Brer Bear and Brer Fox Are Waiting to Meet You!

Brer Bear and Brer Fox Are Waiting to Meet You!

The Brer Bear and Brer Fox cover from Disney News in Fall 1976 is a great little time capsule from the early years of Walt Disney World. It captures two characters who would later become strongly associated with Splash Mountain, even though the Magic Kingdom version of that attraction would not open until October 2, 1992. That is part of what makes this image so fun. It is a reminder that Brer Fox  and Brer Bear already had a Disney parks presence long before guests started floating past them in Frontierland. This is a snapshot that feels both charming and oddly prophetic.

This fantastic cover from the Fall 1976 Disney News shows Brer Bear and Brer Fox waiting for us on the dock at the Magic Kingdom. You even get a glimpse of Cinderella Castle and The Hall of Presidents to the left of the characters. The image was published sixteen years before Splash Mountain opened in Florida, so it should not be read as an early teaser for the ride. It is better understood as evidence that Disney was already using these characters in park promotions and guest-facing material well before Splash Mountain gave them a major attraction home.

Brer Fox and Brer Bear and Splash Mountain

For a lot of Disney fans,  Brer Fox and Brer Bear  are inseparable from Splash Mountain. The Magic Kingdom version of the log flume became one of the park’s signature attractions after its 1992 debut, building its story world from the animated Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear sequences from Song of the South. In Disney’s version, Brer Fox is the schemer and primary troublemaker, while Brer Bear is the big, blustery muscle who is usually one step behind the plot. That comic pairing helped make the attraction memorable, especially in scenes leading up to the ride’s climactic drop.

And then there is Brer Wolf, who is a deeper-cut character by comparison. He belongs to the broader Brer animal story tradition and appears in Joel Chandler Harris collections and later Disney-related material, but he was not the central villain of Splash Mountain in the way Brer Fox was. So if Brer Wolf rings a bell, that is not your Disney brain malfunctioning. He is part of the larger Brer story world, just not the face of the mountain the way Fox and Bear became in the parks. 

That is why this 1976 cover is such a neat piece of Disney history. It catches Brer Bear and Brer Fox in the Magic Kingdom years before Splash Mountain turned them into permanent Frontierland fixtures. It also shows how Disney’s character library could pop up in unexpected places long before a major attraction came along and rewrote the public memory. If you want to go deeper into Splash Mountain history and Disney’s mountain attractions as a whole, check out Jason Surrell’s Disney Mountains. Then leave a comment and tell me: do you remember seeing Brer Bear and Brer Fox in old park material before Splash Mountain, or do these characters live in your mind only at the bottom of the briar patch?

What’s Your Favorite Splash Mountain Memory?

Check out Jason Surrell’s Disney Mountains to read more about Splash Mountain and the other Disney mountains.

Splash Mountain is also home to the rarest Disney book of all time!