R.I.P. Haunted Mansion

[Indy4evr]

u know, i love the mansion. but evr since i went on it after refurbishment, some of itz love has gone. the paintings don't gradually change, but only change when there's lightning. and in the attic, i didn't see any heads pop up. other than that, leota now floats instead of staying stationary. itz purty kool. and the organ player during the "swinging wake" looks more animated, itz kool. i still love the mansion. (chek out doombuggies.com!)

[barfownz]

I enjoy the old Haunted mansion. Ever wince i went on it during the new refurb I have lost interest of it and don't like it as much as i used to. Disney is falling apart with Walt not being around.

[disneyguy]

A wise man once said "As long as there is a little imagination left in this world Disneyland will never be complete."

[RollingBoulder]

It's really not that different, and I think it's been improved more than anything else. I love how the paintings change with the lightning, and it's sort of a homage to how it was done in the old days. The floating Leota is a great effect as well.

I think the absence of the heads popping up in the attic are in preparation for the new things being added this week.

Originally Posted by barfownz

Disney is falling apart with Walt not being around.

I don't think so. I'm glad they're willing to try new things with the rides, for the most part.

[TopCat8]

I agree that I don't like the portraits changing the way they do now. They also took out my favorite painting of the lady that got old and replaced it with who I can only assume is Master Gracey. Why do they feel the need to add a story to an already good ride?

[DaddyB]

You DO realize that those changes your talking about have been around since last year, right?

I was on the ride several times these past two weeks, and the heads pop up just fine. It's a matter of timing of your personal doombuggie.


And to say that Disneyland is falling apart now that Walt's not around is, well, I can't say. Walt died less than 15 years after the park opened. He passed away before the Haunted Mansion opened! The park is now FIFTY years old. It didn't even see it's peak until the 70's (IMHO). How can it be going downhill now that Walt's not around when it was still climbing uphill more than a decade after he passed?

Remember what the park was like 2 years ago before making statements like that.

And if you're referring to Disney Company in general falling apart... well that's even harder to substantiate.

If you're referring to Walt himself falling apart now that he's passed away... well I can't argue with you much more than I don't know if after being cremated some 30 years ago he could fall apart much more than he has by now.

[Mortimer]

I sympathize with how Barfownz feels. But DaddyB is completely correct, Barfownz's point is overstated and untrue. The Disney company is not at all "falling apart with Walt not being around."

But that doesn't mean that Barfownz isn't raising a good question, he's merely arriving at an unfair answer. The question, of what condition the Walt Disney Company is in without Walt Disney himself, is a very good question. It's one I've mulled over here before.

What would be here for us to enjoy if Walt had truly lived to an old age? Would there have been more rides on the scale of Pirates? Would Walt's version of Epcot have been what he dreamed it would be? How would the movies of the 70's and 80's have been if Walt had lived just a couple decades more?

What Barfownz said needed to be countered. But he touched on something worth discussing. We know at the Disney company, the years following '66 must have been hard. Walt oversaw Pirates, died before it opened, and the development of HM was not yet finished. And it did affect how the ride came out.

Consider this, from the wonderful Doombuggies site. "In Disneyland: Inside Story, author Randy Bright quotes Davis as he recalls the confusion: 'Walt had not been gone that long. I think there were a lot of great ideas, but when you have too many people of equal clout, nobody's about to say, 'Hey, wait a minute! Let's do it this way,' which Walt would have done in a moment.'"
from http://www.doombuggies.com/history4.htm

Doombuggies then includes an enthralling quote from Bright's book about how the Imagineers struggled without Walt there to guide them. It not only is an interesting look inside the studio, but it gives fascinating details about how the ride came to be.

No, the Disney company is definately not falling apart today. But in a sense, Barfownz is correct that the Haunted Mansion ride was changed by Walt's passing. But it happened 40 years ago.

[luxo]

Well, it's awful hard to take someone seriously who says, "itz purty kool," but that's beside the point. Walt didn't want Disneyland to become a gallery (Gee, that's been thrown around alot) so he probably would have preferred the changes. Nothing drastic has happened (yet.) so I wouldn't say it has lost some of "itz love" just yet.

[Mortimer]

It is hard to say what Walt would have wanted. As DaddyB points out, he wasn't here while the decisions regarding HM were being made, so we really don't know. And he clearly found it hard to choose a concept for the ride since it took him so long to get the project launched that it didn't really get underway until he was gone.

It would be neat to do a bibliography to the HM. Take each element and label it with the imagineer who created it. We know Rolly Crump did the wallpaper. I assume Claude Coates did the endless hallway, but I'm not sure. Marc Davis did the ballroom and the portraits. I tend to think if we found out which imagineer contributed which element to the HM, it might indicate a direction Walt would have preferred the ride to take.

DoomBuggies talks about a scary vs silly disagreement the Imagineers had in Walt's absence. Walt could make things scary, of course. And I doubt he would have wanted the HM to truly be gory. Regarding a disagreement of making the HM creepy or funny, I would assume Walt would have preferred funny. The Eddie Murphy movie had a lighthearted take to the HM that I think Walt would have appreciated.

I understand the anxiety over modifications being made to a beloved ride like the Haunted Mansion. But if the changes are made without disrespecting the original spirit (sorry) of the ride, then I wouldn't have a problem with them either.

[Sesshomaru-sama]

I think a couple of changes, personally, are made better. To have even scarier allusion of the attraction there are portraits that their paintings changes at the lightning and Madame Leota's crystal ball floating. And what is the person talking about Master Gracy? Is the bride replaced? If it is... then I do complain about that.

Sincerely, a brother of a half-demon,
Sesshomaru-sama

[RollingBoulder]

^ Do you mean the bride in the attic? She's still around, so there's nothing to worry about there. They're talking about one of the paintings that was replaced in the portrait hallway.

[TopCat8]

Originally Posted by Sesshomaru-sama

I think a couple of changes, personally, are made better. To have even scarier allusion of the attraction there are portraits that their paintings changes at the lightning and Madame Leota's crystal ball floating. And what is the person talking about Master Gracy? Is the bride replaced? If it is... then I do complain about that.

Sincerely, a brother of a half-demon,
Sesshomaru-sama

No. I was talking about the paintings that now flash with the lightning. They took one out, and added another one that I can only assume is Master Gracy.

[Ezra]

I was there not long after The Haunted Mansion opened, and the paintings flashed with the lighning. They were done with the same rear projection as the morphing paintings. It was a good idea but just didn't look good. You could see the things change, but couldn't really tell exactly what it was that you just saw. So the lightning thing was an original, it just didn't work well so they changed it.

The next time I went a few years later the lighning was gone. I remember being disappointed by the slow morphing. I liked the idea of the lighning effect, but at least this way you could see what they were changing into.

I'm glad to see the original idea return with a new effect that works better. Gee, it worked well enough for Brett to photograph it! That's cool!

[JasperGein17121]

I like the lightning effect also.

[damxcnsxcn]

no matter what I will always love HM.