Who framed Brer Rabbit?

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — As characters go, Brer Rabbit is just about persona non grata in the Disney empire. Song of the South, which included Brer Rabbit cartoons, has never been available on home media and was last released in the theaters in the 1980s. I have never seen it or read any of Brer Rabbit’s Tales, so I cannot evaluate why Disney has held off on the release. If I recall correclty, Brer Rabbit represented slaves and the villains Brer Fox and Brer Bear represented the slaveowners. Brer Rabbit got himself out of tough situations with them by taking advantage of their ignorance, right?

A search for Brer Rabbit on Disney.com returns only 24 results, only one about Song of the South with the majority being about the Splash Mountain ride which features Brer Rabbit. The Briar Patch tale is told as riders float through a cave in their log and down several water falls. That and the Briar Patch store (pictured above) are the only places Brer Rabbit is acknowledged in all of Disney World. The store does not sell any Brer Rabbit merchandise.

As for Splash Mountain, it is a great log flume, though it was cold in the cavern when I went on it one evening. My wife elected not to go on it because she was worried about getting soaked and having to walk around all evening in wet clothes. Her worries were well founded, the ride is set up so that a log boat going down the final falls splashes one just as it begins its journey.