As a movie based on an attraction in Disneyland, "Jungle Cruise" is chock full of Easter eggs and
other small nods to the ride's Adventureland home. Here are some you may have missed.
A fictional character in the Jungle Cruise/Adventureland universe,
Dr. Albert Falls was introduced in the attraction
as a joke - the namesake of the famous Schweitzer Falls, which he "discovered."
Albert Falls' characterization grew with the expansion of the Jungle Cruise backstory in 2015.
Now, Albert's books and other items found on his travels are featured
on shelves in the Skipper Canteen restaurant, and there's a bronze
bust of the famed fictional explorer in Trader Sam's at the Disneyland Hotel.
In the "Jungle Cruise" film, Dr. Albert Falls is an offscreen character whose travel documents,
maps, and an arrowhead are sought after by Dr. Lily Houghton and Prince Joachim
in their search for the coveted healing tree. In the beginning of the movie,
Lily breaks into and snoops around an English archaeological society's archives and finds
the arrow she's looking for inside a crate labeled with "Dr. A. Falls." Albert Falls
is also briefly mentioned a couple of other times in the film when Lily and Frank are
discussing the exploration of the Amazon and the search for the "tears of the moon."
Founded by the aforementioned Dr. Albert Falls, the Jungle Navigation Company Ltd. is a fictional
business set within the Adventureland and Jungle Cruise world of Disney parks.
It's the parent company and operator of the Jungle Cruise tours of the world's rivers
and also boasts the popular Skipper Canteen mess hall-style eatery. The company was introduced to
Disneyland's and Magic Kingdom's Adventureland as part of updates to the parks in the 1990s.
The Jungle Navigation Company's Skipper Canteen menu is also full of nods to the Jungle Cruise
attraction, including dishes named after Albert Falls and the attraction's boats. There's also
a "Not Piranha" sustainable fish dish, which is made all the more funny after seeing Frank serve
up fresh piranha in the "Jungle Cruise" movie. In the film, a sign bearing the Jungle Navigation
Company Ltd. logo can be seen at the docks as Frank tries to get out of paying Nilo.
Fans of Disneyland's Enchanted Tiki Room were likely thrilled
to see a brief but memorable "Jungle Cruise" cameo by Rosita the cockatoo.
The white-feathered Rosita is one of the "showgirl birds" who appear in the attraction and sing
"Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing." However, Rosita's spot on the mobile is empty because she
left the group for adventures elsewhere. She now inhabits various spots around Disneyland,
including the Tropical Hideaway and a riverside cage on the Jungle Cruise attraction.
In the "Jungle Cruise" film, Paul Giamatti's character, Nilo,
has a pet cockatoo named Rosita, who repeatedly squawks the memorable line "Frank owes me money."
It's the eighth wonder of the world and one of the greatest continuous jokes in theme park ride
history: the backside of water. Jungle Cruise ride fans will laugh at this joke no matter how many
times they've heard it and seen the other side of the famous Schweitzer Falls. Boat skippers
tell passengers they like to call it "O2H." In the "Behind the Attraction" series on Disney+,
imagineers behind the Jungle Cruise ride and some longtime skippers said the backside of
water joke is an essential part of the experience. If the joke isn't told,
guests will remind the skippers of their misstep. Likewise, including the backside of water joke was
a must for the "Jungle Cruise" film. It was featured prominently in the first trailer:
"Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've been waiting for ... the backside of water."
That joke, and all the others Frank deadpans, elicit groans and eye rolls from the tourists.
In a similar nod to the human-made river cruise at Disneyland, the character Frank is shown to
have rigged many of the tricks in the water and along the shore to give his boat tour a
more adventurous feel. To create the backside of water, he put together a system of water troughs
and pulleys to produce a small waterfall at the best moment to deliver the one-liner.
The Jungle Cruise ride we know and love today isn't the same one that ferried passengers
along the world's rivers on Disneyland's opening day in 1955. For almost a decade,
nature and wildlife education was the focus of the original Jungle Cruise attraction.
The corny "dad jokes" and dry humor didn't make it into the ride until the 1960s.
Alongside the backside of water, skippers now make jokes about a group of lions
eating a zebra "on the rocks" and sharing the meal "with pride." There's also the
Nile crocodile named Ginger who ... snaps. The skippers call her "one tough cookie."
Johnson's character Frank really leans into the punny skipper role in "Jungle Cruise." When he gestures to some sandstone rocks, Frank says
"The rocks you see here are sandstone. But some people just take them for granite."
As Frank continues, his audience's groans
and eye rolls grow in intensity. He even prompts a silent "wow" from one passenger after saying he
got "canned" from his previous job at an orange juice factory because "I couldn't concentrate."
Later in the movie, when Frank, Lily and McGregor are being taken to the village
of native "headhunters," Frank says it's not a great place to "be headed."
The Jungle Cruise wouldn't be the Jungle Cruise without its animatronic animals, especially the
hippos. In the Disneyland ride, the boat slowly moves through the hippo pool while the skipper
tells the passengers to stay still so as not to rock the boat and disturb the massive animals.
At one point, the skipper "fires" a fake pistol to scare some of the hippos away from the boat.
A brief but similar scene happens in the "Jungle Cruise" movie. As
Frank narrates the many ways the Amazon jungle has killed previous explorers,
the boat rumbles past a stationary fake hippo protruding from the water.
Then, as Frank is activating a bunch of his tricks to entertain the passengers, he uses
a pistol kept near the boat's wheel to fire at a rope and unleash the mechanical roaring hippo.
Hippos aren't native to the Amazon region - a fact pointed out by a young girl on the boat,
whom Frank shushes - so they aren't seen again in the rest of the film.
At the beginning of 2021, the Jungle Cruise ride received some major storytelling updates
to get rid of "negative depictions of native people," which included getting
rid of the unofficial Jungle Cruise mascot, the Trader Sam animatronic.
Though Trader Sam had different animatronic iterations in Disneyland and Magic Kingdom,
the character was described by critics as a racist caricature of Indigenous African peoples.
Trader Sam got another revamp in the "Jungle Cruise" movie. In the film, Veronica Falcón
portrays Trader Sam as the leader of the tribe of Indigenous people who guard the healing tree.
She makes several quips about "working" with Frank in playing outdated stereotypes of native peoples
for his river cruise story and how she makes money off of colonial notions of her people.
The portrayal of Trader Sam and her people doesn't always hit the nail on the head when
it comes to reimagining the character. There is a moment when Trader Sam dons Lily's brother's top
hat in a small nod to the Magic Kingdom version of Trader Sam, who's not only holding several
shrunken heads but also wearing one as a necklace. But critics have said the new Trader Sam is a,
quote, "hearty attempt to reimagine a less racist version of the character."
This one may be a bit of a stretch, but Prince Joachim's submarine is strangely
reminiscent of the Nautilus vessel from Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."
Though the interior of the submarine is cold and cramped, Joachim somehow also has extravagant,
luxurious quarters that solidify his bumbling caricature of a colonizing villain.
The famous Nautilus submarine was created by Jules Verne and featured in his 1870 novel "20,000
Leagues Under the Sea" and in the Disney film of the same name from 1954. The Nautilus is shaped
like a fish and has a shingled ramming fern at the bow. Joachim's submarine boasts a similar serrated
ramming fern at its bow, but so did many other German UB-II-type submarines during World War I.
Magic Kingdom at Disney World had a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attraction that featured a 20-minute
submarine ride aboard an adapted version of Nautilus, but the ride was shuttered in 1994.
The 1951 adventure classic "The African Queen" is one of the key elements that inspired the layout
and storytelling of the original Jungle Cruise boat ride in Disneyland. Seventy years later, its
inspiration lives on in the "Jungle Cruise" film. The film is based on the 1935 novel of the same
name and stars Humphrey Bogart as a skipper ferrying a woman played by Katharine Hepburn
down a river in a boat named the African Queen. The movie is also set during World
War I and has long been heralded by critics as thrilling, adventurous,
and funny with a hint of lighthearted romance. While "Jungle Cruise" is obviously based on
the theme park attraction, it clearly also takes inspiration from "The African Queen."
Looper's review of the film said Johnson's Frank "looks like the human growth hormone version
of Bogart" with Blunt's character giving "her ambitious scientist a little glint of Hepburn."
Frank also sports a nearly identical skipper outfit to Bogart's Charlie Allnut,
complete with a red scarf tied around his neck and a black-billed white cap.
The design of Frank's creaky, hodgepodge riverboat also pays homage to Charlie's African Queen.
Though "Jungle Cruise" is set in 1916, it does have a nod to "Disney's True-Life Adventure"
nature documentaries, which premiered in the late 1940s, ran through 1960, and inspired the
original Jungle Cruise attraction at Disneyland. During a quieter moment in "Jungle Cruise,"
Blunt's character Lily uses a box camera to capture motion pictures of the wildlife and
scenery of the jungle while sailing down the Amazon River. She captures soundless,
black and white shots of butterflies, birds, and foliage while Johnson's Frank stares in awe.
He's never seen a motion picture camera before, so Lily lets him try it out.
Lily also explains the excitement of motion pictures and how they can bring
any place in the world right to you. It's a similar sentiment shared by Walt Disney and
his team when shooting and sharing the "True-Life Adventure" features as well
as creating the Jungle Cruise ride. Both the feature and attraction were made to bring the
world to an audience — and give that audience a greater appreciation for wildlife and nature.
Yes, veteran heavy metal rockers Metallica reworked an orchestral version of "Nothing
Else Matters" for a key scene in Disney's "Jungle Cruise" movie.
It's an unexpected but delightful detail that somehow fits in a flashback scene set in the
mid-1500s with Spanish conquistadors and a tribe of Indigenous people in the Amazonian rainforest.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich talked about the Disney collaboration in September 2020,
saying it goes back to "lifelong rock fan" Sean Bailey, who is Disney's production president.
Ulrich worked with "Jungle Cruise" score composer James Newton Howard to rearrange "Nothing Else
Matters" into a piece that's instrumental to the dark, frenzied scene. In an interview
with Collider, Ulrich said the version is a "very unusual" morph of the iconic song.
The flashback scene is quick and feels a bit jammed with a lot of plot points that can be
hard to follow, but the new arrangement of "Nothing Else Matters" is a dizzying,
welcome addition to a score otherwise filled with spirited adventure ballads.
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