Jeff Baham - The Unauthorized Story of Walt Disneys Haunted Mansion

Baham is one of the most trusted, established experts on the Haunted Mansion, a trufans trufan.

Cory Doctorow
Bestselling author of Little Brother, Co-editor of BoingBoing.net

Having delved into Disney lore for decades and having been immersed in the Haunted Mansion world since age 3, I thought I knew pretty much everything there is about my favorite Disneyland ride ever. I was wrong. Prepare to be enchanted, bewildered and mesmerized by this beat-by-beat account of the Haunted Mansions creation. A haunted tour that is both scholarly and thrilling. An E ticket ride to the darkest, most glorious regions of Disneys imagination!

Guillermo del Toro
Award-winning film director, Pans Labyrinth, Hellboy, Pacific Rim

This is one of the best Disney history books related to WED/WDI released in recent years. A must-have.

Didier Ghez
Disney historian and author, Walt's People series

Lively, clear, and packed with facts.

Jim Korkis
Disney historian and author, The Vault of Walt series

For Camille Grace and Erin Eva, my jewels

Life is composed of lights and shadows,
and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine
if we tried to pretend there were no shadows.

Walt Disney, 1963
(from Faith is a Star, compiled by Roland Gammond)

Hateful divorce of love,thus chides she Death,
Grim-grinning ghost, earths worm, what dost thou mean
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,
Who when he livd, his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?

Venus and Adonis, William Shakespeare

I appreciate Jeff Baham's attention to detail and found The Unauthorized Story of Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion to be extremely interesting. I even learned some things I wasn't aware of. Even though I worked on the development of the Haunted Mansion along with the other Imagineers, at the time we were all working independently of each other, and we really didn't share what we were doing with each other. Somehow it all came together, but we'll never know what might have been if Walt had lived to see the Mansion completed.

Baham really did his homework, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

Rolly Crump

Back in the late 50s, I knew that the Haunted House was in development at the Walt Disney Studios. WED Imagineering used to test out a lot of things at the studio in Burbank, and I remember going up to the second floor of the animation building, where they had a mock-up of what the Haunted House could beor might be. I remember walking through several very dark roomsvery murky, scary, and spooky. Then I suddenly felt cobwebs on my face. Spider webs! That was one of the early ideas designed to freak-out the guests as they walked through this attraction. Youd feel the webs hanging in the air, and youd try to brush them away from your face, and you just had this icky feeling while you were pulling the stuff away from you. It was really creepy, and thats what I remember most from that first walk-through on the studio lot.

Of course, there were scenes with flashing lightning and frightening images, but being at the studio, you knew you were safe and it was a simulation. But to actually feel the webs on your skinit was very personal. I think Walt knew how to balance the fear and the fun, to create something scary-fun. A safe level of terror. Walt knew that you can scare your audiencebut once you scare them, then you have to make them laugh. You have to ease that tension. Its all a part of storytelling. You have to know where the line is, and how to balance it.

To me, writing for Walt Disney Productions was second natureknowing how far to take it, and when to pull it back. Walt Disney was always aiming at the whole family. When I would write a story, Id write it for everybody. The kids had to enjoy it, but grandpa had to enjoy it, too. Walt never focused on a narrow demographic. If hed get the kid to smile, hed get the grandparents to smile as well. Its a particular Disney sensibility, started by Walt. He wanted his park to be a family experience, from the youngest child to grandma and grandpasomething uniquely Disney. Walt knew thats what people wanted, and its why they kept coming back again and again.

I think this explains the Haunted Mansions effectivenessthat Walt was really one of us. He connected with everybody, and everybody felt connected to him. Its why the Haunted Mansion, all his attractions, his movies, his songs, his storiestheyre all universally loved, because of that connection. The Haunted Mansions balance of freak-out and fun was uniquely Walt. And that explains its extraordinary success.

Floyd Norman

Writer and artist Floyd Norman started working as a Disney animator on the film Sleeping Beauty in 1959, until Walt Disney recognized his unique talent as a storyteller and handpicked him to join the story department for the studio. Norman, a Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame inductee, is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Education and Outreach Committee; is the recipient of the Inkpot Award, the Winsor McCay Award, the Sergio Award, and the Friz Freleng Award; and was named a Disney Legend by the Walt Disney Company in 2007.

Walt Disneys Disneyland Park, a fantasy kingdom to which pilgrimage is made by 16 million people every year, hardly brings to mind the intimation of death, the occulteven suicide. Nevertheless, one ridewhich Disney unfailingly included in his plans for every themed park he considered buildingfeatures such nefarious themes, sets them to toe-tapping music, and leaves its guests singing the tune on the way out of the stone crypt from which they emerge post-ride, perhaps scratching their heads incredulously at some of the bizarre visions they had just seen. This is exactly the type of magic that Disney so deftly created by establishing a themed realm so completely detailed and encompassing that visitors are happy to leave their preconceived notions of reality at the door. This, foolish mortals, is the Disney version of a haunted house.

There are those who love carnival haunted houses and dark rides, and those who dont. The clackity-clack of the cars running along the track, the musty air with an occasional whiff of cotton-candy or bile, the gaudy plywood forms painted in fluorescent hues, the air-powered peek-a-BOO! pop-up ghouliesall of these things inspire either fear and loathing or a giddy sense of escape, depending on the stars one was born under, it seems.