Toad’s Wild Ride was first released stateside in 1997 it was under its original, British title – The Wind in the Willows. We should just be thankful that Country Bears didn’t kill the based-on-a-theme-park-attraction initiative before we got Pirates of the Caribbean. ![]() What is fascinating is that director Peter Hastings never directed another feature film but he did direct the pre-show film for Mission: SPACE, starring Gary Sinise, which was based in part on another movie on our list. But the overall aesthetic is so unappealing and the direction so slack that it’s hard to have much fun, even in a bizarro wtf-is-happening early-2000s time capsule way. There are, surely, things to enjoy in Country Bears, including a genuinely gonzo performance by Walken and impressive audio-animatronic characters courtesy of the Jim Henson Creature Shop which would have been even more impressive if they had drawn more heavily on the original Marc Davis designs. But the execution is so slack, with several uninspired musical numbers (with everyone from Brian Setzer and Elton John) and only a tenuous connection to the original, thoroughly entertaining attraction (originally planned for Walt’s canceled Mineral King ski resort, it wound up an inaugural attraction at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom), including a passing mention of the bears characters there (mercifully, Big Al is represented in the movie). In order to save their venue, they team up with a young bear (voiced by Haley Joel Osment) and go on a cross-country road trip to collect the other members of the band. The concept behind Country Bears is pretty good – the movie images the Country Bears as a popular hillbilly rock band who went their separate ways and now their old home base/music hall is being earmarked for demolition by an unscrupulous banker (amazingly played by Christopher Walken). To tell you how little the Disney Company cared about The Country Bears movie (and how little it believed in its own unparalleled synergistic marketing abilities), the Country Bear Jamboree attraction in Disneyland closed a few months before the movie opened.
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