One of the most exciting elements of Imagineer Christopher Merritt's astounding, essential Marc Davis in His Own Words — a two-volume set of one of Disney's most storied Imagineers, whose contributions to the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean and other rides cannot be overstated — was the revelation that there was a fully prototyped ghost for the Haunted Mansion that appears to have never been put into production.
The queue area at the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland features a row of changing portraits wherein paintings everyday scenes are revealed as sinister and haunted (originally the effect was done with crossfading slide-projectors; now it's done with an amazing, crisp electroluminiscent effect).
The LA Times investigates the many, fragmentary, much-revised storyline of the Haunted Mansion, the greatest ride that Disney ever built (though Walt himself had to die before the constraints he imposed on the ride could be set aside and the ride finished).
The latest installment of the Long Forgotten blog's series on the lost designs for the Haunted Mansion's corridor of changing portraits (previously) hits on one of the most significant elements of the Mansion's design genius, something that's never been fully replicated in any Disney ride: the conversion of a queue into a ride.
Disneyland's Haunted Mansion sports a hall of changing paintings in which people and scenes are transformed into sinister versions of themselves. Though these have gained in technical sophistication over the years, transitioning from rear-projection slide-fades to crisp electroluminescent effects synched with the lightning in the opposite windows, the core graphic concepts have been largely invariant since the Mansion first opened its doors.
Ken Anderson, Marc Davis and the other Imagineers who created Disney's Haunted Mansion were clearly influenced by Charles "Addams Family" Addams's cartoons, but until I read this amazing post on Long Forgotten, I had no idea how much influence he exerted on them.
Another outstanding photo-essay on the Long Forgotten Haunted Mansion blog shows how many of the original Rolly Crump concepts for a walk-through Haunted Mansion at Disneyland eventually made their way into the Enchanted Tiki Room, with effects based on Cocteau's 1946 movie La Belle et la Bête.
From the Long Forgotten blog, a characteristically excellent and thorough going-over of the aborted plan to build the Haunted Mansion as a boat ride-through, much like Pirates of the Caribbean (which may have cannibalized some of the aborted watery Mansion plans).
At first glance, Yaara Derkel's 'Coppelius' chair appears to be a friendly "thonet" style wooden chair.
Long Forgotten continues its masterful inquiry into the horror movies that gave rise to Disney's Haunted Mansion.
Long Forgotten, the very best Haunted Mansion blog on the net, has a stellar piece on the influences that went into the Haunted Mansion's scary corridor of doors, and the delicate balance the corridor strikes between two different kinds of scariness, called "Boo" and "Brr." — Read the rest
Over on Long Forgotten (a Haunted Mansion blog that is so fantastically great that every post is a cause for celebration), there's a new post about suits of armor and haunted houses that reveals (among other things) that the helmet of the famous armor by the Haunted Mansion's infinite corridor was originally an ornamental piece worn by Martin Luther's archenemy Albrecht von Brandenburg, the indulgence-flogging Archbishop of Mainz. — Read the rest
The original concept for Disneyland's Haunted Mansion was a walk-through "Museum of the Weird" featuring spooky exhibits (as always, the best place to read about this is Long Forgotten, far and away the top site for Haunted Mansion history, theory and context). — Read the rest
The Long Forgotten blog hits another one out of the park (Disneyland park, that is), with a thought-provoking post on the history of the color scheme for the Haunted Mansion, and the way that color is used to set and maintain the mood:
"For Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, we wanted to create an imposing Southern-style house that would look old, but not in ruins.
— Read the rest
* The Haunted Clock: outstanding analysis of all the clever that went into the chiming-13 grandfather clock in Disney's Haunted Mansions. Bonus trivia: a Simpsons animator is a former HM butler, and sneaks Mansion trivia into many episodes.
* Slowed down birdsong sounds like classical music. — Read the rest
The always, always, always fantastic Passport to Dreams Old and New blog traces the history of the Snow White rides at the Disney parks around the world, with an emphasis on the horror motifs in the original film and how they made their way into the rides, only to be removed (and re-added) at various times throughout the years. — Read the rest
The Long Forgotten blog — the world's greatest source of informed critical speculation about the design thinking behind the Haunted Mansions at the Disney parks — has just put up a smashing post about dueling theories of the intentions (conscious and subconscious) of the Mansion's creators. — Read the rest
The Long Forgotten blog — my best source for scholarly discussion of the Disney Haunted Mansion and spook houses more generally — tackles the historical origins of the rides' haunted organ and the ghostly hitchhikers. It's a timely piece, as I published the long-mothballed comic that Christopher and I made in 2007 to explain the origin of the ghosts in the organist's pipes. — Read the rest
Long Forgotten, the world-beatingly insightful blog on the history and design of the Haunted Mansion rides at Disneyland, Walt Disney World and other parks, has a new lavishly illustrated post up, this one on the contribution of background artist Claude Coats. — Read the rest
The always-unmissable Long Forgotten blog has an astounding post on the Disneyland Haunted Mansion that almost was, when the design team of Rolly Crump and Yale Gracey were in charge of the team. Crump was an enormous fan of Jean Cocteau's 1946 surrealist film La belle et la bête and he and Gracey created some of the most memorable effects that grace the Mansion today. — Read the rest
