The Haunted Mansion - Due to popular demand, The Haunted Mansion will be receiving its own little backstory and history report. Lets get started!
So in order to understand the history of the Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World, then you have to go back to when Walt Disney was still alive. Walt Disney loved the movie business, but he wanted to get in the theme park industry. He noticed that there were not many places that families could spend time together. So he wanted to create a small little theme park across from his studio in Burbank. The idea seemed like a good idea so he had a man named Harper Goff. Not much was known about the small park except that Goth Hill was part of the plans. The main ride for this area was a small haunted house. Little is known about the house except that early reports suggest that it was a walkthrough rather then an actual ride. As time went on Walt realized that eleven acres was not going to be enough for the ideas he had planned. So he went and bought the land in Anaheim that would later become
Disneyland.
Walt never did forget about the Haunted House concept. When he was first planning Disneyland he wanted to put a part haunted house part museum of weird stuff in Main Street. You would have walked down a dead end street and seen this ratty looking building. Inside guest would have seen many weird and strange items. Some of these items included a headless ghost, a talking chair, and flying hats. Apparently the idea gave Walt nightmares so the plans were cancelled for a brief time and a new direction was taken. The Haunted House was to be moved to Frontierland, and was to be given a more western theme. The story was a man from the north had went west to find gold. When he found gold he built his mansion in the little town. Eventually his obsession for gold drove the man mad and he eventually hung himself. Now guest would enter the mansion and would encounter the spirit of the man along with other spirits visiting the place. You would have seen things like ghost dancing to cowboy music, cowboys having a shootout and more. The plans were cancelled once again.
In 1955 Disneyland opened its doors to the public yet something was not there
..The Haunted Mansion. No Haunted Mansion was ever built for the grand opening of the park, but it wouldnt stay that way. Shortly after the park opened Walt Disney planned to expand with a whole new land. This land would be called New Orleans Square and would feature new shops, restaurants and a new ride called the Haunted Mansion. Walt Disney originally was going to have an old looking house in Frontierland yet his mind was changed with this house in New Orleans. He went for a nice and clean colonial type house. His very words were We will take care of the outside, and let the ghost handle the inside. So work began on the façade of this new ride. The new land eventually opened to great fan faire yet the new ride was not opened. The only thing there was an empty façade with signs promising the ride would soon open. No one is exactly sure what the problem was, but many believe it was due to the failure to find a good storyline. Walt also was busy with other projects like Its a Small World. Plans floated along for the new ride except Walt died of lung cancer in 1966 causing the entire project to be placed on hold.
The Haunted Mansion façade had now been sitting there empty in this busy land for two years, and the man in charge had just passed away. Imagineers started to scurry trying to find ways to get this ride opened. Some top Imagineers joined the project and began to debate on which direction to take for the storyline. Marc Davis believed the mansion should be more comical since this was Disneyland after all. Claude Coats thought the ride would be better as a real scary attraction like many other haunted houses. In the end a deal was struck and the ride was built with a spooky setting with comical creeps.
The ride system was going to be a first for the Disney company as it was be a nonstop moving vehicle. Disney realized that the Fantasyland rides suffered from capacity due to the guest vehicles always stopping to load and unload. This new ride system would be different as it never stopped. It was a slow moving ride system that would allow guest to load and unload efficiently without stopping the ride. Being new the ride system had many terrible glitches. For one thing the Doom Buggies never wanted to turn in certain scenes. Also special chains and equipment had to be built to help the Doom Buggies move and rotate. The new chains also had to handle the all day stress the always moving machine would face. The next thing they had to tackle was the ride itself. This ride was obviously going to be a big draw for Disneyland and had to deliver due to guest waiting many years. The first issue they faced was the ride itself. There were problems with land in the area to keep it simple so they needed to go below ground. So Disney came up with a creative way to bring many guest at a time below ground while keeping them immersed in the story. The idea was the stretching room. Guest would enter a round room that would work as an elevator as well as a pre show. As guest looked up they would notice the pictures stretch as they were moved to the lower level. They would then exit and board their doom buggy where the ghost host would lead them through the mansion. Guest would past many effects like the self playing piano, the endless hallway, Madam Leota, ghost dancing in the ballroom and graveyard. What was to really shock guest would be the ballroom scene. This would be where most of the money went to wow the guest. What guest saw below them was ghost moving through objects or disappearing and repeating. This effect is done by AAs under them that they cant see. Mirrors and lighting are put together to reflect the ghost into the ballroom. Disney faced multiple problems during the process getting the ghost to work and it took three more years to build the ride. Yet finally in 1969 the Haunted Mansion opened its doors. It was a mega hit and was planned to be cloned right away for Walt Disney World.
Walt Disney World was well under way in Florida and the park needed some good rides. Many rides that were unique to the park were planned yet Disney had a budget to follow so not everything was unique. Favorites like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Haunted Mansion were both planned to be built in this new park. The Haunted Mansion was such a big hit that ride itself was left to be almost the same thing. What Disney had to do though was make it fit thematically in the park. The ride was to be placed in a little corner of the park setting on the edge of two lands. At first it was going to be Fantasyland that saw the ride although plans were quickly made to make it part of Liberty Square. Obviously the New Orleans look wouldnt work here so a new façade was picked for the attraction. This façade looked like the old colonial houses you would see back in the early times of America up north. This would better fit the theme of Liberty Square a lot better. Since the ride was already planned to be built in Florida two of everything was made when the Disneyland version was made. This helped save time and money. The mansion on the outside did not look clean and well kept like the original. The other change was that the stretching room was not an elevator like in Disneyland, but was simply a room where the roof went up. In 1971 the ride opened to the public, and was one of the few rides that reportedly worked fine.