News Hatbox Ghost coming to Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion

[Tony the Tigger]

No, I very much doubt they're going to make further changes to the ride based on the movie

No one asserted that.

 

[VicariousCorpse]

Kim was head of a Disneyland specific team. She wouldn’t have been all that involved in anything with the Magic Kingdom.

The Executive Creative Director of Walt Disney Imagineering had nothing to do with future Magic Kingdom changes? The changes that will most likely be direct copies of the very work done by her team?

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

The Executive Creative Director of Walt Disney Imagineering

I think she was “a” Executive Creative Director, not “the”

 

[VicariousCorpse]

I think she was “a” Executive Creative Director, not “the”

Good point, very important distinction.

 

[HMF]

especially considering this was done in a short timeframe with minimal downtime.

There's your reason.

 

[HMF]

Getting the new bride would still also be a positive development as she is still infinitely better looking than Constance.

Florida's version of Constance has always looked superior to California's. Maybe because they never had to un-install it and re-install it for HMH. Also regarding scary, Wasn't the reason Connie was replaced because the implication of decapitation was too violent for modern sensibilities? Lets just say it is a miracle that the Ghost Host is still hanging. Again, I buy the structural excuse as much as I buy the sinkhole under Horizons. We all know the real reason $$$$$$.

 

[HMF]

Pirates was so much better without the movie tying into it

The interesting thing about Pirates is having the hyper-realistic animatronic of Johnny Depp's likeness does kind of blur the line between fantasy and reality that Pirates is literally built on.

 

[HMF]

I think she was “a” Executive Creative Director, not “the”

Indeed, She was in the WDI team at Disneyland since the 1980s until her recent retirement

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Florida's version of Constance has always looked superior to California's. Maybe because they never had to un-install it and re-install it for HMH.

I'm judging Florida's Constance when I say it's terrible. I've never seen CA's Constance in person to know how bad it is.

Also regarding scary, Wasn't the reason Connie was replaced because the implication of decapitation was too violent for modern sensibilities?

Probably, but Constance's characterization doesn't create fear anyway. She is far too corny and poorly done to take her seriously, there's nothing scary about her. The new bride by comparison isn't scary either, but she at least has a more depressing somber aura about her that fits slightly better with what came before Constance. She doesn't embarrass me and take me out of the experience in a negative way like Constance did.

Funny thing is that Constance is actually the ONLY bride in the ride's history that was explicitly portrayed as an evil killer. All previous brides before her were left ambiguous, you didn't know if they were good or evil. And despite this, many of them were unquestionably scary. The less you saw and heard of her, the more terrifying she was. She didn't need stupid dialog, she didn't need a weapon, just a candle and silence other than the glowing beating heart. The most terrifying were the ones with a completely dark void for a face and glowing eyes.

The original Haunted Mansion was smart about how it presented the themes of death as something morbidly scary, but without being overtly "violent" about it. It did so with subtlety and fear of the unknown. Even the hangman scene wasn't threatening so much as morbid and unsettling. It stimulates the fear of death rather than the fear of violence. Constance does the opposite, over the top unambiguously violence.

Lets just say it is a miracle that the Ghost Host is still hanging. Again, I buy the structural excuse as much as I buy the sinkhole under Horizons. We all know the real reason $$$$$$.

Unfortunately i'll be surprised if the hangman lasts another 5 years, think it'll be gone within a decade. From Kim Irving's comments on the matter, it sounds like they had plans to replace it last refurb. But there were "complications" involved that stopped them. My guess is that they ran out of money. Kind of surprised they didn't just remove it outright with no replacement though given the situation. Funny thing is even in CA, I think removing it will incite some significant backlash.

 

[BagOfGroceries]

I still want to know the details about what was supposedly different about Florida's ride that was preventing them from just replicating the same exact scene from Disneyland. The story was that there were structural challenges that made it very cost prohibitive to expand the balcony and install the figure.

Infrastructure. It’s weird how that was stated so many times but people keep repeated “structural” instead.

I just want to know what the problem allegedly was

My personal educated guess: blocks a fire escape.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Pirates was so much better without the movie tying into it

The interesting thing about Pirates is having the hyper-realistic animatronic of Johnny Depp's likeness does kind of blur the line between fantasy and reality that Pirates is literally built on.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

I'd love it if the Parkeology guys to be on this forum. They're very insightful and hilarious at the same time.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

My personal educated guess: blocks a fire escape.

You or someone else can correct me if i'm way off about this regarding how buildings work, but is that even a likely location for a fire escape? It's close to the center of the show building. Here's a layout of WDW's HM, and i've circled the place where Hattie would have gone in blue-

The DL variant has a different queue, load/unload and is missing a couple of scenes at the beginning (these are basically in the queue instead of the ride). But everything from the Endless Hallway up through the Hitchhiking Ghosts seem to be pretty much exact copies between both versions. Including the size and shape of the building and its various backrooms.

That isn't to say backrooms don't serve different purposes between the two versions of course. Storage, mechanical, electrical or other important stuff might be different. Some things may have been built to different codes for Florida too. The shingled roof you see as you exit the attic is presumably part of a backstage area, it's present at both resorts but may not share the exact same function at both. When they implemented Hattie at DL, they had to alter this roof somewhat and move it back a bit to build his little balcony. So if that roof is part of a space that serves a different function at WDW than DL, perhaps that presented a challenge.

This is however assuming that the people at Disney who were sharing info about said issues to people who relayed those assertions here were being honest in the first place. Which I can say from personal experience is not always the case.

 

[HMF]

I'm judging Florida's Constance when I say it's terrible. I've never seen CA's Constance in person to know how bad it is.


Probably, but Constance's characterization doesn't create fear anyway. She is far too corny and poorly done to take her seriously, there's nothing scary about her. The new bride by comparison isn't scary either, but she at least has a more depressing somber aura about her that fits slightly better with what came before Constance. She doesn't embarrass me and take me out of the experience in a negative way like Constance did.

Funny thing is that Constance is actually the ONLY bride in the ride's history that was explicitly portrayed as an evil killer. All previous brides before her were left ambiguous, you didn't know if they were good or evil. And despite this, many of them were unquestionably scary. The less you saw and heard of her, the more terrifying she was. She didn't need stupid dialog, she didn't need a weapon, just a candle and silence other than the glowing beating heart. The most terrifying were the ones with a completely dark void for a face and glowing eyes.

The original Haunted Mansion was smart about how it presented the themes of death as something morbidly scary, but without being overtly "violent" about it. It did so with subtlety and fear of the unknown. Even the hangman scene wasn't threatening so much as morbid and unsettling. It stimulates the fear of death rather than the fear of violence. Constance does the opposite, over the top unambiguously violence.

Actually if you look at the original version of the scene. it is strongly implied that the Bride be-headed the Hatbox Ghost.

The History of the "Heart" of Disney's Haunted Mansion

The Haunted Mansion's Attic Scene's evolution through the years.

vocal.media

Also Kim Irvine failed to actually change the story successfully seeing as how the George and Constance portrait is still there which explicitly says that Constance and the widow in the stretching room are the same person and if you believe the stretching room portrait it is still implied she axed him. The scene literally makes no sense now because of the left-over infrastructure from the last version of the Attic. It is never explained why the husbands disappear and why there are five of them. contrasting with the 06-2023 Attic scene ant Disneyland and still the current scene at Magic Kingdom where the scene explains itself perfectly.

 

[HMF]

Exactly, The thing is to enjoy Pirates you kind of have to turn your brain off and not over-analyze things and this speaks to why the Auction and chase scene were changed. If you actually think about what is happening in the attraction. It's terrifying. They are literally depicting acts like torture, arson etc. They never actually tell you if the villagers got out before the Pirates burn the town. I actually do think about this when on the ride particularly the Disneyland version. the thing about the Jack AA's is their realism really does look more like a real person than the other more caricatured pirates and townspeople blurring the line between realism and fantasy. Also, These days with the advent of the internet which allows you to obsess over the details never mind the tendency of people today to over-analyze everything for better or worse I actually think you could not actually build Pirates of The Caribbean today because people would read into the scenes and believe Disney was endorsing the pirates behavior. Even if Iger's IP mandate wasn't in place, it would still be hard to justify if it were created today. The only reason it probably still exists is because it has been around for so long and the changes that have been made don't hurt the attraction enough for most people to notice.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Actually if you look at the original version of the scene. it is strongly implied that the Bride be-headed the Hatbox Ghost.

I can only go by descriptions of the scene, given that I doubt any of us saw it. But i'm not sure I 100% agree with the interpretation that the bride is implied to have killed him. Unless this has been confirmed to have been the intent from the people who created the ride.

It's a plausible theory, but I also think it's plausible that Hattie was supposed to represent a malevolent spirit who was tormenting the bride. Perhaps a collector of heads who is murdering her suitors. There used to be those other grooms whose heads would pop out of the boxes in the attic. Except that Hattie is the only one who seems to be visibly enjoying the entire situation with a very wicked smile.

Now it's possible that the bride was also evil too and may have killed him, but the ambiguity of her pre-Constance designs made it impossible to get a read on her intentions. At that time, they would often use hyper exaggerated facial expressions to help telegraph whether a character is supposed to be good or bad. But that was never really clear with the bride's face. Even the original corpse variant, while macabre and scary due to being a skeleton, didn't really have a readable expression. Hattie on the other hand wears an very clear cruel grin.

Paris' Phantom Manor altered the setting and a more detailed character-driven narrative, but they did introduce a character that on some level I think was probably inspired by the Hatbox Ghost. The Phantom. Like Hattie, he's also a skeletal/zombie ghost who wore a fancy suit and top hat and was constantly smiling/laughing. He existed to torment the Manor's bride, killing any of her would-be suitors. He just doesn't have the hatbox/beheading gimmick.

 

[aladdin2007]

A little off topic but this new pin they released concerns me. It's not the first time they have teased muppets at the mansion. I would not put it past them at this point to do a muppets square and muppets mansion at MK.

 

[Purduevian]

A little off topic but this new pin they released concerns me. It's not the first time they have teased muppets at the mansion. I would not put it past them at this point to do a muppets square and muppets mansion at MK.


View attachment 877299

I personally think HM is free from a full time IP invasion just due to the merch it pushes.

 

[lazyboy97o]

A little off topic but this new pin they released concerns me. It's not the first time they have teased muppets at the mansion. I would not put it past them at this point to do a muppets square and muppets mansion at MK.


View attachment 877299

What was previously teased in such a way?

 

[aladdin2007]

What was previously teased in such a way?

There were promotional videos awhile back of the muppets riding through the mansion etc, things like that.