Hot enough for you? It’s late July and definitely feels like summer. I’m headed out to Soak City later this week for some respite. I wish Ice Gator from Blizzard Beach had a West Coast Cousin.
I hope everyone had a great Disneyland’s 64th Bir…er, Anniversary. rumor has it they’ve mostly stopped using “Birthday” for Mickey, Donald and the rest of the gang because the sharp pencil people are convinced that kids don’t want to watch Roadster Racers with a 90-year-old in the starring role. They might be on to something. But I suspect that 150 years from now kids will STILL be watching Mickey Mouse.
But first: CHOC Walk for Children’s Hospital of Orange County IN DISNEYLAND
Wanna walk in the Disney Parks before they open with 100,000 of your closest personal friends? Maybe walk through Galaxy’s Edge? Do special one-of-a-kind meet and greets with your favorite Disney, Marvel and Star Wars pals AND get some great prizes?
But wait, before you answer that, there’s more: Disneyland has, for the first time, a special group just for Annual Passholders with special prizes just for them. For all of the details, click HERE.
- Participants who raise $150 or more will receive a special 2019 Annual Passholder CHOC Walk pin. By the way, it’s Galaxy’s Edge themed.
- The first 250 participants who raise $225 or more will receive a special 2019 Annual Passholder CHOC Walk cinch bag. Also Galaxy’s Edge themed
- The first 150 team members who raise at least $400 will receive a special Annual Passholder CHOC Walk water bottle. Also too Galaxy’s Edge themed.
- The Disneyland Resort Annual Passholders CHOC Walk Team member who raises the most funds, and is a U.S. resident at least 21 years of age, will receive a complimentary one-night stay in a Disneyland Resort hotel plus a 7-hour VIP Tour of the Disneyland Resort for the Passholder and up to 3 guests (“Guests”). This includes 1-Day Disneyland Resort Park Hopper tickets for any Guests who are not Annual Passholders. The approximate retail value is $4,400.**
But MiceChat has a CHOC team as well, and the great news is that you CAN belong to more than one team! As special inducement to get you to join Team MiceChat, I have a Medium CHOC T-Shirt and a gorgeous CHOC Walk medallion. Whomever makes the largest donation to the MiceChat team gets the shirt AND the medallion. Deadline is midnight, July 29.
That’s not all. CHOC has donated TWO CHOC Walk wristbands to give away! We’ll pick one winner by midnight, July 29 to receive both of them. Each band is good for a specially-priced ticket to Disneyland!
JOIN TEAM MICECHAT OR MAKE A DONATION TO ANY OF OUR WALKERS HERE
Now on to the rumors:
A few weeks ago, two or so websites claimed that Walt Disney World’s version of the one-and-only O-riginal Country Bear Jamboree would be kicked out, to be replaced by a Toy Story puppet show. Because, you know, there aren’t enough Toy Story attractions in the parks already.
“The Bear Band Show” as Walt and most of the Imagineers who worked on it called it, started out as an idea for Mineral King, Walt’s proposed ski resort in California’s Sequoia National Park (I erroneously said Truckee earlier, but that’s where Independence Lake, Disney’s second attempt, was located. Thanks to my eagle-eyed readers for helping me correct my error). After Walt’s death, the Sierra Club, who had given Walt an award for his dedication to the preservation of nature, got out its knives and nipped the resort in the bud.
Marc Davis recalled to me the last time he saw Walt: “I was working on Bear Band and he came in, he looked at some of the gags and he laughed at a few, then he got up to leave. He stopped at the door on the way out and said, ‘Goodbye, Marc.’ Walt never said ‘Goodbye’, it was always ‘See ya later’ or something. And I never saw him again.”
The idea, however, hung around, as do most of the good ideas at Imagineering. The Country Bear Jamboree (or Jambaroo, as Disney’s Homer Simpson calls it) opened with the Magic Kingdom in October of 1971, then as part of the Bear Country expansion of Frontierland (taking the place of the Indian Village) in 1972. I was going on seven and seeing this wonder a few weeks after opening just furthered my descent into audio-animatronics obsessed fandom from my early childhood visits to the Carousel of Progress.
Ten years later, the Country Bear Christmas Special became Disney’s first holiday layover for an attraction. The Imagineers were tasked with coming up with a show to rotate during the rest of the year, to update the show. They came up with two great ideas: a Halloween Special and an Awards Show. Management requested that they come up with three ideas, and because the Imagineers loved the Awards and Halloween show, they plotted to come up with the absolute worst idea they could think of: Summer Camp.
We all know which show management chose.
Country Bear Vacation Hoedown played for a few years before Disneyland’s two theaters (one more than Florida’s, plus being located down in a dead end, sealed its fate) were closed forever in September 9, 2001 to make place for a low-budget Winnie the Pooh dark ride, while Florida and Japan continued (Japan also has two theaters, but is in a higher-traffic area. While it was sponsored by Toyota, Cast Members were asked to say hello, because “howdy” sounded too much like “Audi”.) in 2012, two songs and a few minutes of dialogue were cut from the Florida version.
And then this rumor popped up. I’m happy to report that this rumor is FALSE as Disney has officially announced that there are no plans for the bears to go into hibernation.
I just wish there was some way to bring back an updated version of the show to Disneyland, or at least the Grizzly Peak area of California Adventure.
What rumors do you want to know about? Here’s one for which I do not know the answer: Disney had a perfectly good system for their trackless rides (Mystic Manor, etc.) but for their over-the-top, amazing colossal showcase ride Rise of the Resistance, they had to go with a cheaper company and learned some valuable lessons regarding the old adage “you get what you pay for” and THAT is why Disneyland’s is opening up later than WDW. Florida didn’t have the track(less) installed yet, so will not have the same delay as Disneyland will, having to clean up its mess and reinstall the whole system.
True? False? Somewhere in between? Let me know below or at [email protected] !
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We address rumors here. We’ll make sure to always point out what IS a rumor, why it’s a rumor and encourage you to always take it with the grain of salt that makes rumors so delicious in the first place. Use it as a starting-off point for speculation and imagination, because, to be honest, rumors are fun. Please help support MiceChat by clicking here! I’m on Patreon, Paypal and support Ryman Arts.
