JLA
2010-07-23 00:05:34 UTC
From NRM
****
From Humble Beginnings Rose A Legen
The Haunted Mansion wasnt open until 1969, but the idea was kicke
around since the beginning. In the one of the original park design
created by artist Harper Goff showed a crooked street coming off o
Main Street and winding past a church and a graveyard and leading t
a run-down mansion on a hill. The idea wasnt incorporated at first
but Disney liked the idea and assigned imaginer Ken Anderson to buil
a story around the drawing and create a full experience around it
Because plans for New Orleans square were currently in progress, i
was decided that the ride would be built in the style of a
antebellum manor. The original souvenir map that showed New Orlean
Square promised that the area would include a thieves market,
pirate wax museum and a haunted house when it was open
The first drawings for the mansion showed it overgrown with weeds
filled with swarms of bats and having boarded up doors and windows
While this certainly would have set the mood for a scary adventure
Disney hated the idea of a run-down building in his park an
insisted, well take care of the outside and let the ghosts tak
care of the inside.
[b:f59e183990]Delays on Top of Delays[/b:f59e183990
When working on the original plans for the mansion, Anderson develope
a number of wonderfully chilling tales, the main of which revolve
around a ghost of a sea captain who killed his nosy bride and the
hung himself. He was even hoping to incorporate some of the monster
used in Universal films. Most of this ended up not materializin
because Disney wanted to take things in another direction
For the special effects, Rolly Crump and Yale Grace were hired t
create creepy effects that would be far from obvious. The pai
researched real haunting stories, Greek myths and monster movies an
then started building elaborate effects in their private studio. Th
effects got to be so good that they scared some of the cleaning crew
Thinking that was funny, they hooked up all the effects to a motio
sensor so it would all go off when the cleaning crew entered th
room. After that, the crew refused to enter the area and they had t
clean up their own studio
Despite all the work on storylines and effects, things didnt progres
very fast and then the imagineers were held up by Disneys active rol
in the 1964-1965 Worlds Fair. While this didnt end up speeding th
process up, it did actually end up becoming an important part of th
final project, as it made the creators realize that the attractio
would be far too busy for people to just walk through, as originall
intended. Instead, imagineers decided to use the people mover the
built for the fair and used in the Adventures Through Space ride a
Doom Buggies to carry guests through the exhibit
[b:f59e183990]To Be Or Not To Be (Spooky)[/b:f59e183990
Three of the main designers of the finished project were Marc Davis,
Atencio, and Claude Coats. Rolly Crump also helped add to the ride, a
he proposed a Museum of the Weird restaurant be built beside th
attraction and filled with coffin clocks, talking chairs, man eatin
plants, living gypsy wagons and other spooky settings. While th
restaurant idea was quashed, many of Crumps ideas managed to make i
into the final version
Claude Coats was design-focused and wanted to create a terrifyin
atmosphere for the ride, but Marc Davis wanted things to be silly an
goofy like traditional Disney attractions. X Atencio was assigned wit
scripting the rides plot line and he managed to mix the two idea
together so the atmosphere begins spooky and eerie and then as th
ghosts appear, things begin to get silly
Funny enough, the rides many delays led to the façade being up fo
five years before the ride actually opened and a number of rumor
began to circulate as a result. One of the best stories said that th
ride was so scary that someone died of fright during testing, so the
were forced to tone it down and play up the silliness. Because th
ride has just such an arc in its story, the tale is widely believe
to this day and is even reported on in the Snopes website.
All the ghost stories and urban legends actually helped promote the
mansion though and the opening of the ride helped the park recover
from Disneys recent death in 1966.
[b:f59e183990]Size Can Matter[/b:f59e183990]
Disneyland is a fairly small park and by the time the Haunted Mansion
was set to be established, space was already running out. Thats why
the imagineers started the ride off with the legendary stretching
room that serves as the elevator to help bring guests below the
surface level.
Once in the actual ride, you go far beyond the boundaries of the park
that you can actually visit, under the railroad, and under the back
lot, along the tunnels for Splash Mountain.
[b:f59e183990]Dedications By The Dead[/b:f59e183990]
If you remember the outside tombstones looking different when you were
a kid, youre probably right. When the mansion first opened, the
tombstones were largely made as a tribute to the imagineers that
helped develop the ride. The one dedicated to X Antencio, for
example, read:
REQUIESCAT
Francis Xavier
NO TIME OFF
FOR GOOD
BEHAVIOR
RIP
X was perhaps one of the most important fathers of the mansion as he
not only scripted much of the ride, but he also wrote almost all of
the verses seen on the tombstones and co-wrote the famed Grim
Grinning Ghosts that serves as the rides theme song.
Nowadays though, these memorials have been removed to expand the
waiting area (X took his home with him) and a newer pet cemetery has
been added in front of the mansion. There is also an older pet
cemetery with headstones scattered about, but this can only be seen
from the handicap line area these days.
Inside the interior graveyard scene, there are more headstones, many
of which also contain hidden messages relating to the imagineers.
There are also a few gag ones and one rhyme relates to a charity
auction Disney put on eBay that allowed the winner to have his or her
name added to a tombstone in the graveyard scene. The winner, a doctor
and medical attorney named Cary Jay Sharp, was given a tombstone
that reads:
Jay
Doctor-Lawyer
Legal Clerk
Forever Buried
In His Work
In the Disneyworld graveyard, the pet cemetery also contains a special
tribute, a headstone for Mr. Toad that was added after the park closed
Mr. Toads Wild Ride in 1998.
[b:f59e183990]Ghoulishly Good Voice Talent[/b:f59e183990]
Throughout the entire ride, the Grim Grinning Ghosts song is played,
although the version changes from room to room. The singing busts in
the graveyard actually depict the real singers of the tune and the
one most people mistake for Walt Disney is actually Thurl
Ravenscroft, who is also well known for doing the voice of Tony The
Tiger and his work in the animated version of How the Grinch Stole
Christmas.
If youre wondering how the busts sing, its actually just projections
of the singers shot at busts with the actors features. The same
effect is used for Madame Leota as she floats in her crystal ball.
[b:f59e183990]Spectacularly Spectral Effects[/b:f59e183990]
Speaking of effects used in the mansion, one of the coolest is the
ballroom filled with dancing ghosts. The ghosts are not actually
holograms, but are instead reflections of dancing animatronic figures
located above and below the doom buggies track that shine on to a
glass plate set in front of the viewers. Marc Davis, who designed
the room did forget one thing when he set up the ballroom,
reflections show up in reverse. As a result, if you look closely,
youll notice that the women dancers lead the men. Another cool bit
of trivia, the organ being played in the ballroom is the original
organ used in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Another favorite effect is the appearance of hitchhiking ghosts in
your doom buggy. This is done through the use of a conveyor belt
carrying the ghosts at the same speed behind the wall and two-way
mirrors which show the ghosts using weak lights.
[b:f59e183990]Remember the Moving Suit of Armor?[/b:f59e183990]
If you were one of the lucky few who got to ride the attraction at its
very start, you might have a vague recollection of a suit of armor
that actually moved around and walked the halls. If so, youre not
crazy, when the ride first started, a cast member would roam the
halls in the suit of armor. Because the cast members werent supposed
to be seen entering and exiting from the dressing room, they were
given a remote control to stop the ride. Unfortunately, this resulted
in the ride constantly being stopped whenever someone would spit at
the character or throw something at him.
The dressing room is still around and is hidden behind the breathing
doors.
[b:f59e183990]Variations Between Locations[/b:f59e183990]
All Disneyland parks have a Haunted Mansion, but each one is a little
different from one another, with the exception of the French Phantom
Manor, which is very different from the others. In the Disney World
mansion (seen above), the exterior is done in a Dutch Gothic Revival
look because it is located in Liberty Square. Because the park had
more space, there are a few more rooms, including a library that
features flying books, moving ladders and an invisible ghost reading
a book in a rocking chair. There is also a room that looks like
something M.C. Escher may have drawn up that features staircases
going in all variety of directions and green footsteps moving across
them. The Tokyo park is almost identical to this one, except that the
outside features broken windows and the narration is in Japanese.
The Phantom Manor of Paris though, follows a completely different
storyline than all the other rides. The design of the Manor looks
quite a bit like the house in Psycho, but Disney says it was based on
the Fourth Ward School House in Virgina City, Nevada. Personally, I
think it looks much more foreboding.
The story of the Parisian manor follows the story of a young woman
named Melanie Ravenswood and she is predominant throughout the ride,
starting with an exterior headstone. Because the ride is located in
Frontierland, there are a number of Western-themed displays in the
ride, but it is otherwise similar to the original Haunted Mansions
layout and story.
The story of Melanie Ravenswood says that she was the daughter of a
man who made his fortune in the gold rush and built his mansion in a
town thats now run down. Melanie wants to marry a train conductor
who promises to take her away from it all, but her father wants to
stop the marriage at all costs. The father and mother are killed in
an earthquake shortly before the wedding day, but a phantom arrives
on the day of the ceremony and kills the groom in the attic (he is
the one hanging in the stretching room this time). Melanie swears her
groom will return to her and wanders the house throughout the rest of
her life dressed in her wedding gown, while the evil phantom and his
demonic guests celebrate around her.
After the brides boudoir (the room that belongs to the black widow in
other Haunted Mansions), there is no graveyard scene, instead the doom
buggies visit the backyard where the phantom sits laughing above an
open grave. They then travel to underground catacombs and then pass
into Phantom Canyon, which is a supernatural version of Thunder Mesa
where an earthquake is going on and ghosts rule the streets.
[b:f59e183990]The Mansion Before Christmas[/b:f59e183990]
Ever since Christmas of 2001, the Disneyland Haunted Mansion has been
decked out yearly for the Haunted Mansion Holiday, featuring the
entire cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Tokyo has had similar
redecoration, but the Paris and Florida parks have never held a
similar overlay.
This was not the first Christmas overlay on a ride and The Country
Bears and Its a Small World both received the treatment before, but
what makes the Haunted Mansion Holiday special is its use of spooky
characters from the Tim Burton film. The special Christmas layout
became so popular that it was responsible for the decision to add a
Fast Pass to the ride.
*****
View the attachments for this post at:
http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=56753804#56753804
****
From Humble Beginnings Rose A Legen
The Haunted Mansion wasnt open until 1969, but the idea was kicke
around since the beginning. In the one of the original park design
created by artist Harper Goff showed a crooked street coming off o
Main Street and winding past a church and a graveyard and leading t
a run-down mansion on a hill. The idea wasnt incorporated at first
but Disney liked the idea and assigned imaginer Ken Anderson to buil
a story around the drawing and create a full experience around it
Because plans for New Orleans square were currently in progress, i
was decided that the ride would be built in the style of a
antebellum manor. The original souvenir map that showed New Orlean
Square promised that the area would include a thieves market,
pirate wax museum and a haunted house when it was open
The first drawings for the mansion showed it overgrown with weeds
filled with swarms of bats and having boarded up doors and windows
While this certainly would have set the mood for a scary adventure
Disney hated the idea of a run-down building in his park an
insisted, well take care of the outside and let the ghosts tak
care of the inside.
[b:f59e183990]Delays on Top of Delays[/b:f59e183990
When working on the original plans for the mansion, Anderson develope
a number of wonderfully chilling tales, the main of which revolve
around a ghost of a sea captain who killed his nosy bride and the
hung himself. He was even hoping to incorporate some of the monster
used in Universal films. Most of this ended up not materializin
because Disney wanted to take things in another direction
For the special effects, Rolly Crump and Yale Grace were hired t
create creepy effects that would be far from obvious. The pai
researched real haunting stories, Greek myths and monster movies an
then started building elaborate effects in their private studio. Th
effects got to be so good that they scared some of the cleaning crew
Thinking that was funny, they hooked up all the effects to a motio
sensor so it would all go off when the cleaning crew entered th
room. After that, the crew refused to enter the area and they had t
clean up their own studio
Despite all the work on storylines and effects, things didnt progres
very fast and then the imagineers were held up by Disneys active rol
in the 1964-1965 Worlds Fair. While this didnt end up speeding th
process up, it did actually end up becoming an important part of th
final project, as it made the creators realize that the attractio
would be far too busy for people to just walk through, as originall
intended. Instead, imagineers decided to use the people mover the
built for the fair and used in the Adventures Through Space ride a
Doom Buggies to carry guests through the exhibit
[b:f59e183990]To Be Or Not To Be (Spooky)[/b:f59e183990
Three of the main designers of the finished project were Marc Davis,
Atencio, and Claude Coats. Rolly Crump also helped add to the ride, a
he proposed a Museum of the Weird restaurant be built beside th
attraction and filled with coffin clocks, talking chairs, man eatin
plants, living gypsy wagons and other spooky settings. While th
restaurant idea was quashed, many of Crumps ideas managed to make i
into the final version
Claude Coats was design-focused and wanted to create a terrifyin
atmosphere for the ride, but Marc Davis wanted things to be silly an
goofy like traditional Disney attractions. X Atencio was assigned wit
scripting the rides plot line and he managed to mix the two idea
together so the atmosphere begins spooky and eerie and then as th
ghosts appear, things begin to get silly
Funny enough, the rides many delays led to the façade being up fo
five years before the ride actually opened and a number of rumor
began to circulate as a result. One of the best stories said that th
ride was so scary that someone died of fright during testing, so the
were forced to tone it down and play up the silliness. Because th
ride has just such an arc in its story, the tale is widely believe
to this day and is even reported on in the Snopes website.
All the ghost stories and urban legends actually helped promote the
mansion though and the opening of the ride helped the park recover
from Disneys recent death in 1966.
[b:f59e183990]Size Can Matter[/b:f59e183990]
Disneyland is a fairly small park and by the time the Haunted Mansion
was set to be established, space was already running out. Thats why
the imagineers started the ride off with the legendary stretching
room that serves as the elevator to help bring guests below the
surface level.
Once in the actual ride, you go far beyond the boundaries of the park
that you can actually visit, under the railroad, and under the back
lot, along the tunnels for Splash Mountain.
[b:f59e183990]Dedications By The Dead[/b:f59e183990]
If you remember the outside tombstones looking different when you were
a kid, youre probably right. When the mansion first opened, the
tombstones were largely made as a tribute to the imagineers that
helped develop the ride. The one dedicated to X Antencio, for
example, read:
REQUIESCAT
Francis Xavier
NO TIME OFF
FOR GOOD
BEHAVIOR
RIP
X was perhaps one of the most important fathers of the mansion as he
not only scripted much of the ride, but he also wrote almost all of
the verses seen on the tombstones and co-wrote the famed Grim
Grinning Ghosts that serves as the rides theme song.
Nowadays though, these memorials have been removed to expand the
waiting area (X took his home with him) and a newer pet cemetery has
been added in front of the mansion. There is also an older pet
cemetery with headstones scattered about, but this can only be seen
from the handicap line area these days.
Inside the interior graveyard scene, there are more headstones, many
of which also contain hidden messages relating to the imagineers.
There are also a few gag ones and one rhyme relates to a charity
auction Disney put on eBay that allowed the winner to have his or her
name added to a tombstone in the graveyard scene. The winner, a doctor
and medical attorney named Cary Jay Sharp, was given a tombstone
that reads:
Jay
Doctor-Lawyer
Legal Clerk
Forever Buried
In His Work
In the Disneyworld graveyard, the pet cemetery also contains a special
tribute, a headstone for Mr. Toad that was added after the park closed
Mr. Toads Wild Ride in 1998.
[b:f59e183990]Ghoulishly Good Voice Talent[/b:f59e183990]
Throughout the entire ride, the Grim Grinning Ghosts song is played,
although the version changes from room to room. The singing busts in
the graveyard actually depict the real singers of the tune and the
one most people mistake for Walt Disney is actually Thurl
Ravenscroft, who is also well known for doing the voice of Tony The
Tiger and his work in the animated version of How the Grinch Stole
Christmas.
If youre wondering how the busts sing, its actually just projections
of the singers shot at busts with the actors features. The same
effect is used for Madame Leota as she floats in her crystal ball.
[b:f59e183990]Spectacularly Spectral Effects[/b:f59e183990]
Speaking of effects used in the mansion, one of the coolest is the
ballroom filled with dancing ghosts. The ghosts are not actually
holograms, but are instead reflections of dancing animatronic figures
located above and below the doom buggies track that shine on to a
glass plate set in front of the viewers. Marc Davis, who designed
the room did forget one thing when he set up the ballroom,
reflections show up in reverse. As a result, if you look closely,
youll notice that the women dancers lead the men. Another cool bit
of trivia, the organ being played in the ballroom is the original
organ used in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Another favorite effect is the appearance of hitchhiking ghosts in
your doom buggy. This is done through the use of a conveyor belt
carrying the ghosts at the same speed behind the wall and two-way
mirrors which show the ghosts using weak lights.
[b:f59e183990]Remember the Moving Suit of Armor?[/b:f59e183990]
If you were one of the lucky few who got to ride the attraction at its
very start, you might have a vague recollection of a suit of armor
that actually moved around and walked the halls. If so, youre not
crazy, when the ride first started, a cast member would roam the
halls in the suit of armor. Because the cast members werent supposed
to be seen entering and exiting from the dressing room, they were
given a remote control to stop the ride. Unfortunately, this resulted
in the ride constantly being stopped whenever someone would spit at
the character or throw something at him.
The dressing room is still around and is hidden behind the breathing
doors.
[b:f59e183990]Variations Between Locations[/b:f59e183990]
All Disneyland parks have a Haunted Mansion, but each one is a little
different from one another, with the exception of the French Phantom
Manor, which is very different from the others. In the Disney World
mansion (seen above), the exterior is done in a Dutch Gothic Revival
look because it is located in Liberty Square. Because the park had
more space, there are a few more rooms, including a library that
features flying books, moving ladders and an invisible ghost reading
a book in a rocking chair. There is also a room that looks like
something M.C. Escher may have drawn up that features staircases
going in all variety of directions and green footsteps moving across
them. The Tokyo park is almost identical to this one, except that the
outside features broken windows and the narration is in Japanese.
The Phantom Manor of Paris though, follows a completely different
storyline than all the other rides. The design of the Manor looks
quite a bit like the house in Psycho, but Disney says it was based on
the Fourth Ward School House in Virgina City, Nevada. Personally, I
think it looks much more foreboding.
The story of the Parisian manor follows the story of a young woman
named Melanie Ravenswood and she is predominant throughout the ride,
starting with an exterior headstone. Because the ride is located in
Frontierland, there are a number of Western-themed displays in the
ride, but it is otherwise similar to the original Haunted Mansions
layout and story.
The story of Melanie Ravenswood says that she was the daughter of a
man who made his fortune in the gold rush and built his mansion in a
town thats now run down. Melanie wants to marry a train conductor
who promises to take her away from it all, but her father wants to
stop the marriage at all costs. The father and mother are killed in
an earthquake shortly before the wedding day, but a phantom arrives
on the day of the ceremony and kills the groom in the attic (he is
the one hanging in the stretching room this time). Melanie swears her
groom will return to her and wanders the house throughout the rest of
her life dressed in her wedding gown, while the evil phantom and his
demonic guests celebrate around her.
After the brides boudoir (the room that belongs to the black widow in
other Haunted Mansions), there is no graveyard scene, instead the doom
buggies visit the backyard where the phantom sits laughing above an
open grave. They then travel to underground catacombs and then pass
into Phantom Canyon, which is a supernatural version of Thunder Mesa
where an earthquake is going on and ghosts rule the streets.
[b:f59e183990]The Mansion Before Christmas[/b:f59e183990]
Ever since Christmas of 2001, the Disneyland Haunted Mansion has been
decked out yearly for the Haunted Mansion Holiday, featuring the
entire cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Tokyo has had similar
redecoration, but the Paris and Florida parks have never held a
similar overlay.
This was not the first Christmas overlay on a ride and The Country
Bears and Its a Small World both received the treatment before, but
what makes the Haunted Mansion Holiday special is its use of spooky
characters from the Tim Burton film. The special Christmas layout
became so popular that it was responsible for the decision to add a
Fast Pass to the ride.
*****
View the attachments for this post at:
http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=56753804#56753804