Disneyland's Haunted Mansion celebrated it's 50th anniversary earlier this month. In honor of fifty years of spooky fun, we've put together a list of fun details, history, and trivia! Enjoy, and be sure to let us know you're favorite piece of Haunted Mansion trivia. We love to learn new Disney facts!
Walt Wanted the Mansion Scary on the Inside, but Not the Outside
Original designs for the exterior of the Haunted Mansion had shattered windows, broken shutters, and even bats flying around. However, Walt Disney didn't like the idea of something so shabby being visible as you walk through the park so plans were changed so that it would look like a normal house on the outside, but be completely haunted on the inside.
There was a Five Hour Wait Time On Opening Day
You think wait times are bad now? It's reported that on it's opening day, the line for the Haunted Mansion was up to five hours long and stretched back to Fantasyland! (Which btw makes the time I waited 3-4 hours for Indiana Jones and the line curved out of Adventureland, down Main Street, and wrapped into Frontierland seem much less impressive.)
There's a Very Practical Reason for the Stretching Portrait Room
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Photo Credit: Mansionology |
The reason for all of this up and down is that the tracks to the Disneyland Railroad are literally in the way of a smooth ride. There's not much in the actual "Mansion" itself. Most of the attraction is in a rather large building backstage. But because the train runs directly behind the mansion, the workaround for imagineers was to have you go down an elevator (the stretching room), walk under the tracks (the hallway with the haunted portraits), go back up into the building that holds the main part of the attraction (going uphill into the Endless Hallway), go back down at the end to cross back under the train tracks (going down from the bride's room into the graveyard), then come back up to exit the ride (the escalator as you pass the "Hurry Back" ghost). That's a lot of work!!!
Extra Fun Fact!! This is why if you visit the Haunted Mansion in Walt Disney World, the ceiling lifts in the stretching portrait room. There's no need for you to go down!
One of the Glass Panels in the Ballroom Scene has been Broken for Decades
If you've ever looked REALLY carefully during the ballroom scene, you may have noticed a spider sitting on a web. It's all the way on the left side before you leave the room, and it's at about eye level - so you won't notice it if you're looking down at the ghostly dancers. The spider is actually there to cover a crack in the glass! The piece of glass is so enormous that they'd actually have to lift it out through the roof so they've never fixed it. Rumor has it a kid with a BB gun shot at it, but there's no concrete info on what actually broke the window in the first place.
The Hatbox Ghost Returned Because They Could Finally Get it Right
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Photo Credit: The Disney Blog |
Hidden Mickey of Dishes
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Photo Credit: Inside the Magic |
Hidden Belle in the Bride Room
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Photo Credit Unknown...but it's a great shot!! |
Madame Leota is Actually an Imagineer
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Leota Toombs working on Pirates of the Caribbean (Photo Credit: D23) |
Madame Leota in the Holiday Overlay is her Daughter
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Photo Credit: Chip and Co |
The Haunted Mansion is based off of a Real House
The exterior of the Haunted Mansion is based off the Shipley-Lydecker house in Baltimore, Maryland. Unfortunately the house is no longer standing, but you can see how it's practically identical to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion.