Time to celebrate our QuinceaƱara.
Again, thanks to all our loyal Forgottenistas. We've been here making a nuisance of ourselves for more than a quarter of the Haunted Mansion's existence. As you know, we always try to include some Mansionological tidbits on these occasions. Today it's that perennial LF favorite: possible inspirations! And we've got THREE. One is a near certainty; the other two may be merely maybes.
Our first item involves Rolly Crump and his infamous "Museum of the Weird." In Rolly's own words, the MOTW was supposed to be a collection of bizarre and wonderful items collected from "all over the world." The world is a big place, but occasionally fortune smiles upon us and we come across one of those places from which Mr. Crump seems to have collected his museum specimens.
Virgil Finlay
A plausible source for MOTW inspiration can be found in the work of Virgil Finlay. Inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012, Finlay (1914-1971) was a consummate artist of the strange and otherworldly. Sci-Fi/Fantasy pulp fiction fans know him well and whisper his name in reverent tones. I won't repeat the whole Wikipedia entry—you can read it yourself—but Finlay is precisely the sort of artist you would expect someone like Rolly to mine for inspiration whilst coming up with surreal artistic creations of his own. His drawings are filled with scary monsters, demons, and weird aliens. Here's a fairly typical example:
Although I'd say that there is, prima facie, a strong likelihood that Rolly would have known Finlay's work, here at LF we are ever on the lookout for that elusive smoking gun, that Aha moment proving that a given Mansion artist did indeed lay some particular item under contribution. In the case of Finlay, consider first this bizarre menagerie:
And then take a look at this Rolly Crump poster:
Some of our overly-cautious readers may be hesitant, but pthh, I'd call this a smoking gun.
Since Schedel's freakazoids have been reproduced in countless publications, Rolly could easily have come across them.
Victorian Bat Costume
Our next example is far less certain. It's possible that Rolly may have seen either this Victorian design for a bat costume...
...or this photo of German actress Marie Schleinzer actually wearing it, from around the turn of the 20th century.