Haunted Mansion Secret

[HauntedSquirrel]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned here before, but i was listening to my haunted mansion soundtrack and it reminded me of this.

Ever wonder why a raven appears so many times throughout the ride? The reason is because the raven was originally suppose to be the narrator for the ride. I heard walt decided to get rid of it because he thought that the raven would be too scary for little kids. And who was going to voice the raven? Why, Eleanor Audrey, the same woman who voiced Madame Leota and little Leota. But if you do get the Haunted Mansion soundtrack, you can hear the original speel for the raven. It was nice but i prefer Paul Frees as the Ghost Host better.

 

[OliveMcFly]

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

 

[Jacks Sally]

Wow! I did not know that
thanks for sharing

 

[HauntedSquirrel]

heh, you're welcome, just glad to share. I was bit scared someone had posted this before but i didn't find it any searches i did.

Another thing which i have heard, but i cannot confirm since i haven't paid that close attention to where the ravens are thoroughout the ride, but i have heard that you can find a raven in every scene in which the ghost host is speaking except for the stretching room, that was the last area where the last raven was suppose to be installed but that was before walt pulled the idea. I'd like to say that i'm going down to see the HM soon to check it out myself, but i have no idea when i'll be able to return, so maybe someone else can confirm.

 

[TURKEY]

There are 4 ravens (supposed to be the same one) in the attraction.

Part of the reason that the ravens don't do the speaking is because not everyone would be able to see the birds when it was speaking, but you would hear it.

 

[monorail_man]

Wow. I am a HM fan and I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

 

[GymLeaderPhil]

Most, if not all information surrounding the Haunted Mansions, can be found at Doombuggies.com

 

[HauntedSquirrel]

Most, if not all information surrounding the Haunted Mansions, can be found at Doombuggies.com

That is true, but in this particular instance it isn't listed on that site. I originally heard it on my Haunted Mansion soundtrack and that was the first place i looked in for the info, but i found it on another site.

and monorail_man, you're very welcome. ^_^

 

[wdwH4X0R]

Also in the HM the dancing ghost in teh dinning room are leading the men. And at teh end of the table there is a hidden Mickey made out of plates. which I thought was neat

 

[Testtrack321]

heh, you're welcome, just glad to share. I was bit scared someone had posted this before but i didn't find it any searches i did.

Another thing which i have heard, but i cannot confirm since i haven't paid that close attention to where the ravens are thoroughout the ride, but i have heard that you can find a raven in every scene in which the ghost host is speaking except for the stretching room, that was the last area where the last raven was suppose to be installed but that was before walt pulled the idea. I'd like to say that i'm going down to see the HM soon to check it out myself, but i have no idea when i'll be able to return, so maybe someone else can confirm.

Walt couldn't have pulled the idea since most of the ride was finalized AFTER his death.

 

[HMGhost13]

Before the raven it was supposed to be a cat. it was a cat, thent he raven and even a amrble bust to do the opening. from what i have read either bustw as tried out (at DL of course) but no one paid attention to it OR the imagineers decided nott od o it because they figured no one was going to pay attention to it. The bust, of course, was the Ghost Host.

 

[Captain Hank]

I'm trying to remember where all the ravens are now...there's one as you exit the attic, one in the conservatory, one behind Leota...where's the other one? Is there one as you leave the load area?

 

[HMGhost13]

very very very end of the ride. right before you see the hitchhiking ghosts.

 

[raven]

Thought I should post a reply here being that the raven in the HM is where I got my name for the boards. :wave:

 

[JackSkellington]

Wow that is some neat information about the HM.!!!

 

[twinkletoes]

Thanks for the info, will have to check that out next time. :animwink:

 

[Tom]

I have a question about the soundtrack. There is an underlying melody that runs throughout the entire attraction, from room to room. They just add a harmony on top of it with different arrangements, key and time signatures.

The low organ chords that you hear in the loading area are pretty much the melody. If you listen closely, it sounds an awful lot like the winchester chimes. You can hear these on any clock tower or grandfather clock. Does anyone know if these chimes were used to develop this melody, or is it just a coincindece?

 

[Captain Hank]

It's definately possible that the Winchester Chimes were an inspiration for it, but what it really seems that they did was take a few selected beats from Grim Grinning Ghosts, then play those as chimes. It sounds like mostly beats 1 and 3, though sometimes it's hard to determine.

Here's a better example for people who don't know what "beats 1 and 3" mean. I'm going off of the music that's played in the load area, which is included in the sound effects track of the HM CD that is in the parks right now. It uses chimes instead of the organ chords, but it's probably the same, arrangement-wise. If you were to sing Grimm Grinning Ghosts along with it in your head, it would co-incide like this: (I've capitalized the syllables that occur during chime changes) when the CRYPT doors CREAK and the TOMB stones QUAKE, (pause) GHOSTS come OUT for a SWING-ing WAKE... The rest doesn't match up quite as easily, but I think it follows the same basic pattern. Hope this helped and didn't make you even more confused. :wave:

 

[Tom]

It's definately possible that the Winchester Chimes were an inspiration for it, but what it really seems that they did was take a few selected beats from Grim Grinning Ghosts, then play those as chimes. It sounds like mostly beats 1 and 3, though sometimes it's hard to determine.

Here's a better example for people who don't know what "beats 1 and 3" mean. I'm going off of the music that's played in the load area, which is included in the sound effects track of the HM CD that is in the parks right now. It uses chimes instead of the organ chords, but it's probably the same, arrangement-wise. If you were to sing Grimm Grinning Ghosts along with it in your head, it would co-incide like this: (I've capitalized the syllables that occur during chime changes) when the CRYPT doors CREAK and the TOMB stones QUAKE, (pause) GHOSTS come OUT for a SWING-ing WAKE... The rest doesn't match up quite as easily, but I think it follows the same basic pattern. Hope this helped and didn't make you even more confused. :wave:

Yeah, that's pretty much where I was going with this I just wasn't sure if they started with the Winchester Chimes and wrote the melody around them, or if it was just coincidence that they match pretty close. In the 3rd and 4th verses you lose some syllables and/or beats, but I think if you ran a grandfather clock along side the song, they'd be pretty darn close

 

[CoffeeJedi]

some of the audio cues toward the beginning of the attraction actually are played on chimes, which strengthens the connection
whether Buddy Baker deliberatly did this, or it was just subconcious, we can't really say

grandfather clock chimes so ominous sounding anyway, reminding us of the slow march of time towards death. How many horror movies use these to great effect as the clock strikes midnight?