Hidden History of the Edison - Dancing To Disney

If you have visited Disney Springs you have probably noticed a restaurant called the Edison. I t’s located in the Landing section of Disney Springs close to STK and Gideon’s Bakehouse. The Edison is a 1920’s, steampunk designed restaurant with family friendly entertainment until after late in the evening when the entertainment gets a little edgier! They serve American cuisine and amazing cocktails but what you may not know is that this used to be where the absolute coolest club that has ever been on Disney property. This location used to be home to the Adventurers Club and this week I am telling you all about it!

All About The Edison

Let’s start out by giving the current resident of this space her dues. The Edison is such a cool restaurant, with some of the coolest decor and just a great vibe. It is meant to look like it is in an old power plant and there are nods to this all over the place. You walk in to see these huge gears turning and if you have your eyes open you will find all kinds of really unique light fixtures. With Edison bulbs of course!

There are projections on the walls and TV’s playing really old black and white films and shorts, some of which look like something that would’ve gone on inside the Adventurers Club honestly. There are three different bars inside, a great outdoor seating area with a great view of the Sassagoula River and a fantastic American menu! Along with the American menu, they also have a great cocktail and drink menu that includes punch bowls you can share with the table. My personal favorite is the Samantha Sterling! It is so named for one of the residents of the Adventurers Club but we will talk about that later!

The Edison also has live entertainment every night which I feel is a nod to it’s former tenant in a small way. Until 10pm you will find the Pearl Street Players playing some of your favorites with a 20’s twist. think Post Modern Jukebox style. After 10pm the entertainment gets a little more lively and includes a burlesque show, aerialists, stilt walkers and magic! This is such a unique place in Disney Springs but trust me, it doesn’t hold a candle to what used to be here. It was truly a work of creativity and art that was one of a kind.

What Was the Adventurers Club?

This nightclub was part of the Pleasure Island section of what used to be known as Downtown Disney, now Disney Springs. It was set in 1937 and was fully decorated with artifacts and photographs from the explorers withins adventures around the world. You felt like you were walking into a private adventurer and explorers club when you visited here. There were animatronics that interacted with you, puppets and an actual cast of characters that performed and made you part of the show every night! Each night you were invited to an Open House of the Adventurers Club where you became a member and as they would say “Come in a stranger and leave a little stranger”

The Five Rooms

The Adventurers Club was made up of 5 different rooms, each uniquely themed. The top floor was home to the Zebra Mezzanine, this was the entrance to the club and where you would find the Club Creed written on a parchment hanging on the wall. This would also be where you were most likely to run into Graves and could look down into the Main Salon. This is laid out the same for the most part in the Edison, you can look down on the stage area now.

The central room of the club was the Main Salon, this is where you would find the main bar and the famous “Zeus Goes Fishing” of “God with Rod” statue. The artifacts here mostly had placards with their history and importance to certain members of the Adventurers Club. This room is where the New Member Induction Ceremony happened each night.

There was also a small room off the Main Salon called the Mask Room that housed a few shows each night. As it’s named, the walls were covered with masks from all over the world and most of them would laugh or interact with you. The masks included two larger ones named Arnie and Claude who were always good for a laugh.

Also off of the Main Salon was the Treasure Room with, you guessed it, TREASURES! This room had lots of things collected by all the adventurers in the club and was home to the shows that featured the Genie Head in a Lantern effect.

The Library was the largest room in the club and hosted the more regular and scripted shows that had songs and lots of audience participation. This is where you would find yet another bar and Fingers Zambezi. I’m sure you want to know more about him so let’s talk about some of the characters you might find wandering around or bolted down in the club!

The Characters

The characters that came to life in this place were so detailed and amazing, they really should make a movie! They all had the best stories and elaborate costumes, it’s a shame they are not around anymore. Here’s a quick rundown of each character for you:

Hathaway Brown: The resident club ladies man and aviator
Otis T. Wren: Club Treasurer and Ichthyologist
Fletcher Hodges: Scatter brained Club Curator who is said to have “mounted every object in the club”
Pamela Perkins: Club President
Samantha Sterling: Cabaret singer and explorer
Emil Bleehal: Contender for the Balderdash Cup and looking like a Boy Scout, he comes from Sandusky, OH
Graves: The club butler
The Maid: It could be Yvette, Sugar Snap, Ginger Vitus, LaRue or many other scantily clad French Maids that worked at the club, but she was always a good time! **This was the only character that was different depending on who was playing her that day**
Madame Zarkov: A roaming Gypsy who just showed up sometimes
Colonel Critchlow Suchbench: The Club Gleemeister! This was a cable controlled puppet that would lay dormant until certain queue’s were spoken and then he would spring to life leading new inductees in the club song and talk to guests. Usually telling dirty jokes!
Babylonia: The goddess of women, a large stone face mask in the Main Salon that would come to life and speak to you
The Yakose: Is it a yak or a moose? Who knows but his head was mounted to the wall and he would come to life and speak to Babylonia and the guests
Arnie and Claude: The talking drama masks in the Mask Room
Beezie: The genie who’s head appeared in the Treasure Room
Fingers Zambezi: The haunted organ in the Library that played all the music for the shows and seemed to move around very randomly
Nash: Every bartender was Nash!

There were some other mentioned yet unseen characters or characters that only showed up every once in a while or for the Last Hoopla only. And speaking of the Last Hoopla, let’s talk about the shows and traditions that went on at the Adventurers Club!

Shows and Traditions

There were lots of different shows each night at the Adventurers Club and you would be hard pressed to be able to see them all in one night. The main shows happened in the Library since it was the largest room but smaller shows happened in the Mask Room and Treasure Room as well. There wasn’t always a set schedule but usually you would find a sign outside of these rooms with a run of the events for that evening. Some of these were scripted but all of them allowed for some improv from the characters and encouraged audience involvement, so no two were ever the same. Here is what you would expect each night at the club:

Welcome Party: Hosted by Samantha Sterling and Fletcher Hodges in the Library to get the Open House started.
Radio Broadcast: Also held in the Library, Otis and Pamelia Perkins lead what would now be referred to as a podcast. It was supposed to be an old timer radio serial like Little Orphan Annie called “Tales from the The Adventurers Club”. They were always missing half the cast and had to fill in with audience members which made for some great laughs!
The Balderdash Cup Competition: Spoiler alert….Emil Bleehall always wins except on the last night when the audience decided it was Otis T Wrens turn! The Adventurer of the Year is the winner of the Balderdash Cup and it is decided on by audience cheering and applause.
The RadioThon: Every night the club tries to raise $2,000 to save the club from loosing their lease and chaos issues along the way. Unfortunately on the last night they did not raise the needed funds.
The New Member Induction Ceremony: By far my favorite part of the night! You would get 3 chances to be inducted into the club each night and it happened right in the Main Salon. It consisted of 3 parts:
- The Club Salute: This is where you learn what KUNGALOOSH means, an overall greeting amongst members and bottoms up!
- The Club Creed: This was recited by all wishing to obtain membership and embodied all that the club stood for!
- The Club Song: Led by Colonel Critchlow who usually messed up and started singing some other song first. This song was all about how an Adventurers life is best!
Samantha’s Cabaret: Samantha sang some of her favorite songs in the Library each night
The Maid’s Sing Along: Self explanatory and usually hilarious!
The Rhythm Ritual: This was the precursor to the Hoopla each night. The adventurers would line the Zebra Mezzanine balcony looking down on the Main Salon and take turns playing different percussive instruments. They would then play together as they made their way down to the Main Salon where Colonel Critchlow would be awakened by their rhythms and start calling out nonsense rhythms and phrases the audience was expected to repeat. This would go on for a bit then he would announce the Hoopla!
The Hoopla: The library doors were flung open and everyone was invited in to close out the night with Samantha Sterling hosting a sing along of “The Happy Wanderer” and then other songs from other club members. They would close out with “When The Saints Go Marching In” and each adventurer creating a new verse, sometimes completely on the fly.
Happy New Year! Every night was NYE in Pleasure Island so there was always a scheduled break in the shows for guests to go outside and join in on the countdown and fireworks at midnight.

A Little History

The Adventurers Club was open from May 1, 1989 until September 27, 2008. When Disney announced it would be closing permanently an online petition was started to try to get them to keep the club open and part of the newly designed area. Within hours there were almost 3,000 signatures on this petition. It was truly a fan favorite. The club was dreamed up by Imagineers Roger Cox and Joe Rohde and that comes as no surprise as Joe Rohde is also the mastermind behind Disney’s Animal Kingdom. You can now see some of the artifacts form the club in Jock Lindsay’s Hangar Bar just down the way from the Edison (you’ll find Babylonia here!), in Mystic Manor in Hong Kong Disneyland and in both Trader Sam’s bars.

The last official public performance had overflowing crowds that really showed how much people were going to miss this club. Disney decided to leave it open for an extra year but only for rented private events. The last semi public event was almost a year later on September 25, 2009 for the ConGaloosh Society which was a Florida based non profit dedicated to the preservation of improvisational theater like what happened each night at the Adventurers Club. The cast has reunited a handful of times since then for D23 events, NYE Countdowns at Disney Resort Hotels, runDisney events and even as recent as 2019 they reunited at the Yacht and Beach Club to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pleasure island and the Adventurers Club! So maybe there is hope we will get them all together again to induct more members.

Conclusion

So while I adore the Edison and all that it has to offer, it will never compare to all the the Adventurers Club was. I believe it is something that could never be replicated and some have tried! There is actually a bar in Wilmington, NC called the Sorrow Drowner that is akin to the Adventurers Club and former imagineers that knew the club all too well helped to create. I so wish it would be brought back but only if it could be the way it was and not dumbed down for the bottom line. The 80’s and 90’s were a magical time for Disney I feel. Although they wanted to and did make lots of money, I feel like it was a time where creativity and imagination were in total control and the wilder the idea was, the better! The Adventurers Club was definitely one of he wilder ones.

I miss it and loved it so much that 13 years after the Final Hoopla I actually created a dance for my senior competition dancers and taught them all about the club and they even had their own new member induction ceremony right on the stage each time they performed it, technically the audience was inducted too I suppose. If you want to watch it, you can find it on our YouTube channel here! Needless to say this club holds a special place in my memory and I am sad that people can no longer experience what a gem this place was.

I hope you enjoyed my love letter to the Adventurers Club, we went to eat at the Edison last week and I always get a little nostalgic when I walk in there. I figured why not tell everyone what used to be there! I hope it Brough it to life for you and there are lots of fun videos on YouTube that show the club, back then the video quality wasn’t great but they are fun nonetheless. As always, thank you so much for being here and as they say at the club: KUNGALOOSH!