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| Image copyright Disney |
On this day, in 1969,
a swinging wake began in New Orleans Square in Disneyland as the Haunted
Mansion welcomed its first happy haunts… er, guests. Walt Disney had always
envisioned that a spooky attraction would be part of his theme park. Even in
the early days, when he was only thinking about filling a couple of acres right
across the street from the studio, one of the buildings was going to be a walk-through
haunted house. As the plans for the Mickey Mouse Park grew and morphed into
Disneyland and specifically themed areas of the park came into being, the spook-house
ended up getting shelved. Ghosts just didn’t fit in on Main Street USA or in
the jungles of Adventureland. The idea wasn’t forgotten though. When Disneyland
was slated to get its first new land, the theme of the area was antebellum New
Orleans, a perfect venue for pirates and ghosts alike.
Both Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion were
originally conceived of as much smaller walkthrough attractions. As plans began
to move forward on New Orleans Square, Walt assigned Legendary Imagineer Ken
Anderson to develop the haunted house. One of the first designs Ken came up
with was a dilapidated manor, overgrown with weeds and boarded up windows. Walt
took one look at the drawing and said there was no way he was going to allow a
run-down building in his theme park. After a visit to the famous (some would
say infamous) Winchester House in San Jose, Walt’s haunted plan, of course,
grew much bigger and the building evolved into a stately mansion.
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| Image copyright Disney |
Ken then began writing all sorts of spooky little stories
that could be played out in the individual rooms of the mansion. One involved a
sea captain who ends up killing his bride then hanging himself. Another
showcased a ghostly wedding party. There was even a tale about a cursed family
who lived out their unfortunate lives (and deaths) in the house. Two more
Legendary Imagineers, Rolly Crump and Yale Gracey, were put in charge of
creating special effects based on each of the stories. And if parts of these
grisly sagas seem familiar, it’s because elements from all of them made it into
the final attraction. But there are several roadblocks to get around before we
get to that point.
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| Image courtesy wikipedia.org |
In 1961, Disneyland began handing out flyers to entering
guests announcing that the Haunted Mansion would be opening in 1963.
Construction on the building, though, didn’t begin until 1962 and the only
thing that was actually finished by the next year was the exterior of the
building. This first delay can be directly blamed on the company’s involvement
with the 1964 World’s Fair. Every available bit of Imagineering man (and woman)
power was diverted into the four attractions Disney had been contracted to
build for the New York extravaganza. Because of the success of the boat system
of it’s a small world, the decision was made to use it on Pirates of the
Caribbean. That resulted in a major overhaul of that attraction and the
construction of another building to put it in. The Haunted Mansion was delayed
again.
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| Image courtesy pinterest.com |
Following the Fair, Ken Anderson had moved on to other
projects but several more Legendary Imagineers came on board including Marc
Davis, Xavier Atencio and Claude Coats. In the intervening years, Rolly Crump
had developed several ideas centering on weird objects like coffin clocks and
man-eating plants that were going to be placed in a Museum of the Weird themed
restaurant. Meanwhile the two guys who were doing the main designing of the
attraction as a whole, Marc and Claude, were at odds with each other over the
Mansion’s tone. Marc wanted it to be silly and light while Claude wanted it to
be actually scary. Then, in the midst of all this activity, Walt died and his
death would cause another delay.
In the aftermath of Walt’s passing, the Disney company did
everything it could to keep from descending into chaos. Projects that had
already gotten the green light, continued on as best they could, even if there
was now some confusion as to who had the final say on any design plans. The
team working on the Haunted Mansion used this uncertainty to their advantage.
Walt was really the only one who had been pushing for a walk-through
attraction. Imagineers wanted a ride, even going so far as to say that they
would need to build two identical walk-throughs to combat the loss in capacity
that sort of attraction brought on. They were helped by the development of the
Omnimover ride system that was first introduced in the summer of 1967 on
Adventure Thru Inner Space.
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| Image courtesy pinterest.com |
By modifying the ride vehicles from Inner Space (mostly
making them black instead of blue but also implementing mechanical improvements
they’d already learned from the systems practical debut), the Haunted Mansion
would be a high capacity ride that also gave Imagineers precise control on how
the effects would play to guests. Of course this meant that the attraction
would need a complete design overhaul, but after Pirates, everyone was used to
that. X Atencio solved the dispute on tone between Marc and Claude by melding
the two views into the show that we know and love today and construction on the
interior of the Mansion finally began.
By August 1969, well over a decade and a half after becoming
a glitter in Walt’s eye, the Haunted Mansion was ready. From August 6-8,
Disneyland cast members were invited to step into a Doom-buggy (as the ride
vehicles are known) to experience the Mansion’s hot and cold running chills.
Then, on the morning of August 9, the first guests got to see what they years
of hype were all about. Things didn’t run perfectly at first, especially an
effect known as the hatbox ghost. While the figure’s head had disappeared from
its neck and reappeared in the box it was carrying perfectly in the warehouse
where all these things were tested, Imagineers couldn’t get the lighting just
right in the attraction to pull it off. After just a few days, the hatbox ghost
was removed (he would reappear in the Disneyland version of the ride in 2015
when new technology made him much more possible; here in Florida we’re still
waiting…). Other than that, though, the ride was a hit and really helped prove
to the world that the Disney magic could continue even after the man was no
longer among us. Disneyland attendance, which had seriously flagged since Walt’s
death, surged once again.
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| Image courtesy wdwnt.com |
The Haunted Mansion was so popular at Disneyland, that it
was included in the design of the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World which
opened just two years later. You can also ride it in Tokyo Disneyland and there
is a very similar attraction in Disneyland Paris called Phantom Manor (think of
that one like a Western themed Mansion). Incidentally, those four versions of
the Haunted Mansion, located in four different Disney theme parks, are also in
four different lands within those parks. Mansion’s address is in New Orleans
Square in Disneyland, Liberty Square in the Magic Kingdom, Fantasyland in Tokyo
and Frontierland in Paris. No other multi-park attraction can boast the same
thing. There is a Mansion inspired attraction in Hong Kong Disneyland as well,
Mystic Manor, but because the Chinese people have vastly different views of the
afterlife from other cultures, there is no mention of spirits or the departed
in it. Instead inanimate objects come spookily to life. Still creepy, just
different.
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| Image courtesy doombuggies.com |
For those of you who noticed how often I used the word
Legendary when talking about the people who worked on the Haunted Mansion, that
wasn’t even a tiny bit of overkill. The number of people who worked on this
attraction and went on to become official Disney Legends is almost mind blowing.
And I didn’t even mention half of them. There is a place you can find
references to most of them though. The next time you’re waiting in line for the
ride and you’re reading all the silly tombstones and monuments scattered about
the queue, every one of those names you see honors someone who made a
contribution to the Mansion. And since all but one of them (Rolly Crump is still kicking at 89) have passed away
since the doors first creaked open, I’m sure they can now be found among its 999
residents. Which really, in my opinion, only makes it more enticing to
volunteer to be the thousandth…
