EarzUp! | Disneyland River Traffic Pt. 3: Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes

[00:00:00] Hi, I'm your inner dream monologue, and you're fast asleep, so I'll be quick.

[00:00:08] Great job using the Colgate Optic White Overnight Teeth Whitening Pen before bed.

[00:00:13] When used as directed, it gives you a visibly whiter smile in just seven days.

[00:00:17] So while I fly and talk to animals, you're removing teeth stains with ease.

[00:00:22] Sweet dreams.

[00:00:23] And when you wake up, keep on living life to the brightest.

[00:00:27] Colgate Optic White. on 10 pages. Like, that's cool, man. Everything has a story in Disneyland and even the canoes, which seemingly doesn't, they don't, they don't change. What are they going to do? You know what I mean? It's not like you can get a refurb. Right, right. Well, yeah, I thought I'd have to talk more about lobster roll. We'd have to have Rob back on. That's right. Yeah. So, we got that going for us, which is nice.

[00:01:40] Taren's going to join us later.

[00:01:41] But right now we have Rob from Bantha, so it's a little difficult for us to do anything about that. But in the meantime, I was listening to this other podcast, which I really enjoyed where they have two guests on and four questions. Everybody brings a question, they have a nice round table discussion. So I parked that, I stole that idea.

[00:03:01] Yeah, good.

[00:03:02] Good.

[00:03:04] Do such a thing.

[00:03:05] Oh, it's a good thing.

[00:03:06] Such a thing.

[00:03:07] So I stole that idea from them. Star Wars podcast day. This one is like a real thing. It's a semi pseudo real thing. Yes. It's been a real thing for a while, I think. This is the fourth year of it. 25 years ago, three guys created the first Star Wars podcast, even before they were called guests on we had this guy from this podcast called puny pod never heard of it. Yes We had Ryan G H R G H was on he was a great guest and then we had this other guy from this YouTube channel called screen crush

[00:05:40] Which is a pretty big YouTube channel. They have only you know 1.4 million followers

[00:06:46] Joe. Yeah, it's kind of different. I bet it is a little different. Yeah. So it was cool. So we're doing that. We got a regular show. But one of the things we do on a regular show is we always have

[00:06:51] a little bit of Star Wars news. So I figured I'd bring you some of our Star Wars news so that the

[00:06:56] listeners here on the main show would know what to expect over on Bentham Oak. And you can hear my

[00:07:01] sultry voice some more if you really want to check it out. So that's true. Yeah, what did. He was fun in the Mandalorian. I really enjoyed him and he had it even like the third season or the third season. He wasn't a big part of it, but he definitely had like a good story arc where he was now like the mayor of a town or whatever and it was pretty cool. So yeah, so we're going to miss him also from the Mandalorian.

[00:08:22] Caridune was the character.

[00:08:24] She was like a fighter also in the Mandalorian. of all, she couldn't have cared too much because she waited. What was that five years? Yeah, something like that. She waited this long and you know, the other thing is like, doesn't Elon have anything better to spend his money on? I mean, it's pretty advertising for for Twitter, but it's like, you could really be helping people with this money that you're literally throwing away.

[00:09:41] You could actually do a lot of good, but you just you want to be this weird

[00:09:45] dork and and yeah, whatever.

[00:10:46] Just movie to come out is the speaking of the Mandalorian is a movie now called Mandalorian and Grogu, which is first to come out sometime in 2026.

[00:10:52] What such a creative name.

[00:10:53] What a good name.

[00:10:54] It sounds like it.

[00:10:55] That's awesome.

[00:10:56] Like, yeah, just, you know, it's like a buddy.

[00:10:57] Star Wars.

[00:10:58] Turner and Hooch.

[00:10:59] That's exactly what I wrote down on my notes was it sounds like Turner and Hooch's like

[00:11:03] a buddy cop film.

[00:11:04] Like what's going on?

[00:11:05] So I don't know.

[00:11:06] I don't eat that.

[00:11:07] That's also definitely in the works and i can't say the ladies name is directing it's charming. Obeyed shinoi i'm going probably butcher something along with my. She has gone out and they were talking about how it's not going to be a girl power movie even though it's a girl director and a girl lead and all the stuff but it is going to be a very good movie.

[00:13:22] I said someone from most everything about it. Yeah.

[00:13:23] And what is your last name?

[00:13:25] I don't have one.

[00:13:26] Okay, solo it is.

[00:13:27] I'm by myself, not alone.

[00:13:29] I'm on alone.

[00:13:32] I'm on alone.

[00:13:34] I was alone.

[00:13:37] There's nobody any next to me.

[00:13:38] My last name is party of three, because I had three people in my party.

[00:13:43] There were two other people with solo gross $330 million at the domestic box office on a budget of $322 million. So there's a big jump between the worst grossing movie and the worst grossing movie now. Wow. And you can sort of tell out the vibe because I don't remember toys from that movie, from

[00:15:00] Solo.

[00:15:01] Yeah.

[00:15:02] I don't remember a single thing.

[00:15:03] I mean, maybe like the first initial wave for promo, but that was it.

[00:15:07] Yeah, I got to God, that's where we're gonna go. They can just stamp the movie's name on most of the merchandise they already have these days. Yeah. Oh, just throw that over top of what they have and call it a day. Yeah. And then the last thing that I wanna talk about is starting on February 21st, is the Bed Batch Season 3 will premiere

[00:16:21] and it's the last season of the Bed Batch.

[00:16:24] The Bed Batch is an animated series.

[00:16:27] It's, I really enjoyed it. there were three different trailers that came out they were all really good they didn't really tell you much there was a couple of characters that you saw a little bit and people were like who's this but then he turns bad and blah, blah, blah, whatever. Thing is that he's probably going to come back and get a good story arc or redemption arc coming back, which will be awesome because it'll definitely put a nice pretty little bow on the end of this series

[00:19:00] with everybody back together again and everybody. I who cares? I'm overheating because I made some tea and I'm like boiling right now, but what are you going to do? If look, if all that Star Wars talk hyped you up and you want to go visit Star Wars in person, well, you can't, but you sort of can't go to the parks. And the way to do that is through concierge. You go to concierge.com book a trip with them.

[00:20:22] They will plan everything for you free of charge, whatever.

[00:20:25] And then you can go and live in. It's the whole thing. I'll show you the, I'll show you the images. Can't wait. Anyway, concetiors.com, they are official travel partner and they can be yours too. So check them out. Hi, Taryn. Hi. We're gonna talk some river traffic. Yes. All right. Once again, I'm back for river traffic.

[00:21:41] Nice.

[00:21:41] And then we'll do that in aircast.

[00:21:42] Something to talk to us about.

[00:21:43] I don't know what.

[00:21:44] Are you eating again, Eric?

[00:21:46] I am, I am eating again.

[00:21:48] Nice. area might feel somewhat inappropriate or at the very least cringy. But television westerns featuring cowboys and Indians were such huge hits in the 1950s that this kind of depiction was just standard. And in order to understand Disneyland's village, you really do need to filter your opinion through what was acceptable in the mid 20th century. So

[00:23:03] when I look at photos of Indian mean, fifth, they could. But there are so many different tribes. There are so many different things. It's kind of like the Polynesian Moana problem where it's like, yeah, if you can't show all of it, maybe don't try and show any of it. Plus, you're also making a huge profit on culture. And you're kind of, I mean, I get into it a little bit, but you're kind

[00:24:23] of giving the like, whoop, do you do happy version of what history was? area that didn't exist. Okay. Well, yeah, but still it's almost like the movie poltergeist where that's probably why is yes. Always going to be a problem. Yes, that's probably why Splash Mountain just didn't really didn't didn't work eventually where like the racism just caught up with everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There racist. He's like the person on the

[00:25:41] yeah on the TV. I don't know on the the the picture TV when the pictures never mind good.

[00:26:42] Some people kind of made that note where like, in order to get to the Indian village,

[00:26:44] you had to actually like right past Hanan mansion back then,

[00:26:49] there was a tunnel.

[00:26:51] It wasn't open and you had to walk through this tunnel

[00:26:54] and when you got to the other side of the tunnel,

[00:26:56] that was Indian village.

[00:26:57] So they took it from like in front of what used to be

[00:27:00] Aunt Jemima's pancake house.

[00:27:02] Again, that's where.

[00:27:03] Another problematic thing.

[00:27:05] So that's weird but it is weird though i mean from that's what i mean from today's lens you can you can read a

[00:28:21] lot into this and you can find a lot of parallels into what really happened to the indians and what actually did a good job. It's just it would never fly today. This area of the park was made up of only Native American cast members who were encouraged to share their cultures with park guests. They showcased ceremonial dances and craft demonstrations, all of which were completely genuine. One cast member in Indian Village, Chief Whitehorse, was the last fluent speaker of the Otohua Zoria

[00:29:42] language and throughout his life, including his tenure at Disneyland, he Yeah, so that's why they're using these it's another example of things that were fine then but oh Sure shouldn't do it because it's probably maybe maybe there was a tribe that that Called their people such Lee, but mm-hmm. We sure didn't know in the 50s and I don't know today So I can't speak and squaw I looked it up and that was the one I was nervous about it's it's translates to like loose woman nice

[00:32:09] because there seems to be absolutely zero record of who built these canoes. And after a way too deep of a dive into this, I personally have narrowed it down to a few potential candidates. The Dolphin

[00:32:15] Craft Boat and Canoe Company, How FER Company, DeBago Boat and Canoe Company, or the Shorty Built

[00:32:22] Boat and Canoe Company. And all were still around. They were around when the canoes first came about. So that's my guess is that they ride at these paddles. Look at you, man. Important here in that sleuthing. Really, really trying here.

[00:33:40] Yeah, you're doing good.

[00:33:42] The wood was grown from trees.

[00:33:44] Now, trees really started populating the earth

[00:33:46] after the completion of these major attractions, guests became less interested in the Indian village. Other challenges began to arise as well, stemming from social unrest in the late 1960s. Disneyland has vaguely documented the issues that arose as quote unquote, labor problems

[00:35:02] with the Native American performers.

[00:35:05] These labor problems.

[00:35:07] Typical.

[00:35:08] Yeah. women donning Davie Crockett's famous coon skin caps, which is very emblematic of sort of what happened to the Native Americans anyways, right? They were here. Again, they got they got they were built around and they're like, Hey, we got some land way off here. You guys go there. And then eventually they just poof. They're gone. And then now

[00:36:22] we have the frontiersmen who conquered the evil There is no height requirement for Davy Crockett's Explorer canoes, although small children and those who announced that they cannot swim will need to wear

[00:37:41] life vests.

[00:37:42] This attraction.

[00:37:44] So if you say you can't swim, guess what?

[00:37:46] This attraction is seasonal and has limited hours.

[00:38:43] some sort of canoe for Disneyland at some point. Oh sure.

[00:38:44] Sounds like it.

[00:38:45] Or Michael Eisner just had one made for him, for his personal pawn.

[00:38:49] Because it didn't say Disney, it just said Michael Eisner, so that could also be it.

[00:38:54] But I like to speculate that he may have something to do with the current boats that

[00:38:58] are in use today.

[00:38:59] Now, on the other hand, in the video which all that is done basically with a laying color, and then we do a wet blend with a shadow and a highlight. After a couple weeks, the canoe's complete. It feels great to see the team finish the project for all the people in the park to enjoy.

[00:40:21] Yes, it does.

[00:40:23] Those were a lot of terms.

[00:40:25] Did you get all of them?

[00:40:26] Yes.

[00:40:27] It was very special. pushing the canoe around the rivers of America. The gas member in the back also provides much needed propulsion while also maintaining the steering of the vessel. Yes, the guests, the guest passengers are also very helpful in moving the boat forward, but let's be real. The two gas members are really doing most of the work. Oh yeah, for sure. You can be helpful. It can be. You should be. You literally do nothing and that boat's still going to get around the river.

[00:41:43] So I'm not going to lie.

[00:41:44] There's been points in my liferonic, including deer, elk, chipmunks, rabbits, birds, and these all help to set the scene that you are smack dab in the middle of the frontiers of America. I think they're called animal tronics. Animal tronics. Yeah. You're right. Okay, thanks. Now, what I like most about this ride is the totally unique view of the park. And if you're

[00:43:02] like me and you have always fantasized about swimming in the rivers of America, then writing along with other employees from the Walt Disney Company. There are traditionally eight to 10, I mean, sorry, eight to 16 people per team and approximately 1300 Disney employees participate each year. Wow. It's a good portion of people. It is. And in case you thought this was just fun and silly competition taking place on a single sunny afternoon, think again.

[00:44:23] To start, there are practices.

[00:44:25] Each team needs to practice,

[00:44:27] and this has to happen before the's how to hold the paddle. If you see a rock, lean one way or the other, we'll see you in camp.

[00:45:40] And then you're on your own.

[00:45:42] I can't eight hours of training just to just to paddle a canoe in an oval with

[00:45:48] no chop. It was a my boat didn't talk. Oh, we had saved people. It was fun. Good time. So the teams who this is really cool. The teams who did make it to the final were allowed to bring their friends and family into Disneyland before it opened to regular visitors to watch and cheer them on. Nice. So that's cool. So the teams are also encouraged to come up with fun names, such as one team that was made up of guest relations employees who called themselves the plaid sticks after their

[00:47:04] plaid costumes that they were that they had to wear.

[00:47:07] Yeah.

[00:47:07] All right.

[00:48:09] Spectacle instead of a team building bonding special experience. Okay, you know, maybe well those racers are trained to

[00:48:14] Propel and steer the canoes in the correct and best possible way. How about this? I'm gonna interrupt you How about this put live on ESPN plus?

[00:48:17] finals and have like an answers and have like have a thing about that would be awesome. That would be cool

[00:48:23] Thank you. In 1974, a cast member named Ken recalls a warm summer day when he was assigned to pilot

[00:49:45] the canoes, a large group of beefy guys who were next in line. out the timing of the paddling and the steering had just returned from sick leave with laryngitis. Now this caused their team to not have the same coordination as their opponents because they couldn't quite hear him right? Laryngitis messes with your throat. It's kind of loud out there on the river. Sure yeah. So the timing of their paddling and steering just started rocking the boat a bit.

[00:51:00] And as the canoe approached the Mark Twain dock, the uncoordinated paddling and rocking

[00:51:05] caused it to start filling with water. And by the with 17 others around me in the river swimming toward Tom Sawyer Island. Luckily for Ken and his co-worker, the canoeing teams took the blame for the entire debacle and apparently 20-somethings on the boat not listening to or adhering to the cast members' instructions and warnings and purposefully rocking the boat and splashing.

[00:53:40] Now regardless of who was at fault, the canoe ended up taking on too much water and eventually

[00:53:44] sinking into the eight-foot-deep rivers of America. go on the canoes to get a unique perspective of the park, to get a quick upper body workout, or to get inevitably splashed by the young child in front of you, I highly suggest experiencing this very unusual attraction, which as simple as it is, does preserve the retro early day feeling that we're all so desperate to find at the parks. And this ride is almost entirely unchanged since

[00:55:02] it was first opened. And it offers a as close to Yeah, there probably wasn't a whole lot going on because they already had rivers of America with the boats and everything. So like, oh, we could put canoes. It's like it just kind of one of those plug and play afterthought things that just stuck around, but there is no plusing up. You don't need to do it.

[00:56:20] Maybe you change the designs on the canoe, but for the most part, you're just

[00:56:23] going in a frigging oval.

[00:56:24] Yeah.

[00:56:25] I mean, I hate this saying, but it is what it is.

[00:56:26] Is what it is, man.

[00:56:28] Like, yeah.

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[00:57:40] So grab a Pepsi Wild Cherry and get wild! fan. I know after that big storm we just had, it's hard to think about a light and refreshing beer. But like the past couple days here, been great, sunny and not really warm. It's freezing right now. But this is when you want something like that. It's like, I'm ready for spring, man. Let's go. The more the more spring feeling beer I can drink, maybe that will rush

[00:59:00] the seasons forward.

[00:59:01] Well, and I think it's interesting that you see it's a huge Mary Blair style mural back there that has

[01:00:22] just attractions from around the park. Yeah. Knobs to everything.

[01:01:24] Great in the bar. It felt fantastic in there. They've got plenty of tables with cool seating around everywhere. The bar itself is fairly large. It's kind of difficult to get to, which I think

[01:01:31] helps keeps the seats open. I never saw it more than half full, and it's new, very new. It's only

[01:01:37] been there for a few months. But it's rare for something that Disney does, especially at the

[01:01:42] park, at the resort, Disney and resort to be empty like that. Right people have been to the area are, you walk in from downtown Disney, you take a left, you pass Trader Sam's, you take a right and you head straight toward, this is where the new tower is, you walk straight forward up into the new tower. So it's not intuitive that there is a bar there,

[01:03:02] unless somebody has told you you can't see it

[01:03:04] from Trader Sam's, you can't see it to the pool area. I see, I'm looking at pictures now, now I get it. Now I get it, right, right, right, okay. And so you walk through there into, I'll change the picture just for reference. I loaded up another one. This is where you kind of first enter in, well, maybe it's a little past where you first enter in. You walk in this image here, sorry listeners,

[01:04:23] this perspective would be,

[01:04:24] I'm sitting at the bar with my back to the pool.

[01:04:26] Okay.

[01:04:27] And this is kind of the, it's simultaneously bright with all the colors, but kind of dark and cozy. It's great. Yeah, it looks cool. It's like right off the pool. That's why I didn't really understand, but it's like, it's right there. So that's cool. Yeah, yeah. I had no idea it was a pool bar until they went there

[01:05:40] and went, oh, now I get where it is.

[01:05:42] Yeah.

[01:05:43] What do they got there?

[01:05:44] What's good there?

[01:05:45] What is good there?

[01:05:46] They've got quite a bit.

[01:05:47] It's a pricey establishment. Salads, there are basically two salads, an heirloom beet salad and a Southwest salad. I loved the beet salad. That's what I had for dinner. That sounds good. Then I thought I was there and you can get salmon, blood iron steak or chicken breast

[01:07:01] on either of them. That should not be a $6 difference between a lobster, a crab sandwich, essentially, and a salad. That is insane. The crab roll is enormous and is one of the most expensive things on the menu, other than a salad with a steak on it. The burger is 26. Chicken sandwich? What do you think, Taryn? Chicken sandwich? Spicy.

[01:08:21] Spicy chicken sandwich. Spicy and crisp.

[01:08:22] Does it come with fries?

[01:08:24] Yes.

[01:08:24] Okay.

[01:08:25] And aioli.

[01:09:22] Yeah, it sounds fancy, but 18 bucks, but considering you get a Manhattan at Car Thay

[01:09:25] for just about that, without all the extra fluff.

[01:09:27] So this is again, what I'm talking about with pricing,

[01:09:30] what means anything anymore?

[01:09:32] It doesn't mean, like you look at this pricing,

[01:09:34] you go 18 bucks, okay, there's a lot going on,

[01:09:36] it's a craft cocktail.

[01:09:37] But the Manhattan is friggin' bullet and vermouth,

[01:09:41] like it's nothing, it's nothing,

[01:09:42] and it's that much money also,

[01:09:44] it doesn't make any sense, bullet is cheap as hell.

[01:09:47] It's not even the best vermouth. at that point, right? Because if they're doing the same thing. No, I'm not. Well, I don't care. If you want to be upset at Disney, try a modello for $12. Oh my gosh, really? The thing that killed me about that, and we talked about this in the Discord when I was there that night. After I finished dinner, I thought,

[01:11:01] well, maybe I can get into Sam's,

[01:11:02] have a drink and go back and go to bed.

[01:11:05] And Sam's just not. I'm not going to do it. But that's, I mean, it looks like a cool place. And, you know, if I, uh, I was hungry by the pool, I would probably get the cheapest thing there and some water. And you did say that the portions were, were big. Yeah, I did not finish that salad and the, the appetizers were very big. Definitely. I'm surprised at you. Oh, I mean, if you didn't finish the salad, it must be either

[01:12:22] terrible or a really big salad. Oh, it was a, it was a great salad.

[01:12:25] And I, that is cool. I will the doctor will pay. I like it. Because you fainted or? No, no, because you you're buying. I don't know. Oh, I'm the doctor. Oh, oh, no. Okay. Whatever. Where's that degree? When you turn your head, the the poster behind you, the head, should we know what Jeremy real fast? It's not Jeremy real fast. Oh, yeah, yeah. So in case you haven't listened to the last in-depth, Jeremy is retiring from in-depth. Next week will be his last in-depth show ever. He just, he hit me with that last week right before we go on the air.

[01:15:01] And Taryn knows.

[01:15:02] It's so Jeremy-like.

[01:15:03] Taryn knows exactly how much I really't want to do that. I don't want that to come across anymore. I said, okay, that's fair, man That's totally fair. So That'll be his last show. I'm gonna try to find some clips do maybe do a little best of send off for Jeremy I'll be fine But you know, of course we'll talk about news. There's a lot of good news a lot of good Jeremy rant news I think in the in the news cycle today or this week

[01:16:24] Yeah, well the biggest one I think I'll cover next week is that there was a

[01:17:24] product that are going to, they're going to be the ones trying to take over the board of directors next.

[01:17:25] Honestly, they should.

[01:17:27] Speaking of board directors, I reached out to Nelson Peltz's people to get in the room.

[01:17:31] I haven't heard back, but we'll see.

[01:17:33] That'd be fun.

[01:17:34] That'd be wild.

[01:17:35] I know.

[01:17:36] I'd love that.

[01:17:37] Yeah, me too.

[01:17:38] All right, that's it.

[01:17:39] So next in depth, I'm going to catch it live and you can sing about a Jeremy.

[01:17:43] You know what, maybe I'll have a call in.

[01:17:44] We don't leave the phone.

[01:17:45] Ooh.

[01:17:46] That'd be kind of fun.

[01:17:47] That'd be fun. and then whatever. And then if I think about it and I wanna like revisit it, I'll probably just split it out into its own feed, which I should have done in the first place. And that's sort of problematic with like some of the reviews we've gotten were like the negative reviews, which whatever who cares, were based on that show. Cause it's all news and opinion driven.

[01:19:00] Right.

[01:19:01] And so it's sort of like, you know, messes with everything.

[01:19:03] But yeah, so I don't know, we'll see.

[01:19:05] Things are up in the air right now and,

[01:19:07] but you know, everything's fine.

[01:19:08] I'm okay with it.