Interview with Mike Sigalas
Former Jungle Skipper
Author, Poet, Professor

JGR: Mike, thanks for being this months feature interview - let's start with some JC history. When was your 'tour of duty'?
MS: I started in May of 1987 and worked through January, 1988.This was right after there'd been a major derailment/sinking, and thus we weren't trained how to throw the switches. During the middle of this period--in Sept. I think--JC went down for rehab. Some of us snuck behind the barricades one day and walked along the dry Jungle river.

JGR: What is your favorite jungle cruise moment?
MS: There were a lot. I remember a couple deadheads late at night, back in the slow-moving, pre-Fantasmic Westside, laying out on the bow, looking up through the rainforest canopy at the stars, listening to the sputter of the engine as I idled along, and feeling really thankful that I got to do this for a living. I grew up in Orange, kinda on the wrong side of the freeway, so Disneyland was like this oasis in the middle of all the asphalt and concrete. So since I hadn't gotten to go there much growing up, getting to go there all the time to work...and actually being a *part* of the whole place... I just felt really, really grateful. And with these warm thoughts in my mind, I drifted off to sleep.

Until I hit the squirter.

Other than that, I remember the end of my final shift for Disney... I was on my way to finish up my BA at CSU, Chico. It was a cold night in January, and I was in the lockerroom getting out of my BTR costume (fortunately, they didn't throw me onto the tracks as a last-night ritual). It had been a quiet night on the mountain; I'd kinda hoped we might all go out to Acapulco's or something, but none my "crowd" had been scheduled with me...the night hadn't really worked out to be much of a send-off. There was only one other guy in the locker room,and he was a stranger from Tomorrowland. Nonetheless, we got to talking, and I told him I worked Front/Adv attractions. And he said, "Yeah, I know. A group of us went on the Jungle Cruise a bunch of times last summer, rating the skippers, and you won."
I said, 'Thanks," but I figured there was no way he could remember the face of one skipper that long--we all look alike, you know. But then he quoted me, verbatim, a part of my spiel that I'd created myself... it went like this:

"(Lion's den)
And if you'll look over there on the right, folks, it looks as if the lions have made a kill. Yes, the LIONS have made a KILL!!!
Or, for those of you with little children aboard . . . (sweetly) Mr. Zebra's asleep now.
NAH! Just kidding! (throttle forward) He's DEAD! (laughing) DEADER'N a DOORNAIL!"

Anyway, I was touched that this guy remembered, and touched that the Great Screenwriter in the Sky had worked things out so that this guy would tell me this on my very last night at Disneyland.

JGR: That's great. How about your most embarrassing moment?
MS: Not long after I was trained, they were training another batch of skips, and Louie, one of the trainers, for some reason asks me if I want to ride along on this rookie (I'll call him Bob)'s first with-crew trip. It's a hot summer day, so of course I go. Louie and I, in JC costume, sit up front, making small talk with the guests, mainly families with kids. The rookie is, well, not the brightest skipper I've seen. He's Mr. SOP, with no timing whatsoever, but he's doing everything "correctly," which is usually what you shoot for when your trainer's in the boat. Then we come around to the python in the tree and HE TELLS THE "LONGEST SNAKE IN THE JUNGLE" JOKE! Louie and I look at each other, and his eyes spring open. I don't know whether to jerk the mike out of the kid's hand or roll on the boat floor, laughing.
Of course, no one else on board feels like laughing; a couple of the mothers are glaring at us and grumbling (understandably) about "poor taste." I feel like throwing off my JC clothes to disassociate myself from the kid.
    At Unload, after the guests had all stomped off the boat on their way to City Hall, Louie and I asked the kid what the heck he thought he was doing. He apparently had NO CLUE the joke was considered non-SOP... apparently Louie had mentioned the joke while training him and the kid hadn't caught the "Don't ever tell this except on a Grad Nite love cruise when no one's listening" context. Anyway, somehow the kid and Louie both kept their jobs. Amazing.
One other story involves Larry (the last name escapes...he's the guy who became famous for getting fired for swimming the river). I had just started, and Larry was just training to be a lead. One night he asks me if I'll go with him on the skiff to the temple, where some renegade skips have put those yellow blank shells in rows all along poor Genesha so that it sorta looks like she's wearing Lee Press-On Nails. So, between jungle boats, out we go in the skiff--the only time I ever got to go out in it. When we get there, Larry has me jump out and, in the light of his flashlight, start grabbing the bullets and shoving them in my pockets. Then we hear another boat coming. Larry tells me to hang tight, shuts off the light, and motors away, leaving me standing there on the shore. I don't want to ruin the show, so I run around the back of Genesha and try to hide, but even this is hard to do because I can barely see what I'm doing in the black jungle night.
    So I'm standing there behind Genesha when the boat comes. I can't remember the skipper, but he was a veteran, a good spieler, and a wiseguy. I crouch down as he shines the light on Genesha and spiels... finally, he shuts off the beam and they motor out into the Elephant pool. I'm relieved.
I go around Genesha and gather the rest of the bullets, but Larry's nowhere to be seen. Soon, another boat comes along, and back I go behind Genesha again. But by now, Skipper #1 has come through the Elephant Pool, and he stops the boat and shines his light on my back. I try huddling closer to the cold cement back of Genesha, trying to be invisible, and then he says, "Hey, Mike. What're you doing back there?"
Before I can turn around, or think of a response, one of his crew yells, "He's (RELIEVING HIMSELF)!"

Which causes the boat to roar.

Finally, finally, finally, after two or three more boats come through, and after I've suffered more verbal abuse from skips and crew alike, Larry shows up again in the skiff. He says he couldn't any earlier than he did--the boats were spaced too close together, and he was worried about ruining the show.

JGR: Mike, tell us a little about what you're doing now.

MS: I've had some luck publishing poetry in some magazines and journals. Some of it recently appeared in a book called *Southern California Handbook* by Kim Weir. One of the poems makes passing reference to Disneyland, but I have a couple actually set there, or right nearby, and I'm hoping maybe one of them can make it into print in the next edition.

Right now, actually, as I type this, I'm in the midst of writing a travel guide. It'll be called *South Carolina Handbook,* about 350pp, and should be out in June, 1999. I've also got a screenplay getting used as a doorstop, no doubt, at several reputable agencies and production houses in Hollywood.

I also teach English at CSU, Chico. Before that I taught at the Citadel in South Carolina, back when Shannon Faulkner was walking the halls. And I edit and write copy for Moon Travel Handbooks. Actually, I work too much right now, but it's an exciting time. I'll relax later.

JGR: Wow! Do you ever think about how being a former skipper helps you in your work now (if it does)?

MS: Well, of course we all know how useful it is in later life to know how to fire blanks at --no, pardon me, OVER-- a fiberglass hippo. Why, just the other day, I was driving up from Sacramento with some friends, and suddenly I noticed a fiberglass hippo driving a Subaru Outback in the next lane over, ears wiggling... fortunately, I had my trusty pistol in the glovebox, loaded with blanks. I fired a couple warning shots and scared 'em right off the road and into a drainage ditch where, like Bubbles, he drowned.

Unfortunately, later that day, plexiglass natives at the Dunnigan Rest Area ambushed us, killing two of my passengers.

I guess the most use I get out of my previous experience is getting to say I worked at Disneyland. And getting to say I worked on the JC is even better. That's been an opening lots of places. I can think of at least two jobs where that definitely helped. They've got all these people with the same qualifications as you but, hey, you have this really interesting thing on your resume'/vitae.

And the other day I was in South Carolina, driving a boat around Lake Hartwell, and doing pretty well, and I realized I hadn't piloted a boat since you-know-where. Of course, while my throttling was superb, my steering skills were a bit rusty...

JGR: How often do you get back to the jungle, and what are your thoughts when you go?

MS: I get down there once every few years, seemingly ONLY on the 4th of July. I'm sure it'll be more often when my son gets a little older--he was just born last October. When I'm in the jungle, my thoughts are usually, "I sure wish I'd taken pictures." I mean, now that I have a child, I really wish I had a picture of me in JC costume--or any of the Adv./Front. attractions) to show him. I don't know why I never had one taken... I didn't even show up for the group shoot at the end of summer. What's sad, of course, is that my mug (like all of ours) is probably sitting inside a bunch of Guests' photo albums all across the US, Japan, and Europe, but I'll never get to see those.

So there's my bit of unsolicited advice to current Skips--take pictures! One minute of feeling uncool vs 50 years of regret...you decide.

JGR: Good advice, Mike - and thanks again for doing this - you've shared some great stories with us! Good luck with your next book!

If you or someone you know is a Present or Former Skipper who would be a great (or heck, even marginally interesting) Feature Interview, let us know!