The STRANGE Origins of The Haunted Mansion...

i'll come right over here and i'll show you where you're going to meet the ghosts this is a little scale model now that of the disneyland area you've seen this many times but we haven't got the ghosts in there yet but we're out collecting the goats we're going to bring ghosts from all over the world and we're making it very attractive to them hoping you know they'll want to come and stay at disneyland so we're putting in wall-to-wall cobwebs and we guarantee them creaking doors and creaking floors and mark davis is the master in charge of our house of illusions or uh what do we call it uh a haunted mansion haunted mansion and uh and the supernatural welcome foolish mortons to the haunted mansion [Music] this is roland crompu for the how do you do project here is sort of acting as the interior decorator of a uh a house of illusion what do we call a museum of the where museum of the weir [Music] our tour begins here [Music] welcome to the 1960s an era where disney is at their peak walt disney imagineering then known as wed enterprises is hard at work on their two latest and greatest attractions at disneyland pirates of the caribbean and of course the haunted mansion up until that point there had been a lot of different pitches for what story would take place within this haunted mansion ranging from a murderous pirate to an old family house that was moved from new orleans in louisiana to disneyland haunted by that same family that died in the house all those years ago in the end it was decided that the haunted mansion would be a retirement home for different ghosts from all over the world not just new orleans and there wouldn't be a definitive story being told instead it would be more of a house tour led by a host a ghost host and although there wouldn't be a main character for the story within the house the imagineers at wed did their research on different types of ghosts from all over the world they were planning on showcasing the newest versions of audio animatronics that first debuted at the world's fair in 1954. this time instead of a singular abe lincoln standing on stage or a bunch of robotic tiki birds above you leagues of pirates and droves of ghosts would surround you at all angles immersing you further in the intricate set pieces that they placed throughout the attractions and with so many different set pieces details and animatronics came with it a ton of different kinds of ghosts and my aim today is to explain to all of you the folklore urban legends and myths behind some of the haunted mansion's most famous ghosts and by some of i mean all not all of them individually just the kinds of ghosts that we find in the haunted mansion every single one and so our journey begins before we even enter the show building at both disneyland and walt disney world with the horseless carriage the story of the horseless carriage begins in 1995 when a malibu collector named dale rickards sold it to disney and they added it right in front of the haunted mansion off to the side of the front door according to legend it was originally supposed to be used in an indiana jones stunt show that never ended up being built disney instead electing for an e-ticket attraction based on the franchise which i think was a good call by the way disney now with an extra hearse on hand had to decide where to put it and there was only really one acceptable answer the hearse was of course moved in front of the mansion in new orleans square but was still missing some spooky touches imagineer tony baxter was inspired by a gimmick toy which was made to look like a leash walking an invisible dog the hearse was attached to a floating girdle which made it look like a phantom horse was wearing it and eating from the plant right next to him and every now and then you may hear the horse winning if you're lucky now like i said this horse is what we would call a phantom a ghost is an overarching term but a phantom is something that is apparently seen heard or sensed but having no physical reality and when we look at the hearse yes we can sort of hear and sense the horse but it's not really there you can only see the girdle that's wrapped around it and so the first spirit we see before we even enter the manor is a phantom of a horse still a phantom though there also is a popular myth surrounding this hearse that it was used to carry the body of mormon prophet brigham young for his funeral and that's not true turns out it was just a bunch of guys carrying him on a platform this has no connection to the mormons and now we move even closer to the mansion not quite inside yet because there's one more spirit we've yet to meet madame leota is one of the most recognizable ghosts in the mansion that's undisputed her seance room serves not only as a transition between the corridor of doors and the ballroom but also as a showcase of imagineering talent and an homage to the voodoo culture of new orleans but we're not inside the house yet just outside the entrance of the orlando mansion you'll find the tombstone of dear sweet leota and if you stick around you'll notice that sometimes she moves her head and sometimes she will open her eyes and look around this is an example of a possessed object usually seen in movies as dolls here leota spirit has chosen to inhabit her tombstone before we rejoin her later on in the seance room heading even further inside the mansion we find yet another possessed or maybe enchanted object the portrait of master gracie hanging above the fireplace or as he was originally intended to be known as just the aging man he wasn't master gracie but it is here in my opinion where the pre-show ends and we enter the actual attraction itself the stretching room at disneyland the stretching room itself is just a way of getting guests underground so they can move underneath the train tracks into the actual show building for the haunted mansion whereas in walt disney world i can only assume the purpose of the stretching room is for crowd control limiting the flow of guests into waves as they enter the loading zone now the paintings do represent different guests in the haunted mansion but that's not to say that these portraits are possessed i don't think they are but there are possessed gargoyle statues in the room either that or these are actual living creatures sort of like monsters just inhabiting the room standing still as stones so you think they're gargoyles this is evident by the fact that you can hear them talk to each other and to you in the walt disney world mansion as soon as the stretching room scene ends if you wait a few seconds after the doors open to the loading zone and everyone's sort of shuffled out you may catch them taunting you are these statues alive or are they inhabited by spirits of some prank as children is what it sounded like to me who knows i think it's up for us to decide there are no more ghosts present in the stretching room besides the one of the ghost hosts leading us throughout the whole mansion the ghost host himself is what is known as a disembodied voice a voice that you can hear coming from somewhere not quite sure of the source though other haunted items you see before boarding your doom buggy include the changing portraits the marble busts it's a cat statue newly added to disneyland and maybe the doom buggies themselves we're not quite sure what these are in universe if they're an omnimover system running through a very old haunted house or some sort of weird carriage like the ghost host says from here we transition into the ride itself at disney world you enter the changing portrait hallway that we've already passed through at disneyland but at disneyland we find ourselves face to face with the endless hallway and halfway down floating around the hallway is a candelabra now this candelabra could be one of two things one a phantom holding a candelabra standing in the hallway we don't see the phantom itself but instead the physical item that it's holding the candelabra or it's a levitating magical candlestick whether it's being levitated by psychic powers or somehow on its own that's not for us to know i'm honestly in the camp that this is a phantom holding the candelabra because in phantom manor we can see melanie raven's wood holding one in the endless hallway scene so that lends credence to the theory that there could be someone we cannot see standing in that hallway trying to light his path i guess after the endless hallway we passed through the conservatory scene with a totally normal not evil raven perched upon a wreath and of course a resident of the mansion trying to break free from his coffin and join you in the tour now if you look at him you can tell that he's not a transparent sort of see-through apparition like we see later on in the mansion nor is he a disembodied voice or phantom invisible force trying to push open the coffin this is a flesh and i mean probably not a whole lot of blood left reanimated corpse trying to budge open the lid reanimated corpse what does that remind you of that's right this is the haunted mansion's one and only zombie actually there's technically two zombies but we're going to talk about him later on he's toward the end of the ride zombies come from haitian and african folklore as a sort of mind control over someone or a corpse where the zombie has to do the bidding of whoever brought them back and if you think just a little tiny bit about it you can really see the parallels between the origins of zombies in haiti and slavery or maybe if zombies aren't quite to your liking because this guy isn't really doing the bidding of anybody he could be classified as a revenant which is just simply a reanimated corpse here to haunt the living but over the years the definition of zombie has changed tremendously from a haitian mind controlled creature to more of a generic term for reanimated corpses whatever type of spooky monster this guy identifies as i think we can only hope that that lid stays on tight and that he doesn't get out because you know you think the hot florida summers make you stinky just wait until you have a guy who's been dead for 10 years sitting next to you on the ride he seems pretty chill though i've taken a picture with him once it is after the conservatory where we move into the corridor of doors and after the changing portrait hallway in walt disney world where we move into the library both of which contain the same type of ghost here we can see a ladder trembling in books being pulled off of the shelves in the library and in the corridor of doors doors knocking on themselves and trying to open these are both textbook examples of poltergeist activity a poltergeist german for noisy ghost which is very fitting is a type of ghost that is responsible for physical disturbances such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed we see more poltergeist activity later on in madame leota's seance room with the spirits knocking on tables and playing instruments but that's a little bit ahead of where we are now in while disney world we pass through the piano room where we see yet another phantom reflected on the floor playing the piano and then in the endless staircase scene we see even more phantoms climbing up various staircases that lead to nowhere very reminiscent of the winchester mystery house the footprints climbing the stairs are also a reference to phantom footsteps that you may hear when you're home alone late at night sounds like there's someone walking around downstairs but you know for a fact that you're home alone so you go downstairs to see if someone maybe had broken in or an animal had gotten in somehow only to find every door and window locked nothing out of place and a singular footstep on your carpet moving forward this isn't really a ghost but it is a nice reference to folklore that i would like to acknowledge and that's the chiming clock right before the seance scene the clock which made its way into the mansion after being designed by rowley crump for the museum of the weird is made to look like an otherworldly creature or demon with a face and fangs on top and a devil's tail as its pendulum which is of course a reference to the edgar allen poe short story the pit and the pendulum where a man is captured by the spanish inquisition and strapped down to a table while a razor-sharp pendulum attached to a massive clock is slowly lowered down in order to slice it in half the overwhelming ticking you can hear in the room could also be a reference to the tell-tale heart yet another short story by edgar allan poe and now that finally brings us into the seance room 12 minutes into the video i think we're about halfway done here everybody during her life the woman that would become known as the spirit madame liotta was most likely a street magician in new orleans eventually coming across a house in new orleans square and becoming the estate's resident medium who used her spells to materialize the house's 999 happy haunts after her death her spirit would take up residence within her crystal ball and would continue to summon spirits all throughout the mansion and as i mentioned before she summons various poltergeists to bang on tables play instruments and sometimes just go and of course sitting behind leota on what i can assume to be her own chair is a completely normal not evil not possessed just a completely regular raven just sitting there enjoying the seance and as it goes leota's attempts to materialize the spirits pay off and in the next scene the ballroom featuring the most audio animatronics in one room in the entire ride we come face to face with a bunch of different kinds of ghosts all appearing as apparitions apparition being defined as a ghost or ghost-like image of a person now we can see the ghosts fully formed right in front of us instead of just being told they were there minus the zombie and leota of course most of the ghosts we see here in the ballroom scene are of people but we do see a couple of wraiths flying through the windows up above a wraith being a vision of someone shortly before their death or a cloaked spirit which these ones are and you cannot forget the disembodied heads flying out of the organ like music notes or steam which sort of remind me of the penangle from malaysian mythology i apologize for butchering the pronunciation but these kinds of ghosts from malaysian mythology are disembodied heads with their organs trailing behind them and they usually flicker in and out of existence similar to the heads coming out of the organ and if you look at a behind the scenes photo of the heads you may see some trails behind them are these supposed to represent their guts maybe probably who knows but those are the kinds of ghosts you can find in the ballroom but before we leave i want to shout out some celebrities you can also find engaging in the party up above on the chandelier you have cleopatra and marc anthony enjoying their drinks and down below them sitting at the dining room table is actually julius caesar the man in the toga i've seen some people over the decades since the musical got really popular referring to the dueling men as alexander hamilton and aaron burr but considering the time periods a little off based on their dressing i'm gonna say this isn't hamilton and burr but i'll leave the final decision up to you also it just occurred to me that the wisps flying out of the organ could be banshees singing the actual tune that you hear and there's one last notable celebrity i wanted to acknowledge before we moved on to the attic scene and that's in the crashed hearst scene right in the beginning of the ballroom you see a sea captain entering a little late to the party now who this sea captain is i'm gonna leave that up to you but there are three main possibilities that i've narrowed it down to one of them rhymes with fien legit [Music] this place makes me feel creepy all over the attic of the mansion is the place with the most myths and legends abounding yes there used to be cobwebs that would brush your face as you rode by bats in the attic like this woman said before the ever-changing beating heart or black widow bride and of course the vanishing hatbox ghost but he reappeared again so don't worry in disneyland's mansion we find another phantom here playing the piano just like at walt disney world but then we get to the cool part constance hatchway now there is a lot of lore and legends surrounding the black widow bride and ghost brides in general constance hatch away and the beating heart bride's physical appearance was based on the brown lady of raynham hall who was allegedly the spirit of lady dorothy walpole who was married to charles townshend to the second earl of townshend before he obviously ended up killing her but this time in pop culture she got it the other way around the concept of ghost brides themselves dating back to old british folklore of loves lost and weddings cancelled and brides dying on their wedding night going on to haunt their husbands families or houses constance herself has a backstory that i have sort of pieced together from various different pieces of lore that disney has given us but that's too much to get into right now i'll link it in the description down below and there should be a little card right up there in the corner linking you to the history of constance hatch away who is she where did she come from what's her story how did she die moving on from the original disney parks character who has the highest kill count of all of them we come face to face with the hatbox ghost my second favorite ghost in the mansion constance is number three you guys all know number one i'll briefly go over the real life history of the hatbox ghost before we get into the mythology of him while the haunted mansion was under construction you could see yale gracie in some publicity stills posing with an animatronic holding a hat box and a cane who looks very much like the hatbox ghost although a little bigger and a little different than the one we got on opening day of disneyland although he was a bit bigger and a bit different looking than the one we got on the opening day of the mansion the effect of his head disappearing from his shoulders and reappearing in the hat box worked really well in the studio but when brought into the actual attraction in front of guests it didn't work quite right and you could see both heads at the same time and so only a couple weeks after the mansion opened he was removed and relegated to the realm of myth and legend up until d23 in 2013 and in 2014 when the haunted mansion holiday overlay went away there was a strange sort of facade up where the hatbox ghost would end up making his reappearance in april of 2015 and now you're about caught up the hatbox ghost was described as a cloaked figure with an evil grinning face and the story and song from the haunted mansion which is the most canon story that we have and his appearance and demeanor seem to follow that of your classic ghost drifter someone moving from town to town having committed crimes in their previous one trying to avoid the law living on the run and on the streets he also has a very visible obsession with hats which makes him somewhat of a hatter someone who would travel from town to town selling candies no hats is the hatbox ghost one of constance's husbands who ended up losing his head i mean it would make sense with him being next to the decapitating bride and him losing his head all the time but i don't think that's the case i think it's sort of a happy accident and the hatbox ghost is just sort of a drifter who made his way into new orleans or new england and made his home in the mansion and now our doom buggies begin to descend and now we enter the last stretch of our journey the graveyard scene where we see our two only living animatronics besides that totally normal crow the groundskeeper and his dog okay alright you can count the owls and the cats never mind just like the ballroom a vast majority of the ghosts we find in the graveyard are apparitions physical intangible manifestations of someone's spirit i know it's a lot of big words i'm proud of myself too although we do see what's called a hellhound in the background howling at the moon hellhounds are a popular figure in european folklore where if you see one you're going to die not by the hellhound it's just in general it's a common omen of death that can probably trace its roots all the way back to cerberus and greek mythology although i'm not dead yet and i've been on the haunted mansion a lot so this hellhound has some explaining to do the singing busts who seem grim grinning ghosts are good examples of either possessed objects or the spirits of the people who were buried underneath them inhabiting their statues in the following scene we see the reappearance of the wraiths this time they're riding bikes in a circle in the background good for that i hope they have a good time we then pass by the greatest ghost in the mansion the mummy i don't even have to explain why he's the best he just is mummies were treasured back during the 19th and 1800s because of their alleged connection to egyptian mysticism people believed mummies had mystical powers and were therefore connected with the supernatural and in line with the making of the haunted mansion in the 1950s mummies were considered horror movie monsters which fit in with what the haunted mansion was going for and so the mummy sits mumbling in the graveyard to this very day yet another joke that has been lost to time another joke that i will link above and put a card right there so you can click on it best character in the haunted mansion after passing by yet another wraith this time looking like a bit of a blowing sheet underneath a fan next to the black knight the executioner the fat lady singing and the opera singer we also see our second zombie bricking himself into his tomb a reference to you guessed it another edgar allan poe short story by the name of the cask of amontillado where a man named montresor seals his friend in the venetian catacombs as revenge for an insult aimed at him this time though the zombie is sealing himself up probably because the party outside is too loud and this guy just wants to get some sleep it is after this we pass by our friend the crow look at him he's so cute and come face to face with the hitchhiking ghosts from left to right named phineas ezra and gus if you're not extremely careful these ghosts will follow you home and even if you are careful they're gonna follow you home anyway it happens at the end of every ride i have yet to see one in my own house though these hitchhiking ghosts are references to hitchhiking ghosts i know let me explain hitchhiking ghosts were a popular urban legend back in the mid 1900s where folks traveling across the country would often encounter hitchhikers but sometimes these hitchhikers may be a bit more dead than you would suspect over the course of the car ride the hitchhiker would either give you an address or something special to remember them buy or leave behind a piece of clothing before suddenly vanishing from the vehicle and when you eventually arrive at your destination you may come across a graveyard and in that graveyard you may find a piece of clothing or that calling card draped over a tombstone the name on which matches the person who was in your car earlier that trip also of note the idea of a spirit following you home from a haunted place isn't original to the haunted mansion there are stories of this from all over where after visiting a haunted or cursed place a person would report the spirit following them home and haunting them in their own house where strange phenomena never happened before both of these stories apply to our three favorite boys at the end of the haunted mansion and that's the origin of the hitchhiking ghosts and depending on what side of the united states you're on you either disembark your doom buggies and head up the exit ramp or head into the mausoleum either way little iota is there to send you off she gets her name from the very same person who provided the facial capture for madame liotta leota toombs but there are a lot of misconceptions about this ghost no she's not far away and no she is not a bride she actually is not wearing a wedding dress but instead a billowing cloak which can be seen in official merchandise provided for the character and also this varies depending on what you look at she's not carrying a bundle of flowers but instead a bundle of dried herbs now what would carry around a bundle of dried herbs and dress in a cloak if not just a lost woman wandering through a medieval forest leota isn't far away she is in fact just tiny she's she's just a little ghost and little ghosts do exist or should i say little spirits now when you hear the word fairy you may think of tinkerbell from peter pan or maybe navi from the legend of zelda but fairies have undergone a very large transformation in the popular zeitgeist over the years tracing their lineage all the way back to wisps from celtic folklore these ancient fairies would appear not as tiny people with wings but instead tiny ghosts without wings usually holding herbs and in cloaks what is she doing with them i don't know maybe delivering them to colonel sanders either way she is not a small ghost she is in fact a wisp or a fairy now that brings us to the actual end of the attraction and you may think this is the last ghost but we in fact have one more to go and it is yet another phantom next time you're headed out of the crypt at disneyland keep an ear out and you may hear grim laughter behind you as you exit as it turns out little leota is not the last one to bid us goodbye but instead this invisible laughing guy i don't know what he finds so funny maybe it's the fact that he's watching us go maybe he's happy we're leaving either way he's kind of weird and kinda creepy and there you have it everybody that is the history of every single ghost well it kind of in the haunted mansion okay i didn't cover every single ghost but a video uncovering all of the ghosts would be super super long and i don't have the time for that but i do have the time to make a part two all right foolish mortals don't pull down on the safety bar i will lower it for you get back in your dune buggies we are going back around counting every single ghost in the haunted mansion their backstory and everything i'll see you right here on the offhand disney channel next week for every single ghost no exceptions explained full backstory in the haunted mansion i'm not joking this is coming next week prepare yourselves oh hello everybody that was a very very fun video to make also a very tough video to make because if you were unaware halfway through me editing well i shouldn't say halfway i should say near the very end of me editing about two minutes left of the video to edit my editing software crashed and i had to recover the whole project uh just manually i figured out a way to recover all the audio files but all the image editing and everything was lost so i've cobbled that back together into the video that you see now so please leave a like on this video thank you so much for watching i hope you enjoyed it please follow me on twitter instagram and tick tock at offhand disney i post on all three of those semi-regularly and also a massive thank you to my patreon supporters over at patreon.com even just one dollar gets you access to most of the perks if you're interested in seeing what that is head over there and check it out make sure to hit the subscribe button ring the bell to get notified when i post and tell me guys tell me what your favorite kind of ghost is in the haunted mansion who's your favorite ghost mine's the mummy obviously because he is the coolest objectively but what's your favorite thank you all again so much for watching and i look forward to seeing you all in part two next week goodbye you

Channel: Offhand Disney

Views: 95,867

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Id: LQKo9JTNSbs

Length: 25min 48sec (1548 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 13 2021