Trapped safari

This article is for the original trapped safari. For the replacement of the group in the American parks, see Private Jungle Cruise.

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The Lost Safari
Background information
Attractions	Jungle Cruise Bengal Barbecue Skipper Canteen Trader Sam's
Group information
Occupation	Safari
Leader(s)	Lost Safari leader
Members	Lost Safari guides Low Man on the Totem Pole Fez man Lost Safari cook Photographer
Headquarters	African veldt, North Africa (Sudan or Egypt; place of stranding)

The Trapped safari or Lost Safari is a group of characters from the Jungle Cruise. They are some of the most recognizable characters from the Jungle Cruise.

Members

The lost safari was composed of either five or eight individuals.

• Leader: This was a white colonial explorer who lead the expedition.
• Fez man: This was a man of likely African or middle-eastern ethnicity who was a member of the safari.
• Guides: Disneyland's Jungle Cruise showed the safari having four guides while the Magic Kingdom's showed only one. Regardless, these were African locals who each wore a fez and guided the team.
• Low Man on the Totem Pole:
• Old man: This was an older white man who travelled with food supplies, possibly implying him to be the safari's cook.
• Photographer: This member of the safari travelled with photographer equipment.

History

Background

The Lost Safari was a group lead by one white explorer and four of his African affiliates through the African veldt of North Africa along the Nile river at some point prior to 1936. The party came under attack by an angered rhinoceros which chased them up a tree in the veldt. At some point following 1911/1916 safari was sought after by a JNC boat called the Zambezi Miss which included the likes of riverboat captain Charlie Allnut and his wife Rose Sayer.

At some point in a December in or following 1935, they salvaged holiday supplies lost along the Nile by the Jungle Navigation Company to create a makeshift Christmas tree, only to get run up it by the rhinoceros. Around 1936, they were sighted on the African veldt by a skipper of the Jungle Navigation Company and reported over the Global Broadcasting Service.

Following a 1938 quest for the Holy Grail, the African Veldt was visited by famous archaeologist Indiana Jones. Jones was in the vicinity of the tree famous for the safari being run up where he accidentally left behind the umbrella of his father Henry Jones, Sr.. A Jungle Navigation Company boat would find the umbrella nearby the lost safari and presumably oversaw the recovery of the umbrella while the fate of the safari remains unknown.

Development history

The Trapped Safari was designed by animator Marc Davis for a comedy oriented refurbishment of the Jungle Cruise in 1964. However, the gag was made featuring outdated depictions of black characters. A better conceived variant of the vignette was installed in the Magic Kingdom's Jungle Cruise in-which the members of the safari were white colonial explorers, fitting into an interpretation of white colonialism being inept and pathetic.

In 2021, in the Jungle Cruise refurbishment, the Lost Safari was reimagined and installed with the original and multicultural characters of Felix Pechman XIII, Dr. Leonard Moss, Rosa Soto Dominguez, Dr. Kon Chunosuke, and Siobhan Murphy.

Appearances

Bengal Barbecue

A photograph of Charlie Allnut and Rose Sayer from The African Queen (1951) features the original trapped safari in the background.

Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar

The safari might be the namesake for Jock's drink The Safari Sangria which he got the recipe for after having gone to Africa in the 1940s where he met skippers and saw the backside of Schweitzer Falls.

Jungle Cruise

1964-2021

The Lost Safari used to appear in the African veldt scene. In Disneyland's Jungle Cruise, Nigel Greenwater made reference to the safari being the longest active lost safari in human history. Albert Awol alluded to the party in the Magic Kingdom's Jungle Cruise with the line, "-and now for today's Survival Tip:  when confronted by a charging rhino, head for the nearest tree and climb fast.  Failure to follow these instructions may result in pointed conversations".

2021-present

Undergarments resembling the bottom safari explorer's red and white spotted underwear appears in Trader Sam's Gift Shop!.

Indiana Jones Summer of Hidden Mysteries

In this overlay, Henry Jones, Sr.'s umbrella was left in the veldt, apparently an accident from one of Indy's adventures.

Jingle Cruise

In the Jingle Cruise, the safari was shown to have used salvaged supplies to create a makeshift Christmas tree for the holidays only to have been chased up it.

Jungle Cruise: Wildlife Expeditions

The Magic Kingdom's incarnation of the safari appears within this attraction.

Jungle River Cruise

The original Disneyland lost safari appears in the veldt of this jungle cruise.

Skipper Canteen

The menus for this restaurant used to contain an illustration of the Magic Kingdom's original Lost Safari.. Also in the Skipper Canteen is a wood carving of the rhino and hippos albeit without the safari. Said illustration was signed by one, "Skipper Will".

Trader Sam's

There is a drink in these bars called, "The Lost Safari" which is named for the expedition. The menu description for the beverage reads, "Best served with a rhino chaser, this drink always gets the point across in the end. Bottoms up!".

Trader Sam's Grog Grotto

A photo of the Disneyland incarnation of the safari can be found in this bar.

Other connections

The African Queen

Bengal Barbecue depicted Charlie Allnut and Rose Sayer searching for the safari.

In other media

Printed-materials

Skipper Survival Guide

The safari did not appear in this attraction however one expedition assumed their roles when encountering the rhino.

Paraphernalia

The Enchanted Tiki Room & the Adventurous Jungle Cruise

This audio narration of Disneyland's Jungle Cruise preserves a description of the original Disneyland trapped safari, as guided by Skipper Thurl Ravenscroft.

Trivia

• Due to being located along the main Nile river and also located in North Africa, the territory would have either been located in the nation of Egypt or Sudan.
• The white man in both Disneyland's and the Magic Kingdom's safari shared his face-mould with one of the duelists from the Haunted Mansion. In Walt Disney World's trapped safari, the man at the bottom of the pole shared a mould with the mansion's caretaker Silas Crump. The latter of these was sometimes alluded by skippers by saying that the characters were distant cousins.
• Cast-member dialogue for the Jingle Cruise identified the leader of the safari as, "Reginald". The canonicity of this is dubious, however.
  • Outside of the Congo boathouse in Jungle River Cruise is a crate of South American masks addressed to one, "Sir Reginald Fox".
• Greenwater mentioning the safari as being the longest lost but most sighted safari in history is a reference to the long time the scene was in the attraction, having been up in Disneyland for fifty-seven years.
• There is a board of missing persons in the Amazon River Base however none of the names contain allusions to members of the safari.

Gallery