Cast _* Story _* Interesting Facts _* The Disney Attractions

Directed by: Peter Hastings (creator of ABC's highly successful "One Saturday Morning")
Written by: Mark Perez
Music by: Christopher Young (score), John Hiatt (songs)

Production started on: March 12, 2001
Production ends in: Early June 2001 (before a potential actors' strike)
Release Date: July 26, 2002

Budget: $35 million (reported at $20 million; add to these $10 - $15 million in promotion cost)
U.S. Opening Weekend: $5,309,675 over 2,553 theaters
Box Office: $16.99 million in the U.S.
 
 

CAST
 

Beary... Haley Joel Osment (voice)
Reed Thimple... Christopher Walken
Rip, the Country Bears' agent... Alex Rocco
Officer Cheets... Deidrich Bader
Officer Hamm... Daryl Mitchell
Tennessee... Julianne Buescher
Mr. Barrison... Stephen Tobolowsky
Mrs. Barrison... Meagen Fay
Roadie... M.C. Gainey
Dex Barrison... Eli Marienthal
Queen Latifah (cameo)
John Hiatt (singing)
Charles Dutton (voice)
 
 

STORY

Fully 10 % of the U.S. population is bears. They walk among us. They live and work right alongside us. This has been going on for so long that no one really pays attention to it anymore.  Contrary to what you folks who have been to Disneyland or Walt Disney World may think, the Country Bears aren't just some silly theme park attraction. As it turns out, the Bears were an actual country-rock group back in the 1970s. A band that was at least as big as the Eagles, Lynard Skynard and Alabama. These guys had a dozen or more top 10 hits, acouple of albums that went platinum, fame, fortune, groupies; the works.

Yet -- in typical '70s rock band fashion -- the endless grind of touring plus the constant in-fighting among band members finally got to be too much. The group broke up in the early '80s and Ted, Zeb, Fred, Tennessee and Trixie all went their separate ways. The band members haven't really spoken to each other since then.

Flash forward to 2002 -- where we meet the Barrinson family, a typical suburban household with a mom, a dad, and two sons. Then again, maybe they're not so typical. One son is a typical pain-in-the-butt teenage older brother called Dex. The other is a sweet tempered 10-year-old (who secretly dreams of being a musician) called Beary. Beary thinks that he's just a typical kid from the 'burbs until one day when Dex -- in a jealous rage -- blurts out that Beary's not a kid at all, but a bear that the Barrinson family adopted when he was an infant ... er.. cub.

Shocked to learn that his whole life (to date) has been a lie, Beary runs away from home, eventually winding up in Tennessee. Why? Because Beary can play a mean guitar and thinks that if he goes to the exact same place where his favorite musical group (The Country Bears? What a surprise!) broke into show business, maybe he could get his big break too.

Only, when Beary arrives, he finds that historic old Country Bear Hall is closed. No group has played at this venue in years. Worse than that, the mortgage on the musical hall is way past due. If Henry – the theater's manager and resident M.C. -- can't come up with the cash shortly, Country Bear Hall is sure to fall into the hands of sinister millionaire Reed Thimple (who secretly plans to have the place torn down).

Beary realizes that he has to help Henry -- as well as the club's grouchy groundskeeper, Big Al -- save Country Bear Hall. So how is the 10-year-old bruin going to do it? He decides that he's going to track down the original members of the Country Bears and ask them to reunite for a benefit concert. So Beary and Henry set off on a cross-country quest to find the Bears. Naturally, hi-jinks ensues...
 
 

INTERESTING FACTS

  This movie is based on Disney's nearly 30 year-old theme park attractions, "The Country Bear Jamboree" (at Walt Disney World in Florida) and "Country Bear Playhouse" (at Disneyland in California).  The project was brought to Buena Vista Motion Picture Group president Nina Jacobson by Disney director of development Brigham Taylor. Studio chairman Peter Schneider read the script during the holiday weekend and greenlit the project, sources said.

  More than 75 million people have seen The Country Bears Jamboree, one of the most popular attractions for decades at Disney parks.

  It was revealed a year before the movie's release that singer-songwriter John Hiatt would write at least five original songs for this movie.  Disney was already talking at the time about how best to position the song featured heavily in the film's finale--"Straight to the Heart of Love"--for Top 40 airplay.

  In the process of telling its tale, this "Country Bear" film takes some pretty funny swipes at "VH-1 - Behind the Music" as well as lampooning other aspects of the modern music world.  "My goal was to make a PG movie as funny as it could be," Perez told The Hollywood Reporter. "Why can't something be uproariously funny without saying swear words?"

  The eight bears in the film are suit-performers inside radio-controlled bear costumes complete with detailed facial articulation created by the Jim Henson's Creature Shop.  The cast also includes human characters, including some music stars in cameos. Names flying were Areosmith (who were rumoured to shoot a bar scene with the Bears in late May 2001), Willie Nelson and Bonnie Raitt.  Christina Aguilera, Eric Clapton, and 98 Degrees were also included in the original script and contacted to appear in the movie.

  As Reid Thimple, Christopher Walken plays a banker who is trying to foreclose and demolish the Country Bear Hall, a famous musical venue where the affable creatures got their start.  "Christopher as a heavy is a natural, but what he really brings to the project is a great sense of humor," director Peter Hastings told Daily Variety.

  Once production is complete, and provided that the movie is successful, Disney executives are reportedly toying with the idea of using these very same puppets on a "Country Bear Jamboree" TV show.  In its proposed form, the TV spin-off woul debut in the spring of 2003 and be closely modeled on the original "Muppet Show." Each week, a major star would arrive at the Country Bear Playhouse, where they'd appear with the animatronic cast of the "Country Bears Jamboree" film in a half hour variety show featuring skits and songs.

  Disney likes the Country Bear Hall used in the movie so much that they decided to keep it permanently at Golden Oak Ranch.  The Country Bears themselves are said to look more like actual bears with human characteristics, than the Country Bears from the Disneyland attraction.

  Unlike with traditional animation, the character voices will be added in post-production for this movie.

  In an eerie parallel to the story line of the movie, the Anaheim version of Country Bear Hall was supposed to be torn down to make room for a new ride -something similar to the "Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" attraction that opened at Walt Disney World in the summer of 1999.  This project was cancelled after production started on the movie adaptation.

  Disney's going all out to promote this project: its publicity staff wants the world to think that the Country Bears are real performers. That's why reporters who have visited the film's set have specifically been asked not to mention Henson's radio-controlled bear costumes or the three off-stage puppeteers who have to work in perfect synchronization in order to control each of the suit's elaborate facial mechanisms.

  Given how well this particular film seems to be turning out, Disney studio executives are already hurrying to put movie versions of other theme park favorites on the development fast track. Mark Perez has supposedly already turned in a "Pirates of the Caribbean" treatment. And in April 2001, the Mouse hired two new writers to begin work on a "Haunted Mansion" screenplay.

  The Country Bear Playhouse at Disneyland California closed down on September 9, 2001 and to be replaced by a Winnie the Pooh ride. "We are constantly in the process of refreshing and updating our parks with new shows and attractions," said Cynthia Harriss, president of the Disneyland Resort. "The Country Bears have been a part of Disneyland for nearly 30 years, and we feel it is time give our cast of bears a well-deserved rest and create a brand new attraction for our guests to enjoy." Word has it the Country Bears may be encorporated into a new restaurant attraction à la Chuck E. Cheese, but their look will be seriously revamped and updated to reflect the movie.

  It was announced in July 2001 that Disney was feeling so positive about their upcoming live-action film that they've started work on a Country Bears sequel.   According to the Hollywood Reporter, the decision to make a franchise launch out of the film, which doesn't hit theaters until summer 2002, was due to "excitement at the studio" over how the project had progressed. Scribe Paul Rugg has been tapped to write the script for the follow-up film. Disney is also developing a film based on The Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.

  The movie's first poster and high quality promotional shots were released in early January 2002, followed by a first trailer in March 2002.

  Nina Jacobson, head of film production, says cross-promotion isn't the main reason Disney is turning to its park resources for cinematic inspiration. "Even if we didn't have the beloved and recognized titles from the park, we'd still want to make these movies because the scripts are smart and original, and the elements are great."

  Director Peter Hastings explained in an April 2002 interview that "typically, when I say I am doing a movie based on the Country Bears, people say, 'Really?' But after explaining the approach for 10 minutes, they become interested. What sort of honey was used to lure someone of Christopher Walken's stature to play opposite faux furballs? "He loved working with the bears," Hastings says. "He was fascinated by how they live together with the humans without comment." The selling point for Hastings, a TV producer-writer and award-winning bassist, was the chance to do a movie musical. The bears, designed by Jim Henson's Creature Shop as a combination of high-tech puppetry and actors in suits, strum and harmonize to original songs by top tunesmith John Hiatt. Stars lending their vocal talents and doing cameos include Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson and Queen Latifah. For Bears fans (and, yes, each Disney attraction has a fervid following), there are in-jokes to savor. Characters such as Big Al show up, along with the band, Five Bear Rugs. Except there are only four. Says Hastings: "Zeke is the Mike Nesmith of the group. He refused to appear." For extra authenticity, the tour bus is the same one used in Almost Famous. If Bears becomes a summer sleeper, Koenig suspects other park attractions such as Space Mountain will hit theaters. How about It's a Small World? Says Koenig with a sigh, "I hope not."

  Bonnie Raitt, who plays a bear named Trixie in the live action flick, said that doing the film was great fun. "It just cracked me up that we were all gonna play these bears. They filmed us in a bar watching our bear characters singing, with our voices coming out of 'em. You know, they're life-sized, animatronic bears that are so unbelievably detailed in the facial expressions, and they were dressed up as us, you know, as older rock artists. It was the first time I didn't have to worry about makeup in a video."

  Eli Marienthal (Barry's human brother Dex Barrington) voiced Hogarth Hughes in The Iron Giant three years earlier.

  "By the end of the summer it was hard to get noticed," commented Dick Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, in September 2002. "Everything had already been the biggest, the baddest. Nobody was immune to it. I made a very bad mistake with Country Bears. It was my fault all the way [that the movie bombed at the box office]. We should have held it for a much less competitive time, and we would have done much better. We should have held it till the fall."

  Christopher Walken keeps good memories of this movie: "It's great when [I can play around with my image]. I have the feeling that things that are funny and things that are scary have a lot in common."

"In this day and age, the guys in bear suits just didn't fly," says Nina Jacobson, president of Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group. Rather than deploying digital effects to bring the movie's singing bears alive--which Warner Bros. has done successfully with its recent hits Scooby-Doo and Kangaroo Jack--Disney opted to make a film featuring actors in cheap-looking bear costumes.
 
 

THE DISNEY ATTRACTIONS

. In 1966, as Imagineer Mare Davis was creating character designs and storyboard sketches for a new attraction, he was paid a special and memorable visit. At the time, plans were in the works for a park development in Northern California called Mineral King. Marc, an animator turned Imagineer, was developing ideas for an Audio-Animatronics musical revue for Mineral King that would feature a cast of country music-singing bears. Whenever Marc was deeply involved with an idea, he would literally cover his office walls with sketches.

One day, as Walt so often did, he stopped in to see what Marc was up to. From literally hundreds of pinned-up sketches, he immediately singled one out that featured a bear playing a tuba, and began to laugh hysterically. He told Marc, between guffaws, that he "really had a winner here with these musical bears."

As Walt began to leave the office, he turn and said, "Good-bye, Marc." This took the artist by suprise as Walt never said good-bye, but rather, alwas said, "so long" or "see ya." Walt died a few days later. Marc believes this was the last time Walt ever had good laugh.

The Mineral King project was eventually canceled, but the musical bears refused to go in concept hibernation. When that project was shot down by irate environmentalists, the bears went into limbo, only to be roused from their premature hibernation to star in the first major theme park attraction to debut at Walt Disney World, in 1971.

Met with enthusiastic response from Florida guests, the Jamboree was quickly cloned in the original park, Disneyland, in 1972. Due to its popularity on the East coast, a whole new ‘land’ was built (dubbed Bear Country) to feature the attraction on the West coast, and a second theater was even added to the ‘Country Bear Playhouse’, an addition designed to accommodate the expected demand for the new show.

But crowds weren’t quite as abundant in Disneyland, and the second theater was eventually only rarely used. Special shows, such as The Country Bear Christmas Special and The Country Bear Vacation Hoedown, were introduced to spur new interest in the by-then quaint attraction, with some success. And although the Florida version continued its run successfully, and a third version appeared in Tokyo Disneyland in 1986, by the time Splash Mountain opened in 1989, necessitating a renaming of their turf from Bear Country to Critter Country, it appeared the bears’ days may be numbered in California.

But the bears managed to hold on for a while longer, that is, until 2001, when the Disneyland show was sadly shuttered to make way for a new attraction based on a more popular bear, Winnie the Pooh. (Note: the Florida and Tokyo attractions are still open.) That this foreclosure occurred after the filming of a new live action feature film starring the Country Bears had begun, a film that one would expect would generate more interest in the thirty-year old attraction, puzzled many long-time Disney fans.