Originally Posted By AutoPost This topic is for Discussion of <a href="http://www.laughingplace.com/News-ID10033330.asp" target="_blank"><b>Latest: Worlds Best Disney Jungle Cruise Skippers 'Spiel' Their Way to Tokyo Disney Resort</b></a> <p style="text-align: center;"> </p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://laughingplace.com/files/latest/20090331-1.jpg" width="350" height="232" /></p> <p style="text-align: left;">Earning distinction as two of the worlds best Jungle Cruise skippers, Walt Disney World Resort Cast Members Beth Schafer and Alex Williams were recently chosen to represent the resort at Tokyo Disney Resorts 25th Anniversary Celebration. Emerging from their helm in the darkest wilds of the Magic Kingdom, Schafer and Williams earned their overseas excursion thanks to their knack for spinning humorous spiels and stories. They competed against 35 skippers to win their spots, auditioning in front of a panel of judges from Walt Disney World and Walt Disney Imagineering who scored them on performance and punch lines. In Anaheim, Jungle Cruise skippers Kevin Lively and Mickey Wright were chosen as representatives of the Disneyland Resort.</p> <p style="text-align: left;"> </p>
Originally Posted By Anatole69 Seriously, they should be doing this every year and hold the meeting for the winners at a different park each time. - Anatole
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I heard about this (well the DL ones) a few weeks ago and thought it was really cool. Apparently, as part of the 25th anniversary, TDL is granting the wishes of 25 CM's. One of those wishes was to have a meeting with skippers from all the different Jungle Cruises around the world. I don't know what the other ones were, but this one sure seems pretty cool!
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Shame there will be no representation from Paris. We don't have a Jungle Cruise :-(
Originally Posted By Bob Paris Sending WDW cms to TDL is a fairly dangerous thing to do! They may realize what a dire mess the MK is in and come back and spread the word!
Originally Posted By CarolinaDisneyDad Well, it's good that Disney realizes the importance of the skippers on Jungle Cruise. Wish the Land was still live.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 That's a pretty sad statement when even HK Disneyland has a jungle cruise but not DLP. haha. Someone should post links to youtube videos of their favorite jungle cruise skippers. I remember seeing footage of a really great one in HKDL. - Anatole
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Their costumes are MUCH improved from when I was working at WDW in the early 90s. From time to time I wore a shirt or shorts that had come from Disneyland! Great opportunity for those Skippers who don't make a great deal of money and are likely going to experience a once in a lifetime trip!
Originally Posted By Anatole69 That's why I am saying they really should consider doing this once a year or once every other year. Since the ride is so reliant upon the cast members, having the competetion will make them sharper at their speil, and meeting the other skippers will give them the chance to share routines. Win Win. - Anatole
Originally Posted By MPierce Congradulations to the winning skippers. After all they make or break this attraction. Just once I would like to hear the Jungle Cruise spiel done in Japanese. Maybe they thought the Continent was much to sophisticated for JC Dave.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Nope, the problem was multifaceted. A lot of European parks had already ripped off the Jungle Cruise idea and tableu. Then there is the weather element - a lot of the boat rides (except PotC and IASW) have to close in the winter due to the ice and snow, and then there is the language issue with 20 languages spoken within a 5 hour travel radius.
Originally Posted By MPierce I completely forgot the language issue. Somehow I don't think it would come off the same way if you had headphones on listening to a translator. I think we need a world language. I vote for English since it would be the easiest for me to learn.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 English already is the world language, de facto. Mandarin might become that, at least I have heard speculation about it before, but I don't expect it to happen simply because written Chinese takes too long to learn in comparison to English. - Anatole
Originally Posted By trekkeruss The JC @ TDL is of course done in Japanese. One of my favorite memories from my trip during the 10th anniversary was taking a guided tour. I was the only person on the English language tour, so it was a bit like a VIP tour. My guide, Tomoko let me choose which attractions I wanted to experience; one of them was the JC, because I wanted her to translate the jokes.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 ^^ Nice. I took a couple of my Japanese friends on Jungle Cruise at DL but I think it didn't work for them because they didn't understand the jokes. You really have to have a high level of fluency before you can pick up a lot of the humor of a culture. They also didn't get the Muppet film at DCA, I think it was a language thing again. - Anatole
Originally Posted By The Duck Last January, I was fortunate enough to have a young man named Ian as my skipper. We almost wet ourselves laughing. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfNfMMAbQWk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...fMMAbQWk</a> This is a small sample of his work. This guy is hilarious!
Originally Posted By Disneymom443 I'm glad that these CM's are finnaly getting the recognition they deserve. My DH and I love this attration. We are one of those that have that kind of sense of humor. Duck, that guy was pretty funny, I wish I could have seen the whole thing. (spiel that is)
Originally Posted By FerretAfros With the language issue, they managed to work with it in HKDL. With the English version, it seemed to be pretty much anyone who wasn't from China (the other options were Mandarin and Cantonese), so there were a lot of non-native English speakers on the boat. The jokes were more situational than the word play that we're used to in the US (like telling a zebra's gender if it's black with white stripes or white with black stripes). There were a couple jokes that I heard there that I thought were great and I'm a little sad that I haven't heard them at DL (let's count the five giant spiders...1...2...3...4...where's the last one?...Oh my gosh! *points in the boat* I love your shoes!), but most of them were pretty forgetable. And I just found this video on Youtube of a skipper named Chris who is absolutley hillarious. Most of the jokes are new to me (though I'm more of a DL native), and I definately laughed several times, if not continuously. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfB6sWMTQwU&feature=related" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...=related</a>
