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The Haunted Mansion is a ghost train attraction located at Disneyland Park (Disneyland Resort), Magic Kingdom (Walt Disney World Resort), Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Park (Paris) and at Hong Kong Disneyland, although each location differs in design. Riders go through a haunted mansion resided in by "999 happy haunts."
The Haunted Mansion features a ride-through tour in Omnimover vehicles called "Doom Buggies", and a walk-through show is displayed to riders waiting in the line queue. The attraction utilizes a range of technology, from centuries-old theatrical effects to modern special effects featuring spectral Audio-Animatronics. The Haunted Mansion has inspired two similarly themed attractions, Phantom Manor and Mystic Manor, which exist at Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland, respectively.
Development
The idea for the Mansion precedes Disneyland and WED Enterprises, dating to when Walt Disney hired the first of his Imagineers. At the time, the park they were developing the attraction for was supposed to be located across from the studios. In 1951, the first known illustration of the park showed a main street setting, green fields, western village and a carnival. Disney Legend Harper Goff developed a black-and-white sketch of a crooked street leading away from main street by a peaceful church and graveyard, with a run-down manor perched high on a hill that towered over main street.
Disney assigned Imagineer Ken Anderson to create a story using Goff's idea. Plans were made to build a New Orleans-themed land in the small transition area between Frontierland and Adventureland. Weeks later, New Orleans Square appeared on the souvenir map and promised a thieves market, a pirate wax museum, and a haunted house walk-through. Anderson studied New Orleans and old plantations and came up with a drawing of an antebellum manor overgrown with weeds, dead trees, swarms of bats and boarded doors and windows topped by a screeching cat as a weather vane.
Disney, however, rejected the idea of having a run-down building in his park. He visited the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, and was captivated by the massive mansion with its stairs to nowhere, doors that opened to walls and holes, and elevators. Anderson envisioned stories for the mansion, including tales of a ghostly sea captain who killed his nosy bride and then hanged himself, a mansion home to an unfortunate family, and a ghostly wedding party with well-known Disney villains and spooks. Imagineers Rolly Crump and Yale Gracey recreated Ken Anderson's stories in a studio at WED Enterprises.
In 1961, handbills announcing a 1963 opening of the Haunted Mansion were given out at Disneyland's main entrance. Construction began a year later, and the exterior was completed in 1963. The attraction was previewed in a 1965 episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, but the attraction itself did not open until 1969. The six-year delay owed heavily to Disney's involvement in the New York World's Fair in 1964–1965 and to an attraction redesign after Walt's death in 1966.
After the fair, many Imagineers such as Marc Davis, X Atencio and Claude Coats contributed ideas to the project. By this time, Ken Anderson had left the project. Rolly Crump showed Walt some designs for his version, which included bizarre objects like coffin clocks, candle men, talking chairs, man-eating plants, tiki-like busts, living gypsy wagons and a mirror with a face. Walt accepted these ideas and wanted to make the proclaimed "Museum of the Weird", a restaurant side to the now-named Haunted Mansion, similar to the Blue Bayou at Pirates of the Caribbean. Though this concept was never realized, some of its aspects were implemented into the final attraction.
When Walt put Imagineers Rolly Crump and Yale Gracey in charge of creating the visual illusions for the attraction, they intended to make the "Museum of the Weird" into a separate section that guests could walk through and discover illusions from around the world. Guests would be able to see transparent ghosts and other apparitions, utilizing the Pepper's Ghost technique used in the theater since the early 1800s. Crump and Gracey were eventually given an entire warehouse to house their developments and one evening forgot to switch off the mechanics before leaving for the day. The cleaning crew was met with surprise as Crump explained, "Once, we got a call from personnel saying that the janitors requested that we leave the lights on in there due to the creepiness of all the audio-animatronic ghosts and such. We complied, but put motion sensors in the room that would extinguish the lights and turn on all the ghost effects when triggered. The next morning, we came in and found all the ghost effects still running and a broom lying in the center of the floor. Personnel called and said that the janitors would not be back."
Marc Davis and Claude Coats, two of the mansion's main designers, disagreed on whether the ride should be frightening or enjoyable. Claude, originally a background artist, wanted a scary adventure, and produced renditions of moody surroundings like endless hallways, corridors of doors and numerous characterless environments. Marc, an animator and character designer, proposed variegated characters and thought the ride should be silly and full of gags. In the end, both artists got their ways when X Atencio combined their approaches and ideas, creating a transition from dark foreboding to "spirited" entertainment. The ride narration was performed by Paul Frees in the role of the Ghost Host. The attraction's theme song, "Grim Grinning Ghosts", was composed by Buddy Baker with lyrics written by X Atencio. It can be heard in nearly every area of the ride, with various instrumentations and tempos.
After Disney's death in December 1966, the project evolved significantly; the Museum of the Weird restaurant idea was abandoned. The Imagineers objected to a walk-through attraction's low capacity, going so far as suggesting building two identical attractions to accommodate twice as many guests. A solution appeared with the development of the Omnimover system for Adventure Thru Inner Space. Renamed the '"Doom Buggy", the system's continuous chain of semi-enclosed vehicles offered high capacity. The cars could be set to rotate in any direction at any point, allowing the Imagineers to control what guests saw and heard throughout the show. And because each car held from one to three people, it was a convenient way to divide guests into smaller groups — a better fit with the story of people wandering "alone" through a haunted house.
Debut
Employee previews of the Mansion were held August 6, 7, and the 8th, followed by "soft" openings on August 9 and 10 where limited numbers of park guests were allowed to ride. A "Midnight" Press Event was held on the evening of August 11. The mansion opened to all guests August 12, 1969. The public opening was announced in full-page newspaper ads, creating the anomaly of either two official openings or an advertised "soft" opening. The attraction was an immediate success, attracting record crowds and helping Disney recover from Walt's untimely death.
In around 1977, WDI considered utilizing the unused designs, creatures and effects that Rolly Crump had originally created for the Haunted Mansion and the Museum of the Weird as part of Professor Marvel's Gallery — "a tent show of mysteries and delights, a carousel of magic and wonder." This was to be built as part of Disneyland's Discovery Bay expansion area, and was dropped when those plans fell through.
The attraction opened at Magic Kingdom in 1971 and Tokyo Disneyland in 1983. In 1999, a retrospective of the art of The Haunted Mansion was featured at The Disney Gallery above the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean. When the 2003 film The Haunted Mansion was released, a retrospective of its art was featured in the gallery as well.
Updates
In 1994, Disneyland's Haunted Mansion was updated. A phantom piano player sat at a run-down piano in the attic scene, just like the music room at Walt Disney World's Mansion. However, instead of the sinister Rachmaninoff-esque version of "Grim Grinning Ghosts", a dark version of Richard Wagner's Bridal March plays.
In 2001, a newer, more detailed safety spiel was added to the onboard audio of the doom buggy in the Load Area, now featuring voice-over artist and Paul Frees impersonator Joe Leahy, giving a bilingual safety spiel as part of a park-wide attempt to increase safety at attractions. The seasonal overlay Haunted Mansion Holiday premiered that October in Disneyland, featuring characters from the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas.
In 2004, the seance room was updated to allow the crystal ball to appear to float, while the projection of Madame Leota still appeared within the ball. Originally this was accomplished with projection mapping, and later from a rear projection effect within the ball.
In 2006, the bride with the visible beating heart in the attic was replaced by another bride named Constance Hatchaway. Constance Hatchaway is the ride's villainess who married many wealthy men in life, killing all of them for their wealth. The character was added to Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion in 2007.
In 2007, the Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World was reopened to the public. Included in the update was a more elaborate transformation of the foyer's portrait, new sound, visual and audio effects in the Stretching Room, and a new Endless Staircase scene, which replaced the two rubber spiders seen just before the Endless Hallway scene.
On April 10, 2015, it was officially confirmed that an iconic Haunted Mansion character, The Hatbox Ghost, would return to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. The character returned on May 9, 2015. The Hatbox Ghost was originally a part of the attraction when it opened in 1969, but was removed when the illusion involving the specter's head was not convincing enough.
On January 21, 2020, Disneyland's Haunted Mansion was closed for an extensive refurbishment to add lighted steel panels, improved lighting, mechanical touch ups, and new paint and trims to the exterior of the attraction. This refurbishment came with a refreshed pet cemetery, now with new greenery and plants. The portrait gallery was given new drapes curtains and the loading area is much more decorative with wallpaper and the return of one of the Haunted Mansion's original portraits being "April to December". Also featuring a statue of the one-eyed cat. The rest of the attraction was given repairs and new lighting.
Other versions
Due to the success of attractions that feature holiday overlays such as The Country Bear Christmas Special and It's a Small World Holiday, the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland is transformed into Haunted Mansion Holiday during the Halloween and Christmas seasons and has been since 2001, inspired by Tim Burton's 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas. The Haunted Mansion is closed in mid to late August for a few weeks as they revamp the attraction before opening again in September, replacing many of the props and Audio-Animatronics with characters and themes from the movie. The Haunted Mansion Holiday closes in early January to restore the attraction back to the original Haunted Mansion and reopens late January.
The Magic Kingdom does not have its own holiday edition of the Haunted Mansion and the regular ride operates continuously through the holiday season. The Magic Kingdom was initially supposed to have the overlay as sets, props, and animatronics were created for Magic Kingdom, but they rejected the overlay because Walt Disney World gains more tourists than Disneyland due to being a vacation destination unlike Disneyland being more of a regional theme park with reoccurring guests. So keeping the original ride year-round felt more appropriate. The sets, and props were sent to Tokyo Disneyland as their Haunted Mansion is a duplicate of Magic Kingdom's version.
In popular culture
Walt Disney Pictures produced a theatrical feature film adaptation based on the attraction and starring Eddie Murphy on November 26, 2003.
In July 2010, Guillermo del Toro announced that he was set to write and produce a darker film adaptation based on the attraction, promising that it would be both scary and fun. By August 2020, it was announced that Katie Dippold would be writing a new script with Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich servicing as producers. In April 2021, Justin Simien signed onto the project as director.
In October 2005, Slave Labor Graphics began publishing a bimonthly Haunted Mansion comic book anthology, with the main recurring story (Mystery of the Manse) centered around "Master Gracey" and inspired by the sea captain concepts proposed for the attraction by Ken Anderson in the 1950s.
In the Mickey Mouse episode "Potatoland", Mickey and Donald build a theme park called Potatoland to fulfil Goofy's lifelong dream to go to the park, even though it never existed. One of the attractions featured was a version of The Haunted Mansion, based on potato horror stories.
In January 2014, Marvel Comics began publishing Seekers of the Weird, a five-issue miniseries and first under the Disney Kingdoms imprint. The miniseries was based on the Museum of the Weird, Rolly Crump's unused precursor designs for the attraction. In March 2016, Marvel Comics began publishing a five-issue miniseries based on the attraction, released under the Disney Kingdoms imprint.
A video game produced by Disney Interactive, TDK, and High Voltage Software was released in 2003, primarily based on the attraction but using some of the set designs from the film. The attraction appears and is referenced in other video games, including Epic Mickey and Kinect: Disneyland Adventures. In Epic Mickey, the mansion serves as a level in the game, and borrows elements from each mansion except for Mystic Manor.
In July 2014, it was announced that a cartoon special based on the attraction, animated by Gris Grimly, was being developed in honor of the 45th anniversary, to be aired on the Disney Channel and Disney XD.
Madame Leota appears in the second half of the seventh season of ABC's Once Upon a Time, portrayed by Suzy Joachim.
In the horror video game Bendy and the Ink Machine, the haunted house attraction that appears in the game's fourth chapter is based on the ride.
In October 2018, it was reported that the Magic Kingdom was turning into a popular place for families to deposit ashes of their deceased loved ones, with the Haunted Mansion picked as their favorite location. The behavior of depositing ashes of dead family members at the attraction is considered unacceptable and unlawful, and anyone caught doing that behavior will be escorted from the park.
In 2020, Funko Games partnered with Disney to release the family strategy board game "Disney: The Haunted Mansion-- Call of the Spirits."
In May 2021, it was announced that a Muppets special based on the attraction, Muppets Haunted Mansion, would be released on Disney+ in the fall of 2021.
(Wikipedia)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (also known as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas) is a 1993 American stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy Halloween-Christmas themed film directed by Henry Selick (in his feature directorial debut) and produced and conceived by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, the King of "Halloween Town" who stumbles upon "Christmas Town" and becomes obsessed with celebrating the holiday. Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score, and provided the singing voice of Jack. The principal voice cast also includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page, Paul Reubens, Glenn Shadix, and Ed Ivory.
The Nightmare Before Christmas originated in a poem written by Burton in 1982 while he was working as an animator at Walt Disney Productions. With the success of Vincent in the same year, Burton began to consider developing The Nightmare Before Christmas as either a short film or 30-minute television special to no avail. Over the years, Burton's thoughts regularly returned to the project and in 1990, he made a development deal with Walt Disney Studios. Production started in July 1991 in San Francisco; Disney initially released the film through Touchstone Pictures because the studio believed the film would be "too dark and scary for kids".
The film met with both critical and financial success, earning praise for its animation (particularly the innovation of the stop-motion art form), characters, songs and score. It has grossed $91.5 million worldwide since its initial release and garnering a cult following. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, a first for an animated film. The film has since been reissued by Walt Disney Pictures, and was re-released annually in Disney Digital 3-D from 2006 until 2009, making it the first stop-motion animated feature to be entirely converted to 3D.
Production
As writer Burton's upbringing in Burbank, California, was associated with the feeling of solitude, the filmmaker was largely fascinated by holidays during his childhood. "Anytime there was Christmas or Halloween, […] it was great. It gave you some sort of texture all of a sudden that wasn't there before", Burton would later recall. After completing his short film Vincent in 1982, Burton, who was then employed at Walt Disney Feature Animation, wrote a three-page poem titled The Nightmare Before Christmas, drawing inspiration from television specials of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas. Burton intended to adapt the poem into a television special with the narration spoken by his favorite actor, Vincent Price, but also considered other options such as a children's book. He created concept art and storyboards for the project in collaboration with Rick Heinrichs, who also sculpted character models; Burton later showed his and Heinrichs' works-in-progress to Henry Selick, also a Disney animator at the time. After the success of Vincent in 1982, Disney started to consider developing The Nightmare Before Christmas as either a short film or 30-minute holiday television special. However, the project's development eventually stalled, as its tone seemed "too weird" to the company. As Disney was unable to "offer his nocturnal loners enough scope", Burton was fired from the studio in 1984, and went on to direct the commercially successful films Beetlejuice and Batman.
Over the years, Burton regularly thought about the project. In 1990, Burton found out that Disney still owned the film rights. He and Selick committed to produce a full-length film with the latter as director. Burton's own success with live-action films piqued the interest of Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, who saw the film as an opportunity to continue the studio's streak of recent successes in feature animation. Disney was looking forward to Nightmare "to show capabilities of technical and storytelling achievements that were present in Who Framed Roger Rabbit." Walt Disney Pictures president David Hoberman believed the film would prove to be a creative achievement for Disney's image, elaborating "we can think outside the envelope. We can do different and unusual things."
Nightmare marked Burton's third consecutive film with a Christmas setting. Burton could not direct because of his commitment to Batman Returns, and he did not want to be involved with "the painstakingly slow process of stop motion". To adapt his poem into a screenplay, Burton approached Michael McDowell, his collaborator on Beetlejuice. McDowell and Burton experienced creative differences, which convinced Burton to make the film as a musical with lyrics and compositions by frequent collaborator Danny Elfman. Elfman and Burton created a rough storyline and two-thirds of the film's songs. Elfman found writing Nightmare's eleven songs as "one of the easiest jobs I've ever had. I had a lot in common with Jack Skellington." Caroline Thompson had yet to be hired to write the screenplay. With Thompson's screenplay, Selick stated, "there are very few lines of dialogue that are Caroline's. She became busy on other films and we were constantly rewriting, re-configuring and developing the film visually."
Filming
Selick and his team of animators began production in July 1991 in San Francisco, California with a crew of over 120 workers, utilizing 20 sound stages for filming. Joe Ranft was hired from Disney as a storyboard supervisor, while Eric Leighton was hired to supervise animation. At the peak of production, 20 individual stages were simultaneously being used for filming. In total, there were 109,440 frames taken for the film. The work of Ray Harryhausen, Ladislas Starevich, Edward Gorey, Étienne Delessert, Gahan Wilson, Charles Addams, Jan Lenica, Francis Bacon, and Wassily Kandinsky influenced the filmmakers. Selick described the production design as akin to a pop-up book. In addition, Selick stated, "When we reach Halloween Town, it's entirely German Expressionism. When Jack enters Christmas Town, it's an outrageous Dr. Seuss-esque setpiece. Finally, when Jack is delivering presents in the 'Real World', everything is plain, simple and perfectly aligned." Vincent Price, Don Ameche, and James Earl Jones were considered to provide the narration for the film's prologue; however, all proved difficult to cast, and the producers instead hired local voice artist Ed Ivory. Patrick Stewart provided the prologue narration for the film's soundtrack.
On the direction of the film, Selick reflected, "It's as though he [Burton] laid the egg, and I sat on it and hatched it. He wasn't involved in a hands-on way, but his hand is in it. It was my job to make it look like 'a Tim Burton film', which is not so different from my own films." When asked about Burton's involvement, Selick claimed, "I don't want to take away from Tim, but he was not in San Francisco when we made it. He came up five times over two years, and spent no more than eight or ten days in total." Walt Disney Feature Animation contributed with some second-layering traditional animation. Burton found production somewhat difficult because he was simultaneously filming Batman Returns and pre-production of Ed Wood.
The filmmakers constructed 227 puppets to represent the characters in the movie, with Jack Skellington having "around four hundred heads", allowing the expression of every possible emotion. Sally's mouth movements "were animated through the replacement method. During the animation process, […] only Sally's face 'mask' was removed in order to preserve the order of her long, red hair. Sally had ten types of faces, each made with a series of eleven expressions (e.g. eyes open and closed, and various facial poses) and synchronized mouth movements." The stop-motion figurine of Jack was reused in James and the Giant Peach (also directed by Selick) as Captain Jack.
Soundtracks
The film's soundtrack album was released in 1993 on Walt Disney Records. The film's soundtrack contains bonus tracks, including a longer prologue and an extra epilogue, both narrated by Sir Patrick Stewart. For the film's 2006 re-release in Disney Digital 3-D, a special edition of the soundtrack was released, featuring a bonus disc that contained covers of five of the film's songs by Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Marilyn Manson, Fiona Apple, and She Wants Revenge. Four original demo tracks by Elfman were also included. On September 30, 2008, Disney released the cover album Nightmare Revisited, featuring artists such as Amy Lee, Flyleaf, Korn, Rise Against, Plain White T's, The All-American Rejects, and many more.
American gothic rock band London After Midnight featured a cover of "Sally's Song" on their 1998 album Oddities.
LiLi Roquelin performed a French cover of "Sally's Song" on her album Will you hate the rest of the world or will you renew your life? in 2010.
Pentatonix released a cover of "Making Christmas" for their 2018 Christmas album Christmas Is Here!.
In 2003, the Disneyland Haunted Mansion Holiday soundtrack CD was released. Although most of the album's songs are not original ones from the film, one song is a medley of "Making Christmas", "What's This?", and "Kidnap the Sandy Claws". Other songs included are original holiday songs changed to incorporate the theme of the film. However, the last song is the soundtrack for the Disneyland Haunted Mansion Holiday ride.
Release
The Nightmare Before Christmas was originally going to be released by Walt Disney Pictures and be part of the Walt Disney Feature Animation lineup, but Disney decided to release the film under its adult film label Touchstone Pictures, because the studio thought the film would be "too dark and scary for kids," Selick remembered. "Their biggest fear, and why it was kind of a stepchild project, [was] they were afraid of their core audience hating the film and not coming." To convey Burton's involvement and attract a wider audience, Disney marketed the film as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton explained that,"…it turned more into more of a brand-name thing, it turned into something else, which I'm not quite sure about." The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 9, 1993, and was given a limited release on October 13, 1993, before its wide theatrical release on October 29, 1993.
The Nightmare Before Christmas was reissued under the Walt Disney Pictures label and re-released on October 20, 2006, with conversion to Disney Digital 3-D. Industrial Light & Magic assisted in the process. The film subsequently received three re-releases in October 2007, 2008, and 2009. The El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California has been showing the film in 4-D screenings annually in October, ending on Halloween, since 2010. The reissues have led to a reemergence of 3-D films and advances in RealD Cinema.
In October 2020, The Nightmare Before Christmas was re-released in 2,194 theaters. It made $1.323 million over the weekend, finishing fourth behind Tenet.
Home media
With years of successful home video sales, Nightmare later achieved the ranks of a cult film.[26] Touchstone Home Video first released the film on VHS on September 30, 1994, and on DVD on December 2, 1997. The DVD release contained no special features. Nightmare was released a second time on October 3, 2000 as a special edition. The release included an audio commentary by Selick and cinematographer Pete Kozachik, a 28-minute making-of documentary, a gallery of concept art, storyboards, test footage and deleted scenes. Burton's Vincent and Frankenweenie were also included. Both DVDs were non-anamorphic widescreen releases.
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the film on DVD again (this time with an anamorphic transfer) and on Blu-ray Disc (for the first time) on August 26, 2008 as a two-disc digitally remastered "collector's edition", but still containing the same special features.
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released The Nightmare Before Christmas on Blu-ray 3D on August 30, 2011. The release included a Blu-ray 3D disc, Blu-ray disc and a DVD that includes both a DVD and digital copy of the film.
In 2018, Disney issued a singalong version of the film, accompanied by the theatrical cut and a Movies Anywhere copy, as a single-disc version for the film's 25th anniversary.
Marketing
Disney has extensively marketed the film and its characters across many forms of media and memorabilia, including action figures, books, games, art crafts, and fashion products. Jack Skellington, Sally, Pajama Jack, and the Mayor have been made into bendable figures, while Jack and Sally even appear in fine art. Sally has been made into an action figure and a Halloween costume.
Various Disneyland and the branching theme parks host attractions featuring Nightmare characters, particularly during Halloween and Christmas seasons. Since 2001, Disneyland has given its Haunted Mansion Holiday attraction a Nightmare Before Christmas theme for the holiday season. It features characters, decorations and music from the film. In addition to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and Mickey's Halloween Party featuring the film's characters, Additionally, Jack hosts the Halloween Screams, HalloWishes, and Not So Spooky Spectacular! fireworks shows at Magic Kingdom (where the host is Ghost Host) and Disneyland (where the host is Jack himself), as well as the Frightfully Fun Parade.
Reception
Box office
Around the release of the film, Hoberman was quoted, "I hope Nightmare goes out and makes a fortune. If it does, great. If it doesn't, that doesn't negate the validity of the process. The budget was less than any Disney blockbuster so it doesn't have to earn Aladdin-sized grosses to satisfy us." The film earned $50 million in the United States in its initial theatrical run and was regarded as a moderate "sleeper hit".
The Nightmare Before Christmas made an additional $11.1 million in box office gross in its 2006 reissue. The 2007, 2008 and 2009 reissues earned $15.8 million and $2.5 million, respectively, increasing the film's total box office gross to $91.5 million.
(Wikipedia)