Adventurer's Club
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Adventurer's Club is a themed nightclub in Pleasure Island at the Walt Disney World Resort. It is styled after a private club for world travelers and explorers and is set in 1937. The walls of the club are covered with artifacts and photographs from various explorations. The Adventurer's Club features animatronics, puppets, and a cast of adventurers who perform in shows and improvise comedy while mingling with the club's patrons. Shows and conversation are often laced with innuendo, and the adventurers usually refer to the patrons as "drunks".
Contents |
[edit] History
The Adventurer's Club opened with the rest of Pleasure Island on May 1, 1989. Disney's Imagineers created a fictional legend about the island's previous owner, Merriweather Adam Pleasure, and a backstory describing each of the buildings' former uses.
Until December 31, 2005, every night in Pleasure Island was celebrated as New Year's Eve. The launch point for the nightly fireworks was the patio behind the Adventurer's Club.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Resident Adventurers
- Hathaway Browne - Aviator, and the club's resident ladies' man.
- Otis T. Wren - Club Treasurer and ichthyologist.
- Fletcher Hodges - Absent-minded Club Curator.
- Pamelia Perkins - Club President.
- Samantha Sterling - Adventurer and explorer, and perennially single and bitter.
- Emil Bleehall - Contender for the Balderdash cup. Hails from Sandusky, Ohio. The character used to be portrayed as akin to a "travelling salesman," but is now depicted as a "Junior Adventurer" in a costume that is a pastiche of a Boy Scout uniform.
- Graves - Club Butler.
- The maid - There are many maids who work in the Adventurer's club and partcipate in its activities.
- Madame Zarkov - A mysterious gypsy who makes rare appearances at the Club. This character usually replaces that of Samantha Sterling.
The adventurers can be portrayed by different actors on different nights, and most actors play more than one part. For example, it is not uncommon to see one night's Pamelia performing as the maid on the next night.
[edit] Other Characters
- Colonel Critchlow Suchbench - Club Gleemeister. The colonel is a ventriloquist-dummy-styled puppet. He is usually "on duty" (sitting dormant), but he wakes up to lead the new inductees in the club song, and occasionally to converse with guests in the Main Salon.
- Babylonia - A giant stone face on the wall in the Main Salon, the godees of women and all things fertile, who sometimes speaks.
- The Yakoose - A mounted animal head that occasionally moves and speaks, either to guests or to Babylonia.
- Arnie and Claude - A pair of talking masks in the Mask Room.
- Beezel - A genie whose head appears in the Treasure Room.
- Fingers Zambezi - A haunted organ that provides the music for the Library shows.
[edit] Rooms
- The Zebra Mezzanine - The top floor of the club. The club entrance leads into the mezzanine, which forms a circlular balcony around the Main Salon. The walls feature many artifacts, and a framed parchment of the Club Creed. The adventurers rarely spend time here except during the Rhythm Ritual.
- The Main Salon - The central room of the club. The Main Salon houses the nightclub's bar, and also has a small stage from which the adventurers often speak or lead shows such as the New Member Induction Ceremony. The centerpiece of the Main Salon is a larger-than-life statue officially titled "Zeus Fishing", but alternatively referred to as "God with Rod". The walls of this room are filled with even more artifacts than on the Mezzanine, and many have placards giving their history and importance to the fictional former owner of the island, Merriweather Pleasure.
- The Mask Room - A small room off the Main Salon that features several shows throughout the night. The walls are covered with masks from around the world, many of which move and laugh. Two large Bacchanalian-inspired masks at the front of the room, Arnie and Claude, also talk and move their eyes.
- The Treasure Room (formerly the Genie Room) - Another small room off the Main Salon, the Treasure Room features the most valuable artifacts gathered by the club, and also hosts several shows throughout the night.
- The Library - This room is the largest in the club and hosts the musical shows, most notably the evening's finale, the Hoopla. This room also includes a second bar, and is the home of Fingers Zambezi.
[edit] Shows
The Adventurer's Club offers many shows throughout the night. Several adventurers host small shows in the Mask Room and Treasure Room. The schedule is not fixed, but there are plaques next to each room to show the schedule for that particular evening. Shows offered in other rooms include:
- Radio Broadcast - Otis and Pamelia lead a version of their weekly radio broadcast, in which half of the cast is missing and must be replaced by audience members. The broadcast is a serial radio show, akin to those of "The Shadow" or "Little Orphan Annie".
- The RadioThon- The club uses its radio broadcasting ability to attempt to raise $2000 and save the club from bankruptcy, finding some trouble along the way.
- The New Member Induction Ceremony - This ceremony takes place in the Main Salon. Each night you arrive at the Adventurer's Club happens to be the night of their membership drive. The ceremony is usually hosted by Otis T. Wren with the help of Emil Bleehall, and consists of three parts.
- The Club Creed - Emil leads the inductees as they repeat the creed.
- The Club Salute - This is where new adventurers learn the true meaning of the club's greeting, "Kungaloosh!", and the secret salute to accompany it.
- The Club Song - The Colonel is awakened to teach the crowd the club's anthem, though he usually misunderstands which song is expected of him at first.
- Samantha's Cabaret - A Library show led by Samantha Sterling.
- The Maid's Sing-a-Long - Another Library show led by the Maid.
- The Balderdash Cup Competition - The Library show that reveals the winner of the coveted Balderdash Cup.
- The Rhythm Ritual - A show centered in the Main Salon that leads into the Hoopla. The Ritual usually features all the adventurers looking down from the balconies of the mezzanine as they take turns performing humorous solos on percussive instruments. The ritual usually builds to a crescendo as they come downstairs into the Main Salon, all playing their instruments together. Then the Colonel responds to the sound by coming off duty and shouting out rhythmic but often nonsensical phrases for the patrons to repeat, finalizing in the announcement of the Hoopla.
- The Hoopla - The Adventurer's Club evening finale. At the end of the Rhythm Ritual, the Library doors open and the guests are seated. The Hoopla is hosted by Samantha Sterling, and always begins with a sing-along of "The Happy Wanderer". There are usually two or three other numbers performed by other adventurers, then the show is always concluded with Samantha leading everyone in "When the Saints Go Marching In", with each remaining adventurer creating a verse.
[edit] Trivia
- It is tradition that whenever an adventurer uses the word Hoopla, the rest of the crowd must yell back "Hoopla!"
- The bartenders are often named "Nash."
- The maid is the only character to have a unique identity when played by a different actress (by way of contrast, "Graves" is always known as such, no matter which actor is playing him). Past and present maids include "Anelle," "Kiki McGee," "Beullah Belle" and "Tish Myash."
- At various times, souvenir cups have been sold in the shape of a canteen, a monkey head and a Yakoose head.
- The fastpass machines at the Jungle Cruise in the Magic Kingdom are designed to resemble travel trunks. Two of these have nametags on the top, one with Emil's address, and one with Pamelia's.
