I have some more material about alterations to the Magic Kingdom, which I’m happy to share with you here today. Not all of this is “breaking news” (you may have read about much of this on other websites), but since it is recent, plus the fact that Team Disney Orlando is actually going ahead with these and many other rehabs and upgrades, makes it worthy of discussion.

Haunted Mansion: Grim Grinning?

It’s been busy at the Magic Kingdom. At the Haunted Mansion they’ve opened a new queue, and altered the ending significantly. Both changes have been a touch controversial among the online crowd, but I have to admit: I like both alterations. Let’s take a look at the queue enhancements today..

The queue is optional. You can take the “regular” route, or detour to the new area, and rejoin the main line later. Obviously, taking the detour will delay your entrance to the attraction, so it’s a fair guess that first-time visitors will opt to skip the special queue.

Pick your poison.

What’s in it? Only the single greatest assemblage of tributes and homages in the entire Walt Disney World! Every tombstone in here – and there are a lot of them – is brimming with tributes. Let’s do this as a photo tour, shall we?

The “Dread” family – reading the inscriptions, you can decipher how they all killed each other.

Tribute to Imagineer Marc Davis (there’s one for X. Atencio just after this).

Musical notes play when hands come close.

Kids may want to play the keys to get sprayed by water mist, but I’m only looking at the
tribute to voice actor Thurl Ravenscroft, (he's the broken graveyard bust in the Mansion).

The backside of the musical notes is also musical, but these designs harken back to Rolly
Crump’s original ideas for a “Museum of the Weird” rather than a traditional haunted house.

"Good friend Gordon" is Gordon Williams, an audio designer for the Mansion; "Brother Dave"
is David Burkhart, a modeler and show designer; and "A man named Martin" is Bud Martin,
once a VP of design at WED. Other Imagineers include Chuck Myall and Harriet Burns.

The “plots” are too small to hold actual bodies, but that’s a small quibble. In this photo
you can also see the captain’s crypt, which shoots water at visitors.

Near the captain is a ring embedded in the concrete. This is a tribute to “fan-created” mythos!
In the exit corridor used to be an old metallic remnant of a queue pole, but it looked like a ring,
so fans invented a story about the bride throwing out a ring from a window. That old “ring” is
gone, but this new (real and intentional) ring in the queue pays homage to the fan story. Neat!

The books move. If you push one in, another pushes out. Those symbols (inset, bottom right)
are not explained anywhere, but by hard work and brute force, Ricky Brigante cracked the code!
“Welcome home, you foolish mortal / This mansion is your mystic portal / Where eerie
sights and spooky sounds / Fill these happy haunting grounds.”

You’re supposed to be able to shout a word out
to complete the writing in the book,
but this never works well when I see it.

Singing busts Chuck Shroeder (Cousin Algernon) and Jay Meyer (Ned Nub), plus Hitchhiking
Ghosts Gus, Ezra, and Phineas Pock. Around the corner was Paul Frees, Ken Anderson, Rolly Crump,
and Blaine Gibson. Up ahead is Collin Campbell (who did CD artwork) and ‘Prudence Pock’ –
a reference to Phineas Pock? The final set includes Cliff Huet, Wathel Rogers, Marty Sklar,
Fred Joerger, Dorothea Redmon, Claude Coats, and Leota Tooms.

The criticism online seems centered on the tone of the tributes. Specifically, in that it introduces a whimsical overlay to what used to be a somber part of the experience. On the surface, that makes sense. The first half of the Mansion has always been scary-spooky, while the second half is more whimsical—a reflection of the competing designs for the Mansion in the immediate aftermath of Walt Disney’s death in 1966. Designers back then ended up using both ideas (first scary, then less so). A new “first act” changes the dynamic of the ride.

I think the concerns are overblown. I’ll agree that the altered tone would affect a first-timer, but the reality is that first-timers won’t elect to wait in a longer, optional queue. They’ll go for the shorter, original queue… and they’ll get the original experience. The only people waiting in the new queue will be those who ALREADY know the ride. There are no spoilers for them, and it won’t matter what tone they see and in what order. The whimsy of the new queue works “with” the cultural construct that is the Haunted Mansion (in the minds of experienced riders), not against it.

© 2011 Kevin Yee

Readers are invited to join Kevin on Facebook, where he offers regular "Where in Walt Disney World" photo quizzes.

On his public page and Twitter feed he also offers regular smaller updates on the parks.

Kevin is the author of many books on Disney theme parks, including:

The Unofficial Walt Disney World ‘Earbook 2010 is a photo-rich volume of 70 pages that park fans will find especially useful if they want to know what’s changed at WDW since their last visit.

History was on my mind as I composed this book. As you might expect, there is a section on additions, another on removals, and a third on events. But I wanted to make sure to include some prices from January 2010 in the book, the better to capture in future years (and future generations?) exactly what it costs to buy admission, parking, a night at each level of hotel, or such food items as a turkey leg. I also wanted to provide a bit more specificity to the unfolding of events, so the various additions and removals, as well as smaller alterations and debuts, are laid out in a timeline broken down month-by-month.

In short, the book is designed to appeal to those folks who are similarly history-minded, as well as those who are hungry to know what changed at Disney World since their last visit. Or perhaps it’s a worthwhile keepsake for anyone who DID visit in 2010—it captures what was new, after all.

Also recently issued...

Walt Disney World Hidden History: Remnants of Former Attractions and Other Tributes:

As the title implies, this is all about those little things in the parks that have significance to insiders and long-timers, but are never explained or highlighted. When a ride closes, sometimes pieces or props from that ride are folded into the replacement attraction (think of the World of Motion car seen in the queue of Test Track). Other times, designers intentionally craft a tribute to the previous ride—an example of that might be the carving of a submarine in the cement tree created for Pooh’s Playful Spot where the 20,000 Leagues subs used to be.

The other kind of homage in the parks concerns not rides, but individuals. The designers, artists, engineers, executives, and people important to Disney’s history often provide the inspiration for names and titles used at the attractions. Sadly, these are almost always unheralded. All of these remnants and tributes are normally left for the truly obsessed to spot piecemeal. They are usually not even discussed in the official Disney books and tours. This book sets out to change that, and catalog all such remnants and tributes in one spot.

The final result is 225 pages of hyper-detailed historical factoids. Broadly speaking this is a “trivia” book, but remember that it’s a particular kind of trivia. You’ve known before that the Walt Disney World theme parks wove a thick tapestry of details and backstory into a seamless (and peerless) experience. But armed with the specifics of homages and tributes, you’ll become aware that the parks are even more alive, and layered with meaning, that you could have ever imagined.

Might this be an ideal present for the Disney fan on your shopping list? If so, please have a look.

Also written by Kevin...

• Your Day at the Magic Kingdom is a full-color, hardcover interactive children's book, where readers decide which attraction to ride next (and thus which page to turn to) - but watch out for some unexpected surprises!
• Mouse Trap: Memoir of a Disneyland Cast Member provides the first authentic glimpse of what it's like to work at Disneyland.
• The Walt Disney World Menu Book lists restaurants, their menus, and prices for entrees, all in one handy pocket-sized guide.
• Tokyo Disney Made Easy is a travel guide to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySeas, written to make the entire trip stress-free for non-speakers of Japanese.
• Magic Quizdom offers an exhaustive trivia quiz on Disneyland park, with expansive paragraph-length answers that flesh out the fuller story on this place rich with details.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Disneyland is a list-oriented book that covers ground left intentionally unexposed in the trivia book, namely the tributes and homages around Disneyland, especially to past rides and attractions.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World follows the example of the Disneyland book, detailing tributes and homages in the four Disney World parks.

More information on the above titles, along with ordering options are at this link.