[Melvin snoring] Buff: Melvin! Max: Wake up! Melvin: Huh? Buff: The way you're always hibernatin', you must be part bear! Melvin: Aw, heck! I'm only part *moose* as it is! - from Disneyland's Country Bear Vacation Hoedown
That first version of the Melvin puppet featured in the Breakfast Jamboree show was creepy-looking. Also, I loved the skit at the end. "Feels like I'm wearin' nothin' at all!"
Another thing that works great with Melvin is alliteration- Melvin the Moose! Two Ms! I think that one of the reasons why he is so popular! Great Simpsons joke at the end!
I was going to Disneyland quite a bit in the '80s and '90s (and occasionally Walt Disney World), but I had no idea Melvin appeared outside of Country Bear Jamboree!
Man, I barely (bearly?!) remember the Country Bear Jamoree, I went to it only once as a kid and never visited a Disney park since. The one part I remember was this one bear singing about there being "blood on the table" and "blood on the floor" or something... really disturbing. I don't even remember the deer, buffalo, or moose heads on the wall, which is kind of a shame...
I think they probably went with Melcin because they didn't want Max to get confused with Bambi, and maybe a Buff costume would've been too bulky. Also, moose are just really cute in a "so ugly it's adorable" kind of way. We certainly get enough tourists coming to see them, here in Maine
So that's where Jackie Chan Adventures came up with the idea of Melvin Moose for the in-universe theme park Melvin World aka Moose World that Jade's a big fan of.
Speaking of animatronic mooses. Have you ever heard of A restaurant called bugaboo? This restaurant was A place we're every 5 minutes A animatronic Buffalo or deer would talk to the guests about food. However there not open anymore after A snow storm fried the animatronics wireing.
Disney use to have the best Christmas shows. This one, the other show between buzz and carousel of progress and the contemporary Christmas show in the ball room.
As memethyst said, Creative Engineering did an homage (to be generous) as the Country Bear Jubilee, also known as the Hard Luck Bears. They had their own moose character in some versions, who has fallen on some very hard times indeed.