An Audio Trip Through the Haunted Mansion Two Years After Opening

1971

We've posted audio recordings of the Disneyland Haunted Mansion from 1973 and 1976. This 1971 recording is the earliest yet and is pretty good quality. As with the other tapes, it seems like a busy day.

It's remarkable that even when the ride was only two years old (maybe even less), the crowds were chattering away during the whole walk-thru portion. I'm afraid that anyone with a nostalgic yearning for a time when guests were respectfully quiet must set their WayBack machine for the first year, because already by 1971 a high percentage of the guests were apparently familiar enough with the Ghost Host monologue to ignore it.

Any revelations? Well, as with the later recordings (1976 especially), I think we have evidence here that the changing portrait hall and limbo load areas (i.e. the whole walk-thru portion after the stretching gallery) had occasional ghostly laughs and yowls sprinkled in, similar to COD vocalizations. And you'll notice that the wolf howl kicks in while you're still in the portrait hall and doesn't let up until you get to the end of the COD. Also, if the pop-ups are vocalizing at the end of each verse of GGG, as the other tapes show, I can't hear it, but others tell me they can hear them, so . . . shhhh, listen!  Decide for yourselves.

 

Excerpts of Note

 

1. Here's one of the ghostly wails apparently heard while still in the portrait hall:

2. Here's possibly a second, although I strongly suspect it's just a guest, yowling for no reason. There are other such suspect vocalizations at about 4:54 and 5:10. There's a low moan at about 4:36, barely audible, which I think could be the same as the well-known one from the COD, which can be heard on this tape at about 6:21.

3. Something should be said about these COD laughs. You can hear them in the 1973 and 1976 recordings as well. No one seems to have heard them on the ride for a very, very long time. They sound a lot like certain outtakes from the Paul Frees recording sessions for the Haunted Mansion. I'm not sure I hear a precise match in any of the three ride-thru tapes, but no doubt they would have been doctored quite a bit if and when they were put to use in the COD.

 

Why these hearty bwah-ha-ha's eventually vanished is a mystery.

 Compare those with these from Paul Frees and judge for yourselves.

Just two years past opening.

What strikes me most is how little has changed since then.

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