Adventurers' Club

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Marching Along, We're Adventurers,
Singing the song of Adventurers,
Up or Down,
North, South, East or West,
An Adventurer's Life is Best.
An Adventurer's Life is Best!

Kungaloosh!"
—The Adventurer's Club All Purpose Theme Song from the Trope Namer that existed at Walt Disney World.

This is where you'll find the Lady of Adventure, Adventurer Archaeologist, Great White Hunter and Gentleman Adventurer all hanging out when they aren't out doing dangerous things. There's probably a bar, a roaring fireplace, and lots of easy chairs for people to sit around in. Expect animal heads and African masks hanging on the walls in terms of decor, as well as lots of globes and maps. (Possibly a library full of them.) Often the site of a Framing Device, with one person sharing stories about his latest adventure and the others listening. Especially common in works set in the Victorian or Edwardian eras or a Steampunk universe, but they can be found elsewhere.


Examples of Adventurers' Club include:

Live-Action TV

  • Monty Python's Flying Circus: The "Lost World of Roiurama" sketch has a scene in the British Explorers' Club.
  • In the third episode of the American Thank God You're Here, Harland Williams won as an adventurer returning to his club after an expedition.

Tabletop RPG

Theater

  • In Eric Overmyer's play On the Verge, the three Ladies of Adventure often reminisce about good times at the Explorer's Club back home. Fanny, in particular, has a great monologue about the Foreign Queasine she gladly partook of last time she was there.

Web Original

  • The Virtual Exploration Society flavortext at the Museum of Unnatural Mystery Web site.

Western Animation

  • Scrooge McDuck is a member of one of these.
  • The "Super Adventure Club" in South Park is visually based on the Disney club, although it's actually an organisation of child molesters (and a thinly veiled strawman of the Church of Happyology).
  • Underdog: Commander McBragg's stories usually started and ended here.
  • A few Snagglepuss cartoons on The Yogi Bear Show featured the major belonging to an adventurers' club

Real Life

  • Numerous, including:
    • The Explorers Club in New York City.
    • The Royal Geographical Society in 19th century England.
    • And, the National Geographic Society, its American counterpart.
      • David Grann, when writing The Lost City of Z (a biography of the missing explorer Percy Fawcett), gave a description of the Royal Geographical Society that would have fitted the one given at the head of this trope almost exactly. One thing that it had which is interesting was a schoolroom as even the most wacky -- I mean mystical -- explorers had to have a grasp of technique.
  • The Trope Namer is the defunct restaurant at Walt Disney World.
    • There is also the Society of Explorers and Adventurers or S.E.A. at Tokyo Disney Sea and soon, Hong Kong Disneyland.