DISNEY HAUNTED MANSION PAINTINGS

Most of these pictures are from The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland and Disneyworld. The yellowish portrait near the end is from a Ghostbusters movie.  

I'm partial to portraits of misers so I'll start with that.

The picture morphs into one showing a greedy relative who did away with the miser to get his money.

Here's a couple who might be decribed as mean and cheap. You'd expect that they'd be friends of the miser but that's not likely. True misers have deep disdain for those who are merely cheap.

Let us not forget the rides many interesting mini-portraits. That skull character on the left is beautifully designed.

Back to the large portraits; here's (above) Jack the Ripper.

And here's (above) Rasputin and his famous penetrating stare. Disney's good at making morphing pictures.

Here's (above) The Cat Lady....

....and here's the lady cat.

Above, Count Dracula.

Here's the morphing Medusa.

Who the heck are these kids (above)?

I know this guy.

 Here's a concept drawing that may never have been fully painted.

I notice that the Mansion contains no "mystery" paintings, i.e. pictures that contain a hidden picture or message. Can you see the hidden picture in this (above) one?

I'll end with this (above) over-the-fireplace portrait from the Ghostbusters movie. It  inspired me to consider leaving a creepy portrait of myself behind when it's my turn to kick the bucket.

It should be underlit and spooky. If I become the family patriarch my relatives would expect no less.

I'll include lots of esoteric symbols and a hint of a hidden fortune in the house. If I have greedy successors then they'll obsess over the supposed meaning of the thing.

DISNEY HAUNTED MANSION BUSTS

Above, from Disneyworld's Haunted Mansion, the evil twins Wellington and Forsythia.

Who are these characters? It's not hard to imagine a whole film built around them.

From the same Haunted Mansion garden, it's (above) a bust of Uncle Jacob, a murderous miser.

Yikes! Is that Thurl Ravenscroft (above, foreground), the voice of Tony the Tiger?

Above, the Evil Coachman.

Evil coachman can be found in any era.

Here's some inverse statuary from Tokyo Disneyland.

Uh oh, I'm all sculptured out. How 'bout a couple of framed pictures from the mansion hall?

The park should sell posters of this ghost ship.

One final picture. I want to end this on an uplifting note.

MY LATEST TRIP TO DISNEYLAND: 2/15

No, the devil isn't symbolic. I didn't do any mischief at Disneyland. I just like the way the red sculpture looks against the Disneyland map. It's a figure from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in Fantasyland.

The day actually began placidly at a friend's house where we all assembled for the trip. You won't see those friends here because they never allow me to take their pictures. They think I add double chins.

At the park we started with a double decker bus trip down Main Street. From up here you get a good view of the rooftops.

I never noticed it before but lots of them are Post Modern simplifications of traditional tops. Here's (above) a classic French roof. Er...you don't suppose that Post Modern styling actually began in the 50s with these Disneyland shops do you? Naw, it couldn't be...

...but if it is, you heard it first here on Theory Corner!

Here's (above) a French roof railing adapted to a Midwestern American top. Am I imagining it or is there also a Canadian North Coast Indian influence on that roof?

For comparison here's (above) a North Coast roof decoration from elsewhere in the park.

And here's (above) a modification of what looks like...believe it or not...a Chinese roof. Wow! What an interesting mixture of styles!

Fantasyland roofs appear to be a combination of French and Central European styles. Elsewhere in the world beautiful rooftops are wasted on high buildings where you'd need an airplane to see them. Disneyland wisely brings them down, close to the ground.

Here's a German/Swiss roof topped by a weather vane of the crocodile from "Peter Pan."

Here's (above) a detail from the Snow White ride. The Baroque twisted pillars remind me of the castle in the film, "Horror of Dracula."

Wow! You could do a whole book on the wrought iron (above) at Disneyland.

This (above) is a view from the Small World ride. Most of my SW pictures were too blurred to show here. The camera just couldn't make the low light adjustments fast enough on a moving boat. This is the only photo that came out okay.

I'm guessing that this white drape might be cheesecloth dipped in liquid plaster. I used to make Halloween decorations that way.

I love the way the park (above) is designed to reveal different layers of reality wherever you look.

The designers somehow managed to make crowds interesting. It's a people watcher's dream.

This display (above) makes me want to try colored lights on my own shelves at home.

Nice, easy-to-do detailing on that pillar (above).

This type of open-front shop (above) isn't unique to Disneyland but it's nice to be reminded of how effective it is. It invites you in. The multiple proscenium dotted with bright lights is a real grabber at night. This store dominates this part of Main Street, even though it's only an arcade for showing penny hand-cranked films.

I'm tempted to speculate that if they were selling something there they'd clean up, but most places I've seen with fronts like this don't do serious selling inside. That happens in adjacent stores. I guess you have to give something away cheap to create an atmosphere of fun.

No trip to Disneyland is complete without a trip to the pirate store. I don't have to worry about being tempted to buy pirate hats...nothing ever fits my big head.

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MORE DISNEYLAND WEIRDNESS

Here's some more Disneyland walkaround costumes. I'll start with Captain Hook from...I'm guessing...the early 1970s. Yikes!

The park seems to have had trouble with this character. In the photos I've seen they never seem to get it right. Here (above) the character has a boxy face and shark eyes. I admit that it's kinda' funny, but....he's not the animated Disney Hook. No way.

Here's (above) a Disney redo of the costume and this time it is Hook, but it's a different Hook. It looks like Cyril Richard from the Mary Martin live action Peter Pan. Richard made a great Hook but so did Hans Conried. Why would Disney abandon its own character in favor of someone else's interpretation? Strange...very strange.

So far as I know, the Hook costume likeness that came closest to the one in the animated film was a Halloween mask by the famous mask maker, Don Post. I have one of those (above), and it looks great.

Another character the studio had trouble with seems to have been Minnie Mouse. Here she is looking like a dog (above). She's standing beside Pluto who actually is a dog but who looks more like a chicken here.

Actually these costumes are probably the Ice Capades costumes that Walt borrowed for the opening of Disneyland. Poor Walt. He doesn't look very happy with what he's seeing.

Here's Mickey and Minnie from an earlier Disney era, before Disneyland. It was common for licensed dolls and costumes of the day to look horrific and amateurish. That's odd because because that period coincided with the Golden Age of American illustration.

HAW! These costumes (above) are from 1931 and probably weren't designed by the studio. They look like some kind of bondage outfit filtered through a Silent Hill sensibility.

This story has a happy ending, though. Eventually most of the costumes (above) were done right.

Well, actually it doesn't have a happy ending, because during the hippy period the costume (above) designs started to degenerate again. What happened?

Maybe somebody thought the old costumes were too scary for kids. I doubt that kids felt that way. I'll bet they loved them.