"Museum of the Weird" Inspirations? Plus: Long-Forgotten Turns FIFTEEN!

 Time to celebrate our Quinceañara.

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.

 

 

Actually, that's only the latest incarnation of Rolly's "Torsohead" (as we call him around here). In earlier sketches Torsohead was a thurifer (i.e. the acolyte who swings the censer), and he didn't have his handy-dandy headpiece yet. The maquette figurine of Torsohead was also different, sporting cloven hooves and a more detailed, more devilish face.

Tracking the inspiration for the maquette version was fun. I think it's just a combination of two monsters from Hartmann Schedel's Weltchronik (or Liber Chronicarum), first published in 1493 and gleefully ransacked ever since for its depictions of bizarre creatures that supposedly exist in far-away lands. MOTW bait if ever there was.

 Since Schedel's freakazoids have been reproduced in countless publications, Rolly could easily have come across them.

 

Just mash up the two center figures above and ta-da, you've got the Torsohead maquette. (No censer, but look how he's holding that twig.)

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.

 

 

If he did, it's possible that he may have been partially inspired by it when he sketched a few of his especially nasty gals for his MOTW, but in this case I'm not going to bet the farm. Decide for yourself how far over the needle goes.

 

 

 

 

Murder by the Clock

 

Here's our third item, this time involving not Rolly but one of the other Imagineers, probably Marc Davis, if anyone. Personally, I'm inclined to file this one under coincidence, but as usual, you decide. Murder by the Clock was a Paramount thriller released in 1931. The movie poster doesn't give off any Mansion vibes . . .

 

 

 . . . but this publicity still sure does:
 

Hmm . . . Not saying yes, not saying no.  I'm just sane.

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