Darla: "It looks like it's abandoned!"
The Mississippi Queen was a famous American riverboat run by the Delta Queen Steamboat Company. The riverboat was first launched in 1976. The riverboat was also featured in The Little Rascals animated series, in the "Cap'n Spanky's Showboat" episode. In the episode, the riverboat was not maintained after traffic was down a few years earlier, causing Captain Smokey to resign from his job. To help give the ship and Smokey's job a second life, the Rascals took on the task to refurbish the riverboat.
In real life, the Queen had its final run in 2008, was sold for scrap by 2009, and was dismantled as early as April 2011. Like was in the case in The Little Rascals, business having declined was likely the reason for the ship's demise, though it could be inferred that the looming global economic crisis may have been a driving force in business having gone down.