'Destination: Unknown' (a music video), 'Adventureland - The Movie' (A series of funny sketches about life in Adventureland) and 'A Jungle Cruise Christmas Carol' (Charles Dickens' classic tale, told as if it had taken place on JC, complete with a grumpy Lead and 'Spirits of Jungle Leads Past, Present and Yet-to-Come'.) These videos were a blast to do and I always enjoyed hearing the people laugh when they were shown at the banquets.

I also was witness to the Jungle Cruise re-themeing in 1994. In preparation for the addition of the Indiana Jones ride, the Jungle was shut down for five months from January to June. During that time, the old bamboo and thatch queue area was torn out and replaced by a weathered two-story Victorian house. The new queue featured seven themed 'rooms' that Guests walked through while they waited to board their launches, including Maintenance Bay, Infirmary and Dispatch Office. The entire building had a 1930's air, complete with Swing music piped in over the PA system. The boats were also rethemed to look more weathered and run-down. The whole project really helped to set the atmosphere for the ride and the overall look of Adventureland.

JGR: Tell us about Disneyland's Narration Attractions Dept.

In February of 1995, it was announced that the Jungle Cruise would be part of an experimental 'department' known as Narration Attractions. This department would include Storybookland Canal Boats, Circlevision 360 and the Enchanted Tiki Room, along with JC. The purpose of the new department was to group similar Attractions into the same department so that the Cast Members thereof could be trained specifically for that type of Attraction.  Narration Attractions were all the rides with a great deal of interaction with the Guests or at least potential for it. The emphasis for Narration Attractions was Spieling, Guests Interaction and Show. Two Cast Members were selected from each of the Attractions to completely rethink how Cast Members were trained on their ride. I was privileged to be one of the two Jungle Cruise representatives, along with a young man by the name of Paul Hersek. Paul and I spent two weeks in a conference room, joined occasionally by several Trainers, completely revising the spiel, SOP and training procedures. The basis for the revision was "Since the boats and queue area have been rethemed for the 1930's, why shouldn't the Ride Operators?" We put together a training packet that included the revised spiel and information on how to theme one's self into the ride and the overall look of Adventureland. In the packet, Trainees could find a history
of the 'Jungle Cruise Trading Company' up to the current year (1938), descriptions of the animals the Skippers might encounter and fifteen different 'characters'. These characters were people, both male and female,
that a Guest might encounter in a jungle outpost in 1938. By taking on one of these characters, the Skipper became less of a Narrator of the ride and more of a PART of the action. The characters complemented the 'storyline' of being in a jungle outpost in the 1930's. For instance, there was the seasoned, crusty old Skipper, who's cockiness led him to make some dangerous choices; the gutsy female Skipper who took over her father's place at the helm and must take extra measures to prove herself 'in a Man's world'; the nerdy accountant who is forced to drive a boat because of staffing problems and keeps getting lost; the nurse who fills her time tending to the medical needs of the jungle's residents as well as giving tours. The characters in the Training Handout (known as the Skipper's Handbook) were meant to be suggestions. Once trained on JC, it was up to the Ride Operator to use one of the suggested characters, put their own spin on one or come up with their own character. Narration Attractions also made numerous props (hats, canteens, vests, etc.) available for the Skippers to check out so that they could become more 'in character'. Once the Skipper's Handbook was completed, Paul and I retrained the Trainers as to the new SOP and then set about training new Skippers and retraining current ones. That Summer of 1995 was an absolute blast and the Skippers really enjoyed playing their various parts. I, personally, had five different characters that I performed as part of the new Jungle Cruise: Spike McGuire (the cocky old river pilot), Sparky McGuire (Spike's dim-witted brother who worked as a mechanic), Buzz Ramsey (the resident bush pilot whose plane went down in the jungle and seems to be preoccupied with finding it), Dexter Crisp (the accountant in desperate need of a map) and my personal favorite, Professor Heinrich von Schlamiel (world renowned German zoologist who is searching for the legendary Elusive Blue Gorilla).

JGR: Sounds great! So what happened to Narration Attractions?

LM: Unfortunately, the only thing that remains of Narration Attractions and the 'new and improved Jungle Cruise' is some very fond memories. Although morale shot up and Guest Compliments reached an all time high that Summer, the number of Guests carried per hour declined and emphasis was shifted away from themeing and Guest interaction back to numbers and efficiency. It's that age old struggle between Art and Commerce.

JGR: Interesting - the Florida team also knows about 'Guests per Hour' and Etc. See this month's Editorial for more info. Larry,   how did you come to leave the Jungle for TV production?

LM: In August of 1996, my wife got a job on the Central Coast of California, about three hours North of Anaheim and we packed up our two children and moved, leaving Disneyland and my beloved Jungle behind. I now work for a local television production company (I KNEW those videos would pay off in the long run) and love the slow life on the Central Coast. I look back on my experiences on the Jungle Cruise with fondness and will always remember the Guests' smiles and the wonderful friends I created in the eleven years that I worked there.

JGR: Any parting words for the Jungle Cruise population at large?

LM: To all of my fellow Jungle Brothers and Sisters, I say to you this: Always
remember that you hold a special position among Disney Cast Members; you
are a part of the long and honorable heritage that is the JUNGLE CRUISE.