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Extinct Attractions:
Disneyland Country Bears History Documentary directed by
David Oneal
with
Alice Davis
The Country Bear Jamboree was originally intended by
Walt to be placed at
Disney's
Mineral King Ski Resort which he was trying to build in the mid
1960s. Walt knew he wanted some sort of show to provide entertainment to the guests at the resort, and he knew he wanted the show to feature some sort of bear band.
The project was assigned to imagineer
Marc Davis.
Davis, together with
Al Bertino, came up with many bear groups, including bear marching bands, bear mariachi bands, and
Dixieland bears. One day Davis was working on drawings of the characters in his office.
Walt Disney walked in and saw the drawings and laughed because he loved the characters. On Disney's way out he turned to Marc Davis and said good-bye, which he was known never to say.
A few days later he died on
December 15, 1966. It was the last time Davis saw Disney.
After his death, plans for the show still carried on. The bears would be featured in the resort's
Bear Band Restaurant Show, and it was decided that they would have a country twang. But while plans for the show progressed, plans for the ski resort did not.
Instead, the
Imagineers working on the project decided to place the show in
Walt Disney World's
Magic Kingdom in time for its grand opening in
1971. Imagineer
X Atencio and musical director
George Bruns created songs for the bears to sing.
On
October 1, 1971, The Country Bear Jamboree opened its doors in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. It received so much good feedback that Imagineers immediately planned to make a replica of the show to be placed in Disneyland. The addition to the show in Disneyland inspired a brand new land appropriately titled
Bear Country. Because of the tremendous popularity of the show in Walt Disney World, excess capacity was added to the March 4,
1972, Disneyland incarnation in the form of two identical theaters, each housing a copy of the show in its entirety.
In
1986, the
Vacation Hoedown debuted at both Disneyland(February) and the Magic Kingdom (May). During the holiday season, the bears still performed their
Christmas Show in
Florida through
2005. Attendance struggled during the Vacation Hoedown's run in Florida, so for the
Kingdom's
20th anniversary in
1992, the original show returned to rotate with the Christmas show as it had since
1984.
The attraction closed at Disneyland on
September 9,
2001, to make room for
The Many Adventures of
Winnie the Pooh on
April 11, 2003.
The Country Bear Christmas Special was the first time an attraction at any
Disney theme park became interchangeable during the year. The Country Bear Vacation Hoedown was added a little aover
1 1/2 years later. Both the
Country Bear Christmas Special and The Country Bear Vacation Hoedown were created, directed, and animated by
Dave Feiten and
Mike Sprout. The
Tokyo Disneyland version of the attraction still features all three versions of the show at different times of the year.
On August 21,
2012, the Walt Disney World version of the
Country Bear Jamboree closed for a nearly two month long refurbishemnt. During this time, the bears were given new fur and costumes and the show was shortened from 4 to 5 minutes. The songs "
Pretty Little Devilish Mary" and "
Fractured Folk
Song" and some of the dialogue were removed, and other songs were shortened. The shorter version of the show opened on
October 17, 2012.
- published: 07 Oct 2013
- views: 18186