I have always felt quite at home at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
I have always felt quite at home at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
I mean this quite literally. On one side of my family, I am descended from
On my other side, I’m descended from a very different corner of
So, shouldn’t I feel just as much at home at The Country Bear Jamboree as I do watching Destry Rides Again? Well, no.
You see, when I visit Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the visions of tinsel and glitz poke gentle fun. The melodramatic starlet, the grandiose producer, the glitz that sometimes passes for substance . . . all are targets for satire, but I never feel the real people behind these caricatures are being mocked. Rather, it’s a humorous and lovingly twisted look at
But somehow that gentle satire doesn’t come into play for The Country Bears. Instead, they’re wildly exaggerated, grotesque. Their teeth are bad, their clothes not just worn but ragged. Sure, they’re kindhearted and sweet, but they don’t seem too bright, and it’s not just the lack of formal education – you get the feeling their collective IQ was lost one year, much like a bad summer drought could kill off the fall harvest.
Now, I don’t begrudge anyone else their passion for the Country Bears. They’re a well-loved tradition in the parks, and I know there are plenty of people who love them as dearly as I love that chokecherry jam. But since there’s no lack of other quality audio-animatronic attractions at Walt Disney World, I can easily just walk on by, or maybe grab a bus over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios to visit my brethren.