Attentive Souls: Staring Portraits and Staring Busts

Of the major effects in the Haunted Mansion, the simplest are the two applications of simple optical illusions found in the sinister busts which turn to follow you and the portraits with cut-out eyes that seem to follow you down the hall (an effect not found at Disneyland).

Although many probably write these effects off as being “motors”, one must remember that the nature of the Haunted Mansion is that it is a show which must play to an audience which never ends, and which may view the show from any angle at any time. Although a motor may be efficient for a single person or doombuggy, the effect has to play to twenty people (or doombuggies).

The effect is probably most striking at Disneyland, where the busts appear at the end of the changing portrait gallery. Because guests are not yet on the doombuggies, we are allowed to move back and forth in front of the busts in order to appreciate that the busts really will follow you, no matter where you stand. Of course, it is thus easier to figure out how the effect is achieved…

The illusion is, quite literally, only a trick of the light. The busts you see are actually not three-dimensional objects, but rather, negative space. To clarify: imagine the inside of a mask. You are actually looking at the inside of two "negative" busts that face away from you. These busts are made of a filmy, transparent material and are lit from behind the wall. Since the light plays over the outside of the face as if it were a "positive" image rather than a "negative" one, and you view this light through the bust from the other side, your mind assumes that the bust is a normal object. Then, by passing the busts, the changing perspective of the faces cannot be accounted by your brain by normal means, so it assumes that they are turning to follow you. View from behind the wall at right.

However, since the busts are actually recessed inside a niche in the wall, and jut “backwards” from a flat back surface further recessed within the niches (which your brain assumes is the back of the niche) at a certain angle the “edge” of the effect becomes apparent, and it is obvious that the bust is actually an impression in the wall. Walt Disney World improves on the effect due to the configuration of the room, which makes such an angle impossible. Also, upper rows of busts near the ceiling actually appear to be leaning forwards in their niches to view the guests!

The staring portraits are more of less the same effect, with the pupils painted to the inside of what amounts to a halved ping-pong ball. Mansion enthusiasts may be interested in knowing that all of Walt Disney World’s staring portraits are repainted versions of Marc Davis concept art. To the left, the very first portrait is an incarnation of the “Hatchet Ghost” image which hangs at the end of the Disneyland Corridor of Doors, believed by some to be the only visual representation of the Ghost Host in the attraction. Farther along, we see copies of Ed Kahn’s Medusa and December changing portraits.

The drowned skipper above the exit arch is probably a holdover from the “Sea Captain” plot, and to his left, the witch-looking woman with the black cat was conceived by Davis to turn into a goat-headed creature. Farther down that right wall, the man seated with his wife standing behind him used to be choked by her. More interestingly, the ghoulish woman with the flowing blonde hair used to hold, rather than opera glasses, a tall, dripping candle and was the attic bride! Davis experimented with a number of different concepts for the bride until the original, faceless version was decided upon.

Into the Boundless Realm: The Doombuggies

From Christopher Finch’s classic volume The Art of Walt Disney:

"Animation is the most completely controlled form of film-making imaginable... everything is pre-planned... Disneyland and Walt Disney World are controlled environments engineered to conform to the principles Disney had developed in making his animated films. All of the elements of a movie must be made to compliment each other –and this criterion was adapted in designing the parks.

The movie influence is most obvious within the context of individual attractions. The Haunted Mansion, for example, presents us with an example of a ride that unfolds in time in exactly the same way a motion pictures does. A movie transports an audience from point A to point Z by means of a carefully structured sequence of visual devices – the camera following the action and the audience traveling with the camera. The camera is, in other words, a moving vehicle which carries the audience through the plot. In the Haunted Mansion, as in many other attractions at the parks, another kind of car – one that runs on rails – is substituted for the camera...

The cars, each wired for stereo sound, are built in such a way that the rider can only see what is directly in front of him. Each car is on a swivel and can be turned, by electronic signals, to face just what the director wants it to face at any particular moment. In this sense, then, it is used exactly like a movie camera. The rider is traveling through a programmed show which unfolds in time. The choice of where to look is not his to make – it has already been made by the designer, who determines what will be seen, just as a director determines what a movie patron will see. This degree of control is, of course, limited to certain rides, but everything in the parks is touched by the motion-picture expertise of the Disney organization."

This passage points towards part of which allows the Mansion to be such a complete and impressive experience – Imagineers are allowed to hide the works and gears by simple misdirection. Particularly in this attraction, lights and works can be hidden behind a gothic curtain or arch. For those of us who turn around in their seats, it is sometimes shocking how unfinished the areas guests are not supposed to see are – often painted simple flat black to fade into a dark void. Some areas are even open to the rafters above.

The cars, linked together, move forward via a 12-volt electric drive train. The vehicles themselves have no means of locomotion. They are driven by a series of ten motors located throughout the ride. Each car can also be rotated 180 degrees--from facing forward to facing backward. This rotation, combined with scalloped design of the car, allows the designers to control what the guests see at any given time. Each car is also equipped with 3 speakers. The sound (which is not stereo, as commonly reported) is transmitted to odd-numbered cars via a narrow band transmitter. The signal (once received) is then passed on to the even-numbered car behind it.

While Disneyland has since changed to digital repeaters, Walt Disney World is still on the old analog broadband repeaters, which accounts for the somewhat tinny quality of the narration at Disneyland. Disneyland also has an extended narration through the Corridor of Doors and séance. Although this actually gives a name to the Madame Leota character, the narration over the corridor of doors disrupts the brilliant sound design throughout this sequence.

In 2003, Paul Frees' (who performs the ghost host) original "load" narration was re-recorded by Joe Leahy to includes refrences to feet and legs as well as hands and arms (due to a grisly incident over at Big Thunder Mountain), as well as by a different (poorly matched) actor in Spanish. While the change will probably go unnoticed by many, it tends to disrupt the pacing of the rooms immediatley after Load...

Invisible Fingers: The Phantom Pianist

Back when Buddy Baker was recording the original music tracks for the Haunted Mansion in 1969, he performed a simple, spare version of Grim Grinning Ghosts on a piano as a chord progression. Although it was never used in Disneyland, the intent was to include it as part of Walt Disney World’s expanded Haunted Mansion, in the music room scene. The track still is exclusive to Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland.

The piano room scene, as originally planned, featured bright flashes of lightning outside the picture window which would briefly illuminate the shadow of the piano player on the floor, which may explain the rigid, jerky movements of the shadow projection. The shadow is produced by a “gobo” placed just out of scene, near the ceiling, behind the large curtain which provides the transition between the library and music room.

A gobo, from “go-between”, is a traditional theatrical device of a thin metal cutout placed in front of a spot light in order to create sharp, defined shadows. Gobos are used throughout the Haunted Mansion, most notably at the very end of the Corridor of Doors sequence, in front of the haunted grandfather clock, where four cutout hands rotate in front of a spotlight directly above and behind the doombuggies. They also create the hundreds of rising ghosts in the graveyard scene, cut out of a rotating disk in front of a light.

In 1995, Disneyland went down for a major renovation and a similar effect was added to the attic scene there, where a harpsichord plays the wedding march. The effect in this case is a video projection, with a splice at the wrists so the hands are flat and cast correctly over the keys of the instrument, as the effect is in this case is in profile.

The sheet music which litters the floor of the music room is similar in style to the sheet music at the harpsichord in the “Dead Men’s Cavern” sequence of Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. They may even be part of the same set - just as all of Disney’s cast iron locks are the same design. The notes do not form any apparent tune.

Singing Statuary: Madame Leota and others

One of the remarkable things about the design of the Haunted Mansion is how well the two “halves” of the attraction – the darker, optical-effect driven first half and the more gag-filled, animatronic-filled second half – compliment one another. Madame Leota, the first true “A-List” effect in the attraction, presents a turning point in the attraction. But look at the way she’s built up: we don’t even get a good look at her until we’re more than halfway through the chamber! This simple effect is so carefully presented that she can still draw a crowd of guests hopeful to discover the way the illusion works.

Inside the crystal ball is a blank face, very similar to the type used to support wigs in department stores. This prop wears a long white wig and is taken from a life cast of Leota Thomas, who worked in the Disneyland costume department at the time of the attraction’s design. Thomas was used for a rough test of the effect, and was so good that they used her in the final attraction. Her voice, however, was high and girlish, and was dubbed by the formidable Eleanor Audley, whom Disney fans will recognize as the voice of Lady Tremaine in Cinderella and of the memorable Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty.

Onto this blank bust, a video projection of Ms. Thomas is projected from the front. These projections are stored on laserdisc and loop indefinitely. The projection itself comes from directly in front and below of the buggies. Disney lore has it that Ms. Thomas had so much trouble keeping still during the recording of the footage to be used in the attraction that the Imagineers had to tie her hair to the chair! Later recording sessions used vice-like contraptons to keep actors’ heads still.
A small point of light created by the projector can be seen reflected in the crystal ball. This is why, at Disneyland, there are four candles on her able casting misdirecting points of light into the glass around her. Walt Disney World has several hidden spotlights around the room which create similar pinpoints of light as well.

In the 1995 Disneyland overhaul, Disney Imagineers changed the effect of Madame Leota to be more similar to the version installed at Disneyland Paris’ Phantom Manor, where the head is hollow and projected into the interior of the head via fiber optics. Although this allowed them to animate the table to float and tilt as if hovering above the floor as well, the image tended to distort at the edges and was replaced in 2001, when the image was changed again to a front projection.


Down in the graveyard, the Singing Busts effect is achieved in the same way. Although some claim that one of the busts is the face of Walt Disney (somewhat aided by the fact that the bust is broken, thus making possible connections to the company’s “fallen leader”), this is untrue. The faces and voices are that of the Mellow-Men, a kind of barbershop quintet who worked for Disney on multiple occasions. They appeared in Alice in Wonderland, among other voice work. The deep-voiced lead, Thurl Ravenscroft, can be heard all around Disneyland and Walt Disney World, most notably as the announcer at the Disneyland Railroad, the captain of the Mark Twain, uncountable pirates on Pirates of the Caribbean, and more. Americans are most likely to recognize his voice as that of Tony the Tiger, hawking Frosted Flakes on television.

At right: a view of the singing busts' "projector pit" from The Disney Channel. Projectors to the left, lights to illuminate the busts to the right. these have since been changed to laserdiscs. More views of the projectors below.

The Imagineers gave all five singing busts working names, and the names are printed on the film leaders that used to loop endlessly around under the doombuggy track before the projections were upgraded to laserdisc. They are as follows:
It is interesting to note that Phineas Pock is a name used in the original Disneyland radio ads from the attraction’s 1969 opening. The name was reportedly used on a gravestone that used to sit outside the attraction but was removed shortly after opening, and others report it as the identity of the hanging body in the stretching gallery.

The final use of the effect is the small, mysterious woman who calls out to you as you exit. The leader labels her as a “Ghostess”, which is made reference to in an extended ghost host spiel, recorded but cut down for use at Walt Disney World:

“Our library is well-stocked with priceless first-editions – only ghost stories, of course! And marble busts of the greatest ghostwriters the literary world has ever known – they have all retired here, to the Haunted Mansion. Actually, we have 999 happy haunts here. But there’s room for 1000. Any volunteers, hmm? Well, if you should decide to join us, final arrangements may be made at the end of the tour. A charming ‘ghostess’ will be on hand to take your application.”

Leota Thomas voices (and gives face to) this enigmatic final figure.

Not Holograms: The Grand Hall and Pepper’s Ghost

Bill Nye, the Science Guy, infamously got the Ballroom effect wrong in the issue of Disney Magazine heralding the 25th Anniversary of Walt Disney World:

“Holograms are pictures made with laser light. The ones in the Haunted Mansion are made with light bouncing off of smoky particles. The light hits the smoke and changes direction as it heads towards your eyes in exactly the same pattern as light bouncing off of three-dimensional objects. You see 3-D people in smoke, so they look like they’re not quite there, like a ghost.”

Most readers probably accepted this explanation as true because, well, that’s what it looks like. In fact, the ballroom sequence can be considered a triumph of Walt Disney Imagineering that this simple effect is still thought to be much more complex than it actually is more than thirty years after the attraction’s opening. The effect is over 150 years old now, and you’re most likely to find it in, of all things, Dickens.

This effect is called Pepper's Ghost and has been in existence since the 19th Century. Most guests are not aware that they view the ballroom through a gigantic sheet of spotless glass. This glass stretches about 10 feet down and 15 feet up from the top and bottom of the balcony that you are on, respectively. And, above, below, the to the side of you are full, real, solid animatronics. They are dressed almost totally in white, with blue faces and hands, and are going through their movements in a totally black space of the exact same size and dimensions as the real room. There are dim lights being cast onto these figures which fade in and out. Since the figures are very carefully placed, their reflections, half-transparent, appear and disappear in the glass. They                                                             seem to be inside the room.


Sir John Pepper published the details of this effect in his 1862 Wonders of Optical Science, which the invention of plate glass made possible. The Haunted Mansion is currently the largest known example of the effect in history. It is notable in that usually the glass is slanted, while the ballroom glass is upright, and the same effect has been used to turn women into gorillas in carnivals throughout history. And to bring the tormenting ghosts of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to life.

At Disneyland, sharp-eyed guests will notice a dimly lit rubber spider apparently floating in midair. This is actually a bullet hole caused by a guest who snuck an air-powered rifle onto the attraction and took a shot at the ballroom! The shattered glass was painted to look like a spiders’ web, and a dime-store rubber spider affixed to the glass. A sheet of plexi glass now also separates the guests from the glass...

Hitching a Ride: The hitch-hiking ghosts

Although it's hard to point out a single most popular ghost or effect in the Mansion, there are certainly some ghosts more beloved than others, and the hitch-hikers are the ghosts most commonly associated with the ride. According to Marc Davis it was a last-minute addition, and only one piece of concept art exists of the tableau. The short, bearded prisoner appears in the graveyard next to the executioner, no more than twenty feet away!

This single effect gets the most audience reaction than any other. Although most people consider the ghosts to be holograms or projections onto the mirrors, in reality the ghosts you see are full, real, solid figures. The mirrors you look through are one-way mirrors, meaning one side is transparent while the other reflects, and you are viewing the reflective side. In a pitch black chamber beyond the mirrors, at the exact distance away from the mirrors as the doombuggies are, are the figures themselves, which are lit dimly. That way you can see your reflection, but can just barley peer through the glass to see the figure. It appears to be seated in the car with you.