Trader Sam's Gift Shop!

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Trader Sam's Gift Shop!
attractions	Jungle Cruise (attraction)
Type	Gift-shop Lost & found (formerly)
Location	Amazon rainforest
Inhabitants	Trader Sam Jungle Navigation Company Ellie Macaques
Visitors	Skippers Guests (Jungle Cruise) Frank Wolff

Trader Sam's Gift Shop! is a fictional location from the Jungle Cruise. The scene is best known as having been an attempt to remove the infamously racist character, "Trader Sam".

Description

Trader Sam's Gift Shop! is a hut with a small dock which serves as a gift-shop in the Amazon rainforest along the Amazon river. The hut is allocated just South-East of the Jungle Navigation Company's Amazon River Base and was previously used to serve as the Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Lost & Found.

History

Background

The building was originally created to serve as the Jungle Navigation Company's lost & found. Around 1938, company president Alberta Falls put business-affiliate and personal friend Trader Sam in-charge of the lost & found. Seeing potential profit, Sam transformed the lost & found into, "Trader Sam's Gift Shop!" where he sold the belongings recovered from the Jungle Cruise.

Development history

Creation

The gift-shop scene was created for a 2021 refurbishment aimed at removing racist stereotypes from the Jungle Cruise. The gift-shop in particular replaced the characters of Trader Sam and Chief Nah-mee who appeared at the end of the attraction trading shrunken heads, a negative stereotype of Jivaroan peoples. According to ex-Imagineer Kevin Lively, the idea for the gift-shop was made when he was a cast-member at Tarzan's Treehouse. The idea was for JNC skippers to have turned the company lost and found into a store. The scene also copies the gorilla raiders gag created by Marc Davis, a gag which was also copied in the same refurbishment for the chimpanzees.

Racism

Despite being integrated in a progression oriented refurbishment, the shop's inclusion has been controversial and criticized by some for continuing the racist depiction of Sam and the peoples whom he represents. The shop is named for Trader Sam whose reputation is pseudonymous with the Jungle Cruise's colonial propagandistic elements. The shop furthermore characterizes Sam as being an untrustworthy thief and greedy criminal which continues to vilify South American Indigenous peoples for comedy and which is emblematic of real-life stereotypes of Indigenous peoples.

In the Magic Kingdom, the shop also has a tribute to Chief Nah-mee. In 2023, a sign during the Jingle Cruise included a promotion for, "Trader Sam-ta" mentioning a, "Head start" on Holiday shopping, and not that, "Inventory shrinking". Both of these referenced Trader Sam's racially stereotyped shrunken-head dealing.

Appearances

Jungle Cruise

The gift-shop appears at the end of the attraction before returning to civilization. The shop is being ransacked by monkeys with a hornbill sitting atop it. In the Magic Kingdom's queue, its building appears on a map made by Frank Wolff with the words, "Lost and Found" written beside it by Alberta Falls. In Disneyland's queue, it is marked on a 1931 map detailing Dr. Albert Falls' victorian expedition on the Rivers of Adventure with the words, "Lost & Found". Skipper Missy also makes announcements for the lost and found over the Global Broadcasting Service such as calling Skipper Kevin to meet Sam there over a lost book.

Jingle Cruise

During the Jingle Cruise, the shop is covered in decorations and has a Santa Claus costume belonging to Sam's cousin Chief Nah-mee within. Year round, recycled props from the Jingle Cruise are amongst the shop's inventory.

Trivia

• The gift-shop might be a reference to Trader Sam's Jungle Boutique, a gift-shop which was supposed to appear in Disneyland Paris' Adventureland but removed in favour of the Indiana Jones Adventure Outpost.
• Some have put forwards that the two monkeys tugging over underpants in Trader Sam's Gift Shop! was copied from the Jurassic Park ride in Universal Studios where two compsognathus tug at a shirt.
• Some items in the shop are easter-eggs and recycled props:
  • In the Magic Kingdom, there is a crate addressed to the shop from one, "C. Namee". This is a tribute to the character Chief Nah-mee who used to occupy the scene.
  • In the gift-shop is a cowboy boot with a snake crawling out of it. This references the character of Sheriff Woody from the Toy Story films who has a notable comedic line which is, "There's a snake in my boot!".
  • A crate of Christmas decor from the Jingle Cruise appears in the shop.
  • A pair of red undergarments with white hearts on it is in the gift-shop, resembling the underwear of the sodomized colonist from the Magic Kingdom's original trapped safari. In concept-art this underwear was instead decorated with Mickey Mouse heads.
  • In the Magic Kingdom, there is a tank from Safari Sue's Snake Farm. Safari Sue was a character from the Adventure Trading Company, referenced as selling cobra eggs to Bengal Barbecue.
• The shop getting ransacked by monkeys seems to mirror Sam's other business Tropical Imports being stated to get raided by monkeys in the Adventure Trading Company.
• In Jungle Cruise: Wildlife Expeditions, the company lost & found is located in the, "Friends of the Jungle" display-case. In the Skipper Canteen, the mess hall contains a, "Lost and Unfound".
• For 2024's Pixar Fest, a small depiction of the Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story made of jungle materials was added to Trader Sam's Gift Shop! as one of 50 Pizza Planet trucks hidden across the park.

Gallery

During the Jingle Cruise

One Frank Wolff's map

See also

• List of Racist Elements in the Jungle Cruise