Latest / Sisters, Sisters: A Mouselets Podcast / 62. The Long and Winding History of the Haunted Mansion

Transcript

62. The Long and Winding History of the Haunted Mansion · Sisters, Sisters: A Mouselets Podcast

• M2: Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Sister Sister, she said in a spooky voice. M1: Welcome back to a very special episode because this is our Halloween spectacular. M2: And what better way to celebrate this spooky season than deep diving into Disney's spookiest attraction? M1: So buckle up, we have so much to discuss about haunted mansion history and lore. M2: But before we do, we have a couple of other quick things to run through. Happy Halloween. Let's keep this quick. We got long Epi. Epi pen. M1: We do. We have such an amazing episode planned for you guys. So we are going to keep this part at the top a little bit brief, but I wanted to talk a little about our Halloween plans because I finally decided what we're going to dress as with the Micklet. We decided that we're going to do the Micklet M2: what are you dressing as? M1: as Pascal and me as Rapunzel and Mouse Let's C as Flyn Rider. Tangled is like one of my favorite Disney movies. It's also the first movie that Mouse Lit C and I ever watched together was Tangled. M2: Where and where are you wearing this costume? M1: We're going trick or treating with the micklet. M2: In that neighborhood near you? Wow. M1: Yep. I'm very excited. I was reading up in my Facebook group this weekend. So I'm feeling prepared. But it's very interesting in my town. Yes, there is like a neighborhood that everybody goes to to trick-or-treat and nobody goes anywhere else. So, like last year didn't have a single trick-or-treater. You, on the other hand, do get some trick-or-treaters, which I am jealous of. I think getting trick-or-treaters is fine. M2: Getting truck attractions gives me anxiety. If it I had it my way, I would put a bowl outside the front of my house because I don't like the idea of having to wait and be like, Will someone come? So I'd rather just not even. M1: It does make me sad if no one comes, but it's so fun if people come. But Mouse Liday is dedicated to her candy strategy. M2: She loves it. She has a tray. She's like, pick one. Yeah. Mom would always get sad when people didn't come. So. M1: She she does king Yeah, she would. She does kink size candy bars. Mal City does kink size candy bars. P M2: No longer. This year we're giving away our oogie boogie bash candy. Which we brought home. Mousley carried on like a giant bag in her carry-on because she was so insistent on bringing it home. She goes, candy's pricey. Well, M1: Cheep chip chip chip chip chip cheep M2: you said what we're dressing as. Yeah, I'm not dressing up obvious like where what would I M1: You're not dressing up. M2: what would I dress up? What would I do? When would I dress up? M1: A witch's hat? You would be shocked also at how many costumes you have from us going to Disney when I was M2: I wouldn't be shocked. I have four wigs in this house. Seriously. That would M1: Just throw one on. Be anything. M2: people wouldn't even know. I I don't need to dress up. I'm like thinking I like costumes right there. Could be an elf. Some Christmas stuff out right now. M1: That that'd be fun. I'm ready for Christmas. M2: Okay. a couple of other things. Speaking of ready for Christmas, next week, in one week, we'll be at Disney. Feels very sudden. I know we're all just like M1: It's it's so sudden. I'm rattled by it. And it is a Jollywood trip. We will not talk any more about it for this, other than this one little side note, because we know this is a spectacular. It's not a Jollywood episode, although Christmas bells are starting to ring in the background. M2: That's I bought Mouse 3 an annual pass. I brought our brother an annual pass. If you want the tea on our true thoughts and the tickets, go listen to our sitting on the ground talking segment. It's our Patreon segment. It's like a twenty to thirty minute extended cut of the podcast every single week. Also it's quarterly bonus episodes and close friends access, on Instagram. So there's a lot of like behind the scenes stuff. But yeah. I realized that the cost of a four day ticket was so pricey and he's coming on our family trip in April too that we said he's now an annual pass holder. And he was ecstatic. He was literally like elated to be an annual pass. Mousla A loved it. M1: he everyone loves becoming an annual pass holder, even though like yes. M2: She was like, I'm gonna I gotta use my discount. I'm like, we buy you everything anyway. M1: Yeah, we already had the discount for you, but the last little thing I had was I saw a TikTok or someone of someone doing trivia with a cast member. And this was the cast member's trivia question. And I have really tried not to think about it. I do already have one of the answers in my head because it just popped in and I could not avoid it, but I don't know the other two yet. M2: Okay. M1: She said three Disney movies have a number in the title, not sequels, no sequels or anything like that. What are they? I can think of one off the top of my head. M2: Hundred and one Dalmatians, Big Hero six. M1: That's the one that I can think of. Yes. didn't think of that one. I assume Hunter Two Delma that's right. Wow. M2: And Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. M1: All right. Well, trivia over, guys. And with that, we'll get into a little M2: What about wait, what about what's it this is what I thought you were going with. What's a Disney movie that has a sequel that doesn't have a number in it? Mulan two. M1: Hm. like finding Dory. M2: Sure. There's three. Yeah, there's one in my mind. I can think of at least one. M1: are there more? There's three. How do you know there's three? Okay, finding Dory. That was a sleigh. Let's see. M2: That was pretty good. That was okay, yep, I have another one. So I have three. Perfect. M1: okay, let me think. You've already thought of three. Guys, I've realized that my M2: Well including including including finding Dory. M1: okay, my memories like my recall is really bad these days. It's like actually concerning to me. It makes me M2: Okay, I'll give you a hint. M1: upset. M2: It is one of our friends' favorite movies. M1: One of our friends. Taryn. Okay. Taryn, M2: There's I was gonna say there's a few of those. M1: one of Taryn's favorite movies, a goofy movie too. Another goofy movie. Is that a thing? M2: No Monsters University. And M1: And is it also Pixar? I was M2: No, it's not. It's like a spinoff of a classic. M1: I was gonna say Pixar is creative with their names. M2: Return to Neverland. Okay. M1: Is that even I don't think that's a real movie, is it? M2: Is it what's Peter Pan two called? M1: I don't think that Return to Neverland like a real I think that's something else. M2: It's called Return to Neverland. It's the 2002 M1: Wow. M2: animated adventure fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and is a sequel to the 1953 classic Peter Pan. And I was watching in French recently. M1: Wow, I have never heard of that. M2: You know what's a crazy movie that I need to rewatch is Little Mermaid Two with Ursula's sister. She's an iconic queen. Yeah, Melody M1: my god, what and Melody, icon. M2: as well. Melody as well. All right, little bit of news time. M1: Okay, the first thing I think is so fun. They have M2: Same. M1: been doing work on the outside of Tower of Terror and they redid it to bring back an old like effect, an old visual design that existed on Tower of Terror, like back when it opened, but has not been there in any memory. None, not my memory. I don't ever remember it being there. Like I can cause we Yeah, we were too scared. M2: We didn't pay that much attention to the Tower of Terror for so many years 'cause we were terrified of it, so M1: But basically on the front of the Tower of Terror now is a big like sort of scar mark. From where it looks like lightning hit the tower. It's extremely cool. It's like purple and it makes the whole thing look more old and decrepit. I M2: Okay. M1: was not expecting this. M2: Not to mention Jollywood again, but to mention Jollywood again, is the scaffolding gonna be down in time for Jollywood nights? Okay. M1: I think so, because it's partially done already. M2: Okay, I hope so, because that's a a big part of it. Okay, next up, me and Mouse Liday went through some of our must-do's, like our things that we really wanted to do at the parks. And one of my things was I must ride a Main Street vehicle. Well, guess what? The fire truck is back as a main street vehicle. The fire engine in general has not been on display for multiple years, according to Mouse One's script and the spreadsheet, at least three years, and has not offered transportation at World for even longer. It's offers transportation at Disneyland. I honestly, here's a really, really, really hot take. Actually, here's a crazy hot take. I lost my favorite ride when Splash Mountain closed. And I think that my favorite ride might be the Main Street Vehicles. M1: No, I actually agree. We are obsessed with the Main Street vehicles love. And M2: Love Yep. Yeah. M1: we did not, our obsession with the Main Street vehicles didn't start until fairly recently, more M2: Yeah. M1: more recently. So I would say we've never been in the fire truck. I don't think that that was around when we M2: No. M1: figured out what main street vehicles are. And it's so interesting because very frequently when we do like a story about main, we're like we're riding in a main street vehicle, people will message us and be like, How do I get to do this? Is it a special thing I pay for? Where do I sign up? And it's like, no, guys, you can just hop aboard. M2: And we did it at Disneyland. We rode the omnibus. We did it at Disneyland Paris this year that I wanted to ride something. And we do it honestly, the fur you know, do you know when we rode a mainstream vehicle for the first time kind of in like the history of the mouse lids that it sort of became like a quintessential thing that we do? M1: We rode in one of the old antique cars with I remember a cast yeah, M2: Yeah, it was yellow, but M1: it was a yellow one. And I remember the cast member. M2: It was what trip? M1: Probably the twenty eighteen Hall or no, the twenty that Halloween trip that Mal C Ay loves. Wasn't it that trip? M2: No close. No, it was our Tron trip at the end of the fiftieth anniversary. Yeah. M1: It's so special. So I'm thrilled to have a new one. M2: It's so fun. Same. I'm very, very excited. So M1: All right, next one. I'm not as excited about this one. I saw a post that said Disney announced that new and reimagined foods were coming to Columbia Harbor House. And I said, M2: Really excited about this. M1: I said, this is amazing news. I hate Columbia Harbor House. Finally, there is going to be something on the menu for me. No, there's not. It continues to be all seafood things. So there is now a beer-battered fish platter. Would have thought they already had that. A handbreaded shrimp platter. Would have thought they had that. And a plant-based crab cake sandwich. None, I would M2: They already had that FYI. M1: all it says new. I would M2: No. M1: not eat any of those things. There also is a Boston cream pie, but it like came out on Boston Cream Pie Day. So my guess is that's not like a permanent menu edition, but it was unclear. Anyways, kind of a bummer piece of news for me because I thought it was gonna be good and it wasn't. M2: okay, I have two more pieces of news. First off, lots of fun, rare characters. Okay, specifically seeing a lot at Run Disney, Friar Tuck, a lot of the characters from the Robin Hood movie, if that's where Friar Tuck is from, the Bird Lady from Mary Poppins, the Suffragettes from Mary Poppins, all at Run Disney. Run Disney always gets pretty rare characters, though. And then citizens, not the actual exact citizens of Hollywood, but the actors who played them, and Galactic Star Cruiser characters. At a private event. M1: At a private event, so do not get excited. This means absolutely nothing for Disney bringing them back in any way, but it's always nice to see them out and about and hope that one day perhaps maybe, maybe, maybe sort of in our wildest dreams. I saw this. M2: Maybe, maybe. All right. The final little thing is did you see okay. So the cast member costumes. There's kind of been a couple things at play. Disney is changing the cast member costumes because of contracts, like I think with the union, where they said they would give more breathable fabric because it was really hot. So that was a part of it. There's also been some changes just in general from other things. And so kind of over the years, they changed the fairy assistant fairy godmother costumes. At Bippity Bopity Boutique. they most iconically just changed Mickey's not so scary Halloween party costumes. People are saying very merry costumes, I'm sure, about to get a big swap. Of course, they definitely are. They just changed the Polynesian costumes. And here's where I draw the line, okay? Cast M1: I'm s I'm sad. I'm sad. M2: member costumes make it feel themed and special, and they're changing these like. really fun floral dresses and flor floral shirts for blue shirts with tan pants. People are like, obviously they're saving so much money if everyone wears tan pants. I'm like, this isn't six flags. This isn't six flags, Disney. This is one of those things that they're gonna do and then they're gonna change back in twenty years. They'll be like, my God, we're bringing back all the iconic costumes. So I'm just gonna wait. M1: Yeah. Yep. M2: It'll it'll come back around. But M1: Yeah, it's a bummer. They've done this in so many places and it's kinda just okay. M2: Yeah. But all right, with that, let's get into the main topic. M1: Welcome, foolish mortals. How did I do? M2: To the haunted mansion. we're doing a deep dive of the haunted mansion and M1: Specifically, we're gonna talk about how the haunted mansion came to be. It is an extremely, extremely long and fascinating winding story. It's unlike almost any other Disney attraction in how honestly how much they struggle to get it to where it is now and how many iterations it went through. But it is like crazy to to see all the threads come together. And hearing all these ghost stories, I feel like is the perfect way to celebrate Halloween. M2: I am currently reading Haunted Mansion book called Boundless Realm. It's from the 80s. It's very dense. so I'll have some kind of tidbits to toss in as well on that. But so the Haunted Mansion in general did not have one single original inspiration. There were sort of layered ideas that were developed over the decades and kind of walk through a couple of those things. So one possible, possible early influence is a haunted house near Walt Disney's childhood home. Gus Eastell grew up in Kansas City, close to the Disney family, and he was Walt's childhood friend. They later reconnected when he was the manager of a local theater. A random side note Gus was supposedly the person who convinced the theater owner Milton Feld to buy Walt's very first Lafogram animated short. Thank you, Gus. Real king, great friend of his. No official record, but very probable. Anyway, so as a child, Gus, Walt's friend, lived with his grandmother, Marie Sauer. She lived in a historic hilltop mansion that was rumored to be haunted. Later wow, later in life, right before Walt and Gus reconnected, Marie supposedly passed away there, self-inflicted. So Walt M1: In in the same way that the ghost host passes away in the haunted mansion, if you catch our drift. M2: Up in the ceiling. so Walt grew up with an awareness of a local haunted mansion. And then going one step further, and this is gets into Main Street USA, but he grew up with the idea and the fact that every hometown might have a theater and a pharmacy and a general store and a mysterious house. M1: So that was the first. That was back when Walt was in his younger years. And then over time, we don't really see the Haunted Mansion pop up much. But in 1929, Walt's first silly symphony short came out. It's the dancing skeleton cartoon. You've like probably seen it. And it just shows that Walt was already thinking about the idea of mixing fear with humor. You know, skeletons are typically scary. They were not in this case. Many, many years later, 1948. Walt takes a trip to the Chicago Railroad Fair. This is a very influential trip for Walt in terms of Disneyland overall. But one thing they had there was a frontier land, and in that frontier land was a haunted house. So again, a lot of the way the railroad fair was set up inspired him on Disneyland, maybe planted the seed of a haunted house. Then in 1951. So reminder: Disneyland opened in 1955. That's where the original haunted mansion was. So this is 1951. the Imagineer Harper Goff, who was working on concepts for Main Street, created this concept where there was a haunted house at the end of a hill on Main Street USA, like overlooking a graveyard. And for a couple years, there were concept maps that they were working on that included this haunted house. So even from like early, early days of Disneyland planning, an idea of a haunted house was like around. But it wasn't until 1957 that it really kind of like got moving officially. M2: Also, there's concept art you can literally see of that haunted house M1: Yes. M2: on Main Street, and it is so interesting to think about what could have been there. M1: I actually so much of the Main Street expansion stuff, I really would have loved to see 'cause I love Main Street and having more to explore would have been so fun. Although obviously I love the haunted mansion we ended up getting, but M2: I'll hold my thought on that. No, I won't. I think they would have just turned it into more stores. So I think like the maybe at Disneyland that they would have kept it. But okay, so kind of getting into this, the star of this chapter is a man named Ken Anderson. He was Disney's jack of all trades. He had worked at the Walt Disney Company since 1934, which just like for reference, it was like, you know, 20 to 30 years. So seems like a lot still a long time, but not like as long as you might be thinking. he was the art director on Snow White the Movie, so an OG there. And then he designed the Storybook Land canal boats and Sleeping Beauty Castle walkthrough diorama exhibit. Anyway, so in 1957, Walt asked him to begin designing a haunted house. And because it was expected to be a series of displays, he was the right guy for the job because he did the Sleeping Beauty thing and even the storybook canals. At the time, it was called the Ghost House. And it was conceptualized as a part of the New Orleans Square expansion. Because when Disney opened, Disneyland opened in nineteen fifty-five, they just had the very classic Main Street USA, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Adventureland, and Frontierland. New Orleans Square, and then at World, we have Liberty Square. But New Orleans Square, that was an addition that Walt was actually a really big and influential part of, which is cool. It was one of Walt's last mark on the parks. So anyway, Pirates of the Caribbean was already in the works for Disneyland. this was about 10 years after the park opened, a little bit before that. And the ghost house was going to be a sister attraction that would tie the land together. So in New Orleans Square, those would be kind of the two primary attractions. And it had a very, very interesting story. Very, like very different in a way than the Haunted Mansion, but just shows the level that Disney was kind of going into. So Here's a story. I guess, this is a warning that just given the subject of the Haunted Mansion and the fact that again, like, think of the stretching room. There are some scenes that are a little bit darker. So we are going to be kind of talking about some of these sort of scary things. And so if you are a child, if you're listening with kids, like this will get a little bit scary because that's just the nature of the haunted mansion. So this is your warning. And okay. So this would gonna be a walking attraction. This was before the omni mover was invented. So this is gonna be a walkthrough attraction telling the story of Captain Gore posing as a nobleman who murdered his wife, which he discovered his true identity and then hung himself in despair. And so here's the idea that was officially pitched. Visitors would walk up a flight of stairs to the second floor to a creepy room that would have all sorts of things like changing portraits and monster hands and scary faces. They would discover a secret passageway hidden behind a bookcase. Love that. Down the passageway, Captain Gore is sitting at a table scheming. What he doesn't know is that his wife, Priscilla, is upstairs in the attic, going through an old hidden treasure chest. She uncovers the truth that her husband is actually a pirate. In the next room, where you keep walking, Captain Gore is in bed. He sees spirits of old pirates and his murdered wife. Then we see an outdoor graveyard coming to life where there's furniture suspended midair, the captain is hanging in the center, and it ends with seeing his wife's body stuffed in the treasure chest she found earlier. There's also another draft where he murders his wife by throwing her out of the window, so it ends with a gurgling old well filled with blood. Very, very, very dark. Very grim, very dark. M1: Very dark. It's very dark. And this is going to continue for a bit as Ken Anderson works on this ride. You will see he was really going for horror and scaring people. And I think it would have worked. So in 1956, so like again, around the same time, a concept for the exterior of the building was shown in a plan for New Orleans Square. But other projects were getting prioritized over New Orleans Square. New Orleans Square ended up being quite delayed. And so Ken Anderson had to continue on his own. And he decided he was going to move a different direction from that original Captain Gore theme. So he moved back to this idea of having an old decrepit house on the outskirts of town, like what Walt had maybe experienced in his childhood. And he decided that in order to tie in with the French quarter theme of New Orleans Square. The Ghost House should be, quote, a large antebella mansion out in the Louisiana bayou, all rotten and moldy. And as he was looking for inspiration, he was in the Disney Studios library and he found a book that had a picture of a house that actually exists in Baltimore called the Shipley Leideker House. You can look it up. And he decided to use this inspiration to create a new exterior sketch that kind of fit his new vibe. So he wrote a draft, a draft saying this. Vines and moss combined in the tall trees shut out much of the sunlight and lend mystery to the shadowy exterior of the house. Being set well back from the street behind the grove of trees, the house will be scarcely visible until close upon it. It appears to be in a state of dilapidation common to all ghost houses. First at one upstairs window and then another, a girl's face appears momentarily, screams, and is throttled by a large hairy hand which draws her back into the darkness. he loved the idea of a large hairy hand. Okay. It it comes up multiple times. There's another con, there's M2: Ca can M1: another concept that Mouse Let 2 will talk about in a minute that there's like extremely detailed sort of accounts of. I didn't put it all in here because it's way too long, but a hairy hand is like a big star of that. Anyways, in this new mansion, he decides he's going to change the storyline to the blood family in the blood mirror state. And he has lots of concepts he's throwing around. In one concept, he thinks maybe he should pull in famous ghosts and monsters like Dracula and Frankenstein. In another concepts concept, he plays with the idea of making the villain the bride, who turns out to be a voodoo queen, his words. In another one, the bride would be missing instead of murdered, and her groom would be spending his whole life looking for her, ultimately turning into a zombie. He had another one, I actually love this idea, which is that there would have been The Haunted Mansion would have been an architectural conservation project that had been brought to Disneyland but was being undone each night by spirits. And he wanted to have a TV. Mostly I love this part of the idea. He wanted to have a TV outside the Haunted Mansion that would be playing like a special fake version of the Disneyland TV show where Walt would like have recorded the special track welcoming guests to the Haunted Mansion, but warning or to the mansion. But warning them of these ghostly issues. So, anyways, he's throwing around all these concepts. He also was experimenting with ride vehicles. He had this idea to use these like unfinished wooden trailers that would have been lowered down from the entranceway into the basement and then moving on some sort of track. But, you know, ultimately he didn't move forward to that. And as a reminder, which Mouse Latouze will say in a second as well, this was still conceptualized as a walking tour at this point in time. M2: One thing about that final four thing about the architectural conservation project, I I love that idea, but that feels so like you have to too layered of like you have to understand M1: Yeah. M2: this and this. it's just, but I do love that. Okay, so the year is 1958. Again, New Orleans Square wouldn't open for for many years. So we're still early on, but they finally landed on a concept based around a wedding at Blood Manor. That would be again a walking tour. And so they built each room full size at Walt Disney Studios to test his proposal. There's an insanely layered plot. If you honestly want to get into some of this, you can see Mouse at one's deep dive on the haunted mansion. And even that doesn't c cut touch every single thing. But here's a high-level walkthrough of this concept and some of the iconic things that you'll probably recognize. So it starts with guests being led down a hallway with a gallery of frightening portraits that seem to be changing on their own. This is like one of the constant ideas that is in most of the haunted mansions. It's at Disney World, it's at Disneyland. and it came from Walt himself, which is really cool. And then Ken in general was very interested in integrating Disney's intellectual property where it would like make sense. And so M1: Which is crazy because that's so before his time before the times. he was ahead of the times on that idea. M2: Yeah, but the it was very different intellectual property at that time. but he wanted to tell the story of the Lonesome Ghosts, which was a 1937 Disney cartoon. He also in that one, there were four ghosts who tricked Mickey Donald and Goofy into coming into their old haunted house house in order to terrorize them. I've seen that short, have you? It's like on the cruise, I think, or something. M1: I've seen parts of it, definitely. Yeah, yeah. M2: And then the star of the attraction would be the headless horseman from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, iconic. But lots of pieces of this idea actually made it into the final attraction and many of the haunted mansions around the world. So the first half there wouldn't be ghosts. Then the second there would, and we'd be informed that the ghosts were beginning to materialize. A hall of mirrors to see ourselves with other traveling ghosts, a scene on the balcony of a great hall looking down at a ghost wedding with a self-playing organ and glowing ghost footsteps, which is very reminiscent of the ballroom scene. And then in general, and a lot of these things involve this the idea of a bride. M1: Yeah. So Ken created at least six variations of this idea. And again, there is a lot of detail on this if you want to look it up. But Walt wasn't sold. He specifically did not like the idea of the dilapidated outside of a house. At this point in time, Disneyland was really competing against and trying to serve as an alternative to like carnivals at the time, which were considered to be very sort of seedy and run down. And Disneyland was supposed to be like a pristine. Theme park very different from that bad negative image. And so an old falling apart building did not fit the vibe that Walt was going for. And his quote was that we'll take care of the outside. The ghost can take care of the inside. But even beyond the outside of the house, Ken is reported to have said that he knew the things that he was planning were not going to come to be. This is a quote from him. My Hollywood idea for the haunted house would never be done. I found out by trial and error that Walt's idea of the haunted house was different than mine was. I was trying to make a spooky house that would scare the heck out of you and you'd never go on it again. Walt wisely realized that he'd have to have a haunted house that would entertain. So little by little I was eased out of the thing. I had done it all and got it all lined up, but it wasn't quite what he wanted. It was too spooky. And so in late 1958, Ken was moved off of the Ghost House project. He was sent back to the studio to help finish the Sleeping Beauty movie. And in case you're confused about the timeline from what Mouse Lit 2 said earlier, that he worked on the Sleeping Beauty diorama exhibit, that exhibit and Sleeping Beauty Castle both were built and existed at Disneyland for guests to go through well before the Sleeping Beauty movie ever came out, which is such a random fact. M2: And just to close out on Ken, because Ken had a tragic kind of ending with the Disney company, although he ended up sticking around for a while, but kind of around this time, he's pulled off this project. He's the director of 101 Dalmatians. It's a big critical commercial success. It earned $10 million. Walt hated it. Walt said it lacked the delicacy and care of his earlier animated films. And he walt, how dare you? In front M1: Okay, well, I have to disagree with you. I love the one hundred one donations. M2: of a bunch of animation staff, Walt. Literally foul, Walt. How dare you? Said Ken's never going to be an art director again. And Ken was very, very sad by this criticism. Said that Walt didn't speak to him for over a year. And then in 1962, after that, he suffered two strokes in one week, which partially paralyzed the right side of his body for nearly three years. so he did end up working on other Disney films and things. Maybe we'll do a Ken deep dive later. He helped renovate Fantasyland in like the late 1970s, but just kind of sad. This is our goodbye to Ken for now. Anyway, and while honestly, I'm usually a Waltz fan, but very, very messed. Very literally. M1: No. Well hang on one second. While y you get up M2: Foul. Foul. Foul. Foul. Foul. Foul. M1: Yeah, serious seriously. M2: Okay. In the late nineteen fifties, Walt did an interview with the BCC. Is that the BBC or is that a different company called the BCC? M1: B B C to small small typo. M2: Okay. BCC. he said that his haunted house to the BCC was not going to be haunted by just one ghost. It was going to be a retirement home for all of the world's homeless spirits, inspired partially by the lost soldiers of World War II. That's sad. there was a shift in tone. Ken Anderson, pure horror. I support Ken every step of the way, honestly. Now he wanted a lighter tone. Such as representing homeless spirits inspired by lost soldiers of World War II. anyway, so he assigned two imagineers to work on the project. Wally, Raleigh, Wally, Wally and Eve, Raleigh Crump and Yale Gracie. And they were tasked, M1: Kings, Kings. M2: literal kings, as is Ken. They were tasked, Ken started it all with justice for Ken with creating M1: Well M2: illusions. So kind of talk about them. Raleigh Crump started in the animation department. Walt took him under his wing, moved him to imagineering. He said that Wally was a multi-talented universal man. He I keep saying Wally. Raleigh. Rolly Pullyoli iconically designed the M1: Yeah, it's roly, roly, roly, roly bully, roly. M2: like sculpture thing outside of, I think, the UNICEF, it's a small world at the 1964 World's Fair. So that's how Rolly and Walt really had their big interaction. Yale Gracie started at Walt Disney Studios as a layout artist. Walt found a device that he made that gave him the illusion of falling snow, and so Yale was moved to the parks. M1: I have one thing to say about Roley since you or sorry about Yale. You're confusing me about Yale since you talked about sort of Ken Anderson's maybe sad end. Yale Gracie had a sad end to life. He was murdered in a cold case. Yes. Yale Gracie was killed in his sleep while he was at like a hotel, I believe. And they never solved it, which is just like really sad and really yep. M2: The Bel Air Wow, I think my god, and his wife, Beverly, they were shot. She knows she survived. A M1: I know. Yep. It's she survived, but M2: man in his fifties with a dog. What? M1: And it was never solved. I know it's really insane. Also, if you really want to dig into the Yale Gracie lore, Yale Gracie has a ghost story of his own about h growing up, where he says that he like saw this ghost. There is a recording of Rolly Crump, the other imagineer, telling the story because Yale unfortunately was dead at this point. He'd been murdered. but it's really interesting and it kind of ties into the haunt dimension if you want to look that up. But, anyways. M2: Okay, anyway, so this new sort of approach to the haunted mansion focused on effects not necessarily storyline, but bringing these interesting illusions into place and they were called the illusioneers. M1: So the two of them created over 80. Okay, you know, stop, stop. M2: I'm I'm sorry, I'm sick for Ken. Imagine how that would feel. Imagine how that would feel. M1: No, seriously say, stop. I can't think about it anymore. M2: Justice for Ken. M1: They created over 80 special effects and they were a huge range. Some were silly, some were scary. A lot of them were based on classic magician techniques from the 1800s, which we'll talk about. Some of them came up from a book from Yale's childhood that was called The Boy Mechanic. Here are some examples. They created Quote, wild animal lunges, flaming heads, and tilted rooms. That was like a quote that I read. they had technical effects. So they had one where there was like a spring-loaded exploding ghost that would explode when an infrared beam triggered it and then it would reassemble before the next tour group walked through. And then there were some simple, like they did projections onto busts, and they actually had a happy accident with the bus that you see today, where it looks like they're following you. They were in the imagineering department and they saw a cast of Abraham Lincoln's head that I'm sure was for great moments with Mr. Lincoln or something. And they realized the way the light was hitting it and made it look like he was looking at you. And so they took that effect. but there were also like so many others they created that we know today. The ghostly organ that Ken Anderson originally thought of. They turned it into life. And so we know that one. this is a quote from them. They wanted to create the idea of a quote, gypsy and a crystal ball. That ultimately became Leota. So they designed Leota. They selected Eleanor Audley, who's the voice of Lady Germaine and Maleficent, to be her voice. But then they picked their fellow Imagineer, a woman named Leota Tombs, to be Madame Leota. That's where she got her name. That's her face because she has very sculpted cheekbones. And so they basically made a mask, a like a what's it called? Not a mask. What's that thing called? They take M2: A mold. M1: a mold, thank you. M2: You're welcome. M1: A mold of her face. They filmed her. They created the little Leota Bride at the end with her. And yeah, she's now Madame Leota. And then they also used Pepper's Ghost. This is one of mine and Mouse Latous' like favorite effects that they use. It's the way that they do the ballroom scene today. So basically, when you're looking down at the ballroom scene, underneath your Doom buggy are a bunch of actual animatronics. And then there's a big piece of glass. And when they shine light onto those animatronics, like through the glass, it reflects them on the other side. And so that is why Pepper's Ghost shows the ghosts like coming and going. When they turn off the light, the ghosts look like they disappear. And one scene that they were testing with Pepper's Ghost was actually based on Ken Anderson, big hearts to Ken Anderson again. his his M2: Literally. Love you, Ken. M1: yeah, his sea captain concept. So in this one, in this like effect that they were working on. The captain had killed his wife and he'd hid her body behind the fireplace. Then he went off to sea and died, and his ghost came back to the house, appearing using Pepper's ghost in the center of the room, dripping in seawater. And then the ghost of his wife would appear behind the brick wall, again, using Pepper's ghost. She'd come out screaming and trying to attack him, and then they'd both suddenly disappear. another Pepper's ghost example is Yale Gracie creating the hat box ghost, who is iconic and now back. But when they originally installed him in the ride, when the ride actually came to be many years later, it didn't work properly with the lighting conditions of the ride. So Yale asked to have it removed. So the Hotbox Ghost only existed in the ride for the first like few weeks until it was finally added back like fifty years later with new technology. M2: Which is crazy. I didn't know the lore. Everyone's like, Yeah, Box Ghosts. And was like, huh? yeah. M1: Me neither. I didn't know the lawyer either. M2: Okay, so it's 1961. We're five we're still five years away from New Orleans Square opening. Yale and Roley are moved on to other tasks. The Haunted Mansion is like there's these ideas, but it's still lacking that central theme and that story. They've got all these illusions, but the actual storyline, not so much. So now Two more people put on. Ken is still not back, which is sickening. Martin, and he's also in the midst of his trauma of the 101 Dalmatians. M1: At this point I think Kenneth been ousted by Walt. Yeah. M2: so Martin Davis and Bill Martin were put on the project. They came up with an idea for a dual path. again, remember, it's supposed to be a walkthrough still at this time. The omni mover, the dumb buggy, doom buggy. M1: Dumb buggy Dumb Buggy The Dumb Buggy M2: James, the doom Muggy was not invented yet. So what they planned was to have two identical walkthrough mazes in a giant show building. Back to our boy, our boy Ken. Even when Ken was working on the walkthrough, he was concerned about if it could handle just in general the levels of traffic that Disneyland was seeing. So he went on a public tour of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. He noted like a bunch of stats about it, but That average tour size was 20 people. They planned to have 40 people on Disneyland. And that a maximum sized group of 50 people would slow things down considerably. worth noting. Swiss Family Treehouse did never have any issues. But they M1: I wonder I wonder why. M2: Okay, boo. They also observed how long it would take groups to enter and exit the room, and they timed how long it would take a single file to get through a panel in the wall, 40 seconds. All that to say, there was a lot of concern that Ken basically had about like. Is there enough capacity for this? And in general, this was never solved until they came up with the idea of the dual path, aka just having two attractions. That's basically all it was. And they do something similar with character meet and greets these days, the main street Mickey Mouse meet and greet. M1: Twist Ray Mania, multiple tracks, same vibe. M2: Yeah, same vibe. even yeah, Guardians of Galaxy, two like two loading areas. So, again, other than the fact that now they had a dual path that these two new gentlemen came up with, there were still very few like fully completed aspects. They knew it would be New Orleans Square, which again was five years away from opening. They knew that they would need giant elevators to get underneath the railroad tracks because Disneyland was built with this huge berm. And so New Orleans Square was going to be installed in a Part of a land that was called Holiday Land, which is a an area where they would have companies come in and have picnics, basically. And so they needed to get under the tracks to do that. And they also had a new updated, non-dilapidated version of Ken Anderson's building design. Ken, if you're listening, but you're not, but if you were, there's nothing wrong with your design. I loved it. M1: We loved it. But unfortunately, the project was stalling. So Walt's attention was turning to the 1964 and 1965 World's Fair. And that meant that all hands needed to be on deck. He was really not focused on the haunted mansion. But then something honestly so weird happened. To me, the fact that this happened is truly bizarre. There's an interview with Imagineer Bob Gurr, who just celebrated his 95th birthday the other day. Happy birthday, Bob. M2: Happy birthday, Bob. M1: Where he talks about this. M2: I've I myself have met Bob Gerr. M1: Me too. And he said, Okay, that's all he said to us, but it was iconic. anyways, Bobger has an interview where talks about this, but basically at this time, like right as Walt was kind of not focusing on the Haunted Mansion, an art director named Harvey T. Gillett, Gillet, Gillette, I'm not sure, came in and M2: Gillette. M1: he said, Listen, Walt, you've been working on this project for years, the Haunted Mansion project. I think that you should build the exterior of the mansion. You have the non-dilapidated version of Ken Anderson's design. You know what you want it to look like. We know we need two giant Otis elevators and then a big show building. I think that we should build it. This was seven years before the attraction ultimately opened. There were no actual plans or layout or storyline of any kind. And for some reason, they built it. Bob Gerr said. This was his quote. The building literally just showed up because Harvey wanted it. So, anyways, they built the outside of the haunted mansion with absolutely no plans or ideas what was going to go inside. It's bizarre, and this is like unlike anything they've ever done before. I have no clue why Walt said yes. But the building, M2: Yeah, that is insane. M1: the building was then there. again, it took seven years for them to actually get the ride up. So guests would ask, what was inside? Mouse Lit 2 had mentioned Walt had visited the UK. He said he was gathering ghosts to retire in his haunted mansion at Disneyland. And that inspired Imagineer, like Imaginary Director, he was like high up at the time, Marty Scolar, to put out a sign saying that ghosts who didn't want to retire could apply for a spot in the Haunted Mansion instead. Fun fact at this time they were using the tagline of a thousand and one ghosts, later changed to 999, obviously. And lots of people across the company were like invested about what should go inside. It was like very random. The star of the golden horseshoe, whose name was Wally, Unlike what Mouse 2 was saying earlier about Rolly, this man was actually named Wally. He suggested something. I don't know why he was sort of in a position to be suggesting things, but he was. He thought that guests should encounter a randomly ringing phone outside of the building. And if they answered, they would they should hear a painter who's like calling for help saying he's locked in the basement with a ghost. And after a sudden shriek, a different diabolical voice would come on the phone and say, We're sorry, but you've been disconnected. It seems he went to pieces. Now he's one of us ghosts, and we're all waiting for you at Walt Disney's amazing haunted house, where ghosts from all over the world wait for you humans. So that was Wally's idea. a different artist, M2: V well documented. M1: no, I know. It's really random. A different artist, studio artist Roy Williams. He developed concept art showing the house under construction with a skeleton crew. Like people had lots of ideas. Neither of those actually came to be or anything. But like as this story progresses and things drag on, you just you see that. The empty building was very much weighing on the minds of people all across the company in various positions. Yeah. No, and and we're about to have some more some more. I'm sorry, did M2: Too many cooks in the kitchen. Okay. They should have just left Ken, and literally. It there's okay. So M1: you like you liked Ken's ideas though? M2: Yes, I did. Okay. So now the year is now it is the mid like early to mid-1960s. Walt is prepping for the nineteen sixty-four to nineteen sixty-five New York World's Fair. If you know, this was kind of like a revolutionary time in the Walt Disney company where they had funding and opportunity and staffing and a schedule that they had to meet that pushed them to create all of these new things. So you probably know four major attractions came. Disney attractions came to this. Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, which was sponsored by the State of Illinois, Ford's Magic Skyway, sponsored by Ford, The Carousel of Progress, sponsored by General Electric, and then It's a Small World, sponsored by UNICEF. To focus on two of those: Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and Ford's Magic Skyway. So at the time, and we should do a t a tiki room deep dive, but Disney did have some animatronics. But when you think of the rides that are heavy with animatronics, like for me, parts of the Caribbean is what comes to mind. And that ride didn't exist yet. what existed was the Enchantitiki room, where you had animatronic birds. For the 1964 World's Fair, they created the first like human audio animatronic of Abraham Lincoln. If you don't know, just a little bit of Abraham Lincoln and I share a birthday. So we've M1: I was gonna say, what could you possibly be saying mouse the slower about the animatronic of Ablink and Right? I forgot it's your love of M2: We've always had a very special bond. Anyway, but Abe Lincoln would stand up and recite bits from Lincoln's famous speeches. He was the first of its kind, and he was the foundation for the Haunted Mansion and the Pirates of the Caribbean audio animatronics. If you've never been to Disneyland, and this isn't they only play this sometimes, the the Lincoln thing, but if you haven't been there, you haven't seen it. Honestly, seeing him stand up is insane. I'm like, how does he do that? It's crazy. It wows me to this M1: No, it is. It is. And M2: day. M1: me too. And also speaking of that theater where they sometimes play great moments with Mr. Lincoln, they now sometimes play this thing about Walt. And Walt kind of like walks. It's M2: Yeah. M1: crazy. Two animatronics that are absolutely worth seeing in that theater. M2: Yeah, no, really. so that was like a big piece. They developed this animatronic that was gonna pave the way for these other animatronics they had. But then the other thing they had was Ford's Magic Skyway. This was the only attraction that actually was not brought to Disneyland after the fact, which is very interesting. M1: Sad. M2: Well, they actually had the opportunity to, and they said no. M1: Moving on. Deep dive for another tithe. M2: Forced Magic Skyway. So you had the opportunity to ride in a brand new Ford vehicle. Bob Gerr, though, found that there were constant M1: Happy happy birthday, Bob. Happy ninety fifth birthday to Bob Girk. M2: Okay. There were constant fender benders and bumper dings as the cars entered the loading area. And so, as an alternative, the General Motors Futurama exhibit used a conveyor system, just like Henry Ford used when creating the Model T. What was that book that was about Henry Ford? Like, yeah, it was like a it was like a M1: Like the one that they went back in time. M2: no, no, no, no, no. It was a book we read in school that was like an iconic book that like everyone reads in school that was like about Henry Ford. M1: I don't think I read that that book. No, I didn't I didn't read this book, I don't think. M2: No, you did, you did. It's like it has a black cover and white and bo I need to Google a book about it's I No, you did, you did, you did, you did. And it has a black and white cover and you you hated it. It's like a very abstract theory. M1: that one about the aliens that look like toilet plungers? Kurt Vonnegut? M2: no, no, no, no, no. Okay. I I have no idea. It'll have to come to me. I'll to do some Googling while you're talking. M1: Okay. M2: Anyway, and so they ended up using a conveyor system like you would use in a factory. To quote the iconic Bob Gurr himself. I was having a conversation with design leader John Hench about how to design a ride so that you could see the story. And I said, I like the idea of an endless chain of vehicles because they can't crash into one another. And I thought What if I take the seats and put them on a post on a chassis, the underpart frame of a vehicle? And then I can rotate the body all the way around and tip it forwards and backwards. It just moves along, but we can direct the guest view into the story scenes by simply turning the body of the vehicle and pointing them towards the scene. Well, that saves the show designer a lot of time because you go from one scene to another. It's like a movie. I called it the Omni Mover. Literal iconic, iconic incorporation that he made. M1: Okay. No literal king creating that though. M2: Ooky. it was first used on a ride called Adventure Through Inner Space. You might not think you've ever seen a picture of this ride, but you probably have because they're these blue doom buggy, dumb buggy type things. and they were like, M1: Can't believe you said dumb buggy earlier. M2: This is the perfect solution to the haunted mansion traffic problem. So now they're like, it's not a walking tour. They're gonna use this. okay, just one more like kind of quick side note. At some point in time prior to the Omni mover, a model maker named Fred Jorger suggested that the Haunted Mansion be a boat ride. This tied into Ken Anderson, love you, Ken, original Louisiana Bayou concept. They thought it could help with the crowd control issue, that the water could create interesting illusions, but Walt said no, we have too many boat rides already. That was before Small World War Pirates. M1: So what boat rides was he talking about? Storybook canal boats? M2: And yeah, just being a crank. Yeah. Yeah. M1: Jungle Cruise, I guess, maybe, right? And he was like, no. Then they really went hard on the boats. But anyways, I think it's crazy that we could have had a boat ride haunted mansion in addition to a pirate ride. but yeah, so at this point, we have the omni mover, okay? So we at least have our ride vehicle. Back to Rolly Crump, not Raleigh or Wally. Rolly Crump. He was one of the people who had to work on the World's Fair, but when he was done, he went back to M2: Brave New World, brave new world. M1: it is Kurt Vonnegut. That is Kurt Vonnegut, isn't it? M2: Who's Kurt Vonnegut? Aldous M1: Who wrote that book? Who wrote that book? M2: Huxley. M1: Okay, I hated that book, and I also hated a Kurt Moneg book that the same to me. M2: That book was amazing. M1: Brave New World? Hate. Anyways, Rolly Crump had to work at the World's Fair. When he was done, he went back to the Haunted Mansion and he did not like the direction the Haunted Mansion was going. He felt that it was very what he called standard issue Halloween tropes. Like he did not think it was the vibe. And so he had been very inspired for a long time by avant-garde films, and he thought. The Haunted Mansion needs some surrealism. He'd recently been inspired by two films in particular. an adult psychodrama called Juliet of the Spirits. I don't know anything about that movie, and Jean Cocteau's dark interpretation of Beauty and the Beast called La Belle et la Bette. And in that one, he was very drawn to its surreal imagery of quote human part architecture. So he started creating sketches and models of bizarre, for lack of a better word, concepts, like human arm sconces. And a candleman dripping out of wax, who you can actually now see the candleman in the Disneyland haunted mansion. Yep. M2: That's that is creepy. I've never seen him. M1: it's new and it's really tiny. I just I just saw it featured somewhere. I didn't know it either. he built a concept for a seance room, obviously something that we ended up seeing. He designed a man eating plants. he created an aquarium of ghost fish. And if that one sounds familiar, it's actually very cool because The Aquarium of Ghostfish was resurrected for the new haunted mansion parlor on the treasure, the destiny, and the believe. And Rolly Crump himself is honored with a bust that appears to be melting, similar to his candle band creation. Seeing that in person was very cool. But so he had all these really weird ideas, okay? Like really surrealist, weird ideas. not everybody liked them. There was a senior executive at the time named Dick Irvine who was helping to oversee the project. He was not a fan. But when Roley showed Walt, Walt initially was unsure, but then he came to Roley the next day and he said, I didn't sleep last night. I've been awake all night long, remembering all this crazy stuff you showed me. And I figured out how to use it. We're gonna do a museum of the weird, and you can put the weirdest stuff in there that you want. And so this is like legendary in the haunted mansion lore. Basically, they decided that after the ride, there would be a post-show area called the Museum of the Weird. And it was going to display these bizarre and surreal artifacts, all created by Rolly Crump. Unfortunately, this idea was short-lived. M2: The year's nineteen sixty-six in December, Walt passes away. In July or June or July of that year, New Orleans Square opens up, just FYI with parts of the Caribbean. And Walt, that was one of the final things he did was he dedicated that land opening up. But it brought to the head a question that had been swirling around for years: is the haunted mansion meant to be scary? Should it be lighthearted? And just like across the company with building the Florida project, building Walt Disney World. Doing all these things without Walt, they had lost the the decision maker of the person who just said, Yes, it's gonna be this or no. And so at this point, a lot of different senior leadership is stepping in in various roles. That same person, Dick Irvine, squashed the museum of the weird. Dick, that's a little bit rough. Okay. You knew that Walt liked it and you just obviously hated it. M1: Yeah, Walt had just screenlit it and then you took Walt's death as an opportunity to say no. M2: He said, I've always hated this and so there's still some M1: Okay. M2: weird nods to r rollies, weird designs, the iconic contemension wallpaper. Mark Davis and Claude Coates were set as the primary imagineers. Claude Coates M1: So we have two new cooks, two new cooks in the kitchen yet again. M2: Meanwhile, meanwhile, Ken has recovered from his strokes and is working for the Disney company, designing the sword and the stone. M1: No, I think this is when Ken I think this is when Ken had his strokes, isn't it? maybe. M2: No, I thought that was 62. But like, seriously, bring back the legend. Claude Coates originally was a background artist. Snow White Peter Pan, as Mouse of Mann wrote Peter Pan's. Mark Davis was initially a character designer. Tinkerbell Maleficent. They worked on projects across Disneyland, but they were first paired together on Pirates, where Claude created the overall atmosphere and Mark created the gags and the characters. This was a very successful approach on parts of the Caribbean. So before he died, Walt asked them to do the same for Haunted, just to be clear, not like when he was dying, just like in the time approaching. I read it that way. I read it that way. But, but, but M1: You know what, I don't think anyone thought that. I don't think I don't think anyone was on his death thought he was on his deathbed asking manic. M2: the two of them struggled to to find a parallel ground. So Claude wanted a powerful haunting effects-laden spectrum. Mark wanted a character-driven gag-filled laugh. And in general, those two ideas never really reconciled. And you can actually see it perfectly if you think of the haunted mansion today, where you get on and it's creepy and it's foreboding, and there's nothing's really happening, but like there's flickering lights and there's things lurking in the shadows. And as you move through the rooms and you see the like moving stairwells and things, the vibes kind of start to change. The seance and the ballroom scene, ghosts begin to appear. There's like a little kind of an air of comedy. The iconic animatronic woman blowing out the candles on the birthday cake. The old lady, the grandma from Carousel of Progress in the rocking chair. M1: In a rocking chair. M2: And by the time you reach the graveyard scene, you're quote, quoting my sister, quoting Muslim one, you're basically at a kooky ghost party. M1: Yep. Stand by that line. M2: but really the ride is like split in two and it's If you think about it and next time you're on it, you can completely see it. That it starts with Claude's dark, moody kind of atmosphere. Everything is very scenery focused. It's mystery. And there's again not as much happening. And then they added Mark Davis's characters. And also he originally designed Claude, the ballroom and the graveyard scenes, but then Mark Davis added his stuff. I think Mark Davis's vibe is more right for M1: Me too. M2: Disney. M1: Me too. Claude was really going for like that foreboding, serious. It wasn't really a story. Claude or Mark is who put the story in. So he was really the one who focused on the character side of the attraction. And actually, if you want to look it up, he made a bazillion character designs. Like there is so much concept art. It's really cool. at one point, he was inspired by Walt's idea of making a retirement home for ghosts. And so he thought that maybe he should make a gallery of infamous ghosts from history, like Henry the Eighth or Blackbeard M2: Actually I love that. M1: the Pirate, me too. he created the portraits for the sketching room. He designed dozens of concepts for the changing portraits that are in that like initial hallway, many of which never came to life, but many of the ones that you would recognize were all designed by him. we can see like some of the inspiration for Roley's Museum of the Weird. So again, each of these people were like. Building on stuff from the past. Again, a lot of things, even from Ken Anderson King, yeah, M2: It all started with Ken. M1: his original ideas came to be. So they were all building on each other. So a lot of Roley or Mark's inspiration came from things Roley Crump was designing right up before he took over. he took the idea of the seance room that Roley had created, but he went for like a much more lighthearted take. That's not really a scary room necessarily. When Roley was envisioning a surrealist scary experience. And yeah, he just designed literally so many characters with different gags. The opera singer was designed by him. If you know, like there's an opera singer towards the end of the graveyard scene, it's a play on the phrase, like, it's not over till the fat lady sings. That's why she's there. he designed the caretaker, he designed the iconic hitchhiking ghosts. And so you had Claude taking the the background and setting the scene. And then Mark layering in all of these characters. But after all of this, the attraction still did not have an official storyline. And so Mark put together a proposal. He tried to continue the pirate bride storyline that Ken Anderson had created. Again, back to Ken. Sadly, he did feel like it didn't work. So unfortunately, this is a quote that Mark said: The first guys, meaning Ken, that worked on this ride could never sell it to Walt because they were trying to tell the story about this bride. Who was left standing at the altar and the groom had died a horrible death. The thing I found out, and Walt agreed, was that this was not a storytelling medium. These attractions are experiences, but they are not stories. So, like, this is very interesting. M2: Yes it is. M1: This is very interesting because today, storytelling is like a critical part of imaginary attraction. Storytelling is something that Maslatoo and I talk a lot. If you're part of our Peach and Pick crew segment, we talk about it especially there. But in this case, Mark Davis was really the one that changed the haunted mansion from what Ken Anderson had been envisioning, which was like a story, a storytelling adventure, into like this series of kind of vignettes, a series of gags, a series of things that you're seeing with narration used to tie everything together. But Pirates is the same way. There isn't actually a story. You're just kind of like going through an experience, which is interesting. M2: I was gonna say, yeah, pirate, you always have a a beef with pirates on it. You do. M1: I do, I do. M2: But I'm thinking what came to mind when I was like, there's no story, Navi River Journey. And I think Navi River Journey would be amazing if it had a story. And I think because it doesn't, I'm just like, what am I doing? And the other one, which I love this ride, but Tiana's by You Adventure to me feels like kind of a series of, yeah, like vignettes that you're like, you're here and you're here. And yes, there's like a little tiny sort of a weak story going through. M1: But it's terr but it's really weak, so M2: But I'm like, I think it's interesting 'cause I do think that a storyline to a lot of these is critical. Although I think the haunted mansion works, but not everything does. M1: I was gonna say, Haunted works for me, Pirates, as doesn't really work as much. It's not interesting. I think it's because every scene in Pirates is basically the same that and Haunted Mansion, you're seeing different things. Pirates, you're just seeing a town. M2: Well, Haunted Mansion at Disneyland it does work for me. So I think it's just the fact that sorry, I'm at Parts of the Caribbean M1: Haunted Mansion works. Pirates. you mean M2: at Disneyland. M1: pirates just there's no it's all the same. So you're like, okay. M2: Okay, all right. This isn't a pirates roast. okay, so a couple of kind of final things here. Ex Atencio was an imagineer who was ultimately tasked with the creating of the official kind of script. He was another, I mean, a lot of these guys back then were. He was another jack of all trades. He started on the animation side. He worked on pirates. He wrote the iconic Yoho Yoho, a Pirate's Life for Me song and the overall attraction script. And so he No, they're y why why are okay, if you think about dead men tell no tales, you're going There is a storyline. M1: What's the scripted pirates? Okay, he wrote that. Okay, he wrote that. M2: They're pillaging a h a a town. M1: But what's the script that he wrote? There's no dialogue on that ride. Anyways, moving M2: Well, M1: along. M2: okay. Anyway, so he had a couple of challenges. He needed to think about who would be narrating the ride. The first concept was to use a one-eyed black cat. Interesting. The second was a raven, inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe story. This is literally of anything that Mouse Let One talks about. She talks about this frickin' raven like I probably like once a month, which is kind of a I would it's mom's, but it's M1: I the Haunted Mansion is mine. The Haunted Mansion is mine. M2: yours secondary. The Raven was deemed too annoying. I can't believe you gave me this fact to talk about. M1: And this fact is mine. M2: and if you look through the ride, you will see references to the both the one eyed cat and the raven. That raven is actually everywhere. He's in the seance room. She is on the piano or the organ or the coffin thing. they are everywhere. M1: Love the pronoun changes for the Raven. Continue. M2: I don't know if it's okay, so by mid-1968, which is so so so long after they built the facade of the Haunted Mansion, to be clear, the idea of a ghost narrator was solidified. The Disneyland announcer Paul Frees was selected to be the voice of the ghost host, and he and X worked together to create the iconic intonation that we know today. Welcome, foolish mortals. M1: There are some really cool tapes of Paul Freeze and X workshopping the voice together, where you'll hear Paul Freeze say like really iconic lines slightly differently than you know them now. And they're like, wait, try it like this, try it like this. It's cool if you want to look up. But so this was like at this point, we're like finally almost at the end, right? We just we have Claude Coates and Mark Davis had created the scenes and created the characters. They decided there will be no actual storyline. You're just gonna see things and hear a narration. Then we have X working on the script, Paul Fries doing the narration. So, we're finally moving towards opening. they wrote songs, they made the animatronics, they made the scenes, they created spooky sound effects and all that stuff. But there were like a lot of urban legends at this point because the facade had been up for so long, sitting there like abandoned. It's it's so weird that they built the facade. M2: So so so so so intriguing of them. M1: Yeah. So people were saying the ride was too scary for guests to see. S someone had been literally scared to death. That didn't actually happen. Obviously, that was a rumor. And so Disney decided the ride's getting ready to open. We're gonna lean in. We're gonna create press releases and guidebooks that tease what's coming inside this deserted facade and all this stuff. And finally they set an opening date. So late summer 1969, which ended up being like early August. They had cast members come to view the attraction a few days before. And ultimately the official opening was a huge, huge success. It broke all previous Disneyland attendance records. 85,000 people visited the park the weekend after it opened. And after this whole adventure, the Haunted Mansion is obviously an unbelievably iconic ride. And like what it turned out to be was very well received then, continues to be very well received now. There is a version of Haunted Mansion in every like Castle Park or resort around the world, but it took a long time. M2: Well it's crazy because the one at Disney World opened just two years after. honestly, guys, next Halloween, so in thirty to sixty five days, our episode we'll do an episode maybe on all of the haunted mansions kind of around. maybe we'll do it for M1: Yeah, that's good. Write that down because we'll forget it. Let me let me write that down now. I'm gonna write in the idea dumping ground. Next Halloween. M2: Are you are you kidding? Where on earth would you write that? And it's gonna sit there for 365 days. Wow. But it is so iconic. It is such an iconic attraction. It's crazy when you actually think of all of the little tiny illusions and things. We didn't even scratch the surface. That might be a part two, also. But that is the story of the haunted mansion. It is such an iconic attraction now. And I feel like if they hit it at such the right time, like if they made that now, it would just be like, what like It just wouldn't hit in the same way. It does because M1: Yeah. No. M2: of the nostalgia of it. M1: It wouldn't hit and it is fascinating how if you go through that whole story and you think about every person I just talked about, you can see their influence. Like I said, there's stuff from Ken Anderson. Obviously, there's tons of illusions from Yo Gracie. And who was the other person that worked at Yale Gracie? No. Nope. Nope. Nope. M2: Claude. Mark. Mark. Mark. Raleigh. M1: it was Roly. Yeah. Then there's Rolly's Museum of the Weird, The Dual Path from Martin Davis and Bill. There's just like Everything ended up layering on top of each other. It's such a unique project in that it took, the initial haunted mansion sketched by Harter Harper Goff was in 1951 and it opened in 1969. Obviously, it didn't actually move into like more full production until 1957. Still 12 years. M2: Crazy. And to wrap it up, some people would say it all started with mouse. I would say it all started with Ken. M1: Honestly, that sound was perfect for this episode because it's freaking haunting. It's haunting. M2: Literally spooky. for a special segment today, I've developed a quick little game of would you rather? Thirte different questions confirming because it's possible that there are twelve, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, twelve. Well, I'll think of one more just to have a fun thirteen. never blunt. Okay. M1: Okay. M2: Thirteen questions. Thirteen spooky questions for mouse at one. And I'll answer them as well, obviously. M1: And they're not spooky really at all, but it is the number thirteen, so just keep spooking the back of your mind. M2: One of them is spooky. Would you rather never go back to Disneyland ever again? But you get free tickets for life to Disneyland Paris. Or you just don't get those free tickets so you can go to Disneyland kind of whatever. M1: I think I'd have to pick the second one. I couldn't give it up, no. Sorry. M2: Yeah, same. I couldn't give up Disneyland, honestly. Yeah. Okay. Mal Sede helped me think of some of these also. Would you rather go to Disney f once per year? You could only ever go one time per year and stay on site, or you can go to Disney multiple times per year, whenever you want, different times of year, like Christmas and like you know, like we do now, but you always have to stay off site. M1: That's really, really hard. But M2: Yeah. M1: I honestly think that I would pick up to Disney once per year and stay on site. And like we grew up staying off site. I'm not like an on an off-site hater at all. Just to me, never being able to stay on site. When you go to Disney a lot, I M2: Even though for twenty plus years we never say it on site, but M1: yes, but when you go to Disney a lot, the resort becomes like an ex it's not all about the parks. Like the resort is also a really special part of the vacation. And it's like, Creates different things to do, different experiences. And I think staying off site would mean it's all about the parks. And that's just not how I do my Disney trips now. M2: We actually had to ban ourselves from talking about resorts so much 'cause we said, Not everyone M1: No, we did. M2: or correct us if I'm wrong, we're like not everyone necessarily sees the resorts the same way. back in the day, if someone was like Beach Club, I'd be like, M1: I didn't care about resorts at all. M2: Okay, I'm not staying at the beach club. M1: Yeah. So we said we talk about resorts too much. We're trying to go into the parks more. Hope hope you've been noticing. M2: I can't choose of that one. okay. M1: you have to choose. You have to choose. So M2: I think I've gotta Disney multiple times per year and stay on site. M1: Nope, that's not an option to try again. Wow. M2: I would probably go once per year, which is crazy. But M1: I'm surprised. I thought you might pick the other one. No, but you like love, you're like resort queen these days. Nope, nope. So give M2: I am a resort queen. I I don't know. I like M1: us the official decision. M2: I guess I'd go once year and stand site, but I do love staying off site too. And I think there's a lot of perks with it. But just like forever, that would be tough. Would you rather never ride an e-ticket ride again, but you can do every other ride, or never ride every other ride, but you get to do all the e tickets. And M1: Oof. M2: an e ticket includes it's not just thrill rides. M1: Yeah, Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. M2: Ratatouille. M1: Well, I don't know about ride two way anymore. this is hard. I think, as like a lover of Disney and a lover of the Disney parks, not so much a lover of like rides, I would probably choose never being able to ride e tickets, but being able to ride all the other rides. Because like I love, for example, like we were talking about earlier. the main street vehicles. there are things that I just love because I love them, not because they're e tickets. I would of course miss e tickets and over time I would hope that some of those would become D tickets and I could go ba run back into their loving loving arms. But what would you pick? M2: They wouldn't. They wouldn't. They wouldn't. I would it's for me it's easy. I would just not do the e tickets. Although I love e tickets, but I think that like the A through D ticket stuff is so good. Would you rather have Club thirty three for ten years free or free fast passes for life? M1: Here's the thing. I would never pay for club 33. When I need fast passes, I'm willing to cough up that money. So I think I would choose club 33 for 10 years. M2: Here's the thing, and this is like a hot take. And M1: I know what you're gonna say. M2: I'm sorry I don't know if you do, and I'm sorry if I'm offending any Club thirty three members, 'cause I think it's fun. we have fr some friends who are in Club thirty three. it would be a burden that I would feel like I have to go. It's like owning a boat. That'd be like, I need to take my boat out this weekend. I M1: But if it was free, would you feel like it was a burden? M2: I'm not making the most of this. I only have 10 years. I would choose free fast passes. Can't have anything else stressing me out. Okay. M1: Siri I thought you were on the top of the world, you said in the Beach and Pick Crew segment. M2: Right. And I'm it's like a very, very a fr like I'm walking on an my life is an eggshell and one wrong move and Humpty Dumpty. M1: Ha ha ha. M2: Okay, would you rather you every single trip you take, you have to spend an entire day at Disney Springs or you have to spend an entire day at a water park, no matter the weather, no matter anything. M1: Water park. Most of the time I would get good weather there at the water park. And when I didn't like well, I guess. Yeah. Disney Springs a mall. For M2: I would choose the same thing. Disney Springs, I'm just like I don't need to go to a st a I like springs sometimes. I don't need to go to a mall every trip. M1: a full day every trip would be I would be like, I'm wasting time, I'm wasting time. At least if I was at like the water parks. A yeah, water M2: Yeah, I could float around the lazy river. M1: parks don't open till later. I would have a nice morning at my resort because I am going only once per year and staying on site. M2: You have to get there at eight. M1: No, I don't I don't have to get there at eight. I'm getting there at ten when it opens. No, I would definitely choose a water park. M2: Okay. all right, this is an interesting one. Would you rather only be able to eat at Docking Bay Seven and Brown Derby at Hollywood Studios? Or you can never eat at those places, but you can eat it everywhere else at Hollywood Studios. M1: Hmm. Brown Derby is one of my favorite restaurants at Disney. The vibe M2: You have to give up prime time. M1: the other way around. Yeah, Primetime's another one of my favorites. Only be able to eat at Dogging Bay 7, I don't care about it at all. That's an interesting random. Yeah. M2: No, I know. It was one that I thought you wouldn't care about that I said you th meaning your only option is to eat either brown derby, M1: Yeah. M2: which you love, or docking base seven, which you don't love. That's why I did that. M1: Yeah. The so I would be sad to lose prime time because of the nostalgia factor, but I like brown derby more than prime time, I think, most of the time. M2: You're never gonna need a Henry Hausen's. Harry Hausen's? M1: I hear okay, Hare Housens. All right. Well, I don't have to think about that right now because that doesn't exist at the moment. M2: You do. M1: And without Pizza Rizzo, like there is no quick service that I'm obsessed with at Hollywood. So I think I would choose only being able to eat a docking base seven and brown derby. M2: Forever. M1: What would you choose? M2: I would never eat there again, even though I'd be devastated. I would have a final goodbye to Brown Derby, but whatever, M1: Yes. M2: Doc May 7. But yeah. With all the stuff coming, you just never know. I love Brown Derby. I would kill for one of those rules right now. Okay. M1: Ugh. I just love I just love brown derby. I love brown derby. Me too. and that butter. Ugh. M2: Same. Would you rather ride never ride another ride again or never see another show again? Including nighttime spectaculars and parades. M1: See, I knew that you were gonna say that. Nighttime Spectacular and Parade thing. To me, some of the most quintessential Disney moments are when I'm watching a parade or when I'm watching Nighttime Spectacular. Like they just make me feel so Disney. I would be so sad to never see one again. But realistically, they're just way less shows than rides, and it kind of feels stupid to pick shows. Also, like I don't love all the shows. Like I'm not like dying to go see the the voyage of the little mermaid. So I guess I would choose never see a show again, but I would like sick at the thought of never being able to see a parade or nighttime spectacular again. You hate shows. Yeah, you like hate shows. M2: I would pick that also, but I don't hate sh I don't hate shows. I like some shows. I don't like all shows. I like I like the idea of a show. Do I need to see Beauty and the Beast for the one thousandth time? I see it like five times a year at this point. I'm like, my God. Okay M1: You also go on rides five times a year at this point, but M2: So different. Would you rather have an unlimited shopping spree for three hours or unlimited lightning lanes for one day? M1: Hmm. I think so. I'm like actually not like a huge merch person, but yeah, M2: I would obviously choose a shopping spree. M1: but I would of course choose a shopping spree. Like lightning lines for one day like one singular day. Shopping spree, all those things I would have forever. M2: Okay, would you and we've done this one I think on the pod before. Would you rather M1: I hate this one, I hate this one. M2: only go to Magic Kingdom? You can never go to the other three parks or you can never go to Magic and go back to the other three. I would never I would never go to Magic 'cause I have Disneyland. M1: It makes me sick to think about this. I'm like woozy. I me too. I would never go to Magic Type Disneyland, but Disneyland isn't Magic Kingdom and I love Magic Kingdom and like I'm sick at the thought. M2: Okay, four more. Would you rather add one hundred and one Dalmatians to the park or add Marvel to the parks? M1: Hundred Wind Dalmatians in honor of Ken. And I'm pretty sure you did this before you even knew that 100 Wind Dalmatians fact about Ken. Literally in honor of the king. I have to see you choose a 101 Dalmatians. No, I think in general, M2: I did. I did. I did. Literally in honor of my king. Love you, Ken. M1: though, I would choose 100 Wind Dalmatians. Like I love certain aspects of marble. Other aspects, like I really actually don't care about that much. 101 Dmatians to me is like I love London. Yeah, it's like a it was Walt's least favorite. Walt absolutely hated it. No, I love 100 Wind Dalmatians. M2: It's my favorite Disney movie, I think. It's not your favorite. No, literally, Walt was knocked down a a notch in my eyes. I'm like, sir. M1: No. Me too. How dare you, Walt? M2: Literally. Okay, would you rather get a new Apcot country or get the villains land at Magic Kingdom? M1: Here's the thing. that in Villains Land, I want them to do something cool, like a Madam Mim attraction. That's sort of what I had mentioned previously that I would like to see. Something niche. M2: I think you said a Madam you I think you said a tiny Madam Mim corner store. M1: I said a corner of a store. I said the corner of a store for Madame Mim. Anything for her. Anything for Madame Mim. I would just like to see something, Madam Mim. I would like to see not. M2: As a Madame loyalist, I agree. M1: I would like to see not the evil queen. I would like to see not Maleficent. Those characters are bonked over my head too much, and I'm right, M2: But they're they're coming. They're coming, so M1: right. And so therefore I would choose a new Epcot Country. Also, Epcot's my favorite park. I would just love a country in general. M2: Wow, here's the thing. I would choose a villains land 'cause if I really, really, really wanted a new country, I could just go to the country. M1: No, but there's something jean to say qua about an Epcot country. M2: Wow, I would absolutely choose a villain's land. Crazy. Okay. Final two. Would you rather never ride Haunted Mansion again or never ride Space Mountain again? M1: that's tough. Those are such classics. I'm like a bit of a space hater these days. I'm like a little bit in my space hater era right now and I would probably say never ride space again. But I think that will maybe change at some point. What would you say? M2: Yeah, I was gonna say you're definitely a space hater right now. you're gonna say you've never had space. Yeah. Okay. You suck for that. Final I would never add haunted again, obviously. Space is one of my favorite attractions. if they ever change it, I will tie myself to the track. Chain it, chain myself to the track. Okay, the final one. Would you rather spend the night in the haunted mansion stretching room by yourself? Or in the Tower of Terror lobby by yourself. part of me thinks you're gonna pick the lobby, but the stretching room at least is enclosed and like. M1: No. The stretching room is enclosed and there's nothing in there. it's just there's no I feel like in the haunted mansion lobby, the wind you'd think you'd see stuff. It'd be cr sorry, M2: Tower of Terror lobby. M1: Tower of Terror. You'd think you'd see stuff. the furniture, the windows. In the stretching room, I'm just like, I'm in there. Lock me in. Stretching room. M2: Yeah, I would choose the lobby of Tower Tower for sure. At least I'm on a level near the windows, a stretching room. those doors are gonna open and I'm gonna be I would M1: my god, are you joking? Okay. Enjoy cre enjoy creep. Enjoy being creep, creep, creep, creepsickle. M2: I would lose it. Those doors would slide open in the stretching room and I would scream bloody murder. M1: Okay, I would never be in the Tower of Terror lobby, actually be terrifying. It's like M2: I would sleep on the couch. M1: open, it's terr no, flickering. God. M2: I I would potentially pay to sleep in the Tower of Terror lobby. If right now someone said you can spend M1: I would love to go in there. So these people could do a tours up there. M2: a thousand dollars and me and you can sleep in the Tower of Terror lobby for a night, would you do it? M1: I guess 'cause I really want to go in the lobby, M2: Yeah. M1: but M2: No, actually literally, if anyone wants to bring us into the lobby of Tower of Terror, we'd love you forever. M1: my god, please. M2: specifically maybe at Jollywood Nights. Okay, pit and peach of the week. My pit is that I am so thirsty right now. M1: What you not have water? Melissa M2: I finished it. M1: C brought me water before we started recording. M2: I fin I had a full thing. M1: My pit is that I ran out of altoids ten minutes into the show. M2: Okay. My peach is that I made us an Olani flatbread, a flatbread for dinner that we had at Olani. It's like a scrambled egg, vegetable flatbread, and it was so and then I made a Chipotle Greek yogurt based, obviously. dressing and it was so good at mouse that I loved it. That was my peach. Yeah. M1: Wow. Wow. M2: Yep. M1: My peach is that I went on a walk with someone in town today. It was so nice. If she's listening right now, she's definitely not, but I just had a great time on our walk. I don't know anyone in my town. It's so nice to know someone in my town. I met two more of my neighbors. Sort of got some gossip about a different neighbor. I love gossip. M2: I got gossip about one of my other neighbors, but then now we actually unite with that neighbor we got gossip about. M1: I actually got gasped on two of my neighbors. I'll have to tell you later. But it was just like it was fun. It was beautiful weather and it was nice. M2: It all depends on the weather. All right. Let's wrap it up with a fact of the day. I'm trying to think of like M1: Ken Anderson had two strokes in nineteen sixty two. That's my fact. Annihilated him. Yeah. M2: After Walt, from stress, probably. All right, I'll do a haunted mansion fact. One of my faves. When you exit out, there's not a museum of the weird. This is at Walt Disney World, but when you exit out, there's a pet cemetery. And in that pet cemetery is Mr. Toad, aka J Thaddeus Toad himself from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, A Little Tribute. They did not put Br'er Rabbit in there, which was a huge mistake. M1: Huge mistake. M2: Literally. M1: I just need to say the only reason that Mouse Latoon knows Mr. Toad is because she went to an event in Sleepy Hollow, New York, themed after the Headless Horseman, which honestly she didn't love. But she watched the adventures M2: Dara, da. M1: of Ichabod and Mr. Toad in preparation for that event. And she became obsessed with Jay Thaddeus Toad. And that was a little Halloween tribute. Okay, I'll do a Haunted Mansion fact as well, which I actually just saw. At Disneyland, the Haunted Mansion transforms into a Nightmare Before Christmas overlay. They do not do that at Walt Disney World, but I just found out that in the library room, there are multiple books that have like Jack Skellington on them or are the Nightmare Before Christmas book as like a little nod to the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay at Disneyland. There's also a mini candle, a mini candle man. There's a mini candle man in the Disneyland. M2: Boys and girls of every age, wouldn't you like to see something strange? Come along and you will see in this town of Halloween. This is Halloween, this M1: haunted mansion and he turns into something else for nightmare before Christmas. I hope someone could hear that. M2: is Halloween. M1: Hope someone could hear my fact over here singing. M2: I hope that they enjoyed both at the same time. Okay, that was our episode, guys. We'll see you in three We'll M1: Our spooky episode. M2: see you in three hundred and sixty five days when we cover part two. M1: For part two. M2: but actually guys, get ready because next week M1: Christmas bells are in the air. M2: Everyone's marking their calendar. Don't listen to Sister Sisters podcast next week. but actually, if you like this episode and you want more deep dives, please let us know if there's anything you want us to deep dive into. We certainly will. we have some res M1: Yeah, we'll probably do it. T truly, we'll probably do it for you. Just let us know. M2: No, genuinely. Someone asked us to do Pandora once and we said, sure. Yeah, literally. If you have any requests. Yeah, M1: Sure. It was like a seven year old who listens to this podcast, I think. M2: literally. If you have any requests, you guys let us know. but if you like this episode, be sure to give us a five-star rating on Apple and Spotify. Might pop up, might not, but just quickly go give us five stars. It really helps us, honestly. So please do it. I say it every week, but I want to make sure people know that I actually truly mean it. if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe to our channel if you're not already. and make sure to actually like this video as well. And again, every single week we do twenty, thirty minutes of a ex huge extended cut where we're chatting all things Disney opinions, talking about our lives, talking about honestly a variety of topics. And that's in our pit and peach crew. So you can check out our Patreon. Those tiers both have access to that. We also do a quarterly bonus episode. Sometimes it's like a mouse less after dark, but for our peach crew and Instagram close friends access, especially on trips. And just day to day life we're sharing all sorts of stuff there. You have M1: I was gonna say get ready for close friends next week when we're in Jollywood. I'm sure we'll have a lot of good stuff. No Jollywood? M2: Charliewood. And with that Stop hitting that. I'm trying to play our theme song. You M1: I didn't hit it again. M2: did.