Disney Snippets

GULLYWHUMPER

“Gullywhumper” is slang for a heavy amount rainfall in a short amount of time… Wow, that was a real gullywhumper!

Guests to Disneyland on Christmas Day in 1955 were treated to an exciting new river ride attraction, Mike Fink Keel Boats, using the actual prop boats from two episodes of the Disneyland television miniseries Davy Crockett’s Keel Boat Race and Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. The Gullywhumper and Bertha Mae were thirty-eight-foot-long diesel driven wooden boats with bench seating inside and on the roof of the cabin. The boats traveled around Tom Sawyer Island steered by a cast member with a tiller without the aid of submerged guide rails. New larger keel boats with fiberglass hulls replaced the original movie prop boats after the first year with a cast member pilot entertaining park guests with a comical narration in the spirit of the iconic Jungle Cruise boat ride.

In the early evening of May 17, 1997, a rowdy load of passengers aboard Disneyland’s Gullywhumper Keel Boat began rocking the boat side-to-side causing the pilot to lose control of the vessel and dump the entire boatload of passengers into the Rivers of America. Thankfully the river is shallow and there were only a few minor injuries and soaked and unhappy park guests. Unfortunately, the incident signaled the final trip of the Keel Boats and the end of a forty-two-year run of the popular attraction.

Wow, that was a real gullywhumper!

Davy Crockett’s Keel Boat, with a blemished past, has returned to The Rivers of America and Tom Sawyers Island as a stationery prop visible only from the Davy Crockett’s Explorer Canoes, Sailing Ship Columbia and the Mark Twain Riverboat.

Kindhearted Davy Crockett “King of the Wild Frontier” aboard the Gullywhumper, beat Mike Fink “King of the River” aboard the Bertha Mae in a race down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, fair and square, but let Fink hang on to his title if he would eat his own hat…. which he did.

1978 Postcard from the collection of Bill Ralph.