As the cool autumn breeze drifts across the misty Rivers of America, and the last streaks of sunlight strike the Western face of Big Thunder Mountain, a dense fog gathers. Thunder Mesa’s lanterns spring to life, and up on Boot Hill, an unexplainable light sparks behind the frosted windows in the attic of the old Ravenswood Manor…
Today, we offer you this chilling challenge: forget everything you know about grim, grinning ghosts, happy haunts, and a Ghost Host. One of the most spectacular dark rides on the planet may sound like your local Haunted Mansion, but beneath the surface, Disneyland Paris’ Phantom Manor is so much more.
Image: Disney
That’s why we’ve selected it as the next entry in our LEGEND LIBRARY‘s collection of Modern Marvels, joining our in-the-details look at such industry-shattering attractions as The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, Mystic Manor, Curse of DarKastle, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Revenge of the Mummy… Today, we’ll dive into the hallowed history of Disney’s Haunted Mansion and how it morphed into the dark, romantic, imposing Phantom Manor… and examine the changes Disney made in 2019 that just might’ve undone the incredible story the ride was meant to tell…
As frequent readers of our in-depth entries will know, the story always begins years before an attraction even opens. In this case, we can start a century earlier.
History in the dark
Image: Kennywood / DAFE
While we may not often think of their earliest installations, dark rides have been around for more than a hundred years. In the late 1800s, simple, darkened river channels kept flowing by paddlewheels were cast as “Old Mills” or “River Caves.” These early dark rides invited guests to sail through darkened scenes, sometimes lit by the brand new electric lightbulb. (Earning them another name – “Tunnels of Love” – for their concealed opportunity to canoodle in the prudish Victorian times.)
As the years pressed on, the scenes (and sometimes scares) of these dark rides became more elaborate, resulting in spook houses, ghost trains, Noah’s Arks, mine rides, and laff-in-the-dark funhouses powered by boat, by cart, or by foot.
Snow White and Her Adventures. Image: Disney
Just as Disneyland’s 1955 opening had forever changed amusement parks, the headlining dark rides in its Fantasyland set a new standard for the dark ride medium. Peter Pan’s Flight, Snow White and Her Adventures, and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride were designed and built by filmmakers, perfectly translating the freedom, fear, and frenzy of those three films and becoming anchors of the young park. Of course, by today’s standards, they’re simple: darkened, flat scenes lit by blacklight, with carts darting from scene to scene in simple succession triggering simple effects.
Image: Disney
And even there in Disneyland’s early days, Walt and company had considered the idea of a haunted house walkthrough dark ride. As a matter of fact, Disney Legends Harper Goff and Ken Anderson had sketched out initial plans that predate the park’s opening. Fittingly, the haunted house they envisioned would’ve been ominously perched on a hillside just outside of Main Street, U.S.A., brilliantly cast as the existential “creepy old house” that citizens of most any Midwestern town would recognize.
Though that haunted house never came to be, before the park’s tenth anniversary a very different kind of abandoned manor appeared elsewhere…
Vacancy
Image: Disney
Walt’s hopes to expand Disneyland’s Frontierland by telling more stories of American growth and culture had led to the idea of a New Orleans Square, and by 1963 it was beginning to take shape. To Walt’s thinking, its two headlining attractions would be a walk-through wax museum of pirate scenes, and the long-forgotten haunted house.
Image: Disney
So there, on the outskirts of the meticulously designed French Quarter, concealed behind a wrought-iron gate, a towering, stately, white plantation house appeared.
Designers initially planned to “age” the house with shattered windows, tattered curtains, and overgrown gardens but Walt wouldn’t have it. He was determined to prove that his park was different from the run-down, cheap midways of the day (many with their own haunted houses). Looking to the fabled, stately, beautiful Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California (a beautiful Queen Anne Style Victorian manor famous for its windows to no where, doors to dropoffs, and stairs that lead into ceilings) Walt decreed, “We’ll take care of the outside, and the ghosts will take care of the inside.”
A sign posted against the gate announced the availability of “post-lifetime leases” for all ghosts and restless spirits in this new Haunted Mansion, set to open in 1963. However, the manor’s gates remained locked through 1963.
And 1964.
And 1965.
Though the mansion had been built, the attraction it would house had not yet been designed when Walt and his team were called East to the 1964 – 65 New York World’s Fair. And just think of how Disney’s portfolio had changed because of it. By 1965, Disney was dismantling the projects they’d developed for the Fair and was shipping them back to Disneyland for installation: Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln (with its unthinkable humanoid Audio-Animatronics figure), the Carousel of Progress, the technology behind a Lost Legend: The Peoplemover, and “it’s a small world” (with its groundbreaking, high-capacity boat-powered dark ride).
So the Haunted Mansion didn’t open in 1965.
Or 1966.
1968. Still closed. Image: Roger J. Runck, courtesy of Robin Runck, via Yesterland.
Then, that December, Walt Disney unexpectedly passed away from lung cancer. Across the company, projects stalled. The team Walt had left behind didn’t know how to (or even if they should) proceed on Walt’s pet projects without him. So as 1967 dawned, the beautiful white plantation house still sat empty. And worse, Walt had never explicitly offered what he thought this Haunted Mansion should contain…
Haunting harmony
The story of the creation of the Haunted Mansion is one of the most interesting in Disney Parks history because it was the first major project tackled without Walt, and without a good grasp of what exactly he’d want. The reason the story picks back up in 1967 – after four years of the mansion façade sitting empty – is because of the opening of Walt’s post-mortem magnum opus: Pirates of the Caribbean. Once imagined as a walkthrough wax-museum, the application of “small world’s” high-capacity boat ride raised the bar for all Disney dark rides to follow. The walkthrough imagined for a haunted house a decade ago was now impractical.
Image: Disney
Instead, designers agreed to re-use the groundbreaking, patented Omnimover ride technology (which we listed among our list of the 7 Modern Wonders of the Theme Park World) that premiered in Tomorrowland 1967’s Lost Legend: Adventure Thru Inner Space. The clamshell-shaped Omnimover was a brilliant advance in both operations and storytelling given that the incredibly high capacity ride system was constantly moving, continuously loading, and could turn to face scenes, giving designers the real-life power of a camera.
While the Omnimover was decided on and the Haunted Mansion was redeveloped from a walkthrough to a high-capacity ride, the design for the ride inside came down to two famously opposing viewpoints.
Image: Disney
Claude Coats (the Disney Legend, background animator, mentor to Tony Baxter, and designer of Pirates of the Caribbean, Adventure Thru Inner Space, and Lost Legends: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Horizons) believed the Haunted Mansion should be an atmospheric, spooky tour past endless hallways, cryptic vignettes, unexplainable special effects, and frightening, characterless environments – “scary sights and sounds.”
Image: Disney
Marc Davis (designer of the Jungle Cruise, The Enchanted Tiki Room, “it’s a small world,” The Carousel of Progress, Country Bear Jamboree, World of Motion, and Magic Kingdom’s fabled never-built Western River Expedition) instead believed that this Haunted Mansion should be a “frightfully funny” tour packed with whimsical, iconic characters, zany dark ride gags, humorous vignettes, and songs.
And without Walt to cast the tie-breaking ballot, it came to X Atencio (who wrote the script for Adventure Thru Inner Space, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion, as well as the theme songs for the latter two, “Yo-Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)” and “Grim Grinning Ghosts”) to meet in the middle. It’s no accident that the Haunted Mansion has an eerie, creepy, uninhabited, discordant introduction (think of the Stretching Room, the “limbo” boarding area, and the manor’s first halls) gradually transitioning at the seance and ballroom to include memorable characters, laughter, and song (like the Hatbox Ghost, the singing busts, and the Hitchiking Ghosts).
On the next page, we’ll dissect the story (or lack thereof) told by the Haunted Mansion, watch as hauntings spread beyond Anaheim and begin to piece together what led to Disneyland Paris’ ride being one-of-a-kind.
Story
Image: Disney
So the seemingly opposing ideas of Claude Coats and Marc Davis had somehow harmoniously converged together, and when Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion finally opened on August 9, 1969 (six years after it had first appeared in the park), it was an instant classic. The creepy, unsettling, darkly mysterious introduction (and unforgettable narration by Paul Frees as the “Ghost Host”) and the sing-along “Grim, Grinning” finale of memorable characters and gag-filled scenes somehow created an uneven ride that practically no one thinks of as uneven!
But for all the praise afforded to the Haunted Mansion, there’s one thing it’s missing… something lorded by Disney Parks spokespeople and Imagineers in every announcement and interview in the last twenty years: story.
Image: Disney via Doombuggies.com
Sure, the Haunted Mansion has a setting and emotional arcs and deeply beloved vignettes, but a narrative? Nope. And that’s no accident. According to legend, plots were floated for the attraction (everything from a vengeful sea captain and his widowed bride to the case of a cursed family) and the animatronic raven positioned in scenes throughout the ride is often cited as evidence that, at one time, designers planned on a continuous narrative and narrator throughout.
And indeed, the stretching room (and its unfortunate inhabitant), the ballroom, the bride, and the residents of the attic allude to a connected narrative… it’s just not there.
Image: Disney
In fact, the idea of a continuous story was dropped pretty early on in the ride’s development.Evidently, it was ultimately decided that the mere musings of the disembodied Ghost Host were enough to carry us through the dark realms of the manor and that a traditional narrative would reduce the ride’s repeat appeal.
Ghosts on the go
There’s another peculiar piece to the Haunted Mansion’s legacy: how it’s been translated to be at home in subsequent Disney Parks around the globe.
When designers set to work on an attraction lineup for the new Magic Kingdom park at Walt Disney World, the Haunted Mansion was an obvious choice… but the New Orleans Square it was placed it at Disneyland wasn’t. Designers believed that the songs, sounds, smells, and stories of the French Quarter that had been evocative, exotic, and romantic for Californians would feel a little too familiar for Floridians. Given that the Southern influences of New Orleans were part of Florida’s DNA, too, even an idealized recreation of the South wasn’t “magic” enough for the Magic Kingdom.
Image: Disney
Instead, the rearranged park debuted with Liberty Square, a 1700s colonial port that would feel more like a fantastic journey for Disney World’s visitors. Fittingly, the expanded Haunted Mansion that opened there was placed in a redbrick gothic colonial manor perched on the edge of the Rivers of America.
Just a decade later, designers were putting the finishing touches on the plans for Tokyo Disneyland. Despite their efforts, the Oriental Land Company (who owns, operates, and oversees the Tokyo Disney Resort, simply paying licensing fees to Disney somewhat like a franchisee) was clear: they did not want their Disneyland to be fine-tuned for Tokyo; they did not want a Japanese Fantasyland or a Japanese Tomorrowland… They wanted Magic Kingdom, with its Western influences, Frontierland, and heavy Americana left intact.
Image: Disney / Oriental Land Company
So, Florida’s American colonial manor was recreated in Tokyo, but this time it was placed in the park’s Fantasyland (more closely aligned with the Japanese culture’s association with ghosts) and the manor was given some imposing “fantasy” elements, like griffon statues, shattered windows, a beautiful redbrick caretaker’s gatehouse built into a rockface, and an impressive collection of crypts.
Perhaps unintentionally, the first three Haunted Mansions also set a unique precedent: by appearing in New Orleans Square, Liberty Square, and Fantasyland, the ride never appeared in the same “land” or context twice.
Image: Disney
While slight updates and upgrades to the three Haunted Mansions in California, Florida, and Japan helped each feel at home in its particular part of the world, nothing could compare to the concept’s fresh start in its fourth location…
La résistance
The opening of Tokyo Disneyland had spoiled the Walt Disney Company. The Oriental Land Company had practically balked at any consideration that their Disneyland should be culturally customized… and they were right. The Japanese flock to Tokyo Disneyland, merrily absorbing its American Space Age Tomorrowland, its American frontier Westernland, and its European Fantasyland as if they’d always been a part of Japanese culture, too.
In their next international attempt, Disney would meet… well… la résistance.
By time Disney decided to build their EuroDisneyland in the quaint, rural village Marne-la-Vallée outside of Paris, the French had already primed their pitchforks. With a fervor and fury matching that leveled against the Eiffel Tower a century earlier, critics descended on the planned Parisian resort. Before construction had started, the media had decreed the park a “cultural Chernobyl” and an invasion of American consumerism and imperialism.
A journalist at the center-right French newspaper “Le Figaro” wrote, “I wish with all my heart that the rebels would set fire to [Euro]Disneyland.”
Image: Disney
Disney was criticized (perhaps rightly) for requiring English to be spoken at meetings, and for enforcing the same Cast Member dress code required in the American parks, which the French considered “an attack on individual liberties” (illegal under French law unless it could be demonstrated that the restrictions were requisite to the job and did not exceed what was necessary… Disney countered that the restrictions were necessary in maintaining their brand identity).
EuroDisney felt doomed… Except that Disney had an answer.
Tony Baxter
We’ve spoken at length in our in-depth entries about Tony Baxter. There are a number of reasons. First, Baxter was among the earliest in a “second generation” of Imagineers who had seen Disneyland first as children… a sort of subjective viewpoint Walt and his designers simply couldn’t have.
Image: Disney
Second, Baxter’s career was born of the same story so many Disney Parks fans dream of. Working part time on Disneyland’s Submarine Voyage during college, his design projects were spotted by Imagineers, who hired him on and put him and Claude Coats to work designing Magic Kingdom’s Lost Legend: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Submarine Voyage. The rest is history. We’re talking Big Thunder Mountain, Journey into Imagination and Star Tours, Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones Adventure…
Image: Disney
Baxter had proven himself, and was personally selected to serve as the creative director for the entire Disneyland Paris park. And he knew exactly what to do. Baxter and his team worked to deliberately recast the inherently American Disneyland into a deeply romantic, European, story-centered park.
Take Tomorrowland. The sleek, white, Space Age, NASA-inspired future brought to life in California, Florida, and Japan would be an affront to the French and have little resonance with them culturally. So it was scrapped. Instead, Disneyland Paris has Discoveryland.
Image: Disney
Rather than a sci-fi future, it’s a fantasy one, bringing to life the visions of great European thinkers like Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Leonardo da Vinci… Bubbling lagoons, gold and bronze towers, organic rocks, sails, hot air balloons, forested hillsides, zephyrs, and submarines… By creating a vision of the future rooted in the past, Baxter had created a world that European audiences could appreciate (while simultaneously giving a second lease on life to his most famous never-built Possibilityland: Discovery Bay).
Image: Disney
Perhaps the best example of this new, European shift was the park’s Space Mountain. A sleek, white, Space Age mountain of rockets zipping through the sci-fi cosmos wouldn’t do here, so it was replaced with a Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre à la Lune, a Victorian, literary adventure ride based on a famed novel by Jules Verne and the ensuing 20th century film by Georges Méliès.
And so it would go for each of the park’s lands. Each would be reimagined from the ground up with a new, story-focused origin; a consistent continuity uniting each of the rides, shows, and attractions together into one overarching story. Whereas Disneyland in Anaheim had been built with a protective berm isolating the park from the outside world, every one of Disneyland Paris’ lands would exist within their own berm, isolated from each other. The result is considered by many to be the most beautiful Disneyland-style park on Earth, somehow perfectly balancing the charm and comfort of Disneyland with the size and grandeur of Magic Kingdom.
Image: Disney
And it’s there in this perfect literary park that the Haunted Mansion would appear again, located in a fourth land and a fourth context. Baxter and his team had developed the bravest conceptual shift yet… With a new, bilingual name (Phantom Manor / Fantôme Manoir, simpler than Haunted Manion, or Maison Hantée), the ride was ready for a new story.
On the next page, we’ll step into a Frontierland like you’ve never seen before and set off on a journey deep into the bowels of Phantom Canyon. Read on…
What makes Phantom Manor a candidate for Modern Marvel status? To our thinking, it innovated upon and elevated the Haunted Mansion formula in three key ways: Setting, Sounds, and Story…
1. SETTING – France Goes West
Click and expand for a larger and more detailed view. Image: Disney
When Disneyland opened in 1955, Frontierland was a response to American pop culture and our collective fascination with the West. It was a time when The Lone Ranger and Davy Crockett owned the television screen, and kids spent their days playing Cowboys & Indians and their nights watching Howdy Doody.
Designing another Frontierland based on the dated pop culture icons of 1950s America wouldn’t be of much interest to Europeans, but there is a sort of deep and enduring facsination across Europe with the romance of the American West (which is why all seven of Disneyland Paris’ hotels are themed to regions of the United States, and four of the seven are set west of the Mississippi). For that reason, Frontierland wasn’t a dead concept… just one in need of a French reinvention.
And thanks to Tony Baxter and the land’s executive producer Jeff Burke, it got it.
Forget the idling, sleepy “living history” village you know.
In Paris, Baxter was given the opportunity to build Frontierland from the ground up, highlighting the epic, cinematic, romantic spirit of the West. It had been Baxter’s own Big Thunder Mountain that had revived the otherwise sluggish Frontierlands in California and Florida, but in France, he’d have his first chance to master-plan the land with his runaway mine train from the start. That’s why it was given a prominent position, essentially replacing Tom Sawyer Island in the center of the Rivers of the Far West. But a more epic, picturesque spot for the beautiful Monument Valley mountain range wasn’t the only upgrade.
2. SOUNDS – Grand Grinning Ghosts
To elevate the concept of the Haunted Mansion from its humble origins into the cinematic, romantic realm of Tony Baxter’s Disneyland Paris, music would be key. There’s no denying the connection between Phantom Manor and Gaston Leroux’s 1909 novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra and Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, which make it literary and historic and story-focused in a way the original Haunted Mansion simply wasn’t meant to be, but that also make it inherently musical.
X Atencio and Buddy Baker – lyricist and composer of the original “Grim, Grinning Ghosts” – had created an unforgettable singalong tune that was elevated to the top of the Disney Parks songbook, but the deeper, darker story of Phantom Manor required a deeper, darker sound.
And voila… a new original score viscerally based on “Grim, Grinning Ghosts” was composed and orchestrated by John Debney and remains some of the most gorgeous music in any Disney Park on Earth.
Replacing our “Ghost Host,” the opening, cinematic narration was originally recorded by the legendary Vincent Price (horror actor and voiceover artist extraordinaire, known in no small part for his narration of Michael Jackson’s Thriller) in one of his final roles before his death.
Just before the park opened, though, the decision was made to keep Phantom Manor fully in French, so Disney brought on Gerard Chevalier (who had providing the French dubbing for Price in some of his movies) to rerecord the soliloquy, seemingly dooming Price’s version to be lost to time. (Hold that thought…)
3. STORY – Legends of the West
While Jeff Burke developed the park’s Frontierland setting and John Debney handled the attraction’s uniquely cinematic sounds, it was left to show writer Craig Fleming to concoct a mythology.
Image: Disney
Welcome to the bustling town of Thunder Mesa. Every square foot in this sunset-hued Western outpost is financed, owned, and overseen by the Thunder Mesa Mining Company and its dearly departed founder, Mr. Henry Ravenswood. It was Ravenswood who first arrived here years ago and found the towering geometric spires of Big Thunder Mountain teeming with pockets of gold deposits. Though natives warned that the mighty Thunder Bird roosted deep inside and that disturbing it would unleash its earth-trembling wrath, Ravenswood established a mining operation, drawing westward travelers to establish the town.
Upon striking it rich, he commissioned the construction of his own private estate to be built just outside of town on Boot Hill. The lavish Victorian Second Empire mansion proved the perfect nest of his own for raising his beautiful young daughter Melanie, born in 1842.
Image: Disney
As Melanie grew into a beautiful young woman, a lowly miner working across the river in her father’s mines caught her eye. Mr. Ravenswood was enraged when the young man promised to take his daughter far away, and as the gold inside Thunder Mountain dried up, he forced the mining operation deeper and deeper into the legendary peak. Ravenswood flew into a jealous rage when Melanie and her suitor became engaged, vowing to stop the wedding… until something stopped him.
One pickaxe too far, the sound of rolling thunder emanated from the blazing red mountain, and a great earthquake fractured away part of Thunder Mesa and Ravenswood Manor. The miserly old Mr. Ravenswood and his wife were never heard from again.
Image: Disney
Free from her father’s grasp, Melanie and her love planned to marry… but on their wedding day, her would-be husband was found hanged from the rafters, the victim of a mysterious, shadowed Phantom who – some say – was Mr. Ravenswood’s vengeful spirit returned to the mortal coil.
Cut off from Thunder Mesa, the old Ravenswood Manor fell into a state of rot. Mold and decay overtook the home, the plants surrounding dried out, and an unnatural gray silence overtook the property and the fractured, earthquake-destroyed part of town beyond. Before long, stories of this ‘Phantom Manor’ spread and it’s said that nothing living ever trod there… The deserted half of Thunder Mesa beyond Boot Hill was simply abandoned. Locals say that on quiet, cold nights, you can still hear Melanie’s mournful song twinkle across the misty waters of Thunder Mesa as she waits until Judgment Day for her long-lost love…
With the story set, it’s time to witness the unbelievable beauty, romance, tragedy, and turmoil cursed to continue for all eternity inside Phantom Manor… On the next page, we’ll begin our descent and explore how the Haunted Mansion standards originally looked when it found new life in Paris…
Non Omnis Moriar
Image: David Jafra, Flickr (license)
The old Ravenswood Manor reeks of decay, surrounded in the overgrown, gray, wilted gardens. Even its commanding views of the bustling, bright Thunder Mesa and the gorgeous red rocks of Big Thunder Mountain aren’t enough to revive the long-lost splendor of this forgotten villa. But as we draw nearer and nearer, the true sadness of this Phantom Manor becomes clearer.
A derelict gazebo (still set for tea) signals the unfortunate and unexpected abandonment of the house. From the corner of your eye, you may feel certain you saw a silhouette bearing a candle brush past on the upper floors, and the nearby oxidized plaque hints why: Non Omnis Moriar – literally, “Not everything dies.”
As guests cross the rickety wooden porch and step into a dark paneled foyer, a distant hollow wind carries the sound of chimes, and ethereal orchestral music seems to fade in and out. In the darkness, the inhuman voice of a disembodied Phantom begins… (For our sake, we’ll include Vincent Price’s original English dialogue here.) “Where hinges creak in doorless chambers; where strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls; where candlelights flicker though the air is deathly still… this is Phantom Manor.” The distant vocalizations of a woman vibrate through the halls.
“Welcome, curious friends. You may not believe it… but beauty once lived in this house. And beauty lives here still. Show yourself…” Melanie’s face appears in a mirror. “Lovely, isn’t she? Come… I have more beauty to show you.”
As a door slides away, guests continue into an octagonal chamber encircled by portraits of Melanie’s sweet youth… stepping through a stream, picnicking with her fiance, and picking roses. “Our tour begins here in this gallery, where you gaze upon the sweet innocence of youth… Ah, but things are not always as they seem. Can it be that this room is actually stretching?”
Images: Disney
And indeed, the portraits along the walls appear to elongate as the ceiling grows ever further away. Now, we see that the webbed hand of a creature is reaching from the water; the lovers’ picnic is being invaded by ants, snakes, and spiders; and the roses are destined for a fresh grave…
“And notice this: this chamber has no windows and no doors, which offers you this chilling change: to find a way out. Of course, there’s always my way…” As thunder vibrates the chamber, the ceiling above becomes transparent.
Image: Disney
A body swings overhead, suspended from a noose with the dark, shadowy Phantom himself holding the other end. His mad, maniacal laughter reverberates through the room as the lights flicker out as the bride’s vocalizations crescendo.
A secret door slides away, revealing a new chamber: a hallway lined with portraits that shift and change as the lightning flashes through hall windows. “As you travel past these priceless works of art, perhaps you sense a disquieting metamorphosis. Of course, it’s only a trick of the light. The real beauty of this house awaits us farther on. There’s a party in her honor, and she’ll just die if we’re late.” At the end of the hall, a portrait of Melanie in her bridal gown.
Around the corner, the boarding area comes into view. Like the Haunted Mansion, a continuous, endless stream of empty black Omnimover carriages appears. But rather than the endless, supernatural “limbo” of the Haunted Mansion, we’re at the base of a grand marble staircase flanked by enormous picture windows, a storm raging outside. “And now, curious souls, a carriage approaches to take you to the party and beyond. I leave you now, but I’ll be waiting for you on the other side.”
Unlike the Haunted Mansion, our disembodied voice won’t follow us into the home’s inner chambers. His absence serves to let the story unfold itself while also making the ride less reliant on language. And so, stepping aboard, we’re whisked into the darkness of the manor to relive the endless tormet of Melanie Ravenswood.
Phantom Manor
Image: Disney
Now firmly seated in our carriage, the deep, echoing, haunting score of the home is in full force. The storm outside of the grand staircase gives way to darkness, then to a chamber lit by the distant flicker of a candle. Drawing nearer, we see that the candelabra is being held by Melanie herself – in the flesh? – just feet away. Even though a veil obscures her face, we can see that she’s rosy cheeked and bright eyed, even in the darkness and decay of the manor. Her elaborate vocalizing matches the ebb and flow of the yearning score as she gestures ahead with a bouquet of fresh red roses, inviting us into her story.
Around the corner, a familiar sight comes into view: an endless hallway, stretching hundreds of feet before becoming obscured by hazy darkness. A candelabra appears to float there, hovering and gliding back and forth in the mist… but then, Melanie appears, her hand gripped around its bronze base as if she’s searching through the darkness, looking for something… After a few seconds, she disappears once more, leaving the candle floating alone in the haze.
Image: ravenswood-manor.com
The carriage turns to face the Conservatory, where – beneath a glowing Victorian frosted glass window – a piano appears to play by itself… except for the familiar shadow of the Phantom cast before us in the moonlight.
The carriages proceed backwards through a hallway of doors (featuring the familiar eyed wallpaper made famous by the Haunted Mansion) with pounding, pleading, and knocking heard behind each. From there, we’re whisked into a most foreboding sight… a seance. Indeed, the Omnimovers arrange into a circle, gracefully dancing around the center parlor table where the disembodied head of Madame Leota floats. But here, her message is apt.
“Warlocks and Witches, answer this call! Your presence is wanted at this ghostly ball…
Esprits et fantômes, sur vos fiers destriers, escortez dans la nuit la belle fiancée!
Join now the spirits in nuptial doom! …A ravishing bride… a vanishing groom…”
The music crescendoes as the carriages pull away from the seance and turn into the Parisian version of one of the most spectacular dark ride sights in the Disney portfolio: the familiar Ballroom. We’re at the second story, peering over a wrought-iron balcony at the elaborate wooden ballroom below. Using one of the simplest and yet most effective special effects in dark ride history, ghostly, transparent apparations appear seated around a dusty table (complete with a moldy, decaying wedding cake); ghosts arrive through the wall carrying boxed gifts; the wedding party whirls on the dance floor to the increasingly disharmonious tunes of the pipe organ there.
What sets this ballroom apart is Melanie, positioned on a distant set of steps. She looks across the room, confused… It’s hard to say whether she’s looking for the love who’s seemingly left her at the altar or if she’s simply speechless to relive this day again and again for all eternity. As her mournful cries join the escalating musical score, the sinister, mad laughter of the Phantom rings throughout the hall. He’s here – in corporeal form at last – standing in the shattered window, his eyes glues on her as he relishes her torment.
Image: Disney
Turning the corner away from the ballroom, our familiarity with the Haunted Mansion at last diverges completely. Rather than a dusty attic, cluttered treasures, and a black widow bride, we find ourselves in Melanie’s boudoir as the sound of a tinkling music box syncs up to the ride’s score.
A dying fire crackles its last beneath a glistening portrait of the bride. Like the fire, Melanie is spent… she’s seated at a vanity, hunched over a weeping discordantly to the music… the mirror shows only a skull.
Image: Disney
As the carriage sweeps past, we see that Melanie is wrinkled and worn, still waiting for her lost love. She dabs at her aged face with a tissue, destroyed.
The carriages exit the bedroom through opened double doors onto a wooded terrace, and just outside of Melanie’s window is the skull-faced Phantom. He throws his head back with horrific laughter, his dark eye sockets scanning us as we pass. In his hand, he’s gripping a shovel… and as we glide past him and an undead dog with its muscles exposed, we realize why… he’s been digging a fresh grave.
Image: Disney
The carriages rotate and tilt back as we begin our descent into the still-wet earth, sinking away through the packed soil and tree roots. Forget a graveyard of “happy haunts…” We’re sinking into the earth of Boot Hill itself, past dislodged wooden coffins with bony, decaying hands reaching out. All around us, rotting corpses begin to arise from their resting places, disturbed by our presence. Deep in the earth, the carriages parade past four marble busts as they sing “Grim, Grinning Ghosts” – a rare moment of levity in this operatic attraction. The glowing subterranean caverns at last give way to a light at the end of the tunnel… but it’s not heaven.
Image: Disney
Having descended now into the bowels of hell, the earth gives way something new… All those many years ago when Mr. Ravenswood’s thirst for wealth woke the Thunder Bird, the resulting earthquake was his undoing… and the end of an entire part of Thunder Mesa, fractured off from the rest of the world. And we’ve arrived.
What follows is a trip through the so-called “Phantom Canyon” – a Western town of dark ride gags, funny vignettes, and decay. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that this afterlife is the only truly colorful moment of the ride… the dead, it seems, are better off. At the town’s border, an emaciated figure offers train tickets to the Underworld… Then, we glide past the town’s Mayor, who tips his hat – and his head, still attached. (This Mayor, funny enough, speaks dialogue from the original Haunted Mansion’s Ghost Host, Paul Frees, and was crafted from the same mould that made Dreamfinder on another Tony Baxter ride, Epcot’s Lost Legend: Journey into Imagination).
Onward through town, the glowing, jagged cracks of the earthquake eminate a steaming blue, uplifting the town’s tectonic foundation. A sickly, yellow-hued, glowing, underworld version of Big Thunder Mountain shines in the distance – the cursed root of the town’s demise forever reining beyond. We glide right through the middle of a shootout between decaying robbers and a coward cop, then gaze into a saloon with bartenders, showgirls, and a honky-tonk piano.
Image: Disney
(Insiders say, by the way, that the Phantom Canyon sequence is an extended apology from Tony Baxter to his one-time mentor, Marc Davis. The same man who’d created the playful, singing spooks of Haunted Mansion’s character-filled second half had also created extensive plans for a Magic Kingdom exclusive, Pirates-style E-Ticket through the West. The highlight would’ve been a trip through the town of Dry Gulch, as chronicled in our in-depth entry on the would-be ride, Possibilityland: Western River Expedition.
When Baxter upstaged his own mentor’s plans by proposing the cheaper and more thrilling Big Thunder Mountain, Davis disassociated from Baxter and, reportedly, never quite forgave him… The Phantom Canyon sequence seems to be Baxter’s way of finally giving his one-time mentor the Western River Expedition he never got. Davis, for his part, said very little of Phantom Manor except commenting on its haggard, dilapidated exterior: “Walt would never approve of it.”)
Image: Disney
As the dismal, gray, ashen sky appears at the end of town ahead, a familiar sinister laughter reappears… Ahead, the Phantom has lost any humanity he might’ve had left… he’s a rotting, revolting, decaying corpse, his unhingled cackling eerie enough to cause goosebumps. Why? Having literally been consumed by his hellish, nightmarish underworld, we’ve entered the same cycle Melanie’s known for decades: trapped; forced to relive the heartbreak and suffering of this town forever.
On a hill overhead, the silhouette of Ravenswood Manor appears again, light flooding from its windows. We’re being pulled back into the house… A swirling, rotating, noxious green light makes it seem that we’re twisting and revolving, hypnotizing us and pulling us back…
But there, in the center of the light, is Melanie… Now a corpse with silver hair, rotting flowers, and a tattered dress hanging from her decomposing bones, she nonetheless sings out as she points us away, breaking the beam of light and allowing our carriages to pull out of the descent into madness.
Image: Disney
Her life-saving detour sends us into the Ravenswood’s old wine cellar where the carriages glide past mirrors, showing that – despite her sacrifice – the Phantom is always watching. From behind, he grabs and shakes the carriage, then disappates into a flurry of sparks with an ethereal laugh echoing away.
Now before we move on, take a moment to ride through the real Phantom Manor… or at least, the way the ride appeared for its first 26 years. After that, our story will conclude with some surprising changes that Disney made to the ride very recently.
The only way out now is up. Guests step out of their carriages and venture back up through the wine cellar and out into the Boot Hill Cemetery. Set into the hillside along the steaming, spraying, magnificent geysers of Thunder Mesa, the Cemetery is a genuine corner of quite reflection and contemplation with awe-inspiring views…
And that includes the tombstones of Henry and Martha Ravenswood (“Quarreled and fought as man and wife / Now silent together beyond this life”) and an unmarked black sarcophagus said to be the final resting place of Melanie herself… quiet visitors will note the sound of a pulsing heartbeat buried there…
Image: Disney
After a few moments of solitude, it’s high time for a return stroll past the manor and back to Thunder Mesa… but if you glance up at the window of the mansion above the exit, you may notice mysteriously moving shutters… and the Phantom himself pulling back the curtains to smile down at exiting guests…
And though that might seem like a fitting end for Phantom Manor, the story isn’t quite over. On the last page, we’ll dissect some major changes to the attraction to have materialized over a year-long reimagining… with revisions that some say rewrite the manor’s mythology entirely. Don’t stop now…
A ghoulish reimagining
In 2015, Disneyland Paris formally launched “Project Sparkle,” a mea culpa initiative meant to revisit and reinvigorate a number of the park’s opening day attractions. After all, though Disneyland Paris is celebrated for its ambitious art direction and storytelling, few would accuse the park of being well-maintained or cared for.
It’s not just that the park’s last major addition was the Lost Legend: Space Mountain in 1995 – twenty five years ago. It’s that Disneyland Paris’ standards for refurbishments and upkeep famously fell behind during the resort’s massive financial crisis, and have arguably continued since thanks to focus on the underbuilt Studios park next door.
As part of the much-needed refreshing of the park, Phantom Manor closed its gates in January 2018 for an unprecedented year-long refurbishment. Early on, Disney Imagineers reported that the ride would recieve a number of upgrades and enhancements, infusing the 1992 original with modern Imagineering embellishments. Fans expected tools like projection mapping and advanced Audio-Animatronics to be part of the mix.
Some reported that the “refreshed” Phantom Manor would be ready by Halloween 2018. But the Manor remained dark. Christmas passed, too. In fact, the ride’s planned 11 month haitus extended to sixteen months. When the Ravenswood estate re-opened on May 3, 2019, some significant changes awaited within…
- Immense improvements in lighting and sound were installed throughout the attraction, raising it to modern show standards.
- New special effects include a moment in the home’s entry where the house appears to de-age, its rotten wood and ripped wallpaper returning to its grand, glowing heyday. Projection and lighting effects also gave new life to the portrait gallery, and in a rainstorm beyond the Grand Staircase (where a mourning Melanie now makes her first “in person” appearance).
- Vincent Price’s legendary narration made its showstopping debut. The creaking voice of the horror icon – abandoned before the park’s opening – was restored alongside Chevalier, making the ride’s pre-show bi-lingual as the two voices alternate.
- The Phantom was infused more heavily throughout the attraction. For example, he now looms behind Melanie in the endless hallway, and the final “decaying” figure of him was upgraded and redressed in his tuxedo rather than his “rotting” form. Using an old school stage trick, Melanie’s skull-shaped mirror morphed into a new effect where the Phantom looms behind her in the reflection only.
- The Phantom Canyon scene was entirely refreshed with the return of many long-removed Animatronics as well as fresh lighting, sound, paint, and effects.
But then, a few strange alterations seeped in that seemed to inherently change the story fans had come to know and love…
- In the Manor’s Stretching Room, a simple swap changed everything. The portraits in this gallery used to show Melanie’s oblivious run-ins with near-death experiences and the darkness looming over the house. Now, each of the portraits around the chamber shows a stoic Melanie with a different lover… until she flickers out of each portrait just before each man’s untimely end… Whereas the original pre-show put Melanie in the midst of frightening bad luck as a prologue to the death of her betrothed, this new showcase of mysteriously disappearing lovers implies that she’s the bad luck – or worse – while simultaneously making the “love story” that powers Phantom Manor far less consequential. If she’s had eight prior lovers who’ve all died (perhaps with her involvement), what’s one more?
- In the Portrait Gallery, we get our first overt admission of what fans long suspencted: with each flash of lightning, the portrait of the home’s founder, Henry Ravenswood, flashes to reveal the face of the Phantom beneath – an accepted fan theory proven true.
And finally…
- In place of the “Hitch-Hiking Ghosts” effect that ends the Haunted Mansion or the appearance of the Phantom in the mirror originally, the ride’s new finale features Melanie herself, white-eyed and frightening, as a sinister, child-like voice asks, “Will you marry me?” and laughs eerily.
Wait… what?
If the pre-show merely suggested that Melanie might have a role in the disappearances at Phantom Manor, the finale seems to cement that Melanie herself has been entirely recast as that most tried-and-true of Disney Haunted Mansion characters: a black widow bride…
It’s an odd and seemingly unnecessary “plot twist” that turns the character from a mournful, tragic hero into a vengeful, murderous bride… and only as guests prepared to step off the ride! Otherwise, her appearances in the attraction remain the sorrowful, melancholic, otherworldly figure whose only sounds are operatic, mournful cries along to the score…
As a result, Phantom Manor seemingly tells two stories now: that of a murderous black widow bride whose many suitors have died tragic deaths, and of a Phantom who killed his daughter’s lover on her wedding day. How do the two mesh? And better yet, why didn’t Disney use their thirst for reimagining the ride to make the existing story – the one fans loved – more explicit?
We can’t say what would’ve inspired Disney Imagineers to rethink the inherently unique story of Phantom Manor or to use the last ten seconds of the reimagined attraction to fundamentally change the established (and much loved) story of the estate. But as you might imagine, Disneyland Paris fans who long celebrated the deeply operatic and romantic story have expressed deep dissatisfaction with Melanie being so casually recast, seemingly complicating the story of Phantom Manor rather than simplifying it.
You can take a ride through the “reimagined” Phantom Manor below. Keep an eye out not just for the fresh effects, but for those subtle – but substantial – edits to the tone and mood that many Disney Parks fans resent:
Modern Marvel
“If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.” The idea of Imagineers adapting such a fabled classic as the Haunted Mansion to fit the whims and cultural requirements of a new place must’ve been unthinkable. And even today, some Imagineering fans naturally dislike Phantom Manor, considering it a derivative of the Disneyland original at worst, and an fruitless (if forced) attempt at tying a plot to the ride’s classic scenes at best.
And given some of the peculiar and incoherent 2019 changes that fundamentally confuse the ride’s already-embedded story, they might be right…
But to our thinking, Phantom Manor joins the other Modern Marvels in our growing series today because it’s earned it. The unimaginable ride is simply a brilliant reinvention and expansion upon the Haunted Mansion mythos, telling a familiar tale in a new character and context.
Some fans may imagine that the ride etroactively providing context and continuity for the American and Japanese rides. But that’s the brilliance of Phantom Manor; it’s an “extended universe;” a “spiritual sequel;” an entirely optional way revisit the Haunted Mansion mythos. In that way, it can only add to the appeal of Disney’s classic dark ride.
But now, we want to hear from you. Phantom Manor may be unusual, but it also defies so much of what the Haunted Mansion held dear! What do you think? Would Walt hate the ride’s decrepit and run-down exterior? Is the Haunted Mansion less re-ride-able when it has a more concrete story with a beginning, middle, and end? Did Disney’s strange changes to the bride’s role in 2019 alter the ride beyond recognition?
How would you feel if it were announced that Phantom Manor would “replace” Disneyland or Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion for good? We can’t wait to read your thoughts in the comments below!
