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 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.

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).

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.

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

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