Temple Cold Open And Setup

SPEAKER_09 0:05

Becoming India. Fiction becomes fact as the mysterious subcontinent reveals a legendary treasure. After 2,000 years, the lost temple of the forbidden eye has been unearthed by famed archaeologist Dr. Henry Indiana Jones.

Why This Ride Matters

Kelly 0:40

Hello and welcome to The Lowdown on the Plus Up, a podcast where we look at everyone's favorite theme park attractions, lands, textures, and novelties. We talk in, over, about, and through our week's topic, and then, with literally no concern for practicality, safety, or economic viability, we come up with ways to make them better. My name is Kelly McCubbin, columnist for the theme park website Boardwalk Times, and with me as always is Peter Overstreet, University Professor of Animation and Film History in Northern California.

Pete 1:19

Hey Pete! Yes, sir.

Kelly 1:21

What are we talking about today?

Pete 1:23

Well, today we're gonna be traveling into the deepest, darkest jungles of Disneyland because we're gonna be joining that intrepid adventurer Indiana Jones on Indiana Jones Adventure, otherwise known as Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. One of my absolute favorites. I mean, I have we'll go into it later, but I have a particular love for this franchise and uh a lot of deep personal connections involved in it, so this is gonna be a real fun episode.

Kelly 1:51

I uh you know, I took my kid on this like when they were five. It was sort of it was against my better judgment, but we decided to do it. Then again, like when they were ten, we went on it, and the first thing they said to me is we got off of the ride, and they enjoyed it. They really liked it. Oh, sure. Just looked at me and said, You took me on that when I was five? I admit poor parenting.

Pete 2:25

But they're doing all right. Yeah. So, I mean, we may mention them. The the main focus of this episode is just because there's a lot to discuss. A lot. Um we're not really going to be going into the Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland Paris, which is like the minecart ride. Yep. Uh even though there's uh there will be some mention of that. Uh there is talk uh of future endeavors. Uh yeah, there's one being built in Florida in Animal Kingdom right now. Yep. Yeah. So we will discuss some of that, but we're not this is this is like our many of our deep dives. This is a deep dive into the history that in the influences and the promises of the Temple of the Forbidden Eye.

Kelly 3:04

And no, it's interesting because you you mentioned at the beginning uh the Indiana Jones Adventure, otherwise known as Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, which was what I always thought it was called. Yeah. And it was only recently that I was like, oh, it's actually just called the Indiana Jones Adventure. That's it. Pete and I just saw Tony Baxter, who is the imagineer who created this ride as many others. Yep. Um, and he someone asked him about the name of the ride, the Indiana Jones Adventure, and his answer was, I hate it.

Ride Name Confusion And Scope

Pete 3:39

He loves the ride, he hates that name. Yeah. Let's talk about the origin of the character of Indiana Jones himself. Yeah. And we begin with a trip with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg going to Hawaii. Yeah. Because they would go on these trips to kind of hide from Hollywood and whenever they would open up on one of their films, and they would take their families out there just to kind of get away from it all. Yeah. But then their agents or the lawyers would call them in and say, Oh, yeah, it's a blockbuster, or nope, yeah, probably shouldn't have put Howard the Duck out there. I mean. So I think it was for Empire Strikes Back, you know, resting out on the on the beach, and uh George looked over to Stephen and said, Oh, I what are you working on now? That's my terrible George Lucas. You have to do the halfway Her Kermit the Frog. You have to do a you have to do a mirthless laugh after everything.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Oh yeah, it's it's totally the way he wants.

Pete 4:42

Sorry, that's my bad George Lucas.

Kelly 4:44

And like famously, like the the two of them were were very close. Like Spielberg was the person who actually told Lucas that Star Wars was gonna work after pretty much everybody else in the screening room walked out hiding their face.

Pete 4:58

Yeah, very much. Yeah. So they they trust each other, and they got to talking around, like, okay, well, what are you gonna do now? And I guess George asked Spielberg, like, what do you got planned now? And Spielberg said, You know what? I've always wanted to do is I always wanted to do a James Bond movie. Because he he loved the Connery Bonds. He really wanted to do like a really cool spy thriller. Yep. Wanted to do some sort of some sort of action adventure film, and he goes, Bond, I would love to do a Bond movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

And I guess George said, I got one better.

Pete 5:28

Wait, it's it's a story about an archaeologist who hunts for supernatural items, and it's all built around the cliffhangers of the old Republic serials of the 30s and 40s. Yeah. The character is an archaeologist, but he's also an action star, and he's trying to rescue an artifact from the Nazis because of Hitler's interest in the occult at the time. And Spielberg's like, okay, that sounds cool. Who is this character? He goes, Well, it's a character I've named him Indiana Smith. And Spielberg goes, I love it. It's a great idea. I don't like the name. Yeah. And he goes, Okay, well, ha ha ha, what would you name it? And he goes, How about Indiana Jones? And they they kind of made this agreement that they were going to work on it together. George kind of come up with the plot, Steven really becoming the backbone of the direction of it. Yeah. And they made an agreement that they were not going to spend a lot of money. Like this was not going to be Star Wars because they wanted it to feel like they wanted to feel like the old Republic serials.

Kelly 6:29

Right. And it's interesting too because they would have been kind of the last generation that would have remembered seeing those serials in a movie theater. Our generation, we saw them sometimes on like morning TV or Saturday mornings. They would show the hangers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Yeah.

Kelly 6:47

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you'd occasionally see Flash Gordon or you know whatever, but they would have been the last generation that would have remembered it. Which is interesting because Raiders of the Lost Ark being as big a hit as it was, was a hit with people who weren't all that familiar with the kind of things that they were they were interpreting.

Pete 7:04

It was a big, big hit. And before before we move forward just a little bit, I want to talk about some of that that formula for cereals. So for those of you who are Yeah, me too. No offense. Too young.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

You're too young to understand what a cereal was like.

Kelly 7:21

You gin PDQ, I don't know.

Lucas And Spielberg Create Indy

SPEAKER_02 7:24

I used to be hip. Then I was no longer hip. Then I broke my hip. Then I broke my hip. Now I don't know what hip is. I just want some attention.

Kelly 7:37

Well then I had it replaced.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yeah.

Pete 7:44

So um the the the the shorts were made to be filler, basically, because this is from the day in which you could buy a ticket for a movie theater and you could stay in the movie theater the whole day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That became a model mostly because of the depression. Yeah. Because people needed a place to get out of the rain, get out of the heat. So the air-conditioned theater at the Paramount. Yeah. And the roster was basically consisted of a newsreel, a cartoon or two, and then they would show serials. And the reason is because, especially on Saturdays. Because Saturdays, that's when the kids were kicked out of the house. Like, get out of the house, here's a nickel, go see a movie, get away from me. Mom and dad need to make more baby boomers. Get out of the house. And uh a lot of the films were very simple themed when it comes to the serials. And the serial structure works like this. You have some sort of introduction at the very beginning where you're introduced to all the characters, a rapid succession of either photographs or quick little video clips saying, Oh, uh, Buster Crab is Flash Gordon. Uh-huh. Popalong Cassidy is the Waco kid, you know, whatever. And Gene Autry in the Phantom Empire.

Kelly 8:59

Right. Which is really one of the weirdest serials you're ever going to see. That thing is crazy.

Pete 9:05

Oh, yes. Tom Tyler is the Phantom. Yeah. Right. You know, and then they would have some sort of recap saying, in our last episode, the Phantom was wandering through the jungles of Tuganda. Yeah. Yeah. Searching for the Sang Brotherhood. But he has been ambushed by the villain. And then it shows like what happened the last 30 seconds of the previous episode, where you know the phantom falls into some quicksand. And then it cuts to some really badly dressed actor in a jungle outfit, going, Phantom cut in quicksand. Yeah. Look, crocodile coming. And then it would show some sort of like stock footage of a crocodile that was probably taken by Marion C. Cooper back in the 20s. Yes. And then they would have a plastic crocodile moving closer as Tom Tyler's in this quicksand. And then Tom Tyler whistles for his dog, Devil, and who's played by Rintin Tin.

SPEAKER_07 9:58

Oh, great. Rintin Tin was the bigger the bigger star in the world. Rintin Tin was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. He really was. He's huge. I mean, dude. And he was a dog. I know.

Pete 10:09

And he and he escapes. Yeah. Right. But every episode, and then they would progress the story just a little bit more. There's usually some sort of action beat right in the middle, some sort of fight, or some sort of puzzle, or some sort of booby trap, or some other type of bit of mystery. And then it ends once again with Will our heroes survive the giant flaming razor blades of death? Come in next week when you'll see the next episode of The Phantom. And you'd have to wait a whole week in order to see the next serial. Right. And sometimes in some locations, you had to wait two weeks because it took a long time for the serials to get to your neighborhood. Yeah. But these would be played town to town, and basically how it was booked is the theater would book all 12 episodes. They would film everything. So it wasn't like they were making it on the fly. No. They made the whole film. So Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. Well, not always, though.

Republic Serials And Cliffhanger DNA

Kelly 11:06

Really? And so this is interesting. I actually wanted to tie it in. Do you know what the longest running serial ever was? No. The most episodes? The Hazards of Helen. The Hazards of Helen? The Hazards of Helen. And this actually ties in to our Big Thunder Mountain episode. Yes, it does. Because if anyone who uh was around two episodes ago and stuck with us, my God, thank you. Um the we talked about the animatronic owl Hoot Gibson. Yes. And Hoot Gibson was named after an actual uh old silent film, Western Star. Silent and later uh sound film for a little while, Western Star. Named Hoot Gibson. Nice. And Hoot Gibson was married to this woman whose name uh originally was uh Rose Wenger. So Rose Wenger was a fascinating person. She lived up in the Northeast somewhere, I can't remember exactly where. She heard, this is this is like 1909. Okay. She she hears about how you can go down to Oklahoma, learn how to ride, and become part of a Wild West show. So she just goes. Like her and a friend of hers. They just go to Oklahoma, move there, no experience, and become uh trick horse riders in Wild West show. That's so cool. Rose Wenger does this for a while. Eventually, that they they tour around the world, she's really, really good at it. Like surprisingly good at it. As they're going for a while, she meets up with Hoot Gibson. Right. She and Hoot are not in love, but they figure out that as the company tours around the country, special preferences given to married couples for lodging. Uh-huh. So Rose Winger becomes Rose Gibson. Could they get married so that they can now have better lodging as they go tour their Wild West show around? And during the off-season, what happens is they go down to Venice, California, where they are stabling the horses in the off-season. Yeah. Thomas Ince, the great silent film producer, is paying to have all of the horses stabled and to keep these people there so he can then use them as extras. Uh-huh. And eventually stunt people. Uh-huh. So Rose Winger, or at this point, Rose Gibson, starts to become a stunt woman. Uh-huh. She becomes one of Hollywood's first and most prolific silent stunt women. So she gets a job in this uh serial called The Hazards of Helen. Nice. The Hazards of Helen starts in 1914. It's incredibly popular. Wow. And this is, by the way, um, I get a lot of this from Mallory O'Meara's book, The Daughter of Danger. Yeah. Which is terrific. It's such a great book. She also wrote a great book about Millis and Patrick. Thank you. The girl from the Black Lagoon. Right. Both really great books. Really great books. Rose Gibson becomes starts to become a really big stunt woman. She becomes the regular stunt woman for Helen Holmes, who's the star of the hazards of Helen. Now, Rose can do amazing stuff. Right. Like, and keep in mind, this is the teens. There's no tricks. Yeah. Like when she jumps from a train station onto a moving train, she just does that. Yeah. Yeah. And when she seems to slip and fall off the side and is hanging on by an air vent of the train while it's moving, that's just because she slipped and she had to save her life. Oh, gee. And this is how she worked. But she was great at it. And eventually, Helen Holmes could get up to about episode 50. Yeah. So it's a long serial. Yeah. They get up to about episode 50, and Helen Holmes retires. And so they go, Well, why don't we just get the stunt woman to do it? But you're going to have to change your name. So Rose Gibson becomes Helen Gibson. What? For the rest of her life. Oh my God. And she is the star of The Hazards of Helen from episode 50 to episode 119. Whoa. It is the longest-running serial of all time. She becomes hugely famous. She gets other parts in in different movies. Now, what kind of happens towards the end of this is the men start returning from World War One and decide, hey, look, all these women have built a really nice industry here. Let's take it over. Right. And so, you know, it's it's very telling, and Melri Omira uh describes this brilliantly, but there was a higher percentage of women writers and women directors prior to 1924 in the film industry than there are now. Wow. So see, you know, it's worth thinking about. But as the men's come back and start taking over the industry, a lot of the women's roles start becoming diminished and diminished, and Helen sort of fades. So that's a I just want I I thought it was an interesting story to tie us from Big Thunder Mountain, Hoot Gibson to Helen Gibson, to the longest serial ever, to Indiana Jones.

Pete 16:30

Oh, no, no. You're skipping.

Kelly 16:32

Oh, what am I missing?

Pete 16:33

You're skipping. Uh-huh. I'm gonna bring us there completely. Okay. Oh, I have to. Helen Gibson appeared in a movie in 1952 called The Treasure of the Lost Canyon. Yeah. Treasure of Lost Canyon, starring William Powell, Julie Adams of Black Lagoon fame. Oh, neat. Charles Drake, Henry Hall, Rosemary de Camp. It is a huge, huge cast. Yeah. It's the story about a young boy and his adoptive father who find an outlaw's hidden treasure. But the news leaks out, sending in unscrupulous characters after the gold, and antics ensue. Some of those antics were used as inspiration for some of the action sequences in the Indiana Jones movies. Really? It was also used as an influence on the young Indiana Jones Adventures television series. Oh wow. Especially for the episodes with the really young Indy when he's a kid. But so there was an interest at this point of transmitting that serialized style of adventure into bigger-named action films. Yeah. There's uh an over-the-top melodramatic approach where it's gotta be bigger, it's gotta be better, it's gotta be bigger, it's gotta be better. Yeah. And um Treasure Lost Canyon, I I do want to talk about one particular serial that that really does come to play on Indiana Jones. It's called Mystery The Manhunt of Mystery Island. Okay. In which two FBI agents are trying to hunt down a master criminal who, for some reason, is dressed like Captain Kidd, uh-huh. A pirate. Yep. Um, and it's a Republic serial from 1945. Okay. And they keep trying to infiltrate his mysterious island and trying to bring him to justice. And his whole island has like machines and and doodads, and he's got a pair of mad scientists that have an electric ray gun that can take down airplanes, like you do, like you do. Yeah. And but the reason why this might seem familiar is if you've ever seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, at the end of the famous Minecar Chase sequence, right? Molorom the villain orders his cultists to knock down this huge for some reason, this giant water tank. Like, we're just gonna drown everybody. Yeah. Like it doesn't, it's it's it's awesome, but it doesn't make any sense. Does not. So he just dumps this gigantic tub of water to go down and flush out Indiana Jones and Willie and George Brown while they're trying to run through the tunnels. Yeah. Indy has just stopped the cart and going, you know, he and his foot is on fire. He's like, Water, water, and he looks down the tube, and there's all this water coming out. He goes, Water, water, and he starts running away from it. And they go out and they jump out of this hole and they they stand on either side of this hole as this water bursts out. Yeah. Shot for shot, it's almost a complete lift from Manhunt on Mystery Island. That's so cool. I had no idea. Yeah, so there are a lot of sequences. I mean, also, uh I'm from the serial age is where we're talking about stunt people, Yakima Canute, who is very famous for doing the stagecoach stunt in which he would grab a hold of the front horses and then he would travel underneath the horses and the carriage in order to get to the back of the of the stagecoach in order to take out the the lens. Yeah. That's the truck sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oh wow. So there's a lot of that involved here. It's uh it's a different era. It is a different era. But there's something about being forced to wait that actually made it better.

Kelly 20:13

With Indy, the uh obviously Raiders had uh the flavor of the Republic cereals. Uh Temple of Doom really had the flavor. Big time. I you know, I might argue it might be a little too relentlessly so, but uh we s we did we saw Tony Baxter speak just a week ago and he called it his favorite in film.

Pete 20:34

And and uh honestly, it's mine. Yeah, yeah. For the same reason, just because it's so over the top. It is over the top. And don't get me wrong, the difference between Temple of Doom and Raiders for me is like a half a star. Yeah. As far as my enjoyment. Like for me, yes, there's a lot of awkwardness in Temple of Doom. Yeah, there's a lot of this, but as far as really capturing that flavor, action, yeah, and serial movie gestalt, basically. Yeah. The the Temple of Doom hits it. Yeah. And it's never more apparent than the one movie that everybody goes, oh my god, I totally see that where they got this idea. Uh-huh. So it's a movie directed by Jerry Hopper. It's from 1954. Uh-huh. It's called The Secret of the Incas. Yeah. In Technicolor. Oh, good. It's written by Cindy Bohm and Ronald McDougall. The Secret of the Incas is a movie starring Charlton Heston as American adventurer Harry Steele. He makes a living as a tour guide in Cusco, Peru. Oh, that guy Harry Steele. He's over here in Cusco. He's showing people around here. And he wants to build a fortune by finding the legendary gold and jewel, the sunburst of the lost Inca treasure in Machu Picchu. Yeah. And when you look, just Google. This guy, if you got your phones and you're you're listening to this, Google Secret of the Incas and Charlton Heston. Your brain is gonna go, wait a minute, because in it he wears the fedora and he wears the leather jacket. Yeah. And he kind of looks like Harrison Ford. And it's it's kind of you go, Oh my god, it's Indiana Jones. And that's there are little little Easter eggs here and there about uh Secret of the Incas and a lot of the indie films. Interesting. Just little teeny little little notices here and there. You kind of go, wait a minute, but ultimately, this is the film where people go, Oh my god, we're that's what it is. This is what it is. Yeah. And that's that's pretty much it's pretty much true. Um it's got the same kind of flavor. There's a lot of there's a lot of mushy kissing stuff. So for as far as the action is concerned, like kids are gonna be kind of disappointed in this because there's a lot of Charles Nestin.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Hey, uh guy like me and a girl like you out here in the jungles, uh, anything could happen with these 500 indigenous peoples around us.

Kelly 23:06

Charles Nestin is Patrick Warburton.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

They're not that far off.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

I mean, you imagine Patrick Warburton and Planet of the Apes.

Stunts Serial History And Influences

Pete 23:15

Take your fans off you, damn dirty ape. So, anyway, um, so apparently, what's really wild, the movie actually caused a massive surge in tourism to Peru in 1954. Uh. Because everybody went, I want to go. Um Peru was hard to get to in 1954. Yes, indeed. Deborah uh Deborah Nadulman Landis, who was the costume designer on Raiders of Lost Ark, who's also John Landis' wife. Oh, I was wondering. Uh, also cited that the main inspiration for Indiana Jones' costume was from Harry Steele and Secret of the Incas. Interesting. They watched that movie apparently a lot when they were over in Tunisia. Yeah. Somebody had a 35mm print, and sort of kind of get everybody into the mood who had just come on board. It became like their shorthand of like, this is the movie we're making. Yeah. There's a scene in which he has to direct the sunlight in order to activate a booby trap. Yeah. Uh sound familiar? No, Raiders of the Lost Ark. So they made Raiders of the Lost Ark, and that's a whole gigantic journey. Yeah. So we're just going to go to the release of it.

Kelly 24:21

I think Raiders of the Lost Ark might be the best action movie ever made. I agree.

Pete 24:27

As much as I like Temple of Doom, Raiders is actually a phenomenal film.

Kelly 24:31

As I think it through, there's a lot of movies I love, but man, there's hardly any that's just more perfect than that. Yeah.

Pete 24:38

And I did not want to see it. Huh? Why? I I okay, so little story. Yeah. My parents were amateur archaeologists, as were my mother's parents. Yeah. My mother's parents were into biblical archaeology. Okay. They wanted to see the Holy Land. They wanted to find out, they wanted to see Jesus' tomb, the temple on the mount, all that stuff. Okay. I actually have all these um Super 8 films that my grandfather took. And he dressed like Harry Steele, which is hilarious. Imagine a bald Charlton Heston walking around in Egypt, and that's my grandfather. He had the big hat, he had the leather jacket. Film and the first reel of all of his Super 8 films is Guys with Donkeys. I don't know why he thought that was the coolest thing ever. I think that was because that was the main traffic in Cairo at the time. Yeah. My parents, however, had different pursuits. My father was more interested in Roman history because he was a political scientist student at UCLA. Yeah. And my mom was an art student at UCLA, and her interest was in South American culture and Egypt. Okay. So when I was growing up as a kid, that was when she was in her Egypt phase. Yeah. And so I spent a lot of time in museums. Anyway, in the 1980s, I forget the guy's name, but somebody came out and said, I have found Noah's Ark. Oh, I remember this. And it was making a big stink. And everyone went, Did he find Noah's Ark? If that's true. And there's a movie in search of Noah's Ark. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you've got Leonard Nimoy, his TV show.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Never stop the killer bees. Yeah. All right. Saucewatch and killer bees. Yeah. And a guy who pounds nails into his earlobe.

Pete 26:22

Yeah. It's like, what? But anyway, yeah, but there was a whole episode about whether or not he had found Noah's Ark in the Himalayas. Yeah. Because the premise was that the Great Flood had pushed the ship all the way up into the Himalayas. Right, yeah, yeah. And dumped them off. Yeah. And the guy And there and there was there was a feature film about it. Absolutely. There was a whole thing about it, and it was a documentary, and everybody was talking about it. And I was getting so sick of hearing about this stuff. And I was at this point, I'm six years old, and I'm already a movie nut. Yeah. And totally, I'm always going to the movies. I'm already loving it. And I don't want to go. I don't want to see this movie. Yeah. And my parents say, we're going to go see Raiders Lost Ark. And all I heard was Ark. Oh. I need to hear the Raiders Ark. Not the Ark. No. Religious, but not rock on Ark. Right. Yeah. Different kind of Ark. Yeah. I thought it was Noah's Ark. And I'm like, no, I don't want to see it. And literally, they took me to a small theater in Gilroy, California. Uh-huh. And it was one of the few times I have an absolute crash-out meltdown. And I'm Seriously? Seriously, I'm crying. I'm screaming. I'm literally, my dad has picked me up onto his shoulder, and I'm grabbing a hold of the door that goes into the theater, like clawing at it. Don't want to see this movie. I don't want to go. I feel like you might have overreacted. There's a Disney movie next door that I wanted to see. Ah, now it comes out. When you're six years old, you go, crappy documentary about Noah's Ark or a Disney movie, what is a kid going to want to go see? Right. And my parents are going to force me to watch this stupid Noah's Ark movie. And it's one of the few times my dad ever yelled at me. Wow. He plot me down in my seat. He said, I would have yelled at you too. Yeah. And I think it was part of it was because he knew what was coming. He knew you were going to like it. He knew I was going to like it. You are going to like this movie. And I'm like, you know, I'm sitting there with my arms crossed, like, stupid dad, stupid movie. And then the movie starts. You've got the guys winding through the jungle. You've got Alfred Molina, you know, in his very first film role. You know, the Jovitos on here. Poison is fresh. Three days. They're following us. All that kind of stuff. And and you've got the music, and I'm like, this could still be a documentary, but there's promise. How long did it take you to figure out it wasn't a documentary? So then we get to the waterfall, and you see the shadowy figure of Indiana Jones. The guy comes behind him, he's examining the map. The guy pulls the gun and Indy turns around and sets off the whip. The pistol goes in the water. And in this frame, I jumped out of my chair and stood up, and my mouth shot open and my eyes became saucers. Yeah. And they started drying out because I refused to blink. My parents force fed me my hot dog and soda because I was frozen. Yeah. Literally chewing in front of my face and like heat. I'm the chew. Oh, right. Chew. Because I was so enchanted with this movie. That's kind of good. I watched the whole thing standing up. I didn't sit down for the whole movie. Wow. I stood up for like and apparently I would start dancing. Like I was like during the big action sequence. I'd start moving because I was so into this film. And from that point on, I went, wow. So archaeologists can actually be fun, not like mom and dad. My archaeology became Hollywood history and magic history and animation history. Yeah. But it's because of that archaeological upbringing that I became who I am. Yeah. So apparently, when it was released, it was co-released with another film, John Borman's Excalibur.

Kelly 30:10

Oh, that's right. Yeah, I've heard that. And and like I've heard people tell stories of like I had to sit through Excalibur to get to Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I actually really like Excalibur.

Pete 30:21

It's very overwrought, it's very melodramatic. Yes, it is. But it's fun. Guess who one of those people who had to sit through it was? Tony Baxter. That's right. He mentioned that, didn't he? Yes, he did. Yeah. He's like, yeah, I sat through all of Excalibur to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. Because he's going to feature so heavily, let's talk about Tony for a minute. Yeah. For people who don't know who Tony Baxter actually is. Let's talk about Tony about Tony Baxter. Tony Baxter was born in Los Angeles, 1947. He was a Disney employee in 1965. He was 17 years old as an ice cream scooper. Right. On Main Street. So he was in he was in the ice cream parlor, right? And he'd wander around. I mean, and this is still the age of everybody kind of going, wow, Walt is here. Walt is here. That magic is of Walt's presence. Yeah. Like on our short, we talk about parts of Walt that are still in Disneyland. Yes. That element is still there when he's when he gets started off. He's brought on board at Imagineering because he's pestering people to become an employee. Yeah. Like, I want to work here, I want to work here, I want to work here. And they finally go, fine. Give him to Claude. You know, give him to Claude Coates. In 1965, he went to Santa Ana High School. He attended Cal Poly Pomona. And he was a landscape architecture major.

Kelly 31:37

Hmm.

Secret Of The Incas To Raiders

Pete 31:37

Okay. So he really knows environmental storytelling and the importance of building up a world using the environment. That's kind of his that's one of the things that makes Tony so special as an imagineer. Right. His speciality is being able to craft a world that tells a story around you. He transferred over to California State University, Long Beach, and he studied theater design. So combining that architecture design with his theater background, he eventually started coming up during during his college years, he put together a portfolio of concepts based off of attractions for Disneyland as part of a senior project. Yeah. Wasn't one of them a Mary Poppins attraction? It was a Mary Poppins attraction. And he graduated in 1969. And as soon as he graduated, he started knocking on Disneyland's doors. Like, look, I made a marble maze. Look, I made a marble maze. Bob Gurt, look, I made a marble maze, marble maze. They're like, fine, give him a job. You got him in there. He started working his first main project, as in our previous episode we talked about, yes, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Kelly 32:42

Yeah. And and no, go back and listen to that because the story is is is elaborate and interesting and a little bit sad. Yeah. Yeah.

Pete 32:50

He worked with his mentor, who was Claude Coates. Then he was Mark Davis. He was part of the team that remodeled Fantasyland. He was more than part of the team. He was the lead on that team. Yes, he was, because of the success of Big Thunder. Yeah. He really became a superstar as far as one of the designers at a design. Here's the thing about Tony. He is, and I say this with affection, he is a massive nerd. Yeah, yeah. You you get that. And I and when you when you talk with him, he loves movies, he loves pop culture, he loves comic books, he loves art, he loves f I mean uh there isn't a subject that he doesn't touch. He is uh very, very eclectic in his tastes and very, very deep dive in his understanding of things, but he has such a love for it that it comes through in his work.

Kelly 33:39

Yeah, and he he is one of the kind of big proponents of bringing non-Disney IP intellectual property in into the Disney parks. And love it or hate it, and and I'm I'm very on the fence still about it, he's done some amazing work with that. Yep. And with that, let's talk a little bit about the history of intellectual property in the Disney parks. Sure. So up until about oh nineteen eighty, seventy-nine, eighty, yeah, um, there was none other than Disney property. Actually, I can think of one. Um tell me if you can think of any other intellectual property that was not originally Disney that was in the park. Zorro? Well, no, they had a Zorro's TV show.

Pete 34:29

Yeah, but it's not owned by Disney. It's licensed out by the Zorro by the Zorro Corporation.

Kelly 34:33

Right, but the what was in the park was based on their show. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Okay. Here's what I think. Uh Aunt Jemima.

Pete 34:43

Well, okay, wait a minute. Because if you're gonna go that route, now we're gonna have to talk about Casa de Frito.

Kelly 34:48

Casa de Frito, yeah. Because there was the Frito kid. The Frito kid. Yeah, yeah, I guess that's true. And I mean, are we gonna go with like you know? I mean, but they had someone literally dressed as Aunt Jeremima wandering around the park. Yeah. Which is Oh, I got one too. Okay. Ready? Mm-hmm. The Phantom of the Opera. Universal Phantom of the Opera Opera. That is right. And as I recall, I read something not that long ago that uh Walt Disney and Lou Wasserman of Universal were pretty close friends, and that's how that deal got worked out. Um and they they shared some stuff early on. Sure. Um then later, obviously, the two companies became massive competitors. Yeah. But uh and Universal may be winning. Check out our episode on Jay Stein if you want to learn more on that one. Great Jay Stein. Jay Bang! Jay Bang! So but other and Jemima and the Frido Kid notwithstanding.

Pete 35:41

Yeah. Oh the Phantom of Jemima. Yeah. Oh god.

Kelly 35:45

Um it wasn't until uh until uh Ron Miller and Diane Disney Miller kind of started courting uh George Lucas a little while Ron Miller was still CEO. He's he's um Walt's Walt Disney's son-in-law, married Diane Disney Miller, and they started kind of courting George Lucas and talking about perhaps bringing some Star Wars IP into the parks.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

I don't know if that's a good idea.

Kelly 36:14

And then, of course, you know, there was a whole bunch of turmoil. Ron Miller was ousted, uh pretty much separating the Disney family from the Disney company almost entirely. But then when Michael Eisner and Frank Wells came in, Lucas and Spielberg had a certain uh they had some affinity for Eisner. Eisner is one of the people that helped green light Raiders the Lost Art. Um Lucas felt like he owed Eisner some favors. Yeah. And so they brought in Star Wars and built Star Tours, which is still a lovely experience to this day. Which comes first, Captain Eo or Star Tours?

Pete 36:49

They're right around the same time. Because I know Francis Ford Coppola was the director on some of Captain Eo, God help us. But okay. I just want to.

Kelly 36:58

I'm sorry, Captain EO lovers. I just I don't like it. I never liked it.

Pete 37:05

We'll have to do a shorty short on that one because we're I'm gonna watch Kelly just squirm in his chair if we're talking about Captain P for too long.

Kelly 37:13

But so at that point, you know, they they had they had uncorked the genie bottle, and new and intellectual property was suddenly allowed into Disneyland that had not started with Disney. Love it or hate it, that's where we are. Yeah. And some great things came out of it. And one of the great things that came out of it was the introduction of Indiana Jones into the parks. Aaron Ross Powell was not the ride, though. It was not the ride. And originally, and we learned uh and we got to see some concept art from this when we saw Tony Baxter recently. It started with a planned Frontierland kind of walkthrough show thing. And you think Frontierland, Indiana Jones, that doesn't make any sense. Well, it does if it's young Indiana Jones.

Pete 37:57

Yes. And so it And he actually did a piece of uh it was gonna be a stunt show kind of arrangement in which it was a young Indy in Utah, because that's where he's originally Indy is supposedly from in Canon. Right, ironically. Ironically. Uh there was like a circus theme to it, and it was supposed to end with him actually getting the hat.

Kelly 38:18

And it it it sounds a little as they described it, and I don't know how deep they got into this, but it sounds a little bit like the mystery lodge from Knott's Berry Farm, where there's a sort of Pepper's Ghost Dirk's Phantasmagoria kind of effect where they're telling stories, and there's like a sort of mysterious shaman who's showing indie scenes from his future, and then there's some stunts involved. And so this this was the plan. They were gonna use some of that area that nature's wonderland was no longer occupying. Right.

Pete 38:51

Which is now Galaxy's Edge. Yes, which is now Galaxy's Edge. Yeah. So Lucas was gonna wind up there one way or another. Right. And also, so I should actually, before we continue with this, Tony's main influence was seeing Raiders for the first time. Yeah. Having sat through Excalibur.

Kelly 39:08

When you hear him talk about Raiders, it is clearly when you hear him talk about Indy at all, it is clearly a deep love that he has.

Tony Baxter And His Disney Path

Pete 39:18

Oh, he's a gigantic Indiana Jones fan. Yes. I had the pleasure of having lunch with him one time, and I keep talking about it, but I mean it's noteworthy. At Fenton's, right? Fenton's of all places. Fenton's in Berkeley. Ice cream. If you're a real Disney nerd, you know the reason we chose that. Mm-hmm. It's because that's the ice cream parlor in UP. Right. Yes. Yeah. Russell and yeah, and Frederick go to. Anyway, and he wouldn't talk he we would talk about a bunch of stuff, but it would always come around to Indiana Jones in some way. Yeah. Because especially when he found out how much of an indie fan I was. Yeah. And I had given him a piece of artwork as kind of a the big fan. And it was this, it was this piece of linen that I had aged so it looked like a symbol of the forbidden eye with Mara language all the way around it. Yeah. And it says, you know, Tony Baxter, Imagineer, Spectacular, or something like that. And he says, Oh, that's pretty cool. I'm gonna have to get my decoder to read that.

Kelly 40:17

One of his Mara glyglyphics.

Pete 40:18

Mara glyphics, yeah.

Kelly 40:20

So anyway.net, you'll find some of the most well-considered and insightful writing about the Walt Disney Company, Disney history, and the universe of theme parks available anywhere. Come join us at BoardwalkTimes.net.

Pete 41:00

And he when he came out of the theater, he said, We gotta do a ride based off of that. Yeah. We gotta do something. This is amazing. Like he was just and they didn't own the property, they were just like spitballing ideas because they were so excited. And then they went around, well, what would it look like? Yeah. So he grabbed a video camera and he went around to Disneyland and he went and talked to people. And he says, he interviewed people on the streets of Disneyland. God, this film was funny because he showed it to us. Yeah. And people go, well, less than uh, you know, about 500 other people. Right, right. And he says, When you think of Indiana Jones, what do you think of? Yeah. Giant ball, giant ball, uh, snakes, it bugs, lots of bugs, yeah, giant ball.

SPEAKER_02 41:41

You know that giant rolling ball? Yeah, I think we need to have a giant rolling ball.

Pete 41:45

There's a boulder.

SPEAKER_02 41:46

I think you gotta have a ball coming down the right here. I think he should have a ball.

Pete 41:54

You know, like, and then finally gets the one guy who goes like enslaved children.

Kelly 41:58

Yeah. Yeah. That was the weirdest. It was just like, it was just giant ball, giant ball, snakes, bugs, giant ball, enslaved children. Like, what? What is wrong with you?

Pete 42:11

Tony started asking around, like, how could we how can we make this? And he started coming up with ideas and proposals for this kind of stuff. Yeah. And then star tours happened. Yeah. And then it was announced at in Florida, they needed something to fill in some space at Eisner's new attraction, MGM Studios. The Disney MGM Studios. And they did the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. And what did they put in it? Oh, running to this day. Yes. What they put into it? Giant ball. Giant ball, giant snakes.

Kelly 42:42

Giant ball, which got loose recently. Did you hear about this? I know, an injured dude. Yeah, well, one of the staff members like threw himself in front of the ball to keep it from hurting anyone in the audience. He got he got injured. He's fine, but uh good man.

Pete 42:54

Yeah, I mean good man for that. But I mean giant ball got off its tracks. Yeah, like rule one. Control the giant ball.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

I can't believe we're here inside the floor at the stunt spectacular, watching the showdown between a Disney cast member and the giant boulder from Raiders of Lost Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

That's right, McMahon. I've never seen a man taken down by a boulder like that. Sorry. Jesse the Bonnie Ventura is gonna be the tour guide over at this unspectacular. It's not a giant ball, it's Venus. The mouth of the South is coming out, it'll be telling us all about the giant boulder.

Kelly 43:42

Many people have seen a giant boulder. Thinking there was a giant boulder, but it is really the planet Venus.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

But I assure you, it was Venus. Oh, thank you.

Pete 44:00

Oh yeah. Okay, we've really gone down a wrong road here. Anyway, I don't know how we got to the export. But Tony Baxter, unfortunately, was kind of appalled at this. Because he was like, hey, you took my giant ball. And also, what's interesting is like Lucas was part of the proposal process. He had approval of this. Yeah, he did. So he proposed his young Indiana Jones spectacular for Disneyland. Yeah. And somewhere along the way, like George went, Hey, uh, that sounds like a really good idea.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

Ha ha ha ha.

Pete 44:32

We'll put that as a TV show. So it can't, it's one of those things where you can't quite confirm it. Yeah. But you sure as hell can't deny it. Yeah. That Tony's idea was first, and then George did the young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Kelly 44:48

Yeah, and and and Tony Baxter was trying to figure out what to do with the resources they were given him. Yeah. So they were like, we we will talk about this Indiana Jones thing. The land you've got is in Frontierland. So he was trying to find a way to make it work. Sure. And Young Indy made a lot of sense. The stunt show in Florida took off. It was a big hit. Oh, yeah. Still a big hit. It's a great show. It's a really terrific hit. It is. It's really, really fun. And it was such a big hit that they turned around and looked back at Disneyland and said, You know what? I think we're going to need something with a giant ball. And so they they changed their plan. Baxter said, We can build a ride. Yeah. People said, You don't have any room in Adventureland to do that. And he said, Don't worry about it. I'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. So then they start working on the original concept art from for the Indiana Jones adventure. Speaking of relics. Yes.

Pete 45:45

Speaking of relics, a relic of Disney's past actually has something to contribute here. And I'm I'm that sounds kind of mean, but it's just a segue. It's not, I'm not actually being mean to the person we're about to talk to. Wait, what do you I don't know where you're going with this? The first person to do some substantial concept art for Indiana Jones is Herb Ryman. That's right. Herbie Ryman, who sat down with 500 pots of black coffee over a weekend with Walt smoking over his shoulder. Yeah.

Kelly 46:16

And telling him where to put I want you to put Tomorrowland over here.

Pete 46:24

And he drew Disneyland. He drew Disneyland. And Herb Ryman was trained as an architectural renderer. Yeah. And he's very conceptual. And when you really look at his work, it's just it's abstract. It's almost impressionistic. Yeah. And yet, it totally gives you the feel of it. It does. And he did this rendering of the streets of Morocco and the jungle and all these exotic people and parrots and all. And in the distance, there's this familiar-looking temple in the background. Yeah. And everybody kept focusing on that.

Kelly 46:54

Then a guy named Brian Jowers does the follow-up concept art. Now, Jowers' concept is insane. It is amazing. It's amazing. Oh my God, it's amazing. And it is the plan that they were going to go with. Yeah. So the concept, it involves, it integrates both the jungle crews and the Disneyland Railroad. Yep. And a you're in a an ore cart, much much like you see in uh Temple of Doom. You're in an ore cart that actually is more like a roller coaster than what they ended up with. It does loops.

Pete 47:33

Yeah. It's crazy. Lava everywhere. Yeah. There's giant snakes and all that. Which George Lucas did not like. Yeah.

Kelly 47:41

And many of many of the elements from Jower's artwork made it. However, eventually funds start to get cut like do with all attractions. So the jungle crews kind of dipping into the Temple of the Forbidden Eye for part of it was removed. Then the train was removed. And then eventually they decided that it probably wasn't going to be a roller coaster.

Pete 48:04

Although they did eventually do a that very roller coaster in Disneyland Paris. Yeah. So that's our one mention for all you Parisians. Yeah, what's with the the Temple du Peril? Yeah. Yeah. The Temple of Peril. Yeah. You know, it's the French. They're very straightforward. No, I mean, here's a little trivia fact. I mean, how literal the the French can be with their naming conventions. Yeah. Abbon Costello, Meet French uh Meet the Mummy is not called Abbon Costello Meet the Mummy. Okay. It's called Two Idiots and a Mummy. Yeah, but he also did this beautiful rendering. Like they they focused in on the multi-person transport vehicle that is in Jowers' painting. And they said, Yeah, let's make the ride built around that. Yeah. Because they were interested in the technologies that had already been perfected for Star Tours. Yeah. The motion simulation ride.

Kelly 48:59

And this vehicle, the the enhanced motion vehicle, they call it, which is insanely complicated. If you read anything about this, it's nuts. It is an early version, or it's a step towards completely autonomous vehicles. It is a step towards trackless vehicles. It is not a trackless vehicle. It's kind of a slot car, honestly. You're you're guided through a slot. But the car itself makes decisions. It does.

How Non Disney IP Entered Parks

Pete 49:28

It decides what it wants the ride to feel like. Using the PLC, a program of the programmable logic control computer. That's right.

Kelly 49:39

And so each each trip through, your car will have a kind of personality. And the personality will be like this car is a little tentative. It's going to slow down and then rush. Or it's going to be nervous about these kinds of things. So it's going to come at them slow but then go fast the other way.

Pete 49:56

Or the car is going to completely die on you because it's, you know, it's got a bad carburetor. Yes. And it's going to try and start up again right in the middle of the bridge that's collapsing around you. Right. Yeah.

Kelly 50:06

Yeah. And they will do different things every time. Yep. It is that that interim step between an actual just track that's going to guide you somewhere to you know you get from that to the motion simulator of Star Tours to this, where it's like, oh, now it's kind of going on its own. It is sort of a motion simulator technology in that the car itself is rocking back and forth. Actually, the chassis of the car is rocking back and forth. If you were to stand on the platform that the wheels are on without that chassis that you're sitting on, you would have a perfectly smooth ride.

Pete 50:43

It's concrete smooth. Yeah. I mean, I won't say glass smooth, but it is definitely like smooth concrete. Yeah. Because it has to be in order to not jostle the computer, the PLC, that runs the machine. Yeah. They tested the PLC, you know, and the cars. Yeah. In Burbank. That's right. We got to see a little film of it. Yeah. And actually, it wasn't in Burbank. It's actually up in Ventura, up by it's it's in a warehouse across the freeway from Six Flags Magic Mountain. Right. Where they developed it. And they basically built, it's kind of like an infinity loop track. It was a much smaller track. Yeah. Because they had to test it out. But basically, it does like a little figure eight and then it swerves a w away from the figure eight and then comes back. Yeah. And they built some rudimentary props and they bought a couple of Halloween skeletons. And it looks like a really bad haunted house. Yeah. But they were doing that in order to figure out what's the clearance for an adult who is maybe somebody like Kelly or my size in the back. And they're not going to hit any temple walls or temple archways or grab a skeleton. Right. And they would test this thing. And there's footage of this that Tony showed us. It's hilarious. It's hilarious. And you watch the dude. He's not wearing a seatbelt.

Kelly 51:57

No, and it's much wilder than what the ride actually is.

Pete 52:01

You watch this thing going, that guy's got and he's hanging on for dear life. And it looks like the most amazing thing in the world. Yeah. And one of my other favorite things that they did in order to kind of figure out how this works, back in 1994, 93, 94, apparently they had built a cardboard and foam, foam core, and styrofoam version of the ride, and they put a camera on a little stick. Yeah. And they drove the camera through the ride model. With the sound. With the sound. So you've got like a giant snake, and it's this cardboard cut out of a drawn snake. Somebody's hand comes in and pushes it towards the camera, just like that. That's what's going to happen. And we got to see it. And we got to and I never heard, never actually seen it. We finally got to see it, and Tony's like, yeah, we're going to show this off. I went, It's the one. He did. He grabbed my arm. It's still bruised. Yeah. It's like, this is it. This is the one. This is the thing I've been waiting 30 years to finally actually see. It's so fun. It's adorable. Yeah. It's adorable and it does not disappoint. Like, nope. I can see why the investors or whoever saw this and went, yep, keep going.

Kelly 53:07

Like, let's and it's surprisingly accurate to what the rides ends up being. There's most of what you see in this little cardboard animatic they did is how the how it got built.

Pete 53:19

Absolutely. So yeah, and they they were in production on this ride. I mean, they they they also realized some things with the space.

Kelly 53:26

Yeah. Hang on, before we get away from the vehicle real quick. Oh, yeah, please, please. One other thing that I found fascinating about the enhanced motion vehicles, uh, because they have a huge range of motion. All of it's done with hydraulics, at least in the U.S. The version of the ride in Tokyo, Tokyo Disney C uh has to use electric actuators because evidently they have much stricter emissions controls in in Japan. Enslaved children are just not cool. Yeah, it's not cool. The cars are run completely by enslaved children because that was somebody's wish. Um, so so it's all done by hydraulics. You're you're moved back forward on hydraulics, and the chassis of the car lifting up and down is done by hydraulics. But one thing I uh just a little note I ran across recently was that there's regenerative braking in these cars. So anything about electric cars now, you probably know about regenerative braking. It means that when you push your brakes on, it uses that pull to actually charge up your battery a little bit more. It's it's one of the ways that electric cars get really good gas mileage. So this thing in what 1995 is doing a similar sort of thing. So it's got a little electric motor in it that keeps pumping up the pressure in the hydraulics to keep the pressure up. And when the car is going on a downward slant, that motor gets powered up as it goes down so it can continue to push pressure into the hydraulics. That's cool. It's one of the earlier uh examples of a regenerative braking I've ever heard of.

Pete 55:07

So did you know in November 16th, 1995, they actually have the patent on that. That's when they filed the patent. In 95? 95. What the year they opened it? Wow. Because they didn't know if it was going to be worth running. Oh, jeez. So it's like, well, it ain't breaking so far. It's okay so far. I also think there was uh there was already like smoke on the horizon because of uh the rift between Universal and Disneyland at that point. So they were like, we better not let Universal get their hands on it. Jay Sign's like, I want a Jeep, just like that one. Only add more bangs to it.

Kelly 55:44

More bangs. Yeah, more bangs. And it that right opened the same year that Knott's opened their mystery lodge, which we talked about earlier, which I loved. It's been closed for a long time. I don't know why. But someone said at uh at some point around the time they were like, Knott's pulled together a million dollars and made the mystery lodge, and Disney pulled together a hundred million dollars and made the Indiana Jones invention.

Early Indy Concepts And Big Cuts

Pete 56:09

Yeah, a hundred million dollars. Yeah. And it paid off. Oh, it totally paid off. I mean, it How long did you wait the first time you got on it? The first time I waited in line was three and a half hours to get on, and when I where I started, uh-huh. So the route took me from Main Street out in front of the candy shop. Yeah. They would have like cast members with little signs saying, This is the beginning of the ride for Temple of the Forbidden Eye. Yeah. Okay, and my mom, my my mom took me to Disneyland that year. Yeah. And I said, I'll wait in line. You go ahead and go. And she went to Fantasyland. She went, no, she went and saw the tiki room. She did all this stuff, and I'm waiting in line. Yeah. Diligently. So the line went all the way across Main Street, all the way around the circle, across from the partner's statue, and then into Frontierland. And it zigzagged across the gates and Frontierland, across from the shooting gallery, and then back into Adventureland. Past Trader Sam's shop. Yeah. And then into the Jungle Cruise line.

Kelly 57:18

Right, which which we learned, and I didn't know this before. The the new Jungle Cruise boathouse that opened at the same time was intended as a swap line for both Indie and Jungle Cruise, which everyone needed it.

Pete 57:31

And if for those of you who remember the Fast Pass machines, where you'd be able to get your Indiana Jones fast pass, that was originally intended to be the entrance for the line that would take you through Indiana Jones. Yeah. In the Jungle Cruise queue. And then you would pop out, and then you would finally get into the jungle, and then you enter this half a mile. That's the walking di if you walk the distance of the entire queue line. Just when you get into the gate in Adventureland, it's a it's a half a mile. Yes, it is. Past the truck that's from Raiders of the Lost Dark, the actual movie, the actual truck. The actual truck. Past the camp of Henry Jones, and then you go into the queue line that takes you all the way down to the Jungle Cruise, zigzagging back and forth, and you can see the temple. You go up the rope platform, into the temple, in through the caves, in through the burial chamber, and then finally up, and you think, oh, we finally made it. Here's the pre-Q movie, and then you go, no, we have another hour. So it was nuts.

Kelly 58:37

It took a long time. It was long. And that queue is super long because, as we mentioned before, Tony Baxter had no space to work with and he had to figure it out. So what they did was they built it outside the park. Yep. Um so you're basically going under the road when you're in those caverns. Yeah. And and popping up in a new building that they built outside. Yep.

Pete 59:00

Yeah. 50,000 square foot show building on the outside of and it looks like it just looks like a giant. It used to be the Eeyore parking lot.

Kelly 59:08

That's right. And there's a reference to it. If you go into the film room and look back, you can see one of the Eeyore signs.

Pete 59:13

You have to expect solids. Turn it around, my friends. You can see Eeyore right above you. And they had to reroute the Jungle Cruise and the monorail in order to accommodate the size.

Kelly 59:24

Yeah. You know, and we talk about this in our Jungle Cruise episode, or in our our second Jungle Cruise episode. Yeah, that by putting this into Adventureland, it takes Adventureland from about 1917 and moves it up to about 1936. Yes. So we we when when Adventureland first opens, it's all a little vague. But then as the Jungle Cruise becomes codified, we say, all right, this is during the African Queen. Right. But when Indy comes in, obviously that's a different time period. We're fighting Nazis, they didn't have those then. Yep. So we move it all forward to about 1936, 1937. And so Adventureland moves forward in time at that point. And I gather that the story is uh Albert Falls built the jungle cruise in 1917, but you're visiting it 20 years later.

Pete 1:00:20

Right. And so all the boats have been aged. Right. Everything has a much more aged look. There's a lot more 1930s, 1940s technology everywhere as opposed to it being a lot more Victorian in influence. Yeah. I mean, there's still stuff like that there, but it is much more 1930s. And we're in the Indiana, I'm sorry, in the Jungle Cruise episode that we did, we talked about the costumed interactive characters that put in there. They were all given the specific thing like your character must exist in Indiana Jones' world in the 1930s. Right. And they they and they were there not just to entertain people for the Jungle Cruise, but also to entertain people for the indie ride. Yeah. But then they started crossing over as skippers when the when the lines started dying down.

Kelly 1:01:05

And and let me take this moment to make a plea to our audience. By the way, hey, everyone that's come on recently, thank you. It's nice to nice to meet you. Yes. I'm so we've seen people from Vietnam, we've seen people from uh South Korea recently. Yeah. Um, we've got people from um Ukraine. Uh Frankfurt. Frankfurt is like one of our top cities that we're listened to from. That's awesome. Welcome. Nice to meet you. Yeah. But uh anyone out there that's listening that has pictures of these costume characters, they're exceedingly hard to find because it was there for such a short time. Yeah. I would sure appreciate it if you could send them to us. We we'd love to see.

Pete 1:01:42

Yeah, we're on a quest. Yeah. So and also don't be afraid to leave comments on our on any of our shows. Yeah. Reminiscences, thoughts, memories, photographs based upon it, because we'd love to hear from you. We love to hear the commentary that comes through. Yeah. And it just adds to the fabric of what we're trying to do here at the Lowdown on the Plus. Absolutely.

Enhanced Motion Vehicle Breakthrough

Kelly 1:02:03

Yes, please. So going back to they they built this thing in two years. Yes. Um, it's astonishing that they did. Yeah. A lot of stuff that was there when they built it wa is no longer there. Yeah. And not a lot, but there's a few key things that just simply are gone. Some of them didn't make it to opening day because obviously they were working fast. The most notable thing that was an effect that never made it to a public uh showing of the ride was the queue line diamonds in the the ground. So if you if you're walking through the queue, you'll see these little diamond patterns in the ground. They're slightly raised. Yeah. Originally, if you stepped on those, the walls would kind of rumble and start to close in on you. They shut those down before it opened because evidently Disney Legal said, nah, tripping hazard. So and they were probably right about that. The other thing, and this is the one that I most miss, is um and I and I got to see this, and obviously you did too, because you were there early enough, was the the falling ice from the ceiling in the main chamber. Which this is the coolest effect, and it just they couldn't maintain it. Yep. And what it was was basically that that chamber, you were kind of in a giant automatic ice machine. You would come into the chamber, there'd be the big flash of fire, the the lasers, and this white stuff that looked like rocks would fall from the ceiling, and it was really impressive. Yeah. What it really was was ice. Oh, yeah. And the ice would fall down below the the giant idol and below where the the lava was, and it would hit a plate and melt. Once it melted, it would go up a pipe, back up to the top, and be refrozen and turned into ice again and then dropped again. It was, I mean, it's it was simply an ice maker. Yeah. And it was the coolest effect, but the problem was is like with all of our ice makers that we all have, eventually there's buildup. Yep. And you just can't keep it from happening. So they had to keep repairing it and keep repairing it and keep repairing it. And now it doesn't work anymore. Yeah, sadly, sadly, it's it's true. Yeah. If you uh if you're interested in a ton more detail about how this worked uh and and also a whole bunch of other things at Disneyland that either were were problematic effects that got fixed or problematic effects that that never got fixed. I wrote an article about technical debt in um theme park attractions a couple of years back. Go take a look at it. Um we talk about indie a lot. Yeah.

Pete 1:04:53

When it opened, not long before I mean while they were in production, Tony was working away, and I guess Eisner had come through on an inspection to take a look at what was going on. And then somebody said, Oh man, I can't wait to see the poster for this. And somebody said, Well, there's only one person who can really do the poster. It's gotta be Drew Strozan. That's right. For those who don't know, Drew Struzan is an illustrator. He was born in San Jose, California. And he started off, he he was dirt poor, absolutely dirt poor, fresh out of college. He was born poor. He ran away from home because his parents hated him. So he was a teenager and he ran away from home, met his wife, they got married, moved down to Los Angeles, and he had a portfolio after college that was pretty good. I mean, he did very good realistic renderings of people, very classically trained illustrator.

Kelly 1:05:49

Yeah.

Pete 1:05:49

Uh his first gig was doing album covers. Yeah. And he did album covers for Black Sabbath. Yep. He did album covers. For some jazz musicians. One of his more famous ones is the cover for Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare. Oh, yeah. That infamous triangle. Yeah. And that's the that is the album cover that people saw. Yep. He's holding up a teddy bear with Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper teddy bear. But it was that cover that was on a billboard, and there was an agent who did movie posters. Yeah. And said, wow, that's a great rendering, but it's so iconic, I gotta get him to do these movie posters. Yeah. But it was later on he developed what is now known as the Struzan airbrush effect. Yeah. With very well-rendered portraiture of celebrities, but it's done in this kind of sketchy, spattery, airbrushed kind of look that is just evocative. Yeah. And he when you see it. No, it you just know it's a droop. Back to the future, the trilogy. He did Star Wars. He did Raiders of the Lost Dark. Well, actually, he did not do the first Raiders of the Lost Dark poster. That was done by another guy named Richard Amsell. So Amsell was an artist who uh he did posters like for Murder on the Orient Express, Death of the Nile, The Shootist, Chinatown. Yeah. Very popular in the 60s and 70s, but he was an early victim of the AIDS epidemic. Sorry to hear that. And Drew pretty much took the baton and ran with it. Yeah. To the point where they said, Can you can you work as well as Amsul on Temple of Doom? Yeah. And they said, sure. And he became like the official Lucasfilm movie poster artist for a lot of their stuff. And the conversation came around at Disneyland saying, How are we going to make the poster look for this? Well, we've got to look like the movie posters. Yeah. This is Tony pushing it. They said, Well, can we get Harrison in there? I mean, if it's Indiana Jones, we gotta have Harrison Ford. He goes, Wait, none of you have actually talked to Harrison Ford? They said, no. So they made Drew Truzan call Harrison Ford. So I imagine the phone call was something like this. Hello. Hi, is this Harrison Ford?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:08

Yeah.

Pete 1:08:08

Hi, this is Drew Truzan.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:11

Oh my god. The artist Drew Truzan? Yeah. Wow.

Pete 1:08:16

You make me look good. Awesome. Well, I'm doing a poster for Disneyland for the new ride, the Indiana Jones ride. Wanna be in it? Okay.

unknown 1:08:27

Right.

Pete 1:08:28

That's kind of that's kind of the negotiation.

Kelly 1:08:31

Yeah, this was this was uh what Pete's doing is the version of that Tony Baxter told us uh when we saw him lecture a week ago. And it was just like basically like my impression of Harrison Ford is that he's an incredibly straight shooter, which also means he doesn't suffer fools gladly. No. And and he gets very, very angry if someone tries to pull one over on him, which is we're about to run into. Yeah. So explain that. Yeah, so so obviously he he thought Drew Struzanne was a fine artist, and he was like, hey, as long as you're gonna do me, we're good. Yeah, that's it. You know, I was listening to uh one of the writers from Shrinking talking about how they got Harrison Ford to be on the show. Right. And they said they called him up, Harrison invited him over, sat down, and Harrison said, Yeah, I think we'll do this. And they were like, That's it? He's like, Yeah, they shook hands, that was it. That was the deal. That's how he is. Yeah. He was okay with at what they were doing with the stunt show, and he was okay with what they were doing with the ride. He he signed off on his figure in the great movie ride in in Florida, but he had a a stipulation, because they they asked him if he would be involved in a Super Bowl show that they were putting together that was going to promote the the new Indiana Jones ride. Right. And he did not want to have anything to do with it. He didn't want them to use his voice for it. It was just it was it was a little bit too far, too much of a gimmicky ad thing. He'd probably I remember this. I remember that Super Bowl show. Oh, I've watched it recently. It's horrible. It is terrible. You know, he'd probably seen like what happened when they opened Star Tours at Disneyland and they had like Princess Leia dancing ballet with with Han Solo. I mean, he probably do life day kids. Yeah, right. So he's he was like, it's okay, you can use me for this, you can use me for this. You cannot use me for this Super Bowl thing. And the and Disney said, fine, no problem. They sent him the contract and they snuck it in. They stuck it in the back of the contract towards the end that he was they were going to use his voice for the Super Bowl. Oh my god. And he was furious. Oh my god. So if you ever wonder why the animatronics of Indy in the Indiana Jones adventure don't look like Harrison Ford, and why the voice doesn't really sound like Harrison Ford, that's why he refused to sign off the use of his voice and his image because he was so mad about the Super Bowl thing. Because they tried to pull one over on him.

Pete 1:11:08

Yeah.

Kelly 1:11:09

Pretty much the same thing that they did to uh Robin Williams with Aladdin, and it took him about a decade to repair that relationship.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:15

Well, yeah. So just be cool, man. Yeah.

Building Outside The Berm And Queue

Pete 1:11:22

So just so you know, the voice of Indiana Jones in the Temple of Forbidden Eye is a voiceover actor by the name of David Temple. Okay. David Temple is a hard-working voice actor. Yeah. Uh he's been around for a while. But uh as far as like the general public doing of anything that like people just go, wow, okay. Yeah, it's the ride. Most of his stuff, though, is a lot of corporate voiceover work for uh brands like Costco, American Express, etc.

Kelly 1:11:53

Fair enough.

Pete 1:11:54

He's still active. He is still a very active uh voice actor, uh, always looking for work, and so there you go. So that's David Temple. He's the voice of Indiana Jones doing his kind of sort of Harrison Ford impersonation. Yeah, but not so close that Harrison could sue them.

Kelly 1:12:08

Right. Exactly. Exactly. You know what we should talk about? Please. Snakes.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:13

Oh. Why did it have to be snakes? Well, yeah. Asps. Very dangerous. You go first, Kelly.

Kelly 1:12:22

So, the uh, as many of you who have ridden the uh Indiana Jones Adventure, there is one honkin' giant cobra that comes at you. He uh he's actually been improved in the last couple of years. Yes. He was all it was always cool. Now it's even more articulated, so it's even neater. Yeah. But George Lucas did not like this as a design choice because George Lucas knew that when we put Indy in a film, Indy was going to be afraid of a lot of little snakes.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

Yes.

Kelly 1:12:55

That was what freaked him out. And he tried to make the argument that Indiana Jones was realistic and never used giant monsters. Right. To which Tony Baxter said Ark of the Covenant, giant melty face. Yeah, no, it's fine, George. Whatever you want.

Pete 1:13:14

Yeah, well, and if you look carefully in the snake chamber, there are hundreds of little rubber snakes all over the place.

Kelly 1:13:21

They're hard to see. I mean, they they've always been kind of hard to see, but they they're especially hard to see now because they haven't bothered to repaint them. Right. Because the idea was that that Baxter was going to do both. Right. He was going to put his one large snake in and then put a whole bunch of small snakes in and see what people reacted to. And and as he said, as Tony Baxter explained, Lucas said to him, and once you see it, you can take that giant snake out.

Pete 1:13:49

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:50

Because he knew that oh yeah, yeah, I don't I don't like giant snakes, and the audience will hate it too.

Kelly 1:13:55

Yeah. So and then turns out, uh exactly as Baxter uh understood, when you're going by in in a motion vehicle that's admittedly only going about 12 miles an hour, but it's moving around a lot, you're not in the room very much, it's very dark. The tiny snakes are not gonna read. Yeah. Which turned out to be exactly true. And and Lucas, to his credit, had to kind of give in and go, Yeah, I think the big snake is the way to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:21

Yeah.

Kelly 1:14:22

Yeah.

Pete 1:14:23

Watch out for anything that slithers. There it is. The moment that we try to pass the giant snake in in this ride is very illustrative to how important the ride vehicle is to this attraction. Because when the snake attacks, it's like the Jeep knows it's being attacked. Yes. I know every little kid loves this, and I I have to admit, I have to do it at least once or twice. Yeah. Most still. I love sitting in the driver's seat. Yeah. And like a little kid, I actually pretend like I'm driving. I actually move my hands like I'm like I'm like I'm Mr. Toad. Like I'm gonna spin this thing, dang it. Yeah. But that's your handle when you're sitting there, like that's your safety handles. You're hanging on. I'm like, if I'm here, I'm gonna pretend like I'm driving. Of course. So forget it. I'm gonna go for it. Right? And I usually, especially if there's a kid next to me, I will go, look out for that snake, and I'll pretend like I'm steering, and the kid will freak out even more. Because the car is programmed to react to the snake strike, and it actually lurches away and drives away from the snake as if just to avoid getting hit.

Kelly 1:15:28

Yeah, like I said, the car has a character. And and at that moment, the car is the character of Indy is scared of snakes. Yep. That is what the character is being per performed right there.

Pete 1:15:38

Right, because Tony, the Tony's background of uh his architectural and environmental design background, you know, he wanted to make the vehicles just as much of a character as Indy himself in this. Yeah. Because frankly, you're you're only gonna see Indy two or three times in this ride and the little flashes. So the ride opens and the audience loves it. Very much a critical hit, and it becomes a financial hit with such long lines. One of the things that people really think about, especially when this came out in the early 90s, yeah, is the interactivity of the line. Yeah. You had those foot plates that we had just mentioned, but you also had things like these little signs saying, do not do this, with clear intention that the audience is going to do it. Yeah. Don't pull on the rope. Yeah, don't pull on the rope. And there's a guy down there saying, careful up there.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:26

I'm handling a nice genuine artifact down here.

Pete 1:16:29

Pull the rope again. Shh. Damn it, all I was carrying a genuine artifact. Right. You knock him off, you hear him fall to his death. Like you get to kill a guy. Yeah. You have to do it like three times. Yeah. Yeah. You knock him off and he falls down a perilous pit. That's one of the few rides at Disneyland folks where you get to kill somebody.

Kelly 1:16:51

Yeah, yeah.

Pete 1:16:52

They also had a collapsing chamber that actually moved for a time, but it doesn't anymore.

Kelly 1:16:58

Scared the bejesus out of people.

Pete 1:17:00

Yeah, you wiggle this bamboo thing, and the whole thing just goes comes down. And it's basically the collapsing ceiling from the Temple of Doom with spikes coming out with skulls skewered onto them.

Kelly 1:17:11

Right. You put you lean onto the bamboo and it's just like Yeah, it's like, don't, don't do that.

Lost Effects And Technical Debt

Pete 1:17:16

But yeah, the foot plate was that was part of the rumbling rumbling thing. The other part was the fact that you need something to do while you're waiting in the as it was nicknamed by some of Disney employees, especially jungle cruise skippers, the temple of the three-hour line. Yeah. Tony and the Imagineers had come up with Mara Glyphics. Yes, Mara Glyphics. Which is a I still have my translator card. I do too. I still have mine too. Yeah. And I every once in a while, if I'm in the mood, I'll do some indie artifact and I'll throw in Mara Glyphics just for fun as people pick up on it. Yeah. But it's basically a very simple substitution code, kind of like elephant tusk-like curves and dots. Right. And the combination. And you would be given these cards sponsored by ATT. Mm-hmm. And you'd walk through with these translation cards. At first, it was like this really long, big, involved card with like a background and then this big circular decoder thing. It was later reduced to like a little business card that you could walk around with. Right, right, right. But still, you got one. And you could oh, I could translate everything here. So it got you involved in translating all the different sayings. Often they were like just ATT slogans, which was a little sad. Be sure to drink your oval team. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, and there was some stuff that was kind of cool, and like, do not look in the eyes of Mara, but it's printed around these giant eyes staring at you. Right.

Kelly 1:18:39

And in no way you can not look in the eyes of Mara.

Pete 1:18:41

Yeah, exactly. And I have to admit, even when I was a when I was younger and I'm standing in line for hours and hours at a time, it really does make a difference. And it really was fun because it got you into the mode of the world of Indiana Jones. Yeah. Because those memories are still very, very fresh of Last Crusade and Temple of Doom. And you also have to understand that when this was released, this is when the young Indiana Jones chronicles were on television.

Kelly 1:19:08

Yeah.

Pete 1:19:09

Yeah, which is a very underrated show. It is. Terrific. There's a couple of really terrible episodes. Yeah. And yet, when you watch this, there's a who's who of current cinema. Yeah.

Kelly 1:19:21

Also a who's who of who, because there's like three different doctors from Doctor Who in it. Paul McGann is in it. Paul McGann's in it. Peter Davison's in it. And John Pertwee.

Pete 1:19:31

John Pertwee, and I think Sylvester McCoy appears as well. Yes, he does. So there's actually four who's who show up in it. Yeah. But you have actors also like Daniel Craig makes it. Sean Pertwe is also appears in it as a German officer, which the series deserves its own episode. It's so amazing. It's really great. It's really, really great. So anyway.

Kelly 1:19:58

Boardwalk Times just celebrated its ninth anniversary, continuing to cover theme parks and pop culture and movies and TV shows and all the stuff that's cool in the world. We're still doing it. What a great time to be talking about this stuff. Universal's opening new theme parks. The Walt Disney Company is in transition with a new CEO and potentially a new park opening in the United Arab Emirates. All sorts of things going on. But right now, what's happening is podcast, podcast, podcast. Zach and Giovanni and Joaquin are breaking down the new Daredevil Born Again Season 2 show. This is the Waycast is back, and Zach is doing his usual excellent job at covering the business side of the Walt Disney Company with takeaways from the annual shareholders meeting and the 2025 box office breakdown. We got it all going on as we head towards year 10, which is gonna be the best year ever. So join us at boardwalktimes.net.

Pete 1:21:06

Then you have the line spiel. And the line spiel is actually pretty great because it is presented in the class, I mean it totally sets you in that world of 1930s newsreel where they do a newsreel about Dr. Indiana Jones has discovered the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. He's going into a destiny filled with doom. And then they show Indy's friend Salah is helping you through. And then eventually you get to the slide projector. And what I love is that they kind of hide it as if there's somebody actually projecting it. Yes, yeah. And if you look where the projector is, that's where you see the Eeyore parking lot sign, just kind of hidden just off to the side there.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:45

You know, welcome, my friends, to the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. I, Sala, will talk you through the entire safety schmiel. Sit down inside this fabulously designed army transport machine that Indy and I have purchased, relatively cheap, of course. And he tells you, be sure to fasten your seatbelt. And please don't grab children. We don't like that in Disneyland.

Posters Drew Struzan And Harrison Ford

Pete 1:22:08

There's only one hidden Mickey. Because Tony Baxter apparently didn't like them. He hates them. Yeah. So apparently there's only one hidden Mickey, and it's right after that line spiel. It's his little office, it's Indy's little private office. Yeah. And you can see a couple packages from his dad and from Marcus Brody and a couple other things and care packages from Marion Ravenwood. Uh-huh. But underneath some of the piles of his paperwork is a real issue of Life magazine that features Minnie and Mickey on the cover. Yeah. And it's just kind of sticking out the side, but that's the only hidden Mickey in Blue Forbidden Eye. Yeah. You would think there'd be like three skulls all set up to make a mouse head, but no. That's the one. Yeah. And then you finally, finally, after your long ride, you finally get on the ride vehicle. Yeah. And you begin with this fabulous effect that doesn't exist anymore.

Kelly 1:22:57

Yeah, it's really sad. And and the the Baxter talked about it a little bit, and it's one of the he's he's generally okay with updates, but uh mostly when they're done right. But this one, he's like, look, projection mapping is one of those things that was cool when you saw it once, and it was okay the next time, and then it's just, oh look, projection mapping.

Pete 1:23:19

Yeah, I mean it's you might as well just be watching a television monitor and somebody wiggling your chair. Yeah.

Kelly 1:23:24

So the the uh the effect at the beginning of the ride is that you go into one of the three chambers. And was it the fountain of youth, uh earthly riches, and seeing into the future. Seeing into the future, yeah. And the way that it used to work, and this was super neat, was your car is only on one track. It cannot actually go on a different path. But the doors moved. Yeah. So you would round the corner, like they they you know, Sala put up that nice little mirror so you could look at the at the vision of Mara without actually staring at her. And what did you do? No, you turned around and looked straight in her eye, what's wrong with you? Yeah. So but you turn and you look towards Mara.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:09

That is tourists, my friend. Yeah. Tourists have not one brain among them.

Kelly 1:24:14

But you turn and by the time you've turned, the doors have slid left or right. Yeah. So that you are facing that you are heading straight towards one of the three.

Pete 1:24:26

And there are multiple, there are multiple doors, too. Yeah. There's actually five doors. Oh, is there? Yes. Oh. Because in order to have that rotate in that manner, it doesn't just go left and right, it moves in a curve. Yeah, that makes sense. And so there's one, there's a there's an extra door off to the side that you never actually go through. There would have to be, right. And it look, but it looks like one of the other doors. So it's like Because otherwise you would only have two sometimes. Right. Yeah. Exactly. But it it to maintain that effect, I guess, is just kind of tricky to maintain the uh hydraulics and so forth. Yeah. Because it's massive. It's a big piece of fiberglass that they gotta move.

Kelly 1:25:03

And and you would and depending on which door you went through, obviously the chamber behind the door is the same because you're still on the same path. Sure. But they would do this kind of subtle lighting effect with scrims. So you know, if you went through the chamber of earthly riches, the light would be sort of gold, and then they would reflect off a certain set of scrims, so you would mostly see gems. Yeah. And then that would change depending on which door you went through, even though you were just going through the same chamber every time.

Pete 1:25:32

I agree. And and and it's it was a beautiful when it really worked in its early days. It was because I think the other part, it goes back to Tony's talking about projection mapping, is that it was it was tactile. Yes. It was palpable. It was physical, yeah. Physical effect that you just appreciated more. Yeah. And then, of course, you look in the eyes and you've got Indiana Jones holding the doors back, and then you enter the ride. Right. Then all hell breaks loose. All hell does break loose. And according to David Koenig, who wrote More Mouse Tales, a closer look backstage at Disneyland, I want to talk about that first year.

Kelly 1:26:07

By the way, these Mouse Tales books, they are laugh out loud, hilarious. Oh, they're amazing. Highly recommend them. Yeah.

Pete 1:26:15

So apparently, the ride cars, when they they enter the Hall of Promise, and it could look like three different rooms depending upon the lightning. It was so bumpy that it had to be toned down twice after employee testing. One cast member said after he previewed the ride, during the cast member preview, Indy was extremely wild and turbulent. Your knuckles were almost bleeding after that ride. Yikes. Another person swears that she would have gone flying out of the car if her husband hadn't held on to her. I don't know if that's true. I just think most people are like, you know, it's anecdotal. But I remember taking my first ride, and I do remember it being a lot more violent and a lot more broad in its movement than it is now.

Kelly 1:26:59

I I will I will tell you this as a quick aside. I have never felt more like I was going to come out of a car than I did on Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. That thing is crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:11

Nothing will stop you now. You're gonna fly out. How?

Kelly 1:27:15

Yeah. I remember talking to someone not that long ago, and they were like, oh, we're going down to Disneyland with our little kids. And I said, if you ride this, take my advice. Put the kids between the adults. Yes. Do not let the kids be on the outside. And she thanked me later. She says, Oh, thank God you told me that.

Pete 1:27:32

Anyway, sorry, back to that. That's okay. Yeah. So during the first two years, guests lodged more than 200 complaints, including letters, lawsuits, and first aid reports. Claiming that they were injured on the ride and urging the park to tone it down. Yeah. Injuries range from bruises, split lips, chipped teeth, cut arms, strained muscles, and pinched nerves to herniated and ruptured discs. Yikes. Wow, wow, wow. Oh shit.

Kelly 1:28:01

We didn't talk about something that we need to talk about before we get to the end of this. Oh? We didn't talk about the ball. The big ball.

Pete 1:28:10

Okay. After all of this, the big ball. The big ball.

Kelly 1:28:15

Let's talk about the big ball. The thing that you have to have in Indiana Jones. It's like in Star Tours, someone said you have to have the run on the Death Star at the end of it. Which is true. And you don't anymore. But at the time, before prequels, before the later stuff, you did. The same thing with Indiana Jones. You have to have the big ball. The big ball effect is neat. Oh, it is. So here's how this effect works. You pull into this chamber and you see this ball come sort of spinning towards you with Indy hanging from a rope in front of it, telling you to back up. Now the whole thing is very disorienting. And the reason it's disorienting is because your perception is being tricked into thinking that you're backing up. Your car can't back up. But it is being tricked into thinking that you are backing up when you're not. And the way this is done is through basically the same technique as a car wash.

Pete 1:29:23

And before you go into that, the person that we have to thank for this is a man named Thomas Simpson. Okay. Who in 1946, the same year the Treasure the Incas came out, first he invented the conveyor system with overhead sprinklers and manual labor to wash cars. The person who uh developed the hands-free car wash system, which is what you really think of when you think auto car wash, was developed by the Anderson brothers, Archie Dean and Eldon in Seattle, Washington in 1951. So when you're sitting in your local chevron, Enron, whatever, and you are getting your car washed, you have the Anderson brothers to thank. Oh. I've always found that a very peaceful sensation. It is. Yeah. Although the the colors that the soap are kind of frightens me. Yeah, sometimes they're a little weird. It's like, what why do why am I in cotton candy?

Snakes Vehicle Personality And Interactivity

Kelly 1:30:15

And now there's themed car washes, this is a weird thing. And we'll get into it later. We don't want to talk about themed car washes. It's a whole thing. But apparently, well, this is this is how Tony got the idea. Sitting in a car wash. Yeah. Because if you are in a car wash and your car is in park or neutral or whatever it needs to be, and uh you see the machinery moving back and forth around you. And if that is all that your perspective sees, you got brushes on your windshield and machines going by next to you, if they are moving towards the rear of your car, you feel like you are moving forward. If they are moving towards the front of your car, you feel like you're moving backwards. All of us have had this experience of we're sitting in there and we have to check and make sure we're in park because we sure feel like we're moving. Yeah. That's what the the big ball effect in the ride is. The walls next to you are moving, they are moving forward, so you feel like you're backing away from the ball. You're not. The car's just wiggling. Yeah, the car's just wiggling, and the ball's not moving either. It's just spinning in front of you. And then just and suddenly you break through the bottom of the chamber and fall suddenly. Yeah. And it it's a great effect.

Pete 1:31:36

It's pretty delightful. It really is. Except for the fact I never quite figured out that you're supposed to break through the bottom of the chamber. Like I almost wanted Indie's animatronic to have a dynamite plunger. So back up, back up. Oh yeah. Dynamite'll get you out. That'd be cool. And then it explains why the wall, you know, the floor comes down. I mean, I know it's supposed to be the classic 80s ending that every action movie happens where the temple falls apart around you, you have to run out at the last minute. Right. Yeah, yeah. It's in Dark Crystal, it's in Kroll, it's in every indie movie. Yeah. Narratively, it always bugged me like, how did we suddenly go down? Yeah. Didn't we go down? I mean, if we're just backing up and then going forward again, like well, he is standing there surrounded by rubble. Yes, at the end, at the end, but I thought that would be the ball causing that. But you know, it would I don't know. I'm nitpicking. It's still a great effect, but I'm just totally nitpicking here. That's me.

Kelly 1:32:28

Anyway, we needed to talk about the big ball before we got out of here because it is it is the the climax of the whole thing. Yeah.

Pete 1:32:35

So I think we've reached a point now with this ride. Yeah. With all of its no offense, twists and turns. Yeah. I love I do love this ride. And I do too. I have great nostalgia for it. And it for me, it's right up there with Haunted Mansion and Pirates. Yeah. As far as pretty great. Sinking you into a world and you come out of there feeling like you have been a part of that world for just a moment.

Kelly 1:33:00

I I think I I will absolutely make this claim. It has the best cue, the best line of any ride ever. 100%. Absolutely. There's no ride that has more immersion in the queue than this. And that and you know, we've talked about this before immersion versus interactivity. They're two different things. Uh-huh. There is some interactivity in there, but it's not that's not the point. The point is once you are in those caves, man, you feel like you are someplace different.

Pete 1:33:31

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you are. You're under underneath tourist shopping at driver.

Kelly 1:33:39

At a certain point, you're right under a parking lot.

Pete 1:33:40

Right. Yeah. But yes, you do. You really are transported. Yeah. Which I'm sure makes it really, really fun for people who go on adventureland days. Yeah. And everybody's in the outfits and everybody's in the mood. I went a couple years ago. Yeah. It was super fun.

Kelly 1:33:55

It must be a hoot. Oh, it's so much fun. The the best part of Adventureland Day, one is going on the jungle cruise with a boat full of jungle cruise skippers. Yeah. And then the other one is they do sing along tiki room. Nice. And so they make they just pull all everyone at once, like backs up into the tiki room. And so it's just filled with Adventureland Day people and just sing along.

Pete 1:34:20

See, that's glorious. That is cool. Yeah. That is really, really cool. It makes me want to go to Adventureland Day. Yeah.

Kelly 1:34:26

I've never actually done it. I would love to. Super fun. I uh think it just happened. So that's okay. I've got time to put together my 1930s. Dapper Days like in a week, though.

Pete 1:34:38

Well then. How nice. How nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:42

How nice.

Pete 1:34:43

Said he who really needs a better job. But when we when we were uh when we went and saw Tony Baxter and do the lecture on this, you can see the love he has for this particular ride. I mean he he definitely I mean I've seen him talk about Splash Mountain, I've seen him talk about his involved fantasy and Big Thunder. But there's something about Indy that he just kind of twinkles when he talks about it. Yeah. And he is he's pretty much, because of his design of this ride, there are some people who actually consider him just as important to the indie ethos as Lucas and Spielberg, because he gave us an opportunity to actually put us into that world, like you were just saying. Whether you're at the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, the Temple of Peril, or you're at the stunt show spectacular.

Kelly 1:35:34

Yeah, or in Japan, I think it's the Temple of the Forbidden Skull or the Crystal Skull. Yeah.

Pete 1:35:40

I think unfortunate name.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:42

Yeah.

Pete 1:35:43

That's okay. There's no Shia LaBeouf in it, so we don't need to worry about it. Yeah, we're all right. Yeah, we're good. No Shia LaBeouf. Okay, we're good.

unknown 1:35:49

Yeah.

Kelly 1:35:49

Yeah. I uh my impression has always been that that the two and he has much to be proud of in his career. Yeah. It's very impressive. But the two things he's most proud of is this and Journey into Imagination. Yeah. Um, which is the one thing that he said he would come out of retirement to work on if they would fix it.

Pete 1:36:08

If only. Yeah. If only. So anyway, well, um, I'm it's doubtful that he's actually w listening, but it'd be great if he does. Yeah. Hey Tony. And if so, hi Tony, and thank you so much for a fabulous afternoon. It was a really great show. Yeah. You you did great. You know, you you gave put on a big show, and it was a lot of fun. And it was really nice actually seeing you again. Yeah. Um, and once again, thank you for letting a nerd sit down with you at Fenton's and geek out with you. Uh, if you don't remember me, I'm the guy who played Bill Sykes and nearly knocked you off your foot feet one time. So that's me. Nothing personal. Nothing personal. So, anyway, we've come to the point, I think, now, in this journey, this adventure, if you will, in which we throw aside all notions of budget, safety, concern, or any sort of practicality. Yeah. And we come up with our own way to plus it up. Yes. So, Kelly, how would you do a plus up on the Indiana Jones adventure?

Kelly 1:37:07

I've I've got several. I mean, the main thing the main thing, and they're pretty obvious, which I'm sorry, folks, but uh, they really need to put something in front of Mara because we keep looking at her. Well, I love some of the early. Make some safety precautions, for heaven's sake.

Pete 1:37:25

One of the things that I actually had, there was a detail that they used to have in which Sala had actually tied cotton around the eyes of one of the idols, and there's burn marks where the eyes are.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:34

It was neat.

The Boulder Illusion And Roughness Complaints

Pete 1:37:34

Yeah, it was pretty great. And he would smoke every once in a while, like it's trying to burrow its way through. Yes. It's always a great little addition. But yes, absolutely.

Kelly 1:37:43

So my my main thing. So here's my number one thing. Make make nice with Harrison Ford and fix that. Like no more Super Bowl. Yeah, like the voice is not right. And it's fine, it's nothing against the voice actor. He's he I I'm fairly sure he was told you can't sound like Harrison Ford here. But make up with him, fix the voice. Yeah. I think it would make such a huge plus up improvement. But and the other things are fix the rat room. Yes. The the rat room is is it's better, they're getting closer, uh, but it's still an effect that doesn't quite work. Yeah. And if you haven't ridden the ride, you go through a room with a bunch of mist, and the idea is that there's rats on a pipe above you, and they're falling onto the bonnet of your car. And the rats are supposed to be projected on the mist, and you can hear them hit the the front of the car. The sound's good, uh, but the the mist effect doesn't quite work. And we know that they've improved this because they use it for everything now. Yes, yeah. It's like it can be done. Yeah, so so fix that and put back the ice effect because it was it's the m thing that m made it the most jaw-dropping to me. When you move into the main chamber, it's massive. Oh, yeah, it is huge. But when you move into the main chamber and you see rocks falling from the ceiling, that is a whole different world. I would love to see that fixed.

Pete 1:39:19

Yeah, you've got that music that when you first come around that corner, yeah, I still get chills. Totally. It's like, you know, there are moments where I'll be sitting in the car and I go, oh God. And I I I'm getting it now. Yeah. Like I'm literally getting this chill right now, remembering the first time I saw that and went, Yeah, oh my God, what are we in for? And so, okay, my turn. Okay, your turn for my plus up. Your plus up. You know, it's hard because this really is one of my favorite rides. Yeah. And it really is.

Kelly 1:39:51

I I could make a prediction as to what I think your plus up would be, but I'll I'll hold.

Pete 1:39:55

I kind of want to hear what your prediction is. And let and and then let I'll let you know if I could. Um I would have actually really still would like to see the jungle cruise becoming more incorporated into the Indiana Jones ride.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:09

That's my prediction.

Plus Up Ideas And Listener Requests

Pete 1:40:11

He's doing a happy dance. It's pretty great. I mean, I see those designs, you know, uh, I see the I see the concept design, and it doesn't need to be much. Yeah. But it would be a great way to preview it, you know, where you could I mean, and they do something kind of like this on the jungle cruise in Florida. In the Cambodian temple, yeah. Yeah, in the Cambodian temple, you've got all the baboons, and you've got and then in it's creepy. Yeah, and it's kind of creepy. They uh they have an even more elaborate one, I think in Shanghai or something, like and Disney Seas, in which there's like flames and lava. And it's like, that's neat, but in Disneyland, at most, you get a you know, a couple of mora glyphs and like the the last sign of danger, yeah. And then you're like you're off on Jungle Cruise land, even though like the temple is right there. Yeah. And I would kind of love to just have a moment where even if they had one of the ride vehicles, it doesn't need to need to do anything, yeah. But it just needs to be embedded in the waters as if it burst out of the side of the temple. As a preview, yeah, or maybe that is the Jeep that gets overturned by the gorillas in the camp. Right. You know, I know that's a little bit of an IP crossover, but but because it is so integrated and they went to so many lengths to try and integrate those two lands together, yeah. There's just something about that. Or even if you just have, you know, especially at nighttime. This is actually more of a plus up for the jungle cruise than the indie thing. Yeah. But to actually have, you know, nighttime, uh like you only see this on the jungle cruise at night. You don't see it during the day. Yeah. But to have plumes of lava coming out, and people go, Whoa, this might be from the temple. Right. If you're getting really busy in there. Yeah. Whoa, you know, that kind of thing. As opposed to piranha, where you have like these plumes of lava coming out, whoa, this must be from the Temple of Forbidden Eye. Right. You better get out of here and let's go to the elephant pool. Yeah. But, you know, you can't you can't mess too much with another ride just for the sake of one. Right. That is kind of one of the things. The other one that I I would love, my other plus up that I would love, is for them to bring back some of the interactives and add more. Yeah. Just a couple. Yeah. Have something over by Indy's office. Have something in the area where the line spiel is. I know they're supposed to be paying attention, but nobody does. Yeah, nobody does. Nobody does. Uh you know, but add a couple things inside the huge burial chamber on the outer outskirts, not in the center where the the rope is, but have some of the things on the outer part. Yeah. Just so those of us who have seen it, get something extra. Yeah. A little something more. Yeah. Wouldn't it be cool? Wouldn't it be really cool as if on the way out you've actually interpreted the Mara glyphs as a reward, you get to go do one last interactive on the way out. Yeah. Wouldn't it be really cool as if that interactive on the way out is to actually cause to anger Mara and cause those lava plumes on the jungle cruise ride at night. Yeah. So it's Claude Coates. It's Claude Coates's, you know, black light water effects from you know uh Rainbow Caverns, my Rainbow Caverns and all that. But still, you get to affect what's going on. Even if they're if they're just going back and forth and you're causing lava to wibble back and forth. It's still something that you wouldn't know unless you actually interpret the Mara glyphs. And eventually every you know, Disney adult, you know, and YouTube influencer out there is going to go, Did you know that if you go to this part of the jungle, you know, it's like just let me discover my own. Don't tell me about it. Yeah, stop stop filming in Disneyland people. There's a reason Kelly and I are audio only. Yeah. We've talked about like, should we have a camera? No. No. No, you don't want to see the goings-on here. There's a lot of squirming involved. Yeah. This doesn't work. But anyway. Laundry. But notice how neither of us actually said, like, let's make a big change. It's just like, just add a little something, bring this old thing back. That's because it's such such a great ride. It really is. It really is. And if you have not had an opportunity to do it, and if you are afraid of it, put on a neck brace and just get on this thing. For heaven's sakes, it's really good. Do it at least once. Yeah. If you haven't done it, do it at least. Don't be afraid of it. It's really fun. It's really cool. Yeah. And it you will not be disappointed, I guarantee you. Yeah. So. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening, everybody. I'm Peter Overstreet. And I'm Kelly McGubbin. And you've been listening to The Lowdown on the Plus Up.

Wrap Up And How To Reach Us

Kelly 1:45:03

We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Lowdown on the Plus Up. If you have, please tell your friends where you found us. And if you haven't, we can pretend this never happened and need not speak of it again. For a lot more thoughts on theme parks and related stuff, check out my writing for Boardwalk Times at Boardwalk Times.net. Feel free to reach out to Pete and I on our Lowdown on the Plus Up Facebook group or send us a message directly at comments at lowdown-plus-up.com. We really want to hear about how you'd plus these attractions up and read some of your ideas on the show. Our theme music is Goblin Tinker Soldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at Incompitech.com. We'll have a new episode out real soon. Why? Because we like you.

SPEAKER_08 1:46:27

Every time I walk off a stage.