The Fabulous Disney Babe
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Les Ours de Pays à Paris?
Disneyland's Country Bears are hittin' the road....but to
where? Persistent rumors have the Country Bears moving to DCA, to decorate the Grizzly
River Run attraction, or to open a new playhouse in the Golden State section with the
bears from the upcoming film "Disney's The Country Bears" performing
"Straight to the Heart of Love" and some of their other hits. Yet another rumor
has the classic Marc Davis AA figures opening up shop in DCA, performing hits by
"Garth Bearooks" and "Grizzleann Rimes."
One theatre seems to be sufficient for the Country Bears in Florida, where the show, located right in the center of Frontierland's busiest walkway, on the way to Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The attraction is almost always busy. Some speculate that it's because Country music is more popular in the South. I disagree; Country music has a massive following in California. The three things that contributed to the lack of the Country Bears' lack of crowds were, in my never-humble opinion:
1. Location, location, location: The Country Bear Playhouse was hidden away in Critter Country, and Splash Mountain is usually the dead end for people visiting Disneyland who don't have a map of the place memorized. Families wait for riders in front of the splashdown at Chick-a-Pin Hill instead of going further into Critter Country and enjoying a Country Bears show. The introduction of Fastpass helped a little: People who entered their admission media into the Fastpass machine received a pass with their return time, and below it a suggestion that while they wait, they visit the Country Bear Playhouse. It helped a little, but not enough. In Florida and Tokyo, the Playhouse is located right out in the open, in a heavily-trafficked area, and is considered a main attraction to Frontierland and Westernland, respectively.
Note: in Japan, they have the Country Bear Jamboree, the Jingle Bear Jamboree, and the Vacation Jamboree, sponsored by House Foods Corp. A funny story an Imagineer likes to tell, I don't know if it's true or not: The Country Bear Jamboree was originally supposed to be built in France, sponsored by Toyota. The company pulled out, however, in chagrin over the fact that the hosts and hostesses for the attraction were greeting guests with the name of another car: "Audi!" I doubt it's true, but it is good for a giggle.
2. Here's a no-brainer: two theatres for a show for which one theatre would have been sufficient. If there were two theatres in Florida, the show would probably be half-empty there, too. When an attraction is new, it attracts huge crowds. Five to ten years later, however, those crowds are going to lessen. A huge, people-eater of an attraction is wonderful for E-ticket type attractions such as Tower of Terror and Splash Mountain, where you're sure to see long queues a decade after ribbon-cutting, but for theatre attractions and simple dark or amusement type rides, a lower capacity may be the smarter way to handle things in the long run.
3. The quality of the show has gone down since 1984. The Country Bear Jamboree was an E-ticket for its time, meticulously detailed from the costumes to the authenticity of the country stars voicing the characters to the movement of Max, Buff and Melvin on the wall even when the spotlight wasn't on them. If you happen to see the Original Country Bear Jamboree, pause during the action onstage and watch the three animal heads on the wall: they blink, nod, and pay attention to the show onstage, occasionally catching each others' eye and motioning with their heads as if to say "hey, look at that." In the Vacation show, as soon as the lights dim on them, they freeze into dead pause and hold positions and then crank back up to life when the light turns on them. The singers in the Vacation show are unknowns, not the famous country stars who entertained fans in the original, and the show didn't have the same cognizance and pacing as the original. It lacked magic, and people stopped coming as much. I know I did.