Gorilla raiders

**The Gorilla raiders** is the conjectural name for a group of characters from the Jungle Cruise.

## Description

The gorilla raiders are a troop of gorillas who live in *Gorilla Country* in the Congo basin of Africa. They have a habit for raiding human camps of their belongings. The raiders have also been affiliated with (knowingly or unknowingly) being the, "**Adventureland Gorilla Theatre Company**" which certain residents of *Adventureland* affiliate with performing plays.

## Members

* **Baby gorilla**: This was a young gorilla around 1938.
* **Curious gorilla**:
* **Kejo the Silverback**: Kejo was an aggressive male silverback gorilla who had been in the troop since at-least the mid 1930s.
* **Marksman gorilla**:
* **Parent gorilla**:
* **Pith helmet gorilla**:

## History

### Background

This was a troop of gorillas who lived in the Congo basin of Africa during the 1930s. Around 1935/1936, they ransacked a safari camp belonging to big-game hunters in the Congo. A journalist named Thompson J. Gazelle working for *The Daily Gnus* newspaper perceived them as players in the "**Adventureland Gorilla Theatre Company**". Gazelle reported on this in the Daily Gnus and by 1938 wrote a book titled, "Gorilla Theatre".

The gorillas frequently terrorized the *Jungle Navigation Company*. In one incident, they stole the company's movie projector, indefinitely postponing their movie night. In 1938, they also ransacked a JNC campsite along the Congo river, being used by *R.V. Laust Surveying & Cartography*. They stole the camp's supplies and flipping over a jeep. A JNC "Jungle Cruise" tour passed by this camp after planning to stop there for a refuel.

### Development history

The gorilla raiders were added to the Jungle Cruise in a comedy oriented refurbishment occurring in 1977/1978. The characters were designed by animator Marc Davis, replacing a family of rhinos which appeared in the same portion of the attraction. The gorilla raider gag was copied in a 2021 refurbishment for both the chimpanzees replacing the headhunter camp and monkeys ransacking the controversial Trader Sam's Gift Shop! in place of Trader Sam.

## Appearances

### Adventure Trading Company

In the Daily Gnus newspaper was an article called, "Is Hamlet much ado about nothing?" by Thompson J. Gazelle. The article talked about the gorillas as part of the, "Adventureland Gorilla Theatre Company" doing a performance of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

### Jungle Cruise

The gorillas are passed by ransacking the base camp in every version of the Jungle Cruise. One fires a gun into the water, another puts tries on a pith helmet in a mirror, a mother plays with her baby, and another gorilla examines the barrel of a rifle. Moving along, the boats encounter Kejo attempting to grab a crate floating in the water.

Albert Awol makes several references to the camp and its gorillas in his audio-loop. At one point Awol asks "How many gorillas does it take to destroy a base-camp? An average of 8 minutes for a family of gorillas to destroy a typical base camp". Awol also tries to contact the owner of the jeep which the gorillas flipped and comments on the gorillas having stolen the skippers' film-projector, postponing movie-night. Nigel Greenwater reports in his loop (set in 1935/1936) that a group of big-game hunters had their camp raided by the gorillas.

#### Jingle Cruise

During this overlay, the gorillas have stolen a large amount of Christmas presents left in the jungles by a cargo plane that was supposed to deliver them to JNC outposts.

### Skipper Canteen

In the library of the skipper canteen is a book by Thompson J. Gazelle titled, "Gorilla Theatre".

## In other media

### Video-games

#### Kinect: Disneyland Adventures

The gorillas serve as the antagonists of the second-level of the Jungle Cruise mini-games. Here, they raided an archaeological camp and players must play monkey-see-monkey-do to have them remove the stolen archaeological finds.

#### Minecraft

While the raided camp appeared in the Bedrock Edition Magic Kingdoms DLC, only the marksman gorilla was featured in the scene.

## Trivia

* The gorillas are referenced in the film *Tarzan* (1999) where one of the gorillas in Tarzan's troupe raids a base camp and peeks down the barrel of a gun.
* In Jungle River Cruise, the song *Trashin' the Camp* from *Tarzan* (1999) plays from a radio as they raid the camp. This references how in the film, the song plays while Tarzan's cousin Terk raids an English camp.
* One of the original gorillas was removed from the attraction to be repurposed as the original yeti audio-animatronic in *Matterhorn Bobsleds*. Said audio-animatronic was later replaced and moved to the queue of the attraction *Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT!* representing a taxidermy yeti in the possession of the Collector.
* Common jokes used for the gorillas refers to them as the skipper's, "In-laws".
* Skippers will sometimes make jokes which passive-aggressively make fun of how the imagineers of the 2021 refurbishment just copied the gorilla camp scene for the chimpanzees.

## Gallery

The gorilla later repurposed for Matterhorn Bobsleds
## References

1. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=871455071077&set=oa.1903682069948046
2. ↑ https://disneyandmore.blogspot.com/2009/02/second-life-of-jungle-cruise-gorilla.html