Friday, March 1, 2013

Disneyland's Haunted Mansion

At LTUE I went to a presentation called "Disney's Haunted House." I am a DIE hard--no pun intended--Haunted Mansion fan, so naturally I had to go, and IT WAS AWESOME. I mean, anything to do with The Haunted Mansion always is.
I'm the kind of person who scours the internet looking for interesting facts about the Haunted Mansion so that I can tell my husband and he'll think I'm cool (yep, he's obsessed with it too).

 photo photo-23.jpg
This is the gift I gave him for Christmas. 

Seriously, I would love to move into the Haunted Mansion and be the 1,000th happy haunt. 

So I decided to compile a list of *some of the coolest, creepiest, and strangest things I've learned about The Haunted Mansion. Here you go! 


  • The organ in the ballroom is from Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
  • The knight in the hallway used to be an actual cast member. He was later replaced with an animatronic knight because too many problems arose from having a live cast member scare people. 
  • The Haunted Mansion is the only place in Disneyland where the cast members do not smile. 
  • Madame Leota's voice is also Maleficent's voice from Sleeping Beauty, and the wicked stepmother in Cinderella
  • The air conditioner is so effective in the Haunted Mansion that every year employees go through and re-scatter dust.  
  • Master Gracey (pictured below) was a character named after the imagineer Yale Gracey who worked on the ride for years. 
  • Many of the ghosts share the same face as pirates in Pirates of The Carribean (example: the ghost woman blowing out the candles on the birthday cake has the same face as the whistling pirate in jail). 
  • A mother once spread her son's ashes throughout the ride because he had loved The Haunted Mansion so much. 
  • All of the gravestones are tributes to imagineers who worked on the ride.
  • The Haunted Mansion is narrated by Paul Frees. He also voices most of the pirates in Pirates of the Carribean. 
  • The Haunted Mansion was originally going to be a walk through attraction.
  • The Hidden Mickey made of plates on the dining room table is not an "official" Hidden Mickey. It was made by cast members. 

pict from hiddenmickeys.org

*I have more fun facts to share, but I might have to save them for another blog post. I'll do a part II. MWAHAHA!

P.S. My obsession may have started when I was younger and my mom played this movie called Disneyland Fun. I watched the Haunted Mansion "Grim Grinning Ghosts" sing a long part over and over. Which is funny because my husband watched it when he was younger too! We are creepy soul mates. 

Anyone else watch this growing up?





6 comments:

  1. It's been ten years since I've been there. Since I grew up near it, Disneyland was an annual thing for us. I wonder how much its changed ...

    I gave you a Shout-Out on my blog today. :)

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    1. David, you definitely need to go again! You need to see Tower of Terror, the new Fantasyland, and the new Star Tours! But don't listen to me, I'll use any excuse to go to Disneyland ("Come on, we have to go to Disneyland, it's Flag day!").

      Thanks so much for the Shout-Out!

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  2. I think we have this one on DVD still! Love it! :)

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    Replies
    1. Cathy,

      Really?? That's awesome! We watched it so many times, such a good movie.

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  3. I'm going to Disneyland next week :) So excited! This is one of my favorites too.

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