You’re taking a ride with your visiting relatives on the Jungle Queen, an ideal way to showcase our yachting and sailing culture as well as the waterfront mansions that line our shores.
You get on board, and the owner greets you personally. As your excursion goes underway, he starts belting out vaudeville songs, dancing all the while. In between, he shares jokes in a mini-variety show. When you arrive at once-called Jungle Queen Island for a 45-minute stop, you are provided with an all-you-can-eat meal on picnic tables, including barbecue ribs, chicken and corn on the cob. For dessert, you have pie while Bernice Ashley, a Lauderdale grandmother and former vaudeville star, belts out “Pennies from Heaven” in between a performance by a harmonica player and a juggling act.
And all of this, including the meal, is $10.95.
Oh, and that includes the passenger singalong on the trip back.
Welcome to the late 1950s through 1960s Jungle Queen adventure.
And why wouldn’t the Jungle Queen experience include a vaudeville show? After all, its owner at the time had such roots. Earl Faber, a singer, dancer and top-drawer vaudeville act, who counted Milton Berle and Jack Benny among his friends, took ownership of the tourist boat in 1958. He was the one who greeted passengers and performed his song-and-dance routines for captive audiences sailing down the New River.
Faber had been a big hit on the touring vaudeville circuit, which prompts a primer for those scratching their heads. “Vaudeville? I think I have heard of it, but…”
In the early 1900s, the movement began as an effort to counter burlesque and other bawdy entertainment. The idea was “to present clean family fun” in what came to be called variety shows. Some of its first performers included Charlie Chaplin, Mae West and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.
The popular songs of the day included “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” which has hung around, and others that haven’t, like “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”
Faber’s career, cut short by the Great Depression, ended in a move to Long Island with his family. On a visit to Fort Lauderdale, he took a trip on the first iteration of the Jungle Queen, then a simpler affair on a single-decked boat seating 100. It was owned by a man named Al Starts.
Faber saw the potential to expand this business and, perhaps more importantly, an opportunity to get himself back on stage again. After purchasing it, he was soon greeting passengers personally, telling jokes, dancing and singing. The good times began.
Ms. Ashley, who as a younger woman played clubs in the Northeast, came to settle here as vaudeville died out. In a news article after being hired by the Jungle Queen, she said, “I’m having so much fun I should be paying them.”
Among all the quaint touches of those days (including that quaint $10.95 price) were the singalongs. Perhaps the closest to such an occurrence these days would be in a pop concert, say, singing “Born in the USA” alongside Bruce Springsteen, or, hymnal in hand, joining the choir in a church service.
Back then, the singalong number might have been “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes,” “Oh! Susanna” or any of a dozen others.
When Earl Faber died in 1962, his son Jerry took over. Soon after, Jerry commissioned a bigger boat — the one we know today, a double-decked steel vessel with room for over 500.
That’s a pretty big jump from the 100-seater. People thought he was crazy. But build it, and they will come. The customers certainly proved him right even without the song and dance.
