They could honestly just bring back the original Christmas show (IMO, would be preferable and also cheaper to do), but judging by the blatantly clear lack of merchandising this show to keep further interest in the Country Bears alive, I sadly don’t see that happening. Whoever at Disney’s responsible for that should be humiliated. Seriously, There’s no good excuse for it.
25:40 goes a bit into the Winnie the Pooh themed shop & meet n greet introduced in ‘96. And again, continuing to call that show a “Playhouse” once Vacation Hoedown (or was it Country Bear Vacation Jamboree.. lol! They just couldn’t figure that out) came, knowing Knott’s Bear•y Tales Playhouse (which was a walk through attraction) was a short distance away. yeah.. huh, can’t imagine how things may change by ‘intentionally’ retheming Crocodile Mercantile to a Winnie the Pooh gift shop might change things.. and have Pooh merch sell at a ‘Pooh themed store’ (not a ‘Critter Country’ themed store like initially) over Country Bear merch (again, everything I mentioned prior about “hey, you expect to find Country Bear merch in ‘there’ right?”) Couple this with what was done to the show & its signage, despite what happened at WDW in FL and at Tokyo Disneyland, Shaaadddy. (PS: Just couldn’t find anywhere to sell the Pooh stuff in ‘Fantasyland’, where he’d fit, right?? And have a live show or small ride for him at the theater area ‘there’, right?)Btw, hate to plug anything ‘but’ I figured this is somewhat on topic. Might wanna check this thread out and the other posts I posted initially in the Muppets’ Electric Mayhem taking over Rock N Roller Coaster thread (i posted more there); regarding attraction sabotage or at the very least seemingly intentional neglect that leads to what we love going away, in this case, the Country Bear Jamboree at Disneyland, which, later on in its life, they couldn’t decide on a proper name for the attraction (via screwy new signage) and decided to keep a proven not as popular version (through running it at WDW too) of the show at DL only, while WDW & TDL would rotate fairly and/or be switched back to the more popular one accordingly (WDW brought the original back in ‘92 after Vacation Hoedown failed to impress as much during its run)… and then, to truly “kill it off” at DL, they pulled the same queue rope shenanigans that killed the original Journey Into Imagination at EPCOT with the redone queue ropes, signage, and monorail spiels making Honey, I Shrunk the Audience out to be the main attraction there to drop the ride’s attendance and then make the horrible, mixed up Honey I Shrunk IP themed, “Imagination” ride that makes no sense anymore that it’s been since ‘99 and again in ‘02, just with Figment’s Return “phoned in” (literally! No joke). (All evidence of that shady scheme happening shown in that thread). In DL’s Country Bear Jamboree’s case, it was a Winnie the Pooh meet n greet and rethemed gift shop (Crocodile Mercantile to Pooh Corner in ‘96, cause ya know, you expect to find Country Bear merchandise in ‘there’, right? that did it in. Aw yeah, and a film that not only had a director & vision that had little to no respect for the original show involved but a release date that did the parks show itself no favors. I swear. LOL):
) not the Country Bear Jamboree or the “Country Bear Playhouse” as they bizarrely called DL’s for a while (despite originally being called Country Bear Jamboree there, also & Tokyo’s being called Country Bear Theatre). Just LOL:
That is unfortunately the standard we now have to expect them to reach for sadly.
It makes no sense. At the very least we’ve gotten a few things here and there but there really should be a lot more, a least plushes.
If only there was a way to use it, perhaps with merch of the brand new show Disney put a lot of resources into making… nah, let’s just tear it down.
Again, just, Why???! That cart could be filled with Country Bear Jamboree themed merch, and instead, it’s not. Sure, you’ve got the coonskin cap that references Davy Crockett (though funnily enough, that’s not even referenced in the show anymore) but what else? Nothing that’s specifically tied to the show itself. Ridiculous. Execs should be humiliated by the shock of that realization by the public and laughed at for how ridiculous stuff like this is. ‘Especially’ if it’s being done intentionally. A Country Bear merch cart that ‘doesn’t’ feature or carry any Country Bear merch. How does that make any sense? It doesn’t! Lol
EXACTLY!! That’s how it should be!! And yeah, I agree with you 100%
Maybe it's just a result of the "people don't like attractions that aren't based on pre-existing IPs" mindset? Let's face it, we're probably lucky they just had the Country Bears sing Disney songs instead of tearing the attraction out.
Replace “people” with Executives and I think the results make a lot more sense. Ridiculous.
) despite the song throughout the dream clearly sung about how Heffalumps & Woozles ‘steal’ his honey.. The Heck?? and then it ends with… Pooh having a birthday party? Wait, what? So it’s not a Hero Party for Rescuing Piglet in the storm like it should be? Why?? Yeah.. what a wildly mixed up Pooh ride. It’s shockingly bad, hardly gets attendance from my personal experience and doesn’t fit the area at all. How it’s lasted this long, I’m not entirely sure. I guess the simple nostalgia and joy out of seeing the Pooh characters? But man, I sure wish folks would really take a closer look at the wild/nonsensical choices they made with that ride. It’s ‘horrible’. What a dreadful replacement for the Country Bear Jamboree. There ‘were’ two theaters there.. if they wanted Pooh there so desperately, why couldn’t they have simply kept the shop the Crocodile Mercantile and sold Pooh merch there alongside everything else without taking over the store.. and simply put a Pooh show in the second theater? It was already a bear themed theater, yes??
Theme park fans.... "the only thing executives want is more money!"
No, it’s so they can stroke their egos while saying that they make more money with objectively lousy choices/decisions to intentionally sabotage Non-Film IP tied attractions ‘they’ don’t like & put in replacements that make no sense/ doing the bare minimum required with the most laughable results when it isn’t neccesary.…
Cool conspiracy.
