Jungle Cruise fan site pays tribute to ‘back side of water’

My new favorite website is worldfamousjunglecruise.com, dedicated to the original 1955 Disneyland ride that has been transplanted to many other Disney parks over the years.

The tribute website is the brainchild of Brodie Brockie, 35, of Michigan, who won a 2007 Disney Dream Job as a Jungle Cruise skipper and turned his passion into pixels.

Brockie loves the inherent variety and irreverent humor of the riverboat journey through the jungles of Asia, Africa and South America.

“Some skippers play up the wackiness, some tell the jokes as dryly as possible,” Brockie said. “Some treat the ride like a stand-up comedian’s stage, and others play a skipper character as a serious adventurer who doesn’t seem aware that most of what he or she is saying is ludicrous.”

World Famous Jungle Cruise aims to match the devotion of other websites dedicated to single attractions like Doom Buggies (Haunted Mansion) and Tell No Tales (Pirates of the Caribbean).

The website features an interview with the most famous skipper of them all (Pixar’s John Lasseter), rumors of a big-screen movie adaptation a la “Pirates” and vintage video of Ed Sullivan taking a fake blue-screen trip along the river.

I do have a few criticisms. The website lacks a blog or a forum — essential elements to driving repeat visitors. And I believe “Back Side of Water” would have made a much better name.

There are plans for providing attraction histories, biographies of ride creators and videos of skipper spiels.

Find the latest amusement and theme park news at the
Los Angeles Times Funland blog: www.latimes.com/funland.

— Brady MacDonald, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

[Image: Disney]

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 10:00 am by Brady MacDonald and is filed under Disneyland, Family & Kids, San Diego, Theme Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.