Long-Forgotten Haunted Mansion Effect Episode 4 A New Hope

[CaitlinMcFly]

Zombies don't have transparent cloaks and hats. In fact, other than the pop-ups, I don't see anything corpse-like about any of these ghosts. The pop-ups are ambiguous (ghosts or zombies?)

I didn't even THINK about the pop ups! They aren't the least bit see-though! OH MY GOD. THERE ARE FAKE ZOMBIES ON THE MANSION!
That means I need to go to Knott's and get a pop shotgun to protect myself and my loved ones from becoming pretend infected.

[HBG2]

I'm pretty sure it's the same head, HBG2. The one you circled in red is right, but he one above to the right isn't. The mouth[/IMG]

Note that it's a photo of an animatronic, not a sculpture. (The mouth moves.)

[HBG2]

I didn't even THINK about the pop ups! They aren't the least bit see-though! OH MY GOD. THERE ARE FAKE ZOMBIES ON THE MANSION!
That means I need to go to Knott's and get a pop shotgun to protect myself and my loved ones from becoming pretend infected.

We had a discussion about whether the pop-ups are supposed to be ghosts or zombies in the original Thread. It was funny because someone asked us Thread-heads for a definitive answer (already people were starting to treat this place like some kind of authority or something), and he got three different answers from me, GRD, and Smelly.

There's a funny piece of art that goes with that question, actually.

You will recall that Collin Campbell's artwork for the "Story and Song" album can't quite make up its mind about what those pop-ups represent. At the beginning, they appear to be ghosts. Through the doorway are representations of the droopy-eyed pop-up and the blast-up heads.



But at the end of the booklet is what seems to be a representative of a graveyard pop-up, and he looks plenty creepy but a little unghostly.



In between, Campbell lets us know that the trunks in the attic (the natural habitat of the pop-up, right?) have very dead bodies in them. Notice the hand.



It's a puzzler.

Okay, now the funny item. The best bit of artwork in the much-prized Lakeside Haunted Mansion board game, IMO, is the attic pop-up, who is clearly a ghost, but he's looking at his hands with an unmistakable WTF look on his face. Heh. Even THEY can't figure out if they're ghosts or not! Now I say that's funny.




Speaking of Collin Campbell's artwork, ever wonder where he got this dramatic ghost with round glowing eyes emerging from the crypt?



It should look familiar. It's a bicycle ghost without the bicycle.



Really good-looking photos of those bikers under show conditions are hard to come by, btw. I like this one very much, but it's small, taken from the background of one of the Teaparty photos we've been looking at lately. Most of the time the biker is wholly or partially cropped off, so you have to do some scrounging around to find a copy of the picture that shows him.

[Datameister]

I must say, the bikers are some of my favorite minor characters in the attraction. There's something very eerie about them.

[mansionman]

I dont remember seeing the biker ghosts at WDW.

[hauntedmotion]

Note that it's a photo of an animatronic, not a sculpture. (The mouth moves.)

Oh ok, I wasn't sure if the coachman's mouth moved too or not.

Speaking of Collin Campbell's artwork, ever wonder where he got this dramatic ghost with round glowing eyes emerging from the crypt?



It should look familiar. It's a bicycle ghost without the bicycle.



Really good-looking photos of those bikers under show conditions are hard to come by, btw. I like this one very much, but it's small, taken from the background of one of the Teaparty photos we've been looking at lately. Most of the time the biker is wholly or partially cropped off, so you have to do some scrounging around to find a copy of the picture that shows him.

I thought they used these same ghosts without bikes to fly around in the ballroom too...

[disneyfann121]

We had a discussion about whether the pop-ups are supposed to be ghosts or zombies in the original Thread. It was funny because someone asked us Thread-heads for a definitive answer (already people were starting to treat this place like some kind of authority or something), and he got three different answers from me, GRD, and Smelly.

Since this is an earth-shatteringly important topic, I will throw in my two cents worth. Naturally, the attic pop-ups were ghosts because they represented Connie's dead husbands ("I do!") and they were popping up out of various places in the attic. But the graveyard pop-ups are zombies because they're jumping out of graves. The scrim ghosts in the graveyard float out of graves, so that is how you can distinguish them from the zombies. Also, the pop-ups are not transparent, as posters above noted. Add up all this evidence, and the answer is elementary, my dear Watson.

[HBG2]

I dont remember seeing the biker ghosts at WDW.

They're there.

I thought they used these same ghosts without bikes to fly around in the ballroom too...

They're similar, but I don't think they're identical. Ballroom wraiths have no eyes.

Since this is an earth-shatteringly important topic, I will throw in my two cents worth. Naturally, the attic pop-ups were ghosts because they represented Connie's dead husbands ("I do!") and they were popping up out of various places in the attic. But the graveyard pop-ups are zombies because they're jumping out of graves. The scrim ghosts in the graveyard float out of graves, so that is how you can distinguish them from the zombies. Also, the pop-ups are not transparent, as posters above noted. Add up all this evidence, and the answer is elementary, my dear Watson.

You make a good case, except remember that the attic pop-ups were not originally the bride's dead husbands, and they included two blast-ups, which must be considered ghosts.

[Michigan Guy]

Hey everybody,

I always thought the inspiration for Collin Campbell's artwork of the green ghost with round glowing eyes emerging from the crypt (which looked like an alien to me as a kid), and now possibly the bicycle ghosts, came from the 1949 feature The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

In the "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" segment Ichabod is scared by a hollow tree that had two fireflies buzzing around in it.

[hauntedmotion]

Hey everybody,

I always thought the inspiration for Collin Campbell's artwork of the green ghost with round glowing eyes emerging from the crypt (which looked like an alien to me as a kid), and now possibly the bicycle ghosts, came from the 1949 feature The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

In the "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" segment Ichabod is scared by a hollow tree that had two fireflies buzzing around in it.

good point, but we're talking about the HM here, so it's probably more likely that he used something from the HM rather than The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad,

still, it's quiet possible though

[HBG2]

It must be admitted that the Ichabod ghost is strikingly close. I'd be inclined to see it as a possible influence on Claude Coats (or whomever designed the biker ghosts), which in turn inspired Campbell third hand.

The reason I think it worked like that is that Campbell is almost slavish in following either (1) Marc Davis's concept art or (2) the actual props of the HM, at whatever point of completion they may have been when he did the illustrations. I did a post about this in T3, with lots of visual evidence:

Revenge of "Long-Forgotten Haunted Mansion Effect," or The Thread 3

Campbell sticks so close to his sources that his art can even be used for clues as to what unpublished Marc Davis concept artwork might have looked like.

You can even see Campbell's respect for his sources at work in a ghost like Ezra, who came from Davis's hand as only a white sheet spook but who Blaine Gibson turned into the classic we all know and love. Campbell's Ezra simply splits the difference between the two, as I think I've mentioned before.



The bikers were Davis's idea, but the actual design of the ghosts themselves needed help.



Another excellent illustration of why the group effort, the team effort, was so important for the HM. Davis came up with loads of snappy ideas, but some of his ghosts looked like sheet.

[GRD999]

Indeed they did! Most of his concepts have sheet-style ghosts for some reason. Though, at the same time, I think the group decided they were going to make a lot of humanoid figures where they could to give a hint of realism. Thats when we start to notice more concepts with human like qualities.

[HBG2]

For those of you who care about such things (you know who you are), I've arrived at what I consider a fairly positive ID for this bride photo. The question was whether it was DL or WDW.



It's Disneyland. If you lighten it up you can see the boardwork on one side, and there's a recognizable pattern of light streaks on the circled boards that's an exact match to other photos of the DL bride. Someone might quibble that those white marks may be cobweb strings, nothing permanent or durable. Even if that is true, the fact remains that that little patch has remained remarkably stable. The other bridal pic is from about 2000 and the two smaller ones are from 2006. There's also that black platform piece. It shows up in numerous DL pix but I can't see that there was ever anything identical to it at WDW.

[HBG2]

Kind of a laid-back post. It's nothing electrifying, and not something of interest to all you Thread-heads, but certainly to some. Worth a wistful sigh and maybe a "Hey, did you know?" to your friends while standing in line.

The area to your left as you enter the outer gates is a pleasant, open space. The lawn there is deformed only by a manhole cover (that is, if it's still there; this pic is several years old).



But did you know that there used to be a tree there, approximately where that manhole cover is? You can see it in these three photos, from 1966, 1968, and Oct 1970 respectively:







It was removed sometime in the early 70s. Whatever the reason for doing so, it simplified the task of HM exterior photography considerably. In 1969, getting a shot from certain angles was difficult, with that tree wanting to intrude:



Now it's clear sailing.




And that, my friends, is why you'll never find a shot like this one among early HM photos. Twernt possible.

[2DieFR]

The manhole cover is definitely still there.