Fifty Years of Frantic Spooks and Swinging Wakes

NOTE: THIS WAS WRITTEN, BUT NOT PUBLISHED IN 2019. THIS WAS MEANT AS A TRIBUTE TO THE ULTIMATE HAUNTED EXPERIENCE.

It was August 1969 and the decade was nearing its end. John F. Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon was posthumously fulfilled that July. Meanwhile, another project promised in the early 1960's was the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. Despite years of rotting there on the side of a hill overlooking the Rivers of America, it was nearing its completion. After all, it was as early as 1964 when that year's souvenir guidebook hinted at what would be seen in the Haunted Mansion with "stereophonic screams" and yet it wouldn't be for another five years that guests would know what truly possessed that house on the hill.

Today, I will be sharing a few fun facts about the Haunted Mansion in honor of the attraction's fiftieth anniversary.

1. A SHELL OF A TIME

The infamous white facade of the Haunted Mansion was completed by late 1962 and yet it wouldn't be years until the ride was finally completed. Meanwhile, the facade of the Mansion sat dormant for a number of years, even giving life to a number of urban legends, including that a member of the press had died of a heart attack during a preview. Of course, this didn't happen, but apparently it was a popular tale told on the playgrounds of Southern California in the 1960's.


2. WHAT A STRETCH OF TIME

The exterior of the Haunted Mansion was completed around November 1962 and yet it wouldn't be another six years until construction work on the actual ride began. Despite construction walls surrounding the Mansion as early as October 1967 and the foundation being worked on during 1968, the show building took about four months to complete from October 1968 and February 1969.

Since the actual Mansion was built when the attraction was developed as a walk-thru experience which required a means of conveyance to get guests out of the park and into a show building, the infamous "stretching rooms" (elevators) were installed when the facade was built. Of course, this doesn't mean that the paintings or the wallpaper were a part of what was done in 1962. That was finally installed and unveiled in 1969.


3. WHAT A BOAT!

The Haunted Mansion was going to be a boat ride! Well, not exactly. You see that while the original plans called for a walk-thru experience, it was suggested, even in passing, that the Haunted Mansion should use the ride system developed for It's a Small World and the Pirates of the Caribbean. This was suggested around the time of the New York World's Fair and the boat ride concept is typically seen as a footnote in the Mansion's history. Walt allegedly said something to the effect that Disneyland had enough boat rides, which was ironic given that Small World and Pirates were not even built at the park.

4. ORGAN DONOR

The pipe organ at the far end of the Grand Ballroom was used in the 1954 film Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea before it eventually made its resting place in the Haunted Mansion. After the film was released, Disneyland was going to open the following year and since Tomorrowland wasn't ready to debut, Disneyland planners thought it was a novel (excuse the pun) idea to repurpose Captain Nemo's massive organ in a Tomorrowland exhibit dedicated to the film. However, the exhibit closed along with Tomorrowland in 1966 for a much-needed update. Since Imagineers likely knew that somehow their Haunted Mansion would need a suitable pipe organ for its future ballroom, the Captain's organ was salvaged and eventually installed in 1969 when the Mansion was being finished. I believe it may have been stored away at the Park or even back at the Studio in the prop warehouse.


5. THE HILL HOUSE

According to Imagineering lore, the 1963 film the Haunting served as an inspiration to the Imagineers and by default, the set designers. This is apparent by the interior architecture of the Corridor of Doors with, well, doors. There was at least one screening that is known to have happened.


6. PALACE DE DISNEY

It was believed by younger members of the public that, besides an infamously deadly preview, the Haunted Mansion was the residence of a Mr. Walt Disney. This rumor was "confirmed" by the great Alice Davis in an interview from ages ago. Of course, while Mr. Disney certainly had his way around the Park as well as access to the latest and greatest construction sites of his time, he didn't dwell within the Mansion for three BIG reasons. First off, why would Mr. Disney live in a creepy, rotting mansion on the edge of civilization when he had a cozy apartment above the firehouse on Main Street and that future penthouse in New Orleans Square? Second, it was almost certainly skin-and-bones during Disney's time with the only things in the Mansion proper being the elevators and the foyer with a few other cramped spaces. In fact, erecting the massive show building behind the Mansion was something that was completed between late 1968 and early 1969, two years after his death, and had actually buttoned up the bottom part of the Mansion, which had been exposed to the elements from 1962 until 1968. Also, the Mansion itself only had two elevator pits and the foyer. What kind of house is that!? Third, he wouldn't have time to make himself at home with the fact that kids would hang onto the fence surrounding the house and staring at it as if kinetic abilities can expedite the opening.


7. THE METAMORPHOSIS WALL

The loading area wall was altered sometime around 2005 or later. What I mean is the wall parallel to the staircase the Doom Buggies climb where there is this exit door and control panel. When the ride was under construction in 1969, the wall was originally built farther away from the staircase. Still that wall had a door and a glowing 1960's era exit sign mounted on its side over the door, possibly as a reminder that timid guests could always "find a way out". The wall and its fixtures existed in that spot from 1969 until that time in the mid-2000's when Imagineers reworked the spatial aspects of the ride to streamline potential evacuations. For years, I wondered about that "disturbance in the force" when it came to the wall suddenly feeling closer to the stairs and had complied notes from previous visits and YouTube videos, which prove the approximate 2005 era renovations as the source of the "moving wall". I would like to note that the existence of a wall that seemingly moves from its original position to be closer to the ride itself is something I'd expect from the Haunted Mansion in a roundabout way.

8. ANOTHER SIGN

Similarly taken away from the Haunted Mansion was a small sign at the end of the ride that cautioned people about a dead end where they return to the living world. It was likely installed as a way of signaling the end of the ride so guests could be ready to exit their Doom Buggies without issues while still maintaining that zany spirit (pardon the expression) of the attraction. While its installation date is not clear, it was certainly removed from the ride in the 2000's, likely as part of that aforementioned refurbishment that took out a wall in the loading area. Still, its use of the Ruebens typeface, which was not only popular for a number of tourist attractions at the time, but it was reportedly a corrupted typeface from the late 1800's, fitting in with the locale of the Disneyland Haunted Mansion.

9. MIND YOUR MANORS

The historiography of the Haunted Mansion prior to the 2010's has been mostly confined to a certain narrative. I say mostly because various fans of the Haunted Mansion have been driving a fan-based historiography (some of which has been acknowledged and even promoted by Disney in recent years) since the 1990's when the Internet brought tons of Disney historians closer, most of which were fans or Imagineers. So the notion of authorship of the attraction has been expanded and elaborated in recent years. We knew in the 60's and 70's of Marc Davis and Yale Gracey from newspaper features. By the late 90's, the standard narrative included Ken Anderson's 1957-58 efforts (albeit simplified and often conflated with each other), Rolly Crump and Yale Gracey's work on the illusions between 1959 and 1960, and then having Marc Davis, Claude Coats, and eventually X Atencio work on what became the final attraction after the World's Fair. One can only speculate to the various iterations of the Haunted Mansion from the first Ken Anderson walk thru to the finalized 1969 show. How might a pure Claude Coats mood-fest work? How about a Marc Davis gag house? Heck, Sam McKim was partial to the humorous approach and had contributed to it. Meanwhile, Rolly Crump imagined something just plain weird. At any rate, what is known for certain is that tons of folks at WED worked on what became the greatest Haunted House of all time.

10. DOOMED

The issue of capacity always plagued the development of the Haunted Mansion from the time it started out as a walk thru spook house to even after it opened in 1969. There was the apparent realization by Walt that it would certainly require, at some point, to have some sort of conveyance to mitigate the issue of low capacity. Ideas of having tour groups directed by a guide came into contact with concerns over efficiency. The storied debate over content is not as interesting as the actual conflict over the movement within the attraction. 

There were a few ideas of conveyances for the Haunted Mansion, one of which dates back to the 1957 Ken Anderson efforts. The necessity of an elevator to lower guests below the berm to reach the show building caused that type of conveyance on its own to become the first. However, the actual ride type conveyance from this era would actually be a platform that would be lowered and moved on a track through the Haunted House. Walt reportedly became disenchanted with walk-thru attractions after the Sleeping Beauty Diorama that year and probably understood that it would certainly have to take on the form of a ride at some point. While even the walk thru capacity was doubled by the suggestion and even construction of a second walk thru (the construction of the two stretching rooms is a relic of that walk thru plan), there were different ideas for what should be there, such as a boat ride or the back-to-back walk thru experiences, and that partially caused that delay. The work on the Pirates, the World's Fair, and New Tomorrowland had delayed the Mansion's completion in part and yet it gave WED the tools to finish the Haunted Mansion.

Rolly Crump was certainly disappointed when he learned in 1967 that the Haunted Mansion would not only exclude his Museum of the Weird at its exit, but it would require a conveyance for the majority of the attraction. After all, the Ops team at Disneyland urged WED between 1964 and 1966 to not design the Mansion as a walk thru and to instead consider a ride to accommodate the much-needed capacity. Similar pleas had caused the Pirates to evolve into a boat ride between 1961 and 1963 and by 1966, the prospects of a walk thru Haunted Mansion were becoming more and more endangered. Between 1965 and 1966, WED worked on the Omnimover ride system, which was planned for the Monsanto ride-exhibit in New Tomorrowland and had been suggested around the time for the Haunted Mansion. It was made definite that the Haunted Mansion would have an Omnimover ride system in 1967 and well, the rest is history.