Happy anniversary...

...a day late...to the Disneyland Haunted Mansion.

I've never been to Disneyland. But I have been to the Disneyworld Haunted Mansion in Orlando several times. It's fun.

Jim Denney's new book, Walt's Disneyland, gives some of the background on how this attraction came into being and some of its evolution. According to Jim:

Though the Haunted Mansion was not opened until two and a half years after Walt's death, a haunted house was one of the earliest ideas Walt had for his Park. In 1951, when Walt planned to build Mickey Mouse Park near the Burbank studio [Disney realized that the proposed site was going to be too small], he assigned conceptual artist Harper Goff to prepare drawings of a..."ghost house."

Eventually, the walk-through concept for the attraction was abandoned and it became one of the most successful dark rides, including loading guests in cars that take them through ail the spooky doings in a New Orleans-style mansion that appears to the very definition of respectability on the outside, but is full of ghosts and ghouls and cornball humor on the inside. I enjoy this attraction for its humor as well as for the audioanimatronix.

Happy belated anniversary to the Haunted Mansion.

Thanks to my daughter for linking to this video on Facebook.



[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Today's 11:11, August 2, 2017

My favorite dark ride at Disneyworld in Orlando was always Maelstrom, housed in the Norwegian pavilion at Epcot. But Maelstrom is no more. This was its last run on October 5, 2014.

Of course, videos seem never to do these attractions justice. But Maelstrom was a multi-sensory experience. When the boats were cut loose in the North Sea amid the oil rigs, the air turned chilly and the sea mist was in your nostrils. At the ride's end, you really imagined yourself to be in a Norwegian village.

It's understandable that Maelstrom is no more. The Disney parks have always evolved and changed, sometimes to present fantastic new imagineered attractions, sometimes to piggyback on the latest Disney film. I'm not a nostalgist. I don't pine for the "good old days." But it is fun to look back on what was a terrific achievement. Glad that someone took the video.



[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]