Bear Country Jubilee

Comparison between the 'Safari' and 'Opera House' exteriors (August 1973 + August 1978)

The Bear Country Jubilee was a Creative Engineering show that premiered in the Spring of 1978. This was the second, complete animatronic show built by CEI following Jingle Bell Jamboree at Santa's Village. The show was only installed at two locations, those being Morey's Pier in Wildwood, New Jersey, and the now-defunct Americana Amusement Park in Middleton, Ohio.

History

In the year 1977, Creative Engineering was commissioned to develop what would become the company's first complete animatronic shows. The Jingle Bell Jamboree for Santa's Village was the first of these shows to be developed, followed by the Bear Country Jubilee for the then-rebranded Americana Amusement Park (previously LeSourdsville Lake Amusement Park). Both shows, loosely inspired by Disney's Country Bear Jamboree, premiered in the Spring of 1978.⁽¹⁾ The Bear Country Jubilee served as a predecessor show to the Hard Luck Bears (which was initially titled the Country Bear Jubilee upon creation), which in turn preceded CEI's well-known Rock-afire Explosion.

Installations

(LeSourdsville Lake) Americana Amusement Park

As part of a $3.5 million, three-year renovation plan, the LeSourdsville Lake Amusement Park (which recently rebranded to Americana at the time) commissioned the first installation of CEI's Bear Country Jubilee for a Spring 1978 premiere. The show's debut at Americana could be considered the first American animatronic show modeled after the Country Bears for use at a regional amusement park. During its initial years of operation, the BCJ was very popular at the Americana park, with a long lifespan well into the 1990s. By this time, however, the show was susceptible to major technical issues, with some accounts of interruptions in mid-performances. By 1999, the show was decommissioned, with the fate of the animatronic figures and props unknown. The theater was left completely abandoned, even after the rest of the park closed in 2002. The stage framing for the show remained intact for many years but was removed with time. By 2018, remains of LeSourdsville, including the abandoned theater building for the Bear Country Jubilee, were demolished for the Monroe Bicentennial Commons.

Morey's Pier

Also in 1978, Morey's Pier commissioned a Bear Country Jubilee of their own from Creative Engineering. As a means to house an animatronic show, the pier's 'Safari' dark ride was gutted and transformed into the Bear Country Jubilee Opera House.' A modified Friendly Freddy animatronic peered from a window above the entrance, likely serving as a barker bear encouraging park guests to come inside. The show itself was almost identical to Americana's show with only a few differences. Ratzo, a character CEI created for a past client, appeared from atop a balcony across from the stage. New characters alleged to have been part of Morey's BCJ were Mortimer the Moose and Buford the Buffalo, two trophy heads that were strikingly similar to the Country Bears own Melvin the Moose and Buff the Buffalo in personality and presentation. With these in mind, it's possible that an all-new showtape was made. Following the release of Creative Engineering's successor to the Bear Country Jubilee in the form of the Hard Luck Bears for 1980, the existing bear show installation at Morey's Pier was updated to accommodate aspects from the new bear show, including an edited variant of the Hard Luck Bears soundtrack exclusive to the pier. As a result, character names were changed to those from the new HLB, two skits with Mortimer Moose and Buford Buffalo were recorded before the show's official start and halfway through the runtime, characters were given new props (a fishing pole for Fingers Dan / Billy Bill and a 'dead chicken' for Waldo / Repeat), as well as a Choo Choo prop installed beside the bench of Fingers Dan / Billy Bill to name a few. The most unusual, yet interesting addition to Morey's installation at this time was a country-clothed Fats Abdomino animatronic paired with the head of Mama Granbags (modeled after the Beatrice Bear figure from BCJ) inside of his piano. Most likely replacing Friendly Freddy, the Granbags and Fats animatronics served as new barkers for attracting park guests to the opera house. The soundtrack for these two characters follows the timeframe of events mentioned in the Hard Luck Bears showtape, where Granbags reprimands a gorilla for allegedly telling lies about her sons, which is paid off through their banter outside the theater. The vain gorilla performs song ditties on his piano as he proudly proclaims how everybody loves him for being the greatest and the best. That is until he is immediately scolded by Granbags, who praises her boys' talents and morals (Billy Wilbur especially) in comparison to the 'banana-brained' gorilla. As Granbags prepares for showtime, she encourages guests to wait thirteen minutes for the next show to start, kindly asking the gorilla not to tell any further lies. The gorilla begrudgingly complies, taking Granbags' absence as an opportunity to 'snooze.' Similarly to Americana's installation, Morey's BCJ fell under disrepair in its final years, even after the 1981 updates. At the end of the 1984 operating season, the entirety of the Bear Country Jubilee, as well as the additional Fats and Granbags animatronics, were sent back to Creative Engineering.⁽²⁾ It was when the show arrived back in Orlando that CEI completely refurbished the characters and upgraded the technology to the Rock-afire Explosion Control System, replacing the show's original Tone Decoder Control System from 1978. Although the show was restored, it was ultimately never sold to another client and thus sat unused in Creative Engineering's facilities from then on. In 2022, the characters and props were relocated to the all-new Creative Engineering Workshop in Crescent City, where they are to be stored until the future development of a Creative Engineering Museum occurs.