Ken Anderson's Haunted Mansion Artwork? Most of What You Know is WRONG

(A big hat tip to Tom Morris for the foundational work that spurred this investigation.)

Every now and then we have a post that requires the fundamental rewriting of a chapter in Haunted Mansion history. Since it's happened before, we shouldn't be surprised to see it happen again.

Here's what has been more or less the "official" story until now:

In 1957 Ken Anderson was given the assignment of developing a haunted house in Disneyland, and he devoted about two years to the project. Although inspired in many cases by ideas communicated to him by Walt himself, the thing was almost entirely Ken's doing, and nearly all of the Mansion artwork from that two-year period comes from Anderson. The only exceptions are (1) some Sam McKim and Marvin Davis sketches of the Haunted House exterior, done in cooperation with Ken and in connection with the development of what would become New Orleans Square, (2) a Duane Alt painting of the ornate cemetery that Ken planned for the exit spill area, and (3) a Bruce Bushman sketch of the portrait hall. Everything else was done by Anderson.

Turns out this is not entirely accurate. Anderson did indeed get the Haunted House assignment in '57 and wrote a lot of scripts in a very short time period, complete with sketches and storyboards. What is NOT true is that Anderson worked almost entirely alone (or alone with Walt). We know, for example, from a March 12, 1957 memo by Dick Irvine as well as from comments by Ken himself that he worked with Bill Cottrell on story outlines and logistical considerations like vehicle capacity, but there is much more to the story that has been long forgotten.

The mental image we have of Ken working alone stems largely from ground-breaking articles published in The "E" Ticket Magazine (Summer 1992), based on taped interviews with Anderson himself in February of that year, less than two years before his death at the age of 84. Unfortunately, Ken's memory by then was not entirely reliable. The most serious lapse in this particular conversation was that he seemed not to have any recollection of the fact that others worked on the Haunted House project along with him, most importantly Bruce Bushman and Duane Alt.

According to Disney historian Jim Korkis, there were in fact two parallel projects commissioned by Walt in 1957. Ken Anderson got the Haunted House assignment, and Bushman and Alt were charged with developing a Pirate attraction, conceived as a "Rogue's Gallery" or Wax Museum. Unfortunately, this, the earliest phase of what would eventually be Pirates of the Caribbean has not been well documented. Alt, for example, is only mentioned once in passing in Jason Surrell's 2005 book, Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies (p. 19), and Bushman's contribution is limited to a couple of concept paintings, one of them severely cropped and the other covered with print (pp. 2, 4-5). Bushman's extremely important early layout for the walk-thru is included in Surrell's book, but without attribution (p. 20). This same plan view is found in Chris Merritt's Marc Davis in His Own Words 1:242, but it is there misattributed to Claude Coats.

Bushman's "Rogue's Gallery" of famous pirates. This is the "Captain's Cabin" scene in Bushman's layout sketch:

click for bigger image

Some of Duane Alt's 1963 concept art for NOS and the Pirates attraction:

Since Alt is relatively unknown even among Disneyphiles, a few more details will not be out of place here. (Hat tip once again to Tom and to Chris Reichman, Duane's grandson). Duane was best friends with Dale Hennessy, whom he met while both were working at Universal Studios. They greatly admired each other's work. After Hennessy went to Disney, he encouraged Duane to apply at WED, and he did. Among those Alt remembers working with there was Herb Ryman.

(Just as a side note, Mansion fans remember Hennessey and Ryman as giving us in 1953 two of the oldest known concept sketches of Disneyland's Haunted House. Only Harper Goff's famous 1951 sketch is older. This was back when the attraction was planned as part of Main Street.)

 

 

Anyway, Duane worked for Disney off and on until 1969. Further details can be found at the Alt website. In his twilight years, Ken Anderson may not have remembered working with Duane, but Duane (still alive) remembers working with Ken. According to the website, Duane "worked extensively with Ken and a small team of other Imagineers on the original design of the The Haunted House, which eventually would be renamed to the iconic 'The Haunted Mansion.'"

Rather late in the game, your humble blog administrator came to realize that POTC and HM were joined at the hip from birth, and it should occasion no surprise to learn that the artists originally assigned to the two projects spent a lot of time in each other's cubicles. As everyone knows, Anderson's early concepts for the Haunted House revolved around the ghost of a sea captain who was in reality a pirate. For their part, Alt and Bushman were working with Ken on his ghostly walk-thru even while working on their own pirate walk-thru. But by the 1990's, when conscious efforts were under way to more seriously document Disneyland history, Ken simply did not remember any of that, with the result that Alt's and Bushman's Mansion contributions fell into shadow . . . into a place where there are no windows and no doors . . . into the realm of the long forgotten. Because they all apparently worked together so closely, it is possible that most of Bruce and Duane's stuff somehow ended up in Ken's files, and that would explain why it was mistakenly attributed to him.

Until now.

As it happens, a lot of "Ken Anderson" Haunted Mansion artwork is in fact Duane Alt's, with some input from Bruce Bushman. With regard to the latter, Mansionistas have long known that Bushman did at least one concept sketch for the HM:

This one escaped misattribution because Bushman signed it. Not knowing quite what to make of it, however, Mansionites have scratched their heads a few times, relegated this "one-off" oddity to the footnotes, and given it no further thought. Since Bushman left Disney no later than February of 1958, we at least know that the sketch belongs to the Anderson phase of Mansion history. Is it, perhaps, only the tip of an unknown iceberg? More on Bushman later.

The Alt Alternative

As already mentioned, there is also one recognized Duane Alt HM concept sketch out there (and we have posted it here at LF at least three times). We know too that there was a second such sketch as well. However, they may not date to the 1950's. Tom Morris suspects that these are not for Disneyland but for the 1963-64 St. Louis project, which had spill-area courtyards at the HM exits similar to what was planned for Anaheim.

 

 

Either way, you're going to need a bigger boat. The real shocker in this post is that the "purple sketches" uniformly attributed to Anderson by WDI archivists and Disney historians were in fact painted by Duane Alt. Take a deep breath and get ready to scroll. A lot.

I can hear all those jaws hitting the floor. Reminds me of

the bone crash at the end of the stretching room scene.

Stunned much?

Inevitably there are going to be ambiguous cases, artwork that could

be either Ken's or Duane's. I'm pretty confident that this one is Ken's:

Note the correlation with this 1992 Anderson sketch:

 

 

There are a lot more artworks that could go either way, IMHO, but I'm inclined to accept the following bunch as

authentically Andersonian. For one thing, Ken tends to draw more, whereas Alt tends to paint, in thick, bold strokes.

 

This one (below) is a tougher call, but I think Anderson.

 

Below is a really tough call.

 

How do I know all this? Mostly thanks to research done by Tom Morris. I understand that in the aforementioned taped interview with Anderson by the E-Ticket guys in 1992, Ken was shown a number of these "purple" artworks (the opening bookcase, the grabbing hands/mirrored ceiling, the octopus), and he stubbornly insisted that they were NOT his paintings. Granted, his memory was failing at that point, but he was pretty firm about it. On the other hand, Duane Alt is still alive and doing okay for 89, and Tom has carried on correspondence with his grandson, Chris Reichman, who showed Duane several of these same sketches (the hanging scene, the "family portrait" skull face, the octopus). Alt identified them as his work. His memory in this area has proven to be reliable, as he had already declared by that point that some other artworks presented to him were definitely NOT his, and those were later confirmed by Tom as indeed coming from someone else (John Hench). Alt has been commendably cautious in this area, explicitly saying that he wants to be careful not to take credit for someone else's work.

Not every piece in this collection is "purple." The Séance scene, for example, is definitely part of the Alt oeuvre, even though it's brown. You might think the haunted clock sketch is another off-color gag, but that's because my only reasonably presentable photo of it is so bad. As a color guide, this fuzzy thing is more reliable:

 

As anyone can see by perusing the Alt website, Duane was a versatile artist and capable of painting in different styles. He did concept art for the 1968 Disney film, The One and Only, Genuine, Original, Family Band, and even though this is a more subjective judgment, it is hard to deny that the brushwork and overall style in some of that art bears a striking resemblance to works currently attributed to Anderson but which frankly do not really match Anderson's style as seen in his other work.

These are Alt:

And this is supposedly Anderson:

Alt is Still "Anderson"

It should be obvious that Alt's artwork does not represent in most cases—possibly in any case—independent conceptual work. It seems to me that Alt is simply fleshing out Ken's ideas, mimicking the unearthly appearance of black lighting and adding a soft, painterly look to Anderson's rough sketches. In many cases the relationship is slavishly one-to-one and undeniable.

Anderson on the left, Alt on the right.

For more on the above, see HERE. For the below, see HERE.

You can piece together what's going on quite clearly in some of them. Take this Alt painting:

 

It's obviously an attempt to group together four Anderson sketches depicting individual gags

which will all appear in the same tableau, and it sticks very close indeed to Ken's renderings.

 

 

 

One more example. This sketch has always been "unattributed" rather than declared to be Ken's.

In view of what we've seen, one glance at the Ken Anderson sketch below convinces me that this is yet another

example of Duane Alt scrupulously re-rendering an Anderson sketch and putting it into a more visual setting.

In cases where Alt's paintings do not match up with anything in Anderson's written or graphic HM material, it is impossible to know for certain if they represent original contributions on Alt's part or authentically Andersonian ideas that by pure chance are not attested in the surviving Andersonian corpus. I lean toward the view that in most of this artwork Alt was acting as Anderson's amanuensis, generously putting his talents at Anderson's disposal. That being the case, all of that reassigned HM artwork may still be considered Anderson's in concept if not in execution.

So not to worry, Anderson fans. By elevating Duane's profile, we do not diminish Ken's. He is still the "Father of the Haunted Mansion" in my book.

To that claim and to that fame, Alt, he puts no halt.

And Anderson, still d' Man, dear son.

(Second only to Walt?)

Not to your liking? You can go hiking.

Nunna that's my fault.

You know, some of this "rap" music—is that what the kids call it?—isn't too bad...

BOOM...dit it, duh BOOM BOOM...did it

Bushman. What about Bushman?

I was getting to that. Thanks to his seminal work on Fantasyland in particular, an abundance of Bushman's artworks have survived. It is not hard to get a feel for his graphic style, whether he was holding a pencil or a paintbrush. None of those loose, painterly sketches above look in any way to me like Bushman's work, and besides, Alt has positively identified the purples as his own. So, other than that one sketch of a giant portrait gallery, can we trace any more of Bushman's presence in artwork currently assigned to Ken?

Yes. It is now known that this sketch of Ken Anderson's Ghost House, the "oldest Haunted Mansion" layout known, was drawn by Bruce Bushman (see Merritt, MDIHOW 1:242).

Furthermore, in at least a dozen of the "purple" sketches now reassigned to Duane Alt, there is

writing in the corners. These refer to special effects that go with what is depicted, often sound effects.

                                              "DEATH RATTLE"

                                              "WATER SPLASH - CREAKING PUMP HANDLE   ...   MEOW"

                                              "HYSTERICAL LAUGHING"

                                              "FORCED PERSPECTIVE"

                                              "BATS ...  LIGHTNING FLASH"

                                              "BATS ...  SPIDERS ...  CLANKING CHAINS"

                                              "CREAK" 

                                              "WHISTLE + COLD WIND" 

                                              "CREAKING"

                                              "FROZEN HAND RAIL"

                                              "ELECTRIC SHOCK ON HANDRAIL"

                                              "WAILS - MOANS ...  DIRGE MUSIC"

Surprisingly, this handwriting does not seem to match Alt's or Ken's very well. At the Alt website one can find storyboards he did for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and these furnish us with clear, authentic examples of Alt's printing less than six years later:

Your eye might latch onto Alt's "G," as did mine at first, and claim a match with the "G's" on the HM artwork. After all, both finish with a peculiar vertical stroke. Basically, they're a "C" with a beard. But there is much else in the lettering that doesn't match quite so well, and besides, most of the HM "G's" have a neatly trimmed goatee, so to speak, whereas Alt's "G" tends to have a ZZ Top downstroke, hanging well below line. I won't bore you with the details, but I've pored over the lettering of the HM artwork and the lettering of not only Alt, but Anderson, Coats, and Marc Davis. Samples of the latter three are not hard to find, and they can be eliminated as suspects, because they invariably draw the more typical "G" that looks like a "C" carrying a horizontal platter.

Here are samples of Ken Anderson's printing. You see what I mean about the "G's."

 

 

 

Some caution is in order. These guys were trained draftsman, which training included instruction in how to PRINT in accordance with a set style. This is especially true of those who had an architectural school background, like Anderson and Coats. Furthermore, employers often have a preferred style that they enforce or at least encourage their people to follow.

Although the caution is well-taken, it remains true that given a sufficient body of text, individual quirks and preferences are impossible to suppress. Long story short, I am convinced that Bruce Bushman wrote all of those notes. Thanks especially to his importance in developing Fantasyland attractions for Disneyland, an abundance of his concept artwork has been treasured up and made easily available. Just Google "Bruce Bushman" and "Fantasyland," and feast your eyes. And practically all of it has his printing on it. Furthermore, we have that Wax Museum layout sketch (seen above), which furnishes excellent samples of his printing.

Everything in the lettering matches. Bruce's "Y's," for example, are invariably truncated lollypops, half-circles sitting on a stick. Alt's "Y's" are two straight lines, one long and one short. His "R," his "S," his ... aw hell, do your own deep dive. I have found no discrepancies. But if you want a clincher, check out his "G." When it occurs within or (especially) at the end of a word, Bushman has the peculiar habit of narrowing the letter most of the time, as if he'd put it in a vice and given it a couple cranks. No drafting class teaches that idiosyncrasy, I am pretty certain!

On the left are samples from the "purple" artwork, in the center from the Wax Museum map, on the right from Bushman's Fantasyland concept artwork.  Squeeze them G's, Bruce.

 

So yeah, I'm pretty confident that Bruce Bushman added these annotations on special effects to Alt's paintings. Though initially skeptical, Chris Reichman (and his brother Andy) have come to that conclusion as well. (They have graciously given their blessing to this post, btw, and they have my thanks.)

In the case of the haunted kitchen sketch, the notes are written across the bottom, upside down, which also suggests to me that they are a secondary addition. One can imagine Ken and Bruce going over Alt's paintings and discussing how the scene would work, with Bruce occasionally adding annotations directly to the artwork, based on Ken's ideas (or stronger, perhaps, based on Ken's instructions, seeing as how this was still his project).

As if to return the favor, it is possible that Duane Alt did the lettering on Bushman's "Ghost House" sketch. It doesn't look to me like either Bushman's or Anderson's handwriting. Granted, the lettering is a little stiffer and more straight-legged than in the Birds storyboards, but the ZZ Top beards hang proudly down from all the "G's," so yeah, that could be Alt's hand, although in this case I can't say I'm 100% certain.

Conclusions

So what are the facts? What do we know?

        • Ken Anderson insisted that the "purple" HM concept art was not done by him.

        • Duane Alt recognized that artwork as his and has demonstrated reliable memory in this area.

        • Duane specifically remembers working with Ken on the "Haunted House."

        • The printing on the "purple" artwork seems to match Bruce Bushman's handwriting.

        • According to Jim Korkis, Alt and Bushman were commissioned to work on the Pirate walk-thru

                at the same time that Anderson was commissioned to work on the Haunted House walk-thru.

        • Bushman produced some undisputed HM concept art during the Anderson period

                of HM development, and so did Alt (unless the sketches belong to the St. Louis project).

        • Your blog administrator has a lot of work to do, revising old posts.

I should add as a postscript that Tom Morris considers this chapter in HM history an ongoing investigation, with many riddles still unsolved, and so he prefers to leave some of the questions discussed here open for now. As always, the views expressed in this post are my own.

**************