The Haunted Mansion
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Haunted Mansion Overview
Amoung the happy ambience in Liberty
Square, a reproduction of Colonial America, sits one
dark and dreary building nestled among a grove of tall trees and on the river, with a purposefully
unkempt lawn, The Haunted Mansion.
The attractions experience starts before you ever enter the mansion itself, with the grounds, and the various humourous gravestones that line the queueing area. Once into the attraction, the first stop is the pre-show area, of the portrait hall, where you'll be convinced that the size of the room changes after you enter. The run through the rest of the attraction takes place in a "Doom Buggy", complete with it's own sound system.
Haunted Mansion History
The Haunted Mansion's history actually stretches back into the mid '50s, when Walt Disney asked conceptual artist and Imagineer Ken Anderson to start working on a walk-through "ghost house," as it was called in the early years of development. Originally Walt Disney and his imagineers envisioned the "ghost house" to be placed on a crooked path that was part of Main Street U.S.A. and have the headless horseman from the animated Disney cartoon be the attractions main feature. Walt assigned Yale Gracey, one of WED's brightest imagineers, Gracey's name is now permanently part of the Haunted Mansion lore.
Once the Haunted Mansion's exterior facade was built at Disneyland to prepare the park's guests for the attraction yet to come, it stood there, unoccupied, for most of the decade. As the effects and storyline were continuing in development, the title "Haunted Mansion" hadn't yet been finalized. There was constant bickering between imagineer if the "Haunted Mansion" should be scary or funny. Also, with all the work WED was putting into the World's Fair attractions during the 60s was another reason that the Mansion didn't open when originally planned. The Haunted Mansion building sat built yet unoccupied for 6 years at Disneyland. The Haunted Mansion finally opened in August of 1969, nearly twelve years after the first mention of the attraction. On the day the mansion opened 82,516 people attended Disneyland. Until then, no other day in the parks history brought in that many people.
The Walt Disney World Haunted Mansion opened on Oct. 31, 1971.
The show was located in the new "Liberty Square" themed area.
The Imagineers made a few modifications from it's counterpart in Disneyland
The new additions include a portrait gallery, a library and a music room with an invisible
spirits shadow at the keys of an old piano. The rest of the attraction and pre-show
is almost identicle to the Disneyland version.
Haunted Mansion Lore
Master Gracey had been married 6 times previously, but all of his wives had died.
One day, a new girl moved into the town of Liberty. Her name was Emily. She was
the most beautiful girl that any had laid eyes upon. She was also full of spirit
and energy, and it was this playfull nature that attracted Master Gracey to her.
They began courting, and after a few months, were set to be married.
On her wedding day, in keeping with her playfull nature, Emily decided to play a trick on her beloved. She snuck up to the attic minutes before the ceremony and decided to hide. Unfortunately, the trunk locked, and nobody heard her cries for help. She suffocated, and then died. After an exhausting search, when Emily did not show to the wedding, Master Gracey found a bit of fabric sticking out of an old trunk in the attack. It was a piece of Emily's wedding gown. She lay in the trunk, lifeless from lack of air. Master Gracey was grief stricken as he made plans for the funeral. He hired a horse drawn carridge to take the Emily's body to the cemetary, but on the way...something spooked the horse and the horses pulled the carridge off into the night.
The next morning after a thick fog rose from around the mansion...the carridge was revealed standing alone outside. The driver, horses, and most importantly, Emily's body were no where to be found...all that was left of Master Gracey's beloved bride was her wedding ring which had fallen off her hand...but it had been stomped into the pavement by the hooves of the stampedeing horses. He clawed at it for hours, but to no avail...it was there forever...as a perminant reminder of his lost love.
This was the last straw for Master Gracey. He was so grief stricken, he went back to the mansion, and hung himself.
Haunted Mansion Tombstone Epitaphs
-
Rest in peace, brother Huet. We all know you didn't do it. - R.I.P., good friend Gordon. Now you've crossed the river Jordan.
- Master Gracey laid to rest. No mourning, please, at his request. Farewell.
- At peaceful rest, he's brother Claude. Planted here beneath this sod.
- Here lies good ol' Fred. A great big rock fell on his head.
- Here rests Wathel R. Bender. He rode to glory on a fender.
- Dear departed brother Dave, He chased a bear into a cave.
- Here lies a man named Martin. The lights went out on this old Spartan.
Haunted Mansion Trivia
- On top of the Haunted Mansion there are chess pieces - couple of pawns, rooks, kings, queens, etc. - decorating the roof like mini-towers. The chess pieces are there because the building's architect and attraction's chief designer loved chess.The reason there is no knight chess piece on the roof of the mansion is because it is always "night" inside the Haunted Mansion.
-
The Aging Portrait in the foyer of the Haunted Mansion is a series of 6
projected images that dissolve and overlap each other. The hand-assembled
filmstrip (35mm) loop has 8 frames, 5 images of various stages of decay, two
images of the guy looking fine, and one black image - The Hitchhiking Ghosts you see are full, real, solid figures. The mirrors you look through are one-way mirrors, In a pitch black chamber beyond the mirrors, at the exact distance away are the figures themselves, who are lit dimly.
- Look for a hidden Mr. Toad inside the Pet Cemetary.
- Ride Duration: 8 minutes
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Haunted Mansion Hidden Mickeys
- In the ballroom scene, check out the arrangement of a certain plate and adjoining saucers on the banquet table.
- About half way through, there is a big spider on a web on the left side. He is wearing a red Mickey tie on his back. There are two spiders in the Mansion. The spider that has the Mickey tie on its back is the 2nd spider.
- As your leaving the graveyard on your right is the fat lady singing. Right next to that is a tomb with a grim reaper ghost. The ghost it holding up his left arm. In that hand he is holding a Mickey head.
Haunted Mansion Urban Legend
The Disneyland version of "The Haunted Mansion" has bullet holes from a shooting that occured in the 1970s True
During the 1970s at Disneyland a guest brought a gun into "The Haunted Mansion" attraction, and started shooting holes in the large pane of glass used in the ballroom scene. Since the glass was too large to move, Disney just taped up the bullet holes. You can still see some of the spider-webbed glass caused by the bullets to this day!
For more Disney urban legends click here.
Reviews
 | 5/22/2008 |
This is probably the greatest dark ride of all time. There is nothing else quite like this ride.
| 4/10/2007 |
When my family and I went to Walt Disney World in October 2002,we went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and we went to the Haunted Mansion and it was all foggy all around the outside of the ride. It made it more fun. We had a great time and it made it more exciting!!!!!
| 3/21/2007 |
One the Magic Kingdom's best attractions. This ride was one of my fondest memories from childhood so when returning to WDW as an adult I was afraid it wouldn't be all I remembered it to be -- WRONG! It was even better than I remembered it. It is not scary, people with young ones should tell them that before they go cause kids sometimes freak out at the idea, but if you tell them they are funny ghosts they should be fine. The special effects blow my mind!
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