Next on our Halloween Haunted Mansion tour, your doombuggy has gone uphill and entered the corridor. Any interest in this wallpaper? I thought so.
One of the times that I rode the HM, the doombuggies broke down and we had to walk off the attraction. With the lights on. Don’t think I didn’t go crazy taking pictures as quickly as I could. I would never have noticed these amazing details on the doors.
With the lights off, this is a very difficult area to get decent shots of. Still, I try!
If only they put a real cast member in the suit of armor to scare the crap out of today’s guests. That would be golden. In my early days of going to the Park, I used a flash. Shame shame shame.
One of the original Rolly Crump details that survived the final design was this amazing chair:
One of my favorite tableaus is the coffin slowly rising up and down:
The thirteen hour clock; ever noticed the shadow of the hand/claw that swipes across it?
And then…and then…the seance room with Madame Leota.
That face and that voice; you’d have to smoke a few packs a day to capture the original one just right.
Want to read the spell book? Let me know how it works.
See more Disneyland Haunted Mansion photos at my main website.
Always grateful for the pics of details like yesterday's gnashing teeth sconces and today's door detail. Those are the things I look at as I go by and wish I had more than a blurry half second to look at. A lot of work went into those and you almost never get to see them to any degree where you can appreciate them. Poor Rolly, he never got his museum of the weird, but he did get that chair and a few others. His sketch of the man-eating plant made it in as well, via Yale Gracey's creation. I'm sure you must have snapped a few of those while in motion which makes their clarity extra impressive.
ReplyDeleteThis HM series [so far] has been an absolute treat. Such magnificent details and exquisite photography-!
ReplyDeleteBack in 1981 [thru a CM friend] I was able to walk-thru the entire attraction at WDW with the worklights on. There, and at that time, the far end of the 'endless hallway" was home to a couple of A-frame ladders, virtually impossible to see in the typical subdued lighting during normal operation. I remember well those amazing details on the doors, captured so beautifully, here.
Bryan - Where is the man-eating plant? In the Conservatory?
ReplyDeleteNanook - Being able to walk thru the attraction with the lights on really shows you just how important the lighting is for the overall effect of the attraction, doesn't it?
The man eating plant was just a concept sketch of things to be, but that never were. When it came time for Yale Gracey to make the wallpaper, he saw that Crump sketch and saw a monstrous face that inspired him. There's an interview clip out there somewhere of Rolly saying "People come up to me and say thanks for that amazing Haunted Mansion wallpaper. ....and I didn't do it!" At least the chair is in there, and a lot of his sketches and concepts made it through as well. ( Seance room, etc. )
ReplyDeleteI've always thought that the guy in Harry Potter who changes into an armchair was inspired by the Rolly Crump armchair.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there is a book cover painting of a Hitchcock collection of ghost stories showing an armchair with Hitchcock's face formed in the cushions, and it is old enough that it might predate or be coeval with Crumps designs. I will have to hunt for that book, I had it as a kid, and I doubt that I gave it away.
Of all the attractions to get a walk-through, this would be my top choice. I'd love a peek at the Pirates too, but the HM is the gold standard. You guys were lucky.
JG
The internet is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to the cover with the Hitchcock chair.
https://karavansara.live/2019/12/24/the-first-writer-that-really-scared-me-algernon-blackwood/
Internet says this book was published in 1962, so around the same time as the Crump chair. I'm not saying Rolly Crump was influenced by this, it could be the other way, or even more likely, completely independent, especially in the context of having Hitchcock haunt your dreams.
And the blogger is right, I read these at about age 6 and they terrified me. The Valley of the Beasts and The Upper Berth still give me creeps remembering them. I have to find this book in my stuff.
Thanks Dave, for triggering that neuron in my mind.
JG