Once inside the façade, patrons find themselves immersed in a world populated by prankster ghosts. The entire experience is narrated by an invisible “Ghost Host” (voiced by veteran voice talent Paul Frees, who is also recognizable as the evil Boris Badenov from the classic cartoon series The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle.) Your Ghost Host sets the mood, leading patrons through a supernatural portrait gallery and eerie netherworld, where the guests board “Doom Buggies,” another name for a Disney innovation known as the Omnimover system. This is an ingenious way of transporting patrons in the vein of the classic ‘ghost train’ (or dark ride), while directing their focus by spinning the vehicle on its axis. This gives the WED Imagineers a nearly cinematic control of the attraction, with built-in digital surround sound to boot. Patrons have virtually no choice as to where to direct their attention, allowing the attraction’s designers greater flexibility and use of misdirection.

Once safely seated in their “Doombuggy,” patrons are ushered through a library with stern-looking statues that follow you, staring directly into your eyes as you travel the full length of the room (through an effect that is, quite literally, simply a trick of the light.) Books float in and out of the bookshelves as the visitors continue onward. The majority of the library is actually a detailed mural, but highly effective lighting makes the “real” books nearly indistinguishable from the painted shelves and book stacks. Leaving a piano being played by unseen hands and some evil family portraits behind, patrons continue on past a conservatory containing a coffin and some moldering funeral wreaths (and is that muffled voice and knocking coming from inside the coffin?)

Also appearing in the conservatory is an imposing raven, which appears again in various scenes throughout the ride. In early design stages, there was some thought to making the raven the being through which the Ghost Host’s voice materialized, though that idea was deemed unnecessary and discarded. Nevertheless, the large black raven remains a reappearing character throughout the attraction. Passing through a narrow corridor of shaking and rattling doors, the patrons emerge into a séance, led by Madame Leota, a glowing, disembodied head speaking from within a misty crystal ball. In response to her supplications, various objects and ectoplasmic lights are dancing overhead. Madame Leota is named after Leota Toombs, a veteran Cast Member who had worked at both Disneyland and, later, Walt Disney World, maintaining the audioanimatronic characters’ cosmetic appearances.

For the effect, a projection of a real actress (Toombs) performing as Madame Leota is projected from a 16mm projector onto a static head form, creating a startlingly realistic and eerie effect. Andy Fielding, a Cast Member who played the piano at Walt Disney World, remembers speaking with Toombs about the experience of being the disembodied psychic: “On a couple of occasions, I got to hang out with Leota Toombs at the employee cafeteria under WDW’s Magic Kingdom. What a nice lady. She told me how funny it was when they did her lip-synch sessions for the crystal ball. She couldn’t keep from moving her head, so they ended up tying her hair to a chair. Takes a bit of the romance out of it, eh? She never mentioned that she auditioned the dialogue, too [which she did, though the final voice used for Madame Leota is Eleanor Audley, another veteran Disney voice talent. -JB] Maybe she was embarrassed that it wasn’t used. I think she just wasn’t cranky enough to carry it off. No matter who ended up doing it, I’m sure it would’ve been recorded separately. You usually can’t give your best delivery when your hair is tied to furniture.”

Leaving Leota’s chamber, the patrons are swept into a huge dining hall, where they witness a massive birthday ball in the Haunted Mansion’s special effects showcase. Everywhere they turn, a ghost is disappearing or rematerializing. Waltzing ghosts fade in and out of reality, and with each exhalation a birthday ghost vanishes her guests along with the flames as she blows out the candles on her birthday cake. Dueling portraits which have come to life turn and fire, as two other ghosts unload coffins from a horse drawn hearse backed up to the French doors. Partying ghosts hang from the chandelier, and ghostly skulls fly from the organ pipes while an insane organist plays a discordant variation of the attraction’s musical theme. While this effect is the most grandiose (often bringing the aforementioned claims of “holograms,”) it is also one of the simplest effects to achieve. It is simply an application of the popular “Pepper’s Ghost” (or “Blue Room”) effect, on an enormous scale.

Pepper’s Ghost is named for John Henry Pepper, a professor of chemistry at the London Polytechnic Institute, who in 1862 made the effect popular on the theatrical stage. All that is needed for this illusion is a piece of glass and a light source. At its simplest, this effect works because the viewer sees what is reflected off of the glass and what is behind the glass at the same time. Everyone has experienced this effect in action (in fact, many might rather call it “Pepper’s Curse” when trying to drive at night and the spouse decides to turn on the overhead map light.) By traveling elevated in front of a second hidden ballroom containing the animatronic spooks, the patrons of the Haunted Mansion see the “ghosts” only when they are illuminated enough to reflect off of a large piece of glass, separating the two ballrooms. Simply by controlling the lighting, this 140-year-old effect continues to amaze guests at Disney’s Haunted Mansion to this day.
The piece of glass used at the Haunted Mansion for the Ballroom effect was placed in the building before the roof was installed, and is so large that if it was ever to break, it could not be replaced. In fact, the same effect appears in the Mansion at Disneyland, and the glass there has a hole made by a BB gun (shot by an errant guest.) The Mansion’s staff has hidden the hole by applying a spider web carefully around it, making it appear to be part of the décor.

Before the crazed waltz has faded into the distance, a heartbeat takes its place as patrons are carried into the Mansion’s attic. Surrounded by derelict furnishings and antiques, guests may be startled by the occasional “pop-up ghost,” a Haunted Attraction mainstay. Near the exit of the attic, an eerie, floating bride awaits, her heart glowing red with each beat. Then it’s out the attic window, as the Doom Buggies carry patrons down the side of the Mansion between strange, gnarled trees into the cemetery. The cemetery provides the attraction’s strongest “Disney identification” by consisting of numerous highly detailed audioanimatronic characters. In order to maintain a ghostly appearance, the Doom Buggy track is separated from the ghosts and props by scrim (a translucent screen material) stretched ceiling-to-floor that the patrons look through while viewing the scenery. This material gives everything a slightly hazy appearance, as if being viewed through a perfectly still fog. Props meant to appear more distant, are placed further back from the track behind another scrim, and further out there is a third layer of scrim, providing an enormous, apparent, depth of field.

In addition, bicycling and flying ghosts are projected onto some of the higher scrims, making the graveyard come “alive” (so to speak) via the time-honored “Magic Lantern” effect, which is a stage effect made popular in 1798 by Belgian magician Etienne-Gaspard Robertson in displays in which he would project ghosts onto gauze which was thin enough to see through and masked by smoke. Here, the musical theme by Disney veteran Buddy Baker with lyrics by Xavier Atencio (known as ‘X’) undergoes another variation, and is portrayed as being played by a funky colonial graveyard band. Some misplaced statuary joins along, providing the tune’s lead vocals (with the bass lead voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft, who is probably best known as the voice of Tony the Tiger.) Once again, these static statues speak due to projections of filmed live actors, in another startlingly lifelike effect.

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