Country Bear Jamboree - History

History

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 and the Magic Kingdom. 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. However, it is rumored that the attraction will be rebuilt in Grizzly Peak at Disney California Adventure Park, but there are currently no confirmed plans.

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 year 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 21th, 2012, the Country Bears closed for a nearly two month long refurbishemnt. During this time, the show was edited down, similar to what was done with the Enchanted Tiki Room earlier in the year. The songs "Pretty Little Devilish Mary" and "Fractured Folk Song" and some of the dialogue were removed, and other songs were shortened. The shortened down version of the show opened on October 17th, 2012.