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View Full Version : Topic: On a Matter of some Bears and Pooh



hbquikcomjamesl
11-25-2002, 05:48 AM
Firstly, I can say with some certainty that at least some of the Pooh ride vehicles for Disneyland are being built in WDW Central Shops. I can say this because I saw them with my own eyes, on the Back Stage Magic tour, in varying stages of completion ranging from a bare frame to a nearly complete vehicle, and also because my guide commented that she'd personally seen the first three Florida-built Pooh-west ride vehicles loaded on a truck bound for California. There may indeed be other Pooh ride vehicles being built locally, but at least some are being built in Florida.

Secondly, I can say with certainty that the Disneyland Pooh vehicles are somewhat different from the ones being used in Florida: Since they aren't constrained by the need to fit an existing Toad track, they are approximately fifty per cent bigger, and instead of being shaped like honey pots, they're shaped like beehives.

As to those who continue to pooh-pooh Pooh, I will say that even after over two years of service in Florida, Pooh remains quite popular, with FastPasses running out well before closing time, even on a Monday in mid-November. Last Sunday I discovered that I was too late for the ride, and if I hadn't made a bee-line for the Pooh FastPass machines when I did on Monday, I probably would have been out of luck then, too. I found the ride to be quite entertaining, much more so than "Vacation Hoedown" ever was.

Which brings me to the other bears. Early Sunday evening, I made a point of going to see the originalCountry Bear Jamboree, the show that hasn't been seen in Disneyland in quite a few years. I discovered that I'd just made one of the last shows on the last day before a week-long shutdown for the Christmas redress. (It seems that unlike Disneyland, WDW-MK only has one hall.)

To put it mildly, I was glad I did. The original show was everything "Vacation Hoedown" was not. It was as good as I remember it. It showed its age, but it did so in the manner of the timeless classic it is, not in the manner of something hopelessly dated. The humor of the original holds up, even thirty years later, where the humor of VH started to get old the second time I saw it. I have little doubt that if Disneyland had done as WDW-MK had, dumping VH and going back to the original CBJ, the Bears would not have lost their popularity here, and management would have had to find another place for Pooh.