Disney Parks Blog - Banner Headers: Country Bear Christmas Special

Currently, Disney Parks Blog has over 50 different holiday themed images in rotation for their banner headers. Curiously, yet to my personal delight, five amongst those are from the “Country Bear Christmas Special” (Disneyland 1988-2000, Walt Disney World, Magic Kingdom 1988-2005) also known as “Jingle Bell Jamboree” at Tokyo Disneyland.

13 years before the Haunted Mansion and 9 year before it’s a small world first got their holiday themed overlays, the Country Bear Playhouse (Critter Country/ Bear Country, Disneyland Park, and Frontierland, Magic Kingdom Park) was transformed with a Christmas show full of jingly standards performed by audio-animatronic singing bears.

The Christmas Special (yes, “Christmas,” not the generic “Holiday”) premiered two years following when the Country Bear Playhouse was updated with the “Vacation Hoedown” show.

Alas, the Playhouse was replaced by the “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” at Disneyland, and the Magic Kingdom hasn’t run the Christmas Special for nine years.

Full-show audio for all three Country Bear shows are included in the six-disc collection “A Musical History of Disneyland” released for Disneyland’s 50th anniversary.

Read more about the Country Bear Christmas Special...

[on Wikipedia]   [on Daveland]   [on Wikia/the Disney Wiki]

All images ©Disney Enterprises, Inc.