Adventureland Day with Side Trip to the World of Tomorrow!
On how this correspondent's dreams come true through two unofficial Disneyland events.
I went searching for a taste of the retro-future and found myself in the imagined past. You see, it was Adventureland Day at Disneyland and its call was irresistible.
Here’s what happened.
Not too many months ago, Alex Stewart — the host of my favorite Disneyland podcast, The Backside of Water — began suggesting on a few forums that an event might be brewing at Disneyland during the first weekend of March. Initially, it was to be a sort of open house for fans of the podcast to meet the hosts and visit the Howard Johnson Anaheim’s new retro-future themed “House of the Retro-Future Suite” loosely themed around the early Disneyland attraction Monsanto’s House of the Future (1957–1967).
Now if you know anything about me, you will know that I am a Tomorrowland guy. I literally have an Adventure Thru Inner Space (1967–1985) tattoo! So, the impulse to visit this new suite, which had been under construction the last time I was at the parks, was strong. Likewise, the impulse to meet Alex, who I had interacted with online and who seemed a swell guy, in person was quite a draw. And there was that new Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway attraction that I was dying to ride. Still, a six-hour drive, plus the costs of a hotel room, plus park tickets, plus food: the scales had not quite tipped yet.
But then they got tipped and tipped good. The open house turned into an open house plus a live taping of the show and the day following that event turned out to be, for the first time in three years, Adventureland Day at Disneyland! I was in.
So after getting my hotel and park tickets set up (Thanks, Jill at TouringPlans.com!) I had to figure out some sort of adventuring costume. Being a Tomorrowland guy made this a little tough, but I found something that looked vaguely Skipper-ish (kinda like The Rock with 4000 fewer push-ups) and I was good to go.
When I arrived at the HoJo Anaheim, I was lucky enough to bump into Heather, the woman doing P.R. for the new suite. She explained to me that it had been a pet project for the owner of this particular Howard Johnson’s and that “this is what his actual house is like!” She led me up into a room packed with Backside of Water fans and its hosts where a giddy hubbub floated around the mid-century modern rooms. I saw a few people I recognized from the BSOW social media that I am on as well as Alex and co-host Freddy Martin (freddymartin.net). Everyone was busy, mid-chat, so I walked through the suite with a sort of personal guided tour by Heather.
They’ve done a remarkable job of integrating modern conveniences into a room that seems like it is straight out of a 1962 modernist design catalog. It has a large living room space, a bedroom space with two queen-sized beds, and a compact and efficient kitchenette; all with remarkable early-60's sci-fi flourishes.
After meeting Alex and Freddy and having a bunch of Disney-nerd discussions with a gaggle of new friends, we all retired down to a conference room and sat in on the recording of not one, but TWO episodes of The Backside of Water; one of which featured old-school fan legend Dusty Sage, the founder of MiceChat.com.
Laughs were had. Trivia questions were answered (“What Disneyland attraction featured the Kaiser Pig?”) and prizes were won. Your humble correspondent even found himself privileged to join the BSOD crew on mike for a bit.
After this quick photo at the end of the recording, we all headed back to our respective lodgings to prepare for the next morning, Adventureland Day!
Arriving at the park I headed to the lockers on Main Street U.S.A. where there were quite a few folks in pith helmets and expedition gear sequestering their backpacks and sundries away. Then it was a slow saunter towards Adventureland where folks had begun to gather. I ran into some folks from the previous day’s BSOW get-together and we all milled about outside the Tahitian Terrace- I mean Aladdin’s Oasis- I mean Tropical Hideaway! Eventually, quite a horde of explorers and Amelia Earharts and Indys and Professor Jones Sr.’s and Tiger Women and, well, Adventurers had gathered. Spirits were high, in spite of the light drizzle, and pictures were taken of the group before we headed into one of the most seminal of all theme park attractions, Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room.
Before we go deeper into the jungle, let’s take a pause to discuss the history of Adventureland Day. Founded in 2018 by the great Tiki Tony, Adventureland Day is an unofficial event at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World where folks can wear costumes and take on identities inspired by any part of the extended Adventureland mythology. It usually happens on the first Sunday in March. While the modern take on the characters that populate the not QUITE canon — but oft-referenced — backstory of the multiple Adventureland and Adventureland-like spaces across the worldwide Disney parks seems to have its origin in the Tokyo DisneySea attraction Fortress Explorations and that tour’s references to “The S.E.A.” (The Society of Explorers and Adventurers), the spiritual antecedent to the lore is the long gone and much lamented Adventurers Club — a themed nightclub which opened on Pleasure Island at the Walt Disney World resort in 1989.
The Adventurers Club was a highly themed environment with audio-animatronics, puppets, in-character walkaround performers, and a rich narrative. It was designed to appear as a private club for explorers set in 1937; a little like a Disney-fied Rick’s Café Américain from Casablanca. It is from The Adventurers Club that we get the all-purpose greeting “Kungaloosh!” (not only a greeting but the name of a potent libation that was served at the club) as well as the Adventureland Day theme song. Though closed in 2008, The Adventurers Club lives on with its props being spread as far as Hong Kong to rest in S.E.A. member Henry Mystic’s Mystic Manor attraction as well as the Disneyland Resort’s Trader Sam’s bar.
Back to the Tiki Room!
Here’s a thing that is unique about Disneyland. The cast members are often heavily invested in their attraction, particularly if it is a vintage piece like The Enchanted Tiki Room or the Jungle Cruise. With that in mind, you can imagine how thrilled the host to the show was when the room, rarely filling to more than a quarter of its capacity, was packed to the gills at 10:30 in the morning.
“Aloha,” said the gentleman.
“Aloha!!!!!” replied the crowd with not insignificant gusto.
“Awesome.”
The cast member watched us sing along with the birds, flowers, and tiki idols and his grin was a mile wide the whole time. So was mine.
After the birds had sung their words and the flowers had crooned (There were quite a few of us and I’m not ashamed to admit that I circled around and joined in with two separate groups.) we met outside for a trip through the jungle rivers of the world! Now, the Jungle Cruise certainly has no problem staying busy during the day, but the standard compliment of skippers per boat is usually one.
Not on Adventureland Day!
Each boat, as it left the dock, found itself inundated with ex-skippers as the Adventurelanders cycled through. The woman actually piloting our craft, Skipper Alicia, rose to the challenge of the deadliest of all jungle predators, the uninvited ex-skipper, and hit the enthusiastic boat with a rapid-fire monologue that had us all laughing and breathless. (It was fast and packed with so many jokes that I don’t think I caught half of them! Brilliant job, Skip.)
By this point in the day, the crowd of explorers and adventurers had swollen and, as we all headed down to the Main Street U.S.A. Train Station to take a definitive group picture of the group, it became clear that some rapid-fire reorganizing was going to need to come into play. Several of the folks running the unofficial event were busy lining us up on all levels of the station and trying to get a camera positioned in a way that could encompass the entire crowd. We were running out of time as the group was beginning to become a roadblock at the foot of Main Street U.S.A. when, Disney being Disney, a park photographer leaped onto the scene and helped, grabbing a bunch of panoramic shots that captured all of us. Nice fella. We were all able to go to the gentleman and scan our phones or our Magic Bands and have the entire set downloaded to each one of us.
Given that the event was not sanctioned by the park it is especially wonderful that they were enthusiastic, gracious, and helpful all day. As we were reminded prior to the event, “The Cast Members are the stars,” and they were and we treated them as such.
After this was the scavenger hunt. The group organizing the hunt supplied maps and instructions and we were off. Clues texted to us as we progressed led us to spot after spot throughout the park finally depositing us near Pooh’s Hunny Hunt to receive the promised treasure: an adorable little doubloon of a coin commemorating the day.
Freddy Martin led us all in an impromptu Adventurer’s Club theme song and then folks got prepared for the final event for the day, a trip with the the saltiest mob of knaves to sail the Spanish Main!
Except, we weren’t done! Leaving New Orleans Square, the Backside of Water guys offered a little lagniappe for their fans and friends. Freddy Martin, who is currently documenting as much of the S.E.A. legend as he possibly can, met a number of us near the — still under construction — Adventureland Treehouse and took us on a tour of references to the Society and its members throughout Adventureland and Frontierland. We had a wonderful time exploring clues that referenced Dr. Albert Falls and his granddaughter, Alberta; Henry Mystic and his monkey, Albert; and other characters with whom you might cross paths as you follow your destiny to ADVENTURE!
After this, it was time to say our goodbyes. While Freddy seemed to still have boundless energy, it was time for this adventurer to begin the trek back home. Hands were shaken, hugs were given, Kungalooshes were wished, and promises to try and meet again next year for more adventuring were made.
It was an exhausting weekend, but from the future of the past to the promise of more adventures from the past in the future, it was wonderful.
Those of us who grew up with Disneyland in our lives will usually have an era that most represents what we love about the park. This can be a very personal sort of nostalgia. I first went to Disneyland in the late-70s and can remember Fantasyland before it was a Bavarian village and Tomorrowland when it was still flirting with its mid-century modern design aesthetic and when Critter Country was a “Bears Only” club. Wonderful things happened after that, but that Disneyland of the ’70s and ‘80s was MY Disneyland. And I assumed that it was lost to time and memory. But when I see hundreds of people dressed up for the park and smiling and enjoying themselves in a way that is complete without cynicism, I realize that there is a through-line — a consistency — that exists through all of our personal Disneylands; something we all share that draws us to the park as a community, as friends.
I made a lot of friends over the Adventureland Day weekend, people who carry the banner of my Disneyland as I also carry theirs. As I walked down Main Street U.S.A. to re-enter the “real” world, my eyes misted and a lump formed in my throat and I felt re-connected to a 10-year-old kid who had been watching the Bicentennial parade march down this exact same street over four-decades ago.
Smiling, that kid and I decided to grab some ice cream on the way out.
It would be remiss of me to end this not acknowledging the tremendous debt all of us at Adventureland Day owe to the great Rolly Crump who passed away on March 13th. It is not hyperbole when I say that he was amongst the greatest of Imagineers. Deeply involved in the look and design of Adventureland he was also a prime force in the design of the Haunted Mansion, It’s a Small World (with Mary Blair), and The Enchanted Tiki Room, within which us Adventurers had a robust sing-along just a few days before he died.
Much of the look that we associate with the Disney parks is rooted in Crump’s unfettered aesthetic and his continued calls for the parks to remain the creative domain of individual artists with strong personalities were both inspiring and necessary and I hope will still be heard long after his passing.
So let’s leave the last word to him.
“Disneyland has charm. Disneyland freaking hugs you and kisses you.”
— Rolly Crump
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Kelly McCubbin is a columnist for Boardwalk Times
