Cowboy Weekend at Disneyland!

Thirty years ago, Disneyland was hosting "Cowboy Weekend." Yep, the Magic Kingdom was "goin' country" for a weekend that featured "the hottest talent this side of Texas!"

Donna Fargo was the "Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A." (that song was a top 10 country hit for her in 1972), Johnny Lee was "Lookin' for Love" in all the wrong places (his song was used in the movie, "Urban Cowboy" and went to the number three spot on the Billboard Country Charts and number five on the Pop Charts) and Johnny Paycheck said, "Take This Job and Shove It" (his song went to number one on the Billboard Country Charts in 1978.)
 

I did not go to the park for Cowboy Weekend, but I do remember seeing the Bear Country Hoedown many times throughout the early eighties. I believe this show was done as an attempt to try and draw guests back into that corner of the park in the late evenings. I remember guests had to sit on the ground for the show. Square dancers would come out and dance a few numbers and then they would grab guests from the crowd and teach them some of the steps. Then they would do a dance routine using those guests as their partners. I wish I had taken photos of one of the shows! I remember being picked quite a few times because I had been in "Fantasy On Parade" with some of the performers. Check out this post to see a 1981 Disneyland entertainment schedule listing the Bear Country Hoedown.

This ad was from a September 1980 edition of The Los Angeles Times. The park had been celebrating it's 25th birthday that year, with the yearlong "Family Reunion" campaign, but that would be winding down completely by Thanksgiving Weekend.

 

*****Post Update (April 2024)*****

I just found advertisements from 1981, and 1982, promoting Disneyland's "Country Weekends."  Apparently, they decided to change the name of the event, and use the word "Country" instead of "Cowboy."  I hope Jerry Reed sang, "When You're Hot, You're Hot"!

This ad is from just 5 months later, so the park's country music event must have been pretty popular.  Mel Tillis was already well established in country music, so I'm a little surprised to see that he was playing at Disneyland.  Reba McEntire was still an "up and coming" country artist at this point.  However, not too long after this, her career began to really take off.