Great Attractions: The Haunted Mansion

The Haunted Mansion is the complete package from the pre-show to the post-show. It's the real deal. The crème de la crème. It's the pinnacle of the kind of theme park showmanship that WED strove for.

In an era of computer animation The Haunted Mansion takes us back to a time when special effects were accomplished with smoke and mirrors. In one scene ghosts materialize in the mansion's ballroom, taking an old magic trick and executing it on a grand scale. Relatively simple illusions delight and amaze even today, owing to the attraction's incredible longevity. Everybody knows how it's done by now, but no one cares. We not only admire the end result, but the technique that got us there.

This is an experience that begins the moment you enter the mansion's gates. Because of the attraction's monster capacity there is hardly ever a long wait time, negating the need for silly reservation systems that only serve to confound the typical guest's day.

While The Haunted Mansion didn't invent the pre-show, it sure as hell perfected it. In the foyer a short narration sets up the experience to come. Here, guests are not hit on the head with needless plot details or a setup for a derivative adventure. The narration doesn't tell you what you're experiencing, but encourages you to simply absorb all that the show has to offer.

The language itself hearkens back to a time when Americans were thought to have listened to and understood words. One has to wonder if The Haunted Mansion were written today, how juvenile and unimaginative the script would be, as many corporations underestimate their customers.

The exposition is genuinely creepy and foreboding. A hallway leading to the loading area features changing portraits and busts that seem to track your movements, a trick that may cause guests to tell themselves to remember to look up how they did that when they get home.

As guests snake their way through the mansion creepiness turns to silliness. The ghosts display no malice toward their guests or each other (well, most of them anyway). As ghosts attempt to communicate with the living we sometimes mistake their intentions as violent. Ghosts are not haunting, they are celebrating with song and dance.

Walt Disney did not live to see what were probably the two most signature attractions during this era in Disneyland history, the Haunted Mansion and the Pirates of the Caribbean. As the woefully synergistic character and movie tie-in rides, projection screens and 3D glasses invade the parks, he and his proteges have not been outdone, not by any stretch of the imagination.

This type of attraction has been forgotten by the powers that be. No longer is Disneyland thought of as a stage to launch original content. It's a clearinghouse for every Woody, Buzz and Nemo and their overhyped technology.

The Haunted Mansion has seen changes as recently as 2006. Here the Walt Disney Co. showed remarkable restraint and taste. Upgrades were commissioned for the aging attraction that respected the show's original vision. This is the right way to do a refurbishment.

The attic's admittedly corny pop-up ghosts and mannequin bride have been replaced with more details of a black widow's ghastly deeds. Other changes such as audio improvements and a floating Leota ball have also been installed at Disneyland as well as The Magic Kingdom.

The Haunted Mansion has been cloned at Tokyo Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom with subtle differences and a different exterior. The most recent version, in Disneyland Paris, is the right way to clone an attraction. This time the bride is the main focus of the experience. These types of clones allow Imagineering to experiment with new interpretations of old favorites without desecrating the originals, as opposed to McPark style exact clones that turn Disney theme parks into soulless commodities, not works of art.

The Haunted Mansion Holiday has seen mixed reviews from purists. I like it. It's not only temporary, but detailed and extravagant. Those who don't like it need only to wait for February to come. Now if only Jack Sparrow's inclusion in Pirates was temporary...

On the Haunted Mansion we are not told what to experience, only encouraged to experience. We are free to develop our own interpretations about what it all means. Who was the mansion's owner? Who is the "ghost host"? Who is the guy who hung himself in the attic? What made the bride go crazy? Some answers are out there for those who need an absolute, or you can make up your own, as others have over the years.

As we wonder about these things, we try to pretend that the Eddie Murphy version doesn't exist.