Well, here's something interesting. Earlier there was some grumbling that Disney has become lazy about hiding show buildings by painting them green and planting trees in front of them (talking specifically about Dumbo, an attraction that hasn't even been open for six months). I argued back that Disney has been doing that since day one and that once the trees and vegetation grew in, things would probably be fine. I was offered a rebuttal that SPECIFICALLY mentioned the Haunted Mansion and said that until recent changes were made, you couldn't see the show building. I give you a photo of the Haunted Mansion taken in 1972 (the "glory days"):
Hm. It honestly appears to me that WDI put more effort into concealing Dumbo.
This comes courtesy of Passport2Dreams, one of my absolute FAVORITE blogs. The post itself goes on to document several other areas where show buildings have been quite visible for as long as the park has been open. It also shows areas that have been left completely unthemed from day one. I recommend that those with such a distorted rose-colored view of the olden days of WDW give it a read. Things have always been the way they are now, you just didn't have websites like this to document every little thing.
Take a look:
http://passport2dreams.blogspot.com/2012/08/go-away-green.html
Edit: For many decades (including when Walt was alive, at Disneyland), lots and lots and lots of unthemed show buildings were VERY visible from the Skyway. It's also mentioned in the blog post that there are areas of Disneyland where show buildings were visible and other areas were left unthemed during Walt's time. I guess somebody forgot to tell Walt how Walt would have done things.
