Friday, January 29, 2010
Souvenir Friday-Wonder Bread Hungry Bear Poster
In 1972 Bear Country opened at Disneyland with a new fast service restaurant the Hungry Bear. The major sponsor of the restaurant was Wonder bread. In order to recoup the investment by Wonder bread, WED created advertising signs to promote the product. This poster is in the style for Bear Country with a great Western look. If you compare this to the Bear Country Jamboree attraction poster it matches the same design and coloring.
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11 comments:
Yet another sponsorship that I wasn't aware of! I want a bed made out of Wonder Bread, the squishiest bread in the world!
Ditto what Major said: was this a long-running sponsorship? I don't remember it at all...
I only ate and the Hungry Bear once or twice in my life: We never passed thru Bear Country at a meal time, and I always found the venue off-putting.
I saw the wonder-bread connection in a magazine somewhere but forgot all about it... Did anyone notice you can't get the original wonder-bread anymore, at least not in my stores :-(
Neat (rare) poster - thanks for sharing!
The stage curtain for Country Bear Jamboree used to have the Wonderbread logo on it, didn't it?
When Bear Country opened in 1972, the venue opened as the Golden Bear Lodge - but changed names pretty quickly. Anyone know the date off hand?
Great posters!
Tokyo: You are absolutely correct! I completely forgot about it. Was it mentioned in the show script too anyplace??
I have many happy 70's childhood memories of eating at the Hungry Bear along about dusk. With the Mark Twain slowly churning by, sitting on the second level all the way at the end (this area is typically closed now it seems). Me and my best-friend-older-brother. Definitely good times!
Had a nice family dinner there last June, must have been about ten of us.
Thanks!
I've got the original "Ya All Come Back " sign for Country Bear Jamboree, and at the bottom the Wonder Bread logo with the muti-dots is sandblasted into the wood, but has been "stained over" to cover it up! OUTSIDETHEBERM: do you know WHY the location had it's name changed from Golden Bear Lodge to Hungry Bear Restaurnt......?? When the facility opened it boasted a complete meat grinding equipment set up so Disneyland could make their own hamburger pattys and save money. The tile grout was not treated propery and over time blood seeped thru under the tiles and into the foundation and Golden Bear Lodge was host to one of California's worst maggot infestations!! The restaurant had to be closed shortly after it's opening and revamped....since word of this had gotten out, Disneyland wanted the named changed!!!! ....castmembers jokingly called the new land "MAGGOT COUNTRY"
Gadz Mike C: Thanks for the story, I think...the things you find out 40 years later. I imagine it was much easier to keep things "quiet" back then.
Katella, there was something in the script at the beginning of the show mentioning "....we've got a lot to give" which was supposedly a reference to Pepsi as a sponsor. I forget the backstory on this....was Pepsi the sponsor of the WDW version? Pepsi's slogan at the time was "You've got a lot to live and Pepsi's got a lot to give."
Pepsi & Frito Lay was the original sponsor of the Walt Disney World show......I would suspect for the first 10 years..."....Welcome to the one and only original Country Bear Jamboree, brought to you by Pepsi and Fritoo Lay!" -Henry the Bear, WDW 1971...I can't find anything mentioing a sponsor for Disneyland's CBJ prior to the Wonder Bread. Coca-Cola forced Disney to kick Pepsi out of the parks as "they were NOT gonna share the stage with Pepsi!" and Coca-Cola threatned Disney that if they didn't renew an Pepsico sponoships Coke would not sign on to provide an much needed sponor money for EPCOT and Tokyo Disneyland and would not extend any other park contracts. So just before 1982 Pepsi was sent on it's way...
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