“Davy Crockett's Keelboat Race” aired on November 16, 1955. It was the fourth of five episodes and told the tale of Davy Crockett and Georgie and the self-proclaimed "King of the River", Mike Fink. This production photo shows The Bertha Mari Keelboat. What? That’s right...when you zoom in, you can see that the name is distinctly “Bertha Mari.”
The sequence shown in this photo was actually filmed on the Ohio River and depicts the legendary race down river from Maysville, Kentucky, to New Orleans.
And here is a shot of The Bertha Mae at Disneyland. Why the name was changed is unknown to me; you’ll also note that she is really gussied-up compared to how she looked on TV!
The Keelboat that sits outside of Mike Fink’s cabin is more accurate to what the Keelboats on the TV show looked like. Fink’s Keelboat was known as The Gullywhumper.
View more Disneyland Keelboat photos at my main website.
7 comments:
"Bertha Mari", that's pretty interesting! Good detective work. I wonder if the names of the boats are ever spoken in the TV shows?
I don't remember hearing the names on the show, but I do remember my Dad laughing about the "Gullywhumper" and that I didn't want to ride on it, since that wasn't the hero's boat. Sigh.
I'd give a lot to ride either one again...
Fun stuff, Dave.
JG
You constantly blow my mind with the stuff you find out - and that's a good thing!
The Keel Boat in the B&W shot has two windows on the side... they were used at DL for a while, I believe, but were replaced with the THREE window variety pictured in the color shot.
The full name is: "Bertha Mae Marietta." "Mae etta" is on the other side.
Captain Cob, With Davy and Georgie, says, "Bertha Mae [out of] Marietta." and then Davy says, "Sounds like a race horse."
Bertha Mae
Mari etta
got it?
Anonymous - Thanks. I "got it" on the first comment. I'm putty quick that way.
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