Get Ready to Yee-Haw: Celebrating 50+ Years of Country Bear Jamboree, the Beloved Magic Kingdom Classic!
The Country Bear Jamboree at Walt Disney World isn’t just a funny show with singing bears (though it is that). It’s also the perfect blend of Disney nostalgia.
This Attraction Checks all of These Boxes:
Attractions like this are the true heart of the Magic Kingdom. Located in the center of Adventureland, this is one-piece Disney World fans just can’t bear to part with! This grizzly group of hillbilly bears has amused and entertained for fifty years – and here’s everything you need to know about them!
A Hillbilly History Lesson
Walt Disney was gifted with an abounding imagination, and one has to wonder how many dreams and ideas we never got to see. We do know of one: the Mineral King Ski Resort.1
Meant to be built in California in the 1960s, there’s no doubt this resort would have been a true winter wonderland. After all, there were going to be singing bears.
Imagineer Wathel Rogers remembered Walt talking about the attraction. “Walt said, ‘What we are going to do is have a bear band and have them perform two or three programs of entertainment. We’ll say that the bears had come out of the sequoias, and we trained them to be entertainers’.”2
When Walt was shown the initial sketches of the bear band, he had a good laugh. The ultimate mark of approval! Sadly, these were some of the last sketches ever to fall beneath Walt’s gaze, as he would pass away just a few weeks later.3
It took a few years for the bear band to make their debut, but they eventually found their home in Walt Disney World, playing for the masses on opening day in 1971. They were so popular, the show was adopted by Disneyland – the first time a WDW original attraction was incorporated by another park.
Disneyland’s version of the attraction closed in 2001 (replaced by another bear – Winnie the Pooh), but these fuzzy wuzzy hillbillies are still jammin’ at Walt Disney World in Florida and in Tokyo Disneyland.
Whenever you laugh along with this bear band, it’s in perfect tune with that joyous outburst from Walt himself, a happy echo from so many years ago.
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Put Your Paws Together for the Country Bear Jamboree!
You’ll find Grizzly Hall, an old-fashioned theatre located in the heart of Adventureland. Inside awaits a group of bears ready to get you clappin’ and hollerin’ along with their foot-stompin’ songs!
While those first sketches from the ’60s had all sorts of bands – country, jazz, circus, and even a one-bear band – it was ultimately decided that Florida bears should be hillbilly bears.4 Not sure what the Imagineers were trying to imply about our state… but the result was a conglomeration of comedic bluegrass-style songs performed by the most talented bears this side of the Mississippi.
PRO TIP: This show is 16 minutes long, and, as a general rule, Country Bear Jamboree wait times are only about 10 minutes long. Seating for the attraction isn’t too hard to come by, with a capacity for 380 guests, though the padded benches themselves are a little hard. The show is completely wheelchair accessible, with wheelchair/ECV seating in the front row.5 If you need a break from the heat, this is the most entertaining way to enjoy the AC in Adventureland!
Country Songs
Most of the Country Bear Jamboree songs are re-recordings of popular tunes from “back in the day.” Each song was given a big bear makeover for the show, whether that meant tweaking the lyrics or really twanging the guitar strings.
Some notable riffs include “The Fractured Folk Song,” “Mama Don’t Whip Little Buford,” “Old Slew Foot,” and “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.” The final song in Country Bear Jamboree is a rousing chorus from “Come Again.”
From the harmonies of three sunbonnet-wearing bears to the resonating notes of a washtub, there’s something charming about this hokey crew. The musical revue is like a combination of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, with the humor of Hee Haw sprinkled in for good measure. It’s the triple-decker crossover none of us knew we needed, and we’re glad to have it!
Country Singers
The stars of the show are 18 audio-animatronic bears who have support from the talking trophy heads of a buffalo (Buff), stag (Max), and moose (Melvin). You’ll see these plush heads on the wall of the theatre above the exits, often swaying in time to the campy tunes. There’s also an adorable raccoon named Sammy who’s initially disguised as a coonskin cap.6
The master of ceremonies is Henry, who introduces the other bears and often sings along with them. (He’s the one who ends up wearing Sammy as a hat!)
Five of the bears compose their own little group – The Five Bear Rugs – which includes baby Oscar, a tiny bear who contributes by squeaking his plush toy, while Liverlips McGrowl performs a solo piece, “My Woman Ain’t Pretty.”
The ladies get their time in the limelight, too, as Trixie croons “Tears Will Be the Chaser for My Wine,” and Teddi Barra swings down from the ceiling to sing “Heart We Did All That We Could.” The Sun Bonnets (Bunny, Bubbles, and Beulah) sing along to old-fashioned lyric cards, which means you can croon “All the Guys That Turn Me On Turn Me Down,” too.
Crowd-pleaser Big Al sings “Blood on the Saddle” while he strums his sadly out-of-tune guitar. It’s not unusual for Big Al to get a big round of applause, and therein lies the magic of the entire Country Bear Jamboree.
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Just Keep Singin’
Where else but in Walt Disney World could animatronic bears conjure laughter, applause, and smiles as if they were real live performers?
The Country Bear Jamboree characters are full of personality and fun – part of what has made the attraction so timeless. For some guests, it’s a tradition to pop in and see the bears every time they visit the Magic Kingdom. However, other guests have started to express the sentiment that it’s time for a change. Admittedly, fifty years is a long time for a theme park attraction to go relatively unaltered!
That being said, the Country Bear Jamboree is an integral part of Walt Disney World history, so whenever the change inevitably comes (because it always, always does), I hope it is in a form that honors the legacy of both the hillbilly bears and the man who first laughed at them.
Do you like the Country Bear Jamboree? Who’s your favorite audio-animatronic star? Let us know in the comments below!
Featured photo: HarshLight via Flickr
Gallery photos: UL Andrew Dupont via Flickr, UR/LL/LR HarshLight via Flickr
