Farewell to the Country Bear Jamboree
The classic attraction retires its original show.
It’s not exactly a farewell, but in many ways, it feels like it.
The Country Bear Jamboree (1971), a deep dive into mid-century country music performed by animatronic bears, will be giving the final American performance of the (mostly) original show this coming Friday, January 26th. Presumably, the variant versions of the show, the Country Bear Christmas Special (1984) and the Country Bear Vacation Hoedown (1986) will be permanently retired as well.
The farewell to the show has an asterisk attached to it, however. It will continue, in a version very close to the original, in Japan — where they also seem in no hurry to retire that other odd bit of Americana, Splash Mountain — and the Country Bears themselves are destined to keep performing in Frontierland’s Grizzly Hall in Florida, albeit in a very different show. The new Jamboree is taking a step towards today by letting go of the hillbilly/jug band roots of the attraction and embracing a Nashville sound — a Grand Ol’ Opry kind of Nashville sound.
And maybe this isn’t a terrible idea.
The magic of the original show — one of the few “classic” attractions to debut in Florida before California — was not only its unusual cast of characters and hilarious schtick but also its respect for the music. Hot on the heels of the enormous success of the television show Hee Haw (1969–1993), the Country Bears took much the same formula — caricatured corn-pone humor and absolutely first-rate musicians and music — and brought it to the Disney parks. So close are the parallels between the two shows, How Long Will My Baby Be Gone (1968), a song that has survived from opening day until today, is written by Buck Owens, one of the long-time hosts of Hee Haw.
It’s worth emphasizing that word “caricatured.” Both Hee Haw and the Country Bear Jamboree are not authentic representations (bears notwithstanding) of early twentieth-century hillbilly humor. They are modern, self-aware, commentaries that poke loving fun at those stereotypes.
But where the comedy was playful, the music was serious.
Hee Haw simply took the finest country music stars of the day and let them do their thing. Even the regular cast was glutted with musical genius: Buck Owens, the most successful country singer/songwriter of the ’60s; Roy Clark, arguably the greatest country guitar player of all time; Stringbean and Grandpa Jones, masters of the old-time banjo, etc…
The Country Bears’ show went at it a little more circuitously by taking popular contemporary songs, albeit ones with a bit more of a novelty tinge — If You Can’t Bite, Don’t Growl (1966) and Mama Don’t Whip Little Buford (1964) — arranged them to be a little more “old-timey” and then handed the vocal duties over to legends of music.
Jimmy (Liver Lips McGrowl), Patsy (Teddi Berra) and Van (Terrence/Ernest) Stoneman were all members of The Stonemans, a legendary country music family who, in various formations, recorded from the ’30s to the ’60s. The Five Bear Rugs are also voiced by members of the Stoneman family. It would be hard to find a more seminal representative of early country music — patriarch Ernest Van “Pop” Stoneman had one of the biggest country hits of the 1920s and was part of the team that discovered Jimmy Rogers and The Carter Family. From the beginnings of recorded country music all the way through the ’60s, the Stoneman family was there.
Country Music Hall of Fame member Tex Ritter, as Big Al, may be the most recognizable voice of the bunch singing his own hit Blood on the Saddle (1960), originally from the 1930 Broadway show Green Grow the Lilacs which starred both Ritter and the song’s composer, Everett Cheetham. A cowboy star in over eighty films, Ritter achieved most of his success through his recording career in the ’50s with hits like The Ballad of High Noon (1952 — Tiomkin/Washington) which he performed on the first televised Academy Awards where it was nominated for Best Song. Ritter is also, notably, the father of beloved comedian John Ritter of Three’s Company fame.
Perhaps the most interesting career of the bunch is Loulie Jean Norman, the Sun Bonnet Trio’s Bubbles, who started singing on Kay (Eloise/Funny Face) Thompson’s 1936 radio program. Later she sang with Kay Kyser, Bing Crosby, and Mel Torme. She is also both the operatic soprano who sings on Alexander Courage’s original Star Trek (1966) theme as well as the voice of the opera diva in The Haunted Mansion singing along with its theme, Grim-Grinning Ghosts (1969). Norman is not necessarily known as a country singer, but very much a classic performer.
The Country Bear Jamboree was built to showcase rural entertainment as it stood in 1971. Hillbilly humor was still a hit back then and the music, for the most part, was contemporary. The show struck a chord in much the same way the Hee Haw had by aiming a spotlight at quirky regional humor and music and showing how universal it could be. It seemed to delight both the groups already familiar with these kinds of acts and those who found it strange and novel.
And it was all done with talking bears.
It’s no secret that the Country Bear Jamboree has not been filling Grizzly Hall for some time — though it remains extraordinarily popular in Japan. Ultimately a change was going to need to be made and that change seemed likely to be the end of the Bears in America. So let’s view the new show, the Country Bear Musical Jamboree, with some optimism. We know a little. We know that it will incorporate Nashville-sound versions of beloved Disney songs. We know that multi-award-winning country musician, and Jimmy Buffett sideman, Mac McAnally, is involved. We know that most of the cast of bears will re-appear (with Liver Lips McGrowl being renamed to “Romeo McGrowl” for some reason). We know that there will be references, Easter Eggs, to the original show. That’s pretty much all we know, except this: Country music will continue in Grizzly Hall and the Bears will be updating their act to suit people’s tastes today, just like they did in 1971.
I don’t know about you, but I’m there for it.
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Kelly McCubbin is a columnist for Boardwalk Times
