The success of the attraction is not through the linking of major effects from room to room, but the total and starting invocation of atmosphere. In many ways, the most charming and successful elements of the Haunted Mansion occur in the first half, front-loaded as it is with simple but creepy motorized props. They set a tone and atmosphere that not only supports the major effects, but gives them so much of their strength.

     As is widely reported seemingly everywhere, the dust and cobwebs which fill the attraction are regularly replenished. Webs come in a liquid form similar to Rubber Cement and are sprayed through a device very much like a hand-held drill with a fan blade mounted on the end (the “spinning” effect is very similar to how cotton candy is made).

    The webs are then dusted (as are much of the furniture and walls) with a substance called “Fuller’s Earth”. Larger webs, such as those spun by “giant spiders” and those found in the Ballroom, are sprayed over thin strings tried together in web patterns by the Imagineers. This effect seems to be replenished more frequently at Walt Disney World than Disneyland. The webs are apparently quite powdery and loose to the touch.

    Back in 1958 when the Mansion was still under development, Rolly Crump was working on a series of bizarre drawings as proposals for a “Museum of the Supernatural” (or Museum of the Weird). It would have featured, among other things: furniture such as chairs seemingly made from distorted human beings; a living Gypsy cart; a haunted grandfather clock; and, yes, a haunted bed with a falling, spiked canopy. Many of these ideas eventually trickled down through development to form the basis of the Mansion’s bizarre, sinister, seemingly alive architecture.

    The opening rooms of the Walt Disney World version contain, besides the unique “staring portraits” and “phantom pianist” effects, several excellent examples of the sort of effects which Imagineers devised in ever-deepening layers to give the impression of a house teeming with invisible spirits.

    In the library, there are several books that pull from the shelves near a library ladder, which is rigged to sway as if a ghost balances atop it. All of these effects are run from two shelves, with the books on a simple track and the ladder run from a motor within these shelves and hinged from the floor to create the desired “tilting” effect. Nearby, one of Crump’s “face chairs” has been motorized to rock.

    The most interesting effect here is that most of the library is indeed fake. With the exception of a few shelves of (hollowed) books, the walls are actually painted flats. Under the ride’s dim lighting, it’s nearly impossible to tell. According to attraction blueprints this room was painted by R.L. Grosh and Sons, Inc., a reputable company which has furnished Hollywood sets for years and have worked on the backdrops for innumerable Hollywood musicals, memorably contributing to the surreal dream sequence of Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound. They also painted the flat rear wall of the ballroom and apparently furnished much of the attraction's lush interiors.

    Perhaps more interestingly, the entire room is on a rather extreme slant – every piece of furniture, including the chandelier, is anchored at a slant to make it appear as if the doombuggies are traveling flat!


    Although many of the books are fake, the few that are real reveal some interesting facts about the way the scene was constructed. For those interested, allow me to direct you to HauntedMansion.Info, Christopher Paris’ excellent study of the more detailed inner workings of the attraction.

    As guests move up the grand staircase (and in Disneyland’s load area), guests encounter a certain strain of arachnids found only at the Disney parks – they breed in dark, cool climates such as the Haunted Mansion and the temple of Walt Disney World’s Jungle Cruise. Although made of coated, painted foam core, they’re easily recognized by the signature Mickey Mouse head painted on their abdomen!

    These spiders are animated (sort of) using a small, piston-driven motor located directly in front of and below the doombuggies. This creates vibration in the web so that the spiders appear to quiver, much like real spiders waiting in their webs. Sadly, at times the vibration is quite aggressive, creating the somewhat comical effect of a vibrating spider.

    This tableau (probably the weakest in the attraction) is more of interest to fans because of what isn’t there than what is. Mansion lore (probably more lore today than fact) has it that this scene used to feature a web to the right near the start of the staircase with a body snagged in it. Various reports have the body either quivering or screaming. The figure was in place for a few weeks, and was removed (so they say) due to guest complaints. Then, the figure was stored under the graveyard (often used to frighten new Cast Members) for another few years until it was removed in a refurbishment.

    Every Haunted Mansion has rumors of this type. They started probably as soon as the attraction’s 1969 opening, fueled by the fact that a building existed with no show in it as early as 1963. One persistent Disneyland rumor has it that the attraction had opened as soon as the show building was built, but was so frightening it killed one guest! Of course, this is nonsense (the rumors always involve snake pits for some reason), but only add to the mystique of the attraction.

    Up and around the corner, we encounter the “endless hall” effect. The hall isn't really quite that long. It runs alongside the ballroom and ends right about near the hitch-hiking ghost figures just after the cemetery. At the end of the hallway is a mirror, which reflects the hall back on itself, making it appear twice as long. A number of scrims are placed in front of the mirror to farther block your view of the hall, and make it appear hazy and boundless.

    Inside the hall, a candelabrum is hung from a device very similar to the driving motor for the famous “Flying Crank Ghost”. It is painted black on the back to make certain it doesn’t reflect in the mirror at the end of the hall. Interestingly, the original Disneyland attraction blueprint doesn’t position the candelabrum in this scene, but in the séance room! However, the Walt Disney World blueprint does include the candelabrum here, thus suggesting that it was moved during test phases, perhaps because the endless hall effect doesn’t actually work very well...

    The rest of the “Corridor of Doors” sequence, which goes well up to the Séance Room, belongs primarily to Rolly Crump, Claude Coates, X. Atencio and Jimmie MacDonald. Crump’s “living architecture” is brought to it’s most effective realization in this sequence, in which seemingly everywhere faces and eyes hide more faces and eyes, glaring menacingly from all sides. Coates, whose concept art for the attraction stressed atmosphere over Davis’ more gag-driven scenes, is taken to it’s most realized form here. Atencio’s script is simple and brilliantly realized by sound man MacDonald, who performs most of the shrieks and screams which flood this short, claustrophobic set.

    All of the ghosts in this scene are simple, motor-driven stunts, including the last few doors at the end of the hall, which are made of vulcanized rubber being pushed outward by the piston. The shadow of the ghostly hand in the Clock Hall is a “gobo”, as discussed above, and several layers of scrim outside the conservatory “window” provide a heavy, atmospheric fog.

    The “ghoul photographs” which line the walls of Disneyland’s corridor are an interesting artifact of the attraction. Apparently last-minute additions, these are no more than dressed-up heads of some of the original ghoulish masks which served as faces for the “pop up” ghosts in the attic and graveyard on the attraction’s original opening. Over the years, many of these heads have been phased out in favor of a fairly generic “old man / woman” head, although Walt Disney World retains most of these original faces. Apparently, somewhere backstage, a box of hundreds of these photographs exists…

    Starting in the seance room, the number of minor effects gradually diminish, replaced by simply smart set dressing (the ballroom’s set dressing is among the best in the attraction), and one of the weaker remaining effects is certainly the floating instruments. These fiberglass objects, struck from a custom mold, are painted with phosphorescent colors so as to glow brightly in the darkness of the séance room. The idea is to distract you from the black strings, but this only works for a few of the instruments, and is most obvious in the case of the trumpet, tambourine, and bell directly above exit of the room. While Disneyland has since repainted the instruments to a more muted blue and green color tone, Walt Disney World has retained the original, more colorful paint jobs, possibly to tie in with the “gypsy cart” parked outside the gates (and attributed to Madame Leota) which doubles as a merchandise stand.

    Near a wispy spirit painted on silk and blown about with a fan, a sheet of material has been stretched tight and painted on the reverse with glow-in-the-dark paint. A bright green light is mounted on a sliding cross brace on the other side and has been programmed to move about apparently randomly. The result is a green point of light which leaves a glowing trail...

    At Disneyland, rumor has it that a shawl belonging to Eleanor Audley is placed somewhere in the seance room. Although this is unverified, the only possible location of this is the first floating table encountered as the carriages move clockwise about the room, as it has a somewhat unidentified piece of material draped over it...
    It’s true that of the places which are most dangerous to leave your doombuggy, the séance room takes the cake: the doombuggies are actually moving on an elevated path and surrounded by a drop that goes all the way to the show building floor far below (see left, from blueprint). The area is a sometimes-used storage area for the Fantasyland dark rides (previous Cast Members have had all sorts of adventures with some Jungle Cruise alligators that used to be stored there). At both Mansions, there are nets in place to catch any miscreants...

    At Walt Disney World, the attic scene is the one that most resembles the classic pop-n-boo dark ride. The ghosts are simple mechanisms. A hideous mask is mounted on a platform. This platform is quickly raised then lowered through use of a powerfully fast hydraulic lift. The face is then painted in frightening colors and a wig and false body completes the effect. Every 5-7 seconds all 5 figures in this scene are activated simultaneously, as well as a soundtrack of loud screaming. Gravity causes these figures to quickly drop back of view. A few are slowly lowered back into place. They are installed so the heads are just below the floor and junk is piled around them.

    Disneyland’s popups are slower, with the added effect of a type of mechanism not found at Walt Disney World: it is known as a "Blast-up". These Blast-ups are small, hollow heads which are able to be hidden inside a narrow space, such as a hatbox. These are hit by a sharp hiss of compressed air from below, which propel the heads into view. They are held in place by thin guide wires. Once the momentum from the blast wears out, they simply drop back down out of sight. These two effects are found when you first enter the attic on the right and near the piano on the left. The heads are the same as those which rise out of the organ!


    Across from the bride, some black bats circle. These are attached to simple fan-type devices and are called on the blueprints – get ready for this – Batmobiles.

    One famous figure from the attic isn’t in there at all: the Hatbox Ghost. This effect, originally appearing at Disneyland for less than a week, was actually removed at Marc Davis’ suggestion. This figure, a suitor of sorts for the bride (and originally appeared where she now stands), was a mainly static figure, and represented a sort of old man in an overcoat and cape. A tall top hat stood perched on his head, a large hatbox dangling from his good hand, the other clutching a knotted wood cane and shaking with old age. The effect was for his head to vanish from the figure’s shoulders and appear in his hatbox, then for the process to reverse.

    This effect, fondly remembered by now-head of WDI Tony Baxter, was long considered a Pepper’s Ghost illusion based on the only then-known photographs of the illusion (at right, with Yale Gracey). Actually, the photograph is a superimposed image of a mockup of the character, which bears little resemblance to the final version. The effect was actually achieved by the cross-fading of blacklights! The figure was too close to the track to get his head to ever “vanish” completely, and eventually it was pulled. However, according to some sources, the two “heads” of the figure are used to this day on some popup ghosts in the graveyard...

    Throughout the graveyard, animatronic ghosts are made out of slightly transparent material to reveal the works and gears within, giving them a slightly “skeletal” appearance (at left). Between the carriages and the figures, giant walls of scrim are stretched tight to give the illusion of banks of fog descending over the scene...

    The graveyard has many other small details. As you descend the slope, look up to see he stars in the sky above you. Throughout the scene, numerous crypts, tombstones and tombs have been motorized so they move. At one point, in front of the royalty, laugher can be heard from inside one of the tombs. In an interesting side note, the wineglasses that the lord and lady hold contains a real red fluid, which is rigged to glow brightly under the black light. The same can be said of the hand emerging from an open tomb in front of the scene (a Blast-Up appears from out of this tomb).

    As you pass the individual scenes, notice that every ghost is singing his own version of Buddy Baker’s song Grim Grinning Ghosts. Each music and vocal track you hear in the background of the attraction is called a "loop". These loops range from 3 minutes long (wolf howl outside) to 10 seconds long (a few of the doors). However, most are only 60 seconds long. They play continuously the same music over and over - and that music is Grim Grinning Ghosts. However, to avoid the "Small World Effect", and help each scene develop it's own unique personality, each and every music loop in the attraction is a slightly different version played with different instruments. However, since these are all the same general music, played to the same time, with pretty much the same notes and the same length, and they are all played simultaneously, there is no jarring overlap between scenes. The entire attraction is "locked" together into the same tune, literally. There is only one track, which is played as an independent version: the ballroom organ. What locks this into the rest of the attraction is the bride's heartbeat, which keeps the two-step tempo.

    As you exit the attraction, make special notice of the small, flickering torches in the crypt scene. The “flames” are rather obviously orange cellophane blown about by a fan. This is the last remaining version of Yale Gracey’s “flame” effect from Pirates of the Caribbean which nearly caused the closure of the attraction. At both Walt Disney World and Disneyland the effect has been replaced by a “silk” effect. The cellophane still burns green in both Mansions’ Grand Ballroom fireplaces...