Luckenbach Buys Retired Disney Robots
Luckenbach, the famous dance hall in the Texas Hill Country, is adjusting to the times.
“On weekday evenings we’ve been hiring guitarists (“pickers”) to take requests. They know thousands of country songs but audiences consistently ask for the same ten hits,” says spokesperson Laura Jane Elbow, taking a swig from a Shiner Bock at 9:30 in the morning. “We realized we can save money if we fire the pickers and automate.”
Wait, what? Luckenbach is replacing live performers with a jukebox? “Better!” reveals Ms. Elbow.“Some of Disney’s old Country Bear Jamboree robots.”
A popular Disneyland attraction from 1971 to 2024, The Country Bear Jamboree consisted of audio-animatronic robots that sang country music. Imagine watching HEE HAW if Roy Clark was played by a hairy R2D2 and Junior Samples slept with a Roomba.
From the twenty plus musicians in The Country Bear Jamboree, Luckenbach bought Homer, Gomer, Wendell and Romeo McGrowl. The staff will spend the next few months upgrading them — plugging the robots into Spotify's HOT COUNTRY channel and spraying their pelts with a beer-proof protective sealant. Their onboard electronics will also undergo programming to ignore anyone yelling “Freebird.”
As an unexpected bonus, Disney also threw in the robot from ‘Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.’ “He was stored in the back of a warehouse since 1973, when his attraction closed,” said Elbow, wiping her mouth with her sleeve and grabbing another Shiner Bock. “He was sad, actually, all dusty and smelling of stale hydraulic fluid. Disney says at one point they considered reusing him in a new ride but market research showed nobody wanted to ride a rollercoaster based on the Civil War. So they gave him to us. He doesn’t sing and his movements are fairly primitive, so he won’t perform onstage. Maybe we’ll put him in the bathroom reciting the Gettysburg Address while handing out toilet paper — ‘Great Movements With Mr. Lincoln.’”
Billiam Coronel is a multiple Emmy-winning comedy writer who now lives in the Texas Hill Country. He was on The Tonight Show multiple times and wrote on a dozen sitcoms including FAMILY GUY.