We know that Disney's upcoming Jungle Cruise movie is more "inspired by" the Disneyland and Walt Disney World attraction than it is "based on." Until very recently, the popular theme park ride didn't even have a cohesive storyline so the plot of the new movie will be something more or less entirely original. Having said that, we fully expect that many different elements from the attraction will be incorporated into the plot, or at the very least referenced, and one of the most important things that any Jungle Cruise inspired story should have is bad puns.
For decades the Jungle Cruise has been home to some of the best bad jokes you'll find in any theme park anywhere. The jokes are such a key part of the ride that any movie based on Jungle Cruise would need to include some. And in a new video promoting the film, Dwayne Johnson himself fulfills his on-screen role as Skipper by dropping a couple of rock-solid puns. Check it out.
The first trailer for Jungle Cruise included the one line you can be sure to hear on any and every Jungle Cruise ride, as you float by "the back side of water." But beyond that one line, every ride on the Jungle Cruise is a little different. There are so many different jokes that have been written over the years, and Jungle Cruise Skippers get to basically pick and choose their own spiel like a menu of groaners, that no two trips are entirely the same.
Dwayne Johnson's granite joke here might be one you've heard before, or it could even be entirely new to you if your previous Skippers just didn't use that one. Based on the comments in this video, it sounds like there might be an entire extended scene that is just Dwayne Johnson going through a routine, dropping one pun after another. It seems that, in the movie, Emily Blunt's character doesn't love the jokes--while Jack Whitehall's character does. It also sounds from the interview segments that this is more or less true for the actors as well.
Because humor is such a vital part of the Jungle Cruise attraction, it needs to be an important part of the Jungle Cruise movie. Of course, we know that humor will be mixed with action, as the trailers for Jungle Cruise show us the movie will have plenty of that.
Seeing these jokes in this video, and knowing there will be more, brings a smile to my face. The Jungle Cruise is one of the few rides where cast member performance still happens and it's become a necessary part of the show. There's no actual need for the skippers to drive the boat, but the Jungle Cruise is about the skippers as much as it is the mechanical animals, if not more so. For those that have never actually had a chance to ride the Jungle Cruise, they'll get a way to experience all the beautiful bad jokes when Dwayne Johnson delivers them in the new movie, and that will likely be a special moment for all the skippers, past and present.
