Spoilers, Haunted Mansion Secrets?

[splashmtrider]

Spoilers, Haunted Mansion Secrets?

Do any of you know any secrets or facts about Disneys Haunted Mansion. It can be about any Mansion in any Disney park. I always found growing up and now even that finding or looking for hidden tricks can be SO much fun. It was always my favorite part of the ride.

If you have any fun stories or things you think they should add to the mansion, you can post that here too. Like I think they should have an almost invisible screen of some sort and have sudden random ghostly images appear to scare people.

Here ill start off our secrets thread. In the seance room, (this may only be true for the mansion in Walt Disney World FL) there is no floor under the rug. There is just a net and under it is some sort of storage unit. There is a net because someone got out to try to touch Madame Leota and fell.

 

[stopher1]

The Stretching Gallery in DL and WDW are opposites - DL's floor goes down and the ceiling remains in place, and WDW's floor remains in place and the ceiling rises.

DL's had to move guests "outside the berm" to the show building, whereas when MK was constructed, the Imagineers placed the entire house and show building inside the park eliminating that operational necessity.


The HM is the only attraction to be in a different land in every park that it exists in to date: DL's is in New Orleans Square, WDW's is in Liberty Square, TDL's is in Fantasyland and Paris DL is in Frontierland.

 

[splashmtrider]

the books in the library scene are just painted images exept for some that are moving

 

[Lavender_Blue]

I've heard this from a few CMs:

You know how in DL they have the Haunted Mansion Holiday? For those who don't know, from mid-September through December they have it so that Jack Skellington (my favorite) takes over the Haunted Mansion and gives it a "spooky" holiday overlay. I love it! But anyway, they don't do that at WDW's Haunted Mansion. I don't know why for sure - maybe they just can't? BUT I've heard that what they do instead is hide hidden Jack Skellingtons in the ride!

I've heard the first can be seen when you go into the library and just as your doom buggy is about to turn to go to the next room, look to your left and you should see one.

I'm gonna make it my goal to find out how true this is and see if I can report it back to the DIS community. I think it makes the ride more fun when you are on the look out for details.

 

[stopher1]

The organ used in DL's HM was originally Captain Nemo's organ from the film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea without the bat music rack and pipes. An exact replica was created for MK, and then later for TDL.

Since the original HM opened at DL in Aug. 1969, and the MK was at that time under construction slated to open in 1971, the imagineers decided to include the HM on the attractions roster, and then went on to make duplicates of the sets and simply stored them until needed onsite in FL. Since they had done this, the HM became the easiest attraction to complete and have ready, months in advance of the Grand Opening in October '71.

 

[lacrosse_lady72]

Wow, thanks everyone, this is very interesting.

 

[marybeth200]

I've heard this from a few CMs:

You know how in DL they have the Haunted Mansion Holiday? For those who don't know, from mid-September through December they have it so that Jack Skellington (my favorite) takes over the Haunted Mansion and gives it a "spooky" holiday overlay. I love it! But anyway, they don't do that at WDW's Haunted Mansion. I don't know why for sure - maybe they just can't? BUT I've heard that what they do instead is hide hidden Jack Skellingtons in the ride!

I've heard the first can be seen when you go into the library and just as your doom buggy is about to turn to go to the next room, look to your left and you should see one.

I'm gonna make it my goal to find out how true this is and see if I can report it back to the DIS community. I think it makes the ride more fun when you are on the look out for details.

Disney Land is more for locals, so they need to change it up to draw them back again and again each year. WDW is the number one vacation destination in the world (at least it was as of the Travel Channel special I watched about a year ago... ha ha...) Simply put, they don't need to added expense of changing it and they don't want to take the ride down so often to change it. It just isn't worth it. People aren't planning a WDW vacation because of one change in one ride. At least that's what I was my understanding. But, I'm sure some DISers have went for one ride before!! ha ha...

My contribution... the busts in the library are actually inverted, hollowed out versions. This is how they appear to follow you and everyone else.

The dancing ghosts in the ballroom are actual AA figures on the other side of glass the effect is an old Vaudville (sp?) trick using glass and lighting to make the ghostly images.

If you want to be the first to enter the queue area, stand under the lady with the umbrella in the stretch room, that's wear the door is.

I can't wait to hear more tricks!

PS- sorry it's really early (i'm only on here because I can't sleep) and my spelling is awful, please forgive!!!

 

[splashmtrider]

i foun this really cool haunte mansion site

its called doombuggies.com

 

[stopher1]

The dancing ghosts in the ballroom are actual AA figures on the other side of glass the effect is an old Vaudville (sp?) trick using glass and lighting to make the ghostly images.

Very true - this is called the Pepper's Ghost effect. The AA figures are actually all underneath the Doom buggy track, or above it (for the ghosts on the chandelier, etc). The images are projected through glass, at an angle which makes them then "appear" in the correct position as viewed from the buggies.

If you watch closely, you'll see that the ballroom dancers are all actually dancing "incorrectly" - in that the female is leading the male. They animated it correctly in the placement of the AA figures where the male is leading the female, but the end result due to the mirrors causes them to be backwards.


Madame Leota was voiced by Eleanor Audley, the same actress who voiced Lady Tremaine (wicked stepmother in Cinderella) and Maleficient in Sleeping Beauty.

The WDW version of the house has a New York/Pennsylvania Hudson Valley Dutch styling to it, and the DL version has a New Orleans styling to it (with some Baltimore, MD influences as well). When leaving the attic scene in FL to descend down to the graveyard, the "exterior" of the house that you see does not match the real exterior in the Dutch styling - but rather it matches the New Orleans styling of DL in CA... since the imagineers created 2 copies of each of the sets at the same time - the DL original's styling prevailed and was not changed for the very different architectural styling found in FL.

 

[Cinderella89]

At one point in each of the HMs, the doom buggie goes down six feet. I'm not sure if this is underground or just going down, but you're going "six feet under" lol

 

[stopher1]

Disney Land is more for locals, so they need to change it up to draw them back again and again each year. WDW is the number one vacation destination in the world (at least it was as of the Travel Channel special I watched about a year ago... ha ha...) Simply put, they don't need to added expense of changing it and they don't want to take the ride down so often to change it. It just isn't worth it. People aren't planning a WDW vacation because of one change in one ride. At least that's what I was my understanding. But, I'm sure some DISers have went for one ride before!! ha ha...

While it's true DL is definitely visited by more locals than WDW - it is still a hugely popular vacation destination too, from across the US as well as internationally. DL continues to be the #2 visited park in the world behind the MK year after year HOWEVER, since more people from across the world go to WDW - there would be much more of an uproar from those "once in a lifetime" visitors who've saved thousands and thousands of dollars to visit the park only to find an incredibly popular attraction like the HM down just for a seasonal overlay. At DL it literally takes like 4 weeks to make the change over (on both ends, before and after - so it's down for about 8 weeks per year). HOWEVER - it's also incredibly well received, and has been for the past 8 years now.

Personally I don't like it, but there are enormous numbers of guests who just absolutely adore it. The same would happen at WDW if they allowed it, but local management really just doesn't want to take the heat from the other angry guests. Go figure - the local west coast management is okay with it, but the east coast management isn't. To top it off - DL has two major attractions down at the same time for the CHristmas overlay - HM and IASW...both are over the top fabulously themed overlays that really do almost rival the original attractions themselves... a must-see for so many people every year!

 

[cindy404]

Haunted Masion at DL is a better ride for some reason. I can't really explain it, but it runs smoother and has more Disney "magic" at Disneyland.

 

[stopher1]

Haunted Masion at DL is a better ride for some reason. I can't really explain it, but it runs smoother and has more Disney "magic" at Disneyland.

Ohhh - I definitely agree - but it's my favorite at any Disney park though! I do love the endless staircase scene that they added in at WDW that DL doesn't have...