Stew's Country Jamboree (VP Hank & Beau)

Stew's Country Jamboree is an animatronic show that has been produced by VP Animations, LLC for Stew Leonard's since 2016. The characters and soundtrack originate from Sally Industries' The Hank and Beau Show, which was previously installed in two of the chain's locations in the mid-1980's and 1991, respectively. As of 2024, four sets of Stew's Country Jamboree have been constructed by VP and operate at only four of the chain's seven stores.

Historical Background

When Stew Leonard's first implemented animatronics in their initial Norwalk, CT (100 Westport Ave) store (sometime in the mid-late 1980's), they purchased The Hank and Beau Show|The Hank and Beau Show from Sally Industries in Jacksonville, Florida.⁽¹⁾ Another Hank and Beau was purchased for and installed at the Danbury, CT (99 Federal Rd) store in 1991. Since then, Stew Leonard's did not continue to purchase Hank and Beau shows from Sally. It is currently unknown if Sally continued to provide maintenance services for the Norwalk and Danbury shows up through the 2010's. It should also be noted that the Danbury Hank and Beau was relocated to Yonkers, NY (1 Stew Leonard Dr) in August 2013. As the Farmingdale, NY (261 Airport Plaza Blvd Space 5) store was being developed in 2015, Stew Leonard's made a decision to install a third Hank and Beau show for their newest location. Although unconfirmed, Stew Leonard's may have been discouraged from purchasing another set from Sally due to high construction costs, as well as Sally's industry shift toward dark rides (with animatronics) as a priority than animatronic shows. To combat high costs, the chain tasked Vermont-based VP Animations (their go-to animatronic provider at that point) to create a cheapened version of Hank and Beau for their future stores. VP previously developed Tom Leonard's Billy Jack & General|Tom Leonard's Billy Jack & General for the sole Tom Leonard's location in Richmond, VA (a bootleg of Hank and Beau with similar characters and a custom soundtrack produced for Stew Sr.'s second son, Tom). The end result was Stew's Country Jamboree, which premiered on January 20th, 2016 with the opening of Farmingdale's Stew Leonard's.⁽²⁾ Following the 2022-2024 remodel process of the original Norwalk location, the Sally Hank and Beau were 'refurbished' by VP in the late summer months of 2022. Unlike a previous refurbishment for the Danbury/Yonkers show (which mostly retained the existing Sally cosmetics), the decision was made to replace worn cosmetic pieces with those from the Stew's Country Jamboree iteration. With Col. Beau in particular, his snout, mouth, ears, and hands were sourced from VP's iteration of the character and thus became a bizarre hybrid between the two versions. Hank Winter was mainly unaffected appearance-wise (as he was drastically changed as far back as 2013). However, Hank was given a new plaid shirt from the VP iteration of the character.⁽³⁾

Differences with Sally's Hank and Beau

The Stew's Country Jamboree iterations of Hank and Beau have similarities to the original Sally show. However, there are radical differences in appearances and mechanics in comparison to Sally's version, which include but are not limited to:

Col. Beau given a white, cowboy-like hat instead of a confederate soldier hat (or navy admiral hat) on Sally's Col. Beau.
Col. Beau's pupils on his eyes are enlarged significantly, appearing almost as if he has no whites on his eyes.
Col. Beau's ears are the same fur color as the rest of his head, instead of a darker grey, and are longer, low-hanging ears on VP's design.
Col. Beau's legs on VP's animatronic are straight and close together, instead of outward and bent on Sally's animatronic.
Hank Winter is given overalls and a plaid shirt, in contrast to Sally's standard blue shirt with red shoulder fabric + yellow fringe and navy blue jeans.

Hank's yellow scarf is a design element carried over from a cosmetic addition made to the two original Sally Hank Winters by Stew Leonard's.⁽⁴⁾

The control system and soundtrack is completely digitized, whereas the two original Hank and Beau sets at Stew Leonard's (Norwalk and Danbury/Yonkers) operated through Sally's Animation Control System (ACS), using audio cassettes for an audio source and programming data.

Installations

Store	Installed	Removed	Notes
Farmingdale, NY (261 Airport Plaza Blvd Space 5)	2016	In-Store	First Stew's Country Jamboree Ever Built.
East Meadow, NY (1897 Front St)	2017	In-Store
Paramus, NJ (700 Paramus Pk)	2019	In-Store	First Stew's Country Jamboree in New Jersey.
Clifton, NJ (467 Allwood Road)	2024	In-Store