The Celestial Simian

There's a nice photo of Bob the Monkey God at Disneyland over on the official Disney Parks Blog today.

The real among the fake

Hey, it's April Fools day, but today we're linking to a story about something real. The OC Register posted a great story this week about the world-famous Jungle Cruise at Disneyland and how very real and authentic its jungle foliage is.

That wasn't the way it was back in 1955 when the Jungle River of Adventureland first opened, but today's Jungle Cruise features plants features such an authentic jungle that, according to the article, it even functions in some ways like one:

While the landscaping crews work in the jungle every day, they try to leave it alone except for pruning the higher trees, and making sure the plants do not interfere with the animatronic animals that guests see.

They even leave most of the fallen leaves on the ground to let the nutrients naturally return to the soil, just like in the jungles of the Amazon or Africa.

“The humidity has even attracted aerial roots from the ficus trees,” Hedges said.

Here's the video from the OC Register too:



It's a pretty interesting story. One of the things you often hear Disney-haters moan about is, "it's all fake." Well, that never bothered me anyway, but it's also nice to see the great lengths the Disney crews go to make the illusion as real as possible.