Country Bear Jamboree: The Confusing and Pleasing Phenomenon

Perhaps the weirdest thing of all about the Country Bear Jamboree — and there is stiff competition for that honour, given that we’re talking about an audio-animatronic theatre presentation filled with murder ballad-singing bears and decapitated hunting trophies — is that the country part of the equation came long after the bears. As a lifelong fan, I’d always assumed the genre of the music and genus of the performers had been created in tandem. What else could a group of country bears possibly sing? 

According to an oft wiki-ed but frustratingly unsourced history of the attraction, marching band, mariachi, and jazz were contenders before country and bluegrass entered the picture. What would eventually become known as the Jamboree began life as a potential source of evening entertainment for a ski resort that Walt Disney was planning to build in Sequoia National Park in the 1960s. Apparently he figured that guests who had spent their day frolicking through natural wonders would love nothing more than to plunge into an uncanny valley of robot bear musical revues at night. Plans for the ski resort fell apart in the years following Disney’s death in 1966 — mere days after he approved the show’s initial character sketches — but imagineer Marc Davis and animator Al Bertino continued to work on the bears. On October 1, 1971, the first Country Bear Jamboree opened in Walt Disney World. 

The soundtrack for the original fifteen minute revue featured a mix of abridged classics, contemporary hits and near-misses, and Disney originals performed by a motley assembly of country bluegrass royalty, fledgling pop artists, and Disney regulars. Ernest Van "Pop" Stoneman, a Country Music Hall of Famer and patriarch of the legendary Stoneman Family tackled Buck Owens’ “How Long Will My Baby Be Gone.” Patsy Stoneman sang “Heart, We Did All That We Could,” a 1967 single originally recorded by honky tonk singer and Grand Ole Opry member Jean Shepard. Jimmy Stoneman took on “My Woman Ain’t Pretty (But She Don’t Swear None)” which was first popularized by Tex Ritter. Ritter himself performed “Blood on the Saddle.” A one hit wonder, one quarter of the close harmony group The Sentimentalists, and the soprano behind the Haunted Mansion’s opera singer and the Star Trek theme teamed up for a ditty of somewhat untraceable origin called “All The Guys That Turn Me On Turn Me Down.” And the whole crew came together for the frequently covered “Ole Slewfoot” and Disney’s own “The Ballad of Davey Crockett.” (The line about a young Crockett killing a bear was finessed into him taming one, instead.)

The staging pipped these tunes through the occasionally moving mouths of bears who performed on various platforms across the front of the room and/or descended from the ceiling. A supporting cast of other woodland creatures — including a Greek chorus of buffalo, stag, and moose heads mounted along one wall, and a living raccoon hat perched on the host bear’s head — occasionally chimed in.

Somehow, this combination became an enduring family favourite. Its early success led to Disneyland building a duplicate in 1972. Tokyo Disney followed in 1983. A CGI/live action film featuring rocker Country Bears inexplicably appeared in 2002, but we don’t need to talk about that. And while the Disneyland version fizzled and was eventually replaced with a Winnie the Pooh show, the bears continue to thrive in Florida and Japan to this day. 

It’s a phenomenon that confuses me perhaps even more than it pleases me, because— and I say this with extreme and unwavering affection — the Country Bear Jamboree is really messed up. And not merely in the way that all anamatronic animal shows can be a bit creepy. Even if making half-animate robot mammals shift from side to side while lip-synching was the cutest, most normal practice in the world, there would be something off about this one. 

Maybe it’s the combination of message and medium that makes the show so (wonderfully) bizarre. On record, it’s an enjoyable if twisted romp through some of old country’s hallmark stars, sounds, and themes. When “performed” by the aforementioned menagerie, everything takes on a more devilish quality. Most of the bears harbour some sort of murderous or violent intent. Many of them are horny. They flirt and crack jokes about filicide during the show. One bear starts ruining everyone else’s numbers because he doesn’t want to — or can’t? — stop singing about blood. According to the illustrated booklet that accompanies the original soundtrack LP, the trio who are singing about unrequited lust do their homework backstage after the show. 

Country Bear Jamboree Attraction located in Frontierland at Magic Kingdom Park

The whole Jamboree vibe becomes even more disquieting if, for some ungodly reason, you start to ponder the existence of its characters. Are the buffalo, stag, and moose zombies… or did they live through the process of being hunted, beheaded and mounted? Was the living raccoon hat always a raccoon hat, or was he originally a raccoon that got captured and turned into a hat? Was he conscious for that? The full version of “Blood on the Saddle” eventually establishes where the blood has come from and the cause of death, but the Country Bear version stops at the location and amount of blood. What is the story there? Is the reason the giant bear won’t stop singing about it because he needs answers, too?

But not only has this rather suspect sideshow flourished, it’s done so without almost any alteration at all. Even as “Disney-fied” became a synonym for simplified and sanitized, The Mouse left the bears to their bacchanal. Slightly less depraved summer and holiday shows were recorded and added to the rotation, but the original was never scrapped. When the Disney World version was mildly revamped in 2012, it was edited for time, not content. The two songs that were removed were among the most innocuous. The chipper filicide ditty survived. (The Tokyo version remains unaltered.)

And people — normal people! Not just weirdos like me! — still love it. An unsubstantiated rumour about the show’s demise in 2019 caused such a fuss that the official Disney Parks blog, which almost never addresses speculation about its attractions, posted an entry assuring everyone that the bears weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. “In fact, we’re looking forward to celebrating its 50th anniversary on Oct. 1, 2021 at Walt Disney World Resort,” they added. 

May they live to entertain and terrify for many years to come.