by Beth Keating
Lifestyle
DisneyBizJournal.com
October 29, 2023
There are those little touches around the Disney Parks that make the place special, a tad different from other “amusement parks” around the country. They are the little details which keep guests coming back for the magic year after year. One of those touches that our family has always enjoyed is the live entertainment – what some would call “streetmosphere” – and which has been somewhat slow to return to the parks.
For us, we’ve been overjoyed (and enormously entertained) by the live (or perhaps undead?) entertainment outside the Haunted Mansion at Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween parties. Madame Carlotta and her twin sister Madame Renatta really bring the “life” to the party, spooky fog and eerie lighting not withstanding. (Butler Broome is sometimes there too, but he doesn’t have the same joie de vivre that the girls do.)
This is a big week for the Haunted Mansion, what with the new movie coming out this year, the announcement of a Haunted Mansion-themed lounge materializing on the Disney Treasure, and all the hot and cold running chills of Halloween coming up. We thought you foolish mortals out there would enjoy some trivia tidbits about the Mansion(s) for the night.
There are actually 5 different Haunted Mansions in the Disney Parks, with a few divergent themes. No two are identical, and many people don’t count Mystic Manor as a “Haunted Mansion” at all because the “spirits” aspect doesn’t have the same impact in Hong Kong.
• The original version was the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland California (1969). It was NOT an opening day attraction, and actually stood vacant for a while after construction on the façade of the house, interrupted by Disney’s involvement in creating attractions for the 1964 World’s Fair, and then changes to the attraction after Walt’s death. (They dropped the Museum of the Weird section, and a potential restaurant, amongst other things.)
• Disney World and Tokyo Disney’s versions were an opening day attraction. Disneyland Paris (previously called Euro Disney), also had its Phantom Manor as an opening day attraction.
• During the production and assembly of the props and audio-animatronics for Disneyland California's Haunted Mansion, duplicates of everything were being made for Florida’s Haunted Mansion.
• The ride was originally supposed to be a walk-through, but Imagineers thought that the low-capacity of a walk-through attraction could be a problem, so they went with the new Omni-mover system, and created “Doom Buggies” for riders. (Imagineer and Disney Legend Claude Coats briefly had the ride located in a Louisiana Bayou setting, with the guests transported by boats. Didn’t last.)
Park Locations
The Haunted Mansion attractions are located in different parts of each park:
• In the California version, it’s located in New Orleans Square, with a New Orleans style façade. It opened in 1969.
• The Florida version is located in Magic Kingdom’s Liberty Square. It’s a Gothic Revival style, reminiscent of upstate New York and New England. It opened in 1971.
• At Tokyo Disneyland, it is in Fantasyland, and opened in 1983.
• The Paris version, Phantom Manor, is in Frontierland with an Old West theme. It opened in 1992. (It’s the only abandoned looking building! Walt Disney wanted his Haunted Mansion looking pristine on the outside, to maintain the “clean and new” looking aspect of the rest of his park. He promised, “We’ll take care of the outside, and let the ghosts take care of the inside,” so Phantom manor is a departure from the plan.)
• The Hong Kong version, which some argue isn’t really a “Haunted Mansion” at all, is Mystic Manor in Mystic Point. This trackless ride opened in 2013. (The musical score here was created by Danny Elfman, who also wrote the score for “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and provides Jack’s singing voice.) Rather than 999 Happy Haunts, the Hong Kong attraction is the home of Lord Henry Mystic and his monkey, Albert. Lord Henry came into possession of an enchanted music box, but unfortunately, Albert opens the box and brings everything inside the house to life. The pre-show here is narrated by Lord Henry himself.
The Stretching Room
• The Florida and Tokyo versions do have a stretching room to greet their guests, but in those locations, the ceiling raises instead of the floor moving downward (elevator style); but in California, it actually is an elevator, due to the need to get guests under the railroad to the story building.
Tim Burton’s “Nightmare Before Christmas” Overlay at California’s Haunted Mansion
• Every year since 2001, Disneyland California closes the Haunted Mansion for a few weeks in order to put a special Halloween/Christmas overlay onto the Haunted Mansion ride. Since California is much more of what they consider a “local’s park,” this is a big deal for locals to get excited about as Jack Skellington and Sally take over the mansion for a few months. The Nightmare Before Christmas music is also added to the ride for the season. It’s called “Haunted Mansion Holiday,” and combines the traditional Haunted Mansion ride with the characters from Tim Burton’s “Nightmare Before Christmas” film. There’s also the smell of gingerbread in the air, as a giant ten foot tall handmade Gingerbread House takes the table in the ballroom.
• The overlay was also added to Tokyo Disneyland in 2004 as “Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare.”
Movies
There have been three movies based on the Haunted Mansion:
• Eddie Murphy version (2003, a theatre release)
• Muppet’s Haunted Mansion (October 2021, released on Disney+)
• Haunted Mansion (2023, a theatre release now available on Disney+)
Interesting fact for 2023
• Disney Legend Rolly Crump was one of the original designers of the Haunted Mansion. He was mainly responsible for the “Museum of the Weird” concept that was part of the original discussions, and did some of the outlandish and creepy sketches for proposed characters and “artifacts” in this museum, which was to be the third section of the Haunted Mansion, after you went through the main house. Rolly sadly passed away earlier this year, and to honor him, the Disneyland California Imagineers placed a small replica of his “candle man” hidden in the Mansion’s “Nightmare Before Christmas” overlay for this year. Despite the fact that the Museum of the Weird didn’t happen, many of Rolly’s designs ended up adapted in various spots in the mansion anyway.
Who created the ride?
• It’s a long road, because there were so many concepts to the ride along the way…..
But the primary Imagineers involved were:
- Disney Legend Harper Goff (created early sketches)
- Disney Legend Ken Anderson (first – but not final! – storyline, and later left the project)
- Disney Legend Marc Davis (Davis was a Disney animator right from the beginning, with Snow White; responsible for the “funny” elements; also designed lots of Disney’s animatronics over the years; he was one of Walt’s “Nine Old Men”; Walt called him his “Renaissance Man” because he could do anything Walt needed him to do.)
- Disney Legend X Atencio (who wrote the lyrics)
- Disney Legend Claude Coats (originally a background artist; wanted it to be scary)
- Disney Legend Rolly Crump (the weird and bizarre elements)
- Disney Legend Yale Gracey (the man the Mansion is named after – Gracey Manor – and who created many of the illusions. The sadness of the maids and butlers in the mansion is attributed to the fact that “Master Gracey” has died.)
Famous Voices in the Mansion
• Disney Legend Paul Frees is the original voice of the Ghost Host in California and Florida. He was also Boris Badenov in the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show; occasionally Ludwig Von Drake; George Washington in the “Hall of Presidents”; and tons of characters in the Rankin/Bass movies, including the Burgermeister Meisterburger and a few of the Kringles in Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and Santa Claus in Frosty the Snowman. He was nicknamed “The Man of a Thousand Voices.” He was also named a Disney Legend in 2006.
• Disney Legend Thurl Ravenscroft, voice of Tony the Tiger, is one of the singing busts in the graveyard (Bust #2, sometimes also known as Uncle Theodore, known as the broken bust). He was also the voice of Fritz in the “Enchanted Tiki Room,” and Shere Khan in The Jungle Book (1967). He’s also the vocalist in the 1966 Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
• Madame Leota has two different actresses as her creator - Eleanor Audley as her voice, and Disney Legend Leota Toombs as her face. (In the 2003 movie, she’s played by Jennifer Tilly; in the 2023 movie, she’s played by Jamie Lee Curtis, and she’s Madame Pigota, played by Miss Piggy in the Muppet version.). It’s assumed she’s somehow connected to the Gracey family, since her tombstone appears in the family’s graveyard in the Magic Kingdom. It’s the one that if you stare at it long enough, you’ll see her eyes blink – just before the doors to the mansion open and you’re invited into the Magic Kingdom version. Eleanor Audley (Leota’s voice) was also the woman who voiced Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty and Lady Tremaine in Cinderella in the original animated films.
• In Haunted Mansion’s Nightmare Before Christmas version in California, Leota’s face is modeled on Leota Toombs’ daughter, Imagineer Kim Irvine, and voiced by Susan Blakeslee, who coincidentally voices Maleficent and Lady Tremaine in the more modern film versions. Keeping those connections alive!
• Phantom Manor in Paris is the only Haunted Mansion where Madame Leota is voiced and “faced” by the same actress…. Oona Lind.
Music
• The music for the ride is "Grim Grinning Ghosts" composed by Disney Legend Buddy Baker with lyrics by (also a Disney Legend) X Atencio (who also wrote the Pirates of the Caribbean “Yo Ho” theme). “Grim Grinning Ghosts” is the same song throughout the ride, just slowed waaay down at the beginning of the ride to give it the eerie quality. The music speeds up as the ride progresses, and is played by different instruments throughout the ride to give it different feels in different rooms. (It’s played in the California, Florida and Tokyo rides).
• The song title comes from William Shakespeare's 1593 poem Venus and Adonis:
'Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou mean
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath.
Pepper’s Ghost Trick
• Disney uses this effect throughout the parks, including at Tower of Terror and the Haunted Mansion ballroom scene, but they didn’t invent it. Originally created by the English scientist John Henry Pepper in 1862, this illusion basically uses angled glass and black backgrounds to reflect the images off stage in a hidden room so that the ghostly montage appears in front of the audience.
Magic Kingdom Riddle
• In the stand-by queue line, there are six busts of family members of the “Dread” family. It’s a murder mystery riddle, and if you find yourself waiting too long in the standby queue, you can try to solve the riddle. If you follow the poem written on the bottom of each pedestal, it’ll lead you to each murder, in the correct order, to find out who the final murderer is. (The family includes Uncle Jacob, Bertie, Aunt Florence Dread, twins Wellington and Forsythia, and Cousin Maude. Here’s a hint: Bertie starts the progression, until they all wind up killing each other over money).
Pet Cemetery
• The pet cemetery at Magic Kingdom is located as you exit the building. If you look to your left, in the upper section of the cemetery, you’ll find Mr. Toad, who was evicted from his Wild Ride at the Magic Kingdom in 1998.
Hatbox Ghost
• He returned to Disneyland in 2015, and is soon to return to Disney World. (Sometime in November 2023… we’ll be waiting!) He’s been given the name Alistair Crump, a tip of the hat to Haunted Mansion Imagineer Rolly Crump.
PhotoPass Hitch Hiking Ghosts
• The on-ride photos were added to the attraction in April 2019 in Disney World, so that ghosts are added to guests’ pictures during the ride, using their RFID tech in their Magic Bands.
Disney “Origin” Tale
• When the outdoor queue was built at Disney World, a piece of a stanchion was stuck in the cement. Disney cast members began telling people the ring-shaped piece was the attic bride’s wedding ring, thrown from the window of the Mansion in a fit of anger. People now look for that ring in the cement of the queue. You can find it just before the spot where the standby and lightening lanes meet. (The mythology took on a life of its own after cast members originated the tale, and Disney has since placed a more real looking ring in the walkway.)
Extra Tidbits
• If you stand too close to the walls of the room when your accompanying servant asks you to move your tired bodies to the “dead center of the room,” they really mean it. If guests stand too close to the real walls, the door to the Doom Buggies won’t open. You really won’t be able to “find a way out.”
• “Alfred,” “Edgar,” or “Lucifer”: Take your pick, they’ve all been cited as names for the red-eyed raven that follows guests through the various rooms of the mansions. Edgar is likely a reference to the Edgar Allan Poe poem of “The Raven.” The raven was supposed to be the attraction’s original guide, but depending on which explanation you believe, either it was too hard to spot him in the scenes, or the bird’s voice was too human sounding, and never really worked the way Imagineers wanted. (Or, if you believe other tales, it was a ride timing problem.) You can still find the raven hidden in rooms throughout the attraction, though. Ken Anderson initially put the raven in his concept art, but Marc Davis liked it and kept it in future revisions of the script.
• As you pass by each wedding portrait of Constance Hatchaway (as more recent renditions of the attic bride have been named), she adds another string of pearls after the death of each groom. (If you listen carefully, you’ll hear the whoosh of a “hatchet” before each groom’s head disappears from his portrait. (Hatchet = Hatchaway?)
• Constance Hatchaway was also known as “the Attic Bride,” the “beating heart bride,” and the “Black Widow Bride,” for previous incarnations of her character, before she was given her current backstory.
• Constance Hatchaway’s fifth husband, whom she married in 1877, was George Hightower, who may be a reference to the explorer Harrison Hightower III. Is George his relative? Cue the connection to S.E.A. and the Adventurer’s Club; Hong Kong’s Mystic Manor; Hotel Hightower and Tower of Terror at Tokyo DisneySea! (You can find some of his artifacts and books at Skipper Canteen at Disney World, too!). Oh, one more tidbit…. Harrison Hightower’s visage is based on Imagineer Joe Rohde!)
• The older woman sitting on “George’s” tombstone in the stretching room is believed to be the now senior Constance Hatchaway. The husband’s name is the same, and she is holding the red rose, as she did in their wedding portrait. Plus, you know, there’s a hatchet in his head…
• Allegedly, Madame Leota was the original proprietor of the Memento Mori shop, just outside of the Magic Kingdom’s mansion, where you can pick up assorted souvenirs. If you look carefully, you’ll sometimes see her peeking through the mirror on the wall there.
• The Francis Xavier tombstone in the Magic Kingdom’s standby queue is no doubt a reference to Imagineer and Mansion builder X Atencio, whose real name was Francis Xavier Atencio.
• Did you know that each of the singing busts in the graveyard has a name? They are: Rollo Rumkin, Uncle Theodore, Cousin Algernon, Ned Nub and Phineas P. Pock. And if the name “Pock” rings a bell, you might remember Prudence Pock in the family graveyard. She’s the poetess that you can interactively help complete poems while you wait in the Magic Kingdom’s queue. She reads the first part of the poem, and you get to supply the final rhyming word. It’s said that Prudence Pock “died of writer’s block.”
• The Hitchhiking Ghosts are Ezra, Phineas and Gus.
• Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion is also called Gracey Manor, but in early days of the park, there was also a sign pointing you to “Ghastly Manor.” That sign has since disappeared. It should be noted though, that the Ghost Host never refers to it either way. He always says, “Welcome to the Haunted Mansion.”
• The address of the Haunted Mansion in Muppets Haunted Mansion is “924.” Disney never gives a random number to things…. this is the birthday of Muppets creator Jim Henson, who was born September 24, 1936.
• Another Muppets Haunted Mansion tidbit…. Imagineer Kim Irvine is the daughter of the original face of Madame Leota (Leota Toombs Thomas), and Kim herself plays the part during the Haunted Mansion Nightmare Before Christmas Holiday overlays in Disneyland. In the Muppets Haunted Mansion version, she plays the role of “Kim the Haunted Mansion Maid” who talks to Miss Piggy, who is playing Madame Pigota in the film.
Home to 999 Ghosts
• And let us leave you with this chilling dilemma: If the mansion is home to 999 ghosts with “always room for one more,” and a “ghost will follow you home” at the end of the ride, how does that number always stay the same? Plus, if there are 999, how does that account for the arrival of the Hatbox Ghost at Disney World in November? And why does he get to materialize in a spot before Madame Leota calls the spirits to appear? (Yes, yes, we know that Imagineers tried to explain that one away at D23 by saying he could come and go whenever he wanted because he was a malevolent spirit…but we’re not really buying that one.)
Maybe you can debate these conundrums with your family while you are waiting for the trick-or-treaters this year. (If that doesn’t take your conversation far enough, maybe you can continue deciding whether The Nightmare Before Christmas is a Halloween or a Christmas movie. Just giving you some food for thought!)
Happy Halloween, Everyone!
__________
Beth Keating is a theme parks, restaurant and entertainment reporter for DisneyBizJournal.
Tune in to More Halloween Fun in the PRESS CLUB C Podcast with Ray Keating – Episode #125: Haunted Mansion and Halloween Movies with Chris Lucas. Ray has a wide-ranging talk with Chris Lucas, covering Disney’s Haunted Mansion, Universal Monster movies, The Addams Family vs. The Munsters, stand-up comedy, and more. And what does The Odd Couple’s Oscar Madison have to do with Halloween?
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