If Long Forgotten were a Disney princess, she'd now be old enough to get married. To quote Maleficent: "It's incredible! Sixteen years..." Yes, it's incredible.
Ooooh . . .
Ahhhh . . .
Okay, that'll do. Time for the pivot and introduction of a topic worth talking about but which has never merited a post of its own.
In other words, we're going to do what we always do on these august occasions (even though they're always in April). This one has been sitting in the drawer for a long time, waiting patiently for its moment in the sun.
If there's one piece of traditional Disneyana loved by absolutely everybody, it's those big, souvenir park maps that debuted in 1958 and were regularly updated as time went by. But before we get into those, something you may not know is that in addition to their famous early concept sketches, Harper Goff and Marvin Davis also sketched several maps of the proposed Disney park, then just a twinkle in Walt's eye, and in some of those they included a "Haunted House." Here's Goff's 1951 map. The haunted house is at the very top.
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And here's Davis's 1953 map. (Middle, far right.)
McKim's McKlassics
Our interest, however, is in those colorful wall maps the parks sold. As most of you probably know, the first of these (and the best) were done by Sam McKim, and from the beginning they have always included the Haunted Mansion (or "Haunted House"). We're not going to do a survey of all the changes in the various iterations of the map, only the ones that affected the portrait of the HM in them. McKim's original drawing of the Mansion remained unaltered in the '58, '59, '60, and '61 editions:
We've discussed this one many times, and I haven't anything new to say about it, so we'll move on to the '62, '64, '65 map (none were printed in '63; we'll find that there are numerous such gaps along the way).
Hands down my favorite. McKim was good at rendering top-down perspective, and his mastery of line weight was amazing. This is the only rendition of the building that even comes close to being accurate, including as it does the peculiar roofline, which reflects the twin stretching rooms. He probably sketched this in 1961 or early 1962, when the building was not up yet, so he must have seen some of the blueprints.
Perhaps the most interesting feature is the color. Already by 1958, in McKim's rendition elsewhere of the building inspired by the Shipley-Leydecker house, the exterior was expected to be white.
But we also know that the eventual color scheme was not yet set in stone, and as proof, the rugged brown in the 1962 park map may be added to this well-known "color guide" from 1962 or 63.
McKim's realistic inclusion of the northeastern stretchroom in the roofline evidently confused later mapmakers, who took it as virtually a separate building attached to the Mansion (and thought to be . . . what? a spill area? restaurant? ). The famous National Geographic spread on Disneyland (1963) interpreted it that way in its Disneyland map:
We're years too early for the Museum of the Weird, by the way, in case any of you are getting all excited about that possibility. The park guidebooks for '65, '66, and '67 all included a little wing over there as well.
I suspect that this was inspired by a misreading of McKim's sketch, fueled by the false assumption that the house was a simple square. Did they think it was an old-fashioned farmhouse water tower?
I'm Callin' Campbell Mmm Mmm Good
In 1966 the map was redone in a painterly style by Collin Campbell (reproduced in '68, '72, '74, '75, '76). I don't like it as well as McKim's, but I must admit its softer, lusher look has a certain appeal.
The house design is far less accurate, but this will remain the basic look for the rest of the souvenir map's existence. There are several curious features here. One is a weird, non-existent entrance gate leading straight to the front door. I've never heard of any plans to incorporate this feature, but once it got on the souvenir map it had remarkable staying power through subsequent editions.
More interesting is the implication that the front yard cemetery would extend all the way around to the other side, which of course never happened. But the way the front yard portion is walled-off and enclosed is reminiscent of the old Ken Anderson design for an elaborate cemetery. When the attraction was conceived as a walk-thru (which would still have been the case in 1966), we remember that the northern and southern walled areas were to be twin exit areas complete with graveyards. Were there plans to have them connected? The earliest blueprints of the building do not include the attached stairwell entrance that blocks traffic along the back of the building, so I suppose the idea may have been considered feasible at one point, even though it would always have been a bit of a squeeze.
More interesting still is the presence of the show building. Keep in mind that it was not actually built until the early spring of 1969 (yes, really, 1969), even though the basic size and shape of the building were already determined by 1961:
But why include it at all on a souvenir fun map with no pretensions to strict accuracy? Haven't we been told that 'beyond the berm" isn't supposed to exist when you're at Disneyland? Why, then, the big, ugly, gray blob? Well, the answer is not far to seek. Just south on the same map is the big gray blob of the POTC show building:
As we can see, the Pirates building served as a convenient bulletin board for posting the names of exciting scenes in the upcoming attraction, guaranteed to tease and tantalize map owners.
No doubt when Campbell was recruited to redo the map in 1965 or 66 the powers that be (i.e. Walt) were confident that by the time the map was ready for the printer the Mansion's contents would be just as settled as POTC's. Campbell obviously was not responsible for all that superimposed lettering. They knew what the show building was going to look like and they thought they would soon know what was going to be in it.
What this shows is that as long as Walt was alive and at the helm, everybody thought the decision-making process would keep moving along at a sufficient pace to put a Mansion bulletin board on the park map, in confident anticipation that all the major issues about its contents would be settled by 1966. Didn't happen, of course. The '66 and '68 Campbell maps are solid evidence that things really did lapse into a state of uncertainty and flux when Walt died, just like everyone says it did.
An edition of the map with the interior items tacked on the show building eventually did appear in 1972 (no new maps appeared in '69, '70, or '71). Notice that "the graveyard" is not included. The outside graveyard (still labeled there) is supposed to be understood as being in continuity with the one we see on the ride, and you wouldn't label the same graveyard twice, right? This is evidence that what would eventually be the berm graveyard was conceived as merely the extreme edge of the large public cemetery you see in the ride, spilling over the hilltop into view from the front. The crypt complex that makes up the exit area was to be understood the same way. You enter it riding in your doombuggy and eventually make your way out of it on foot. This is also confirmed in the script for the "Story and Song" album.
For 1978, they decided to redo the map entirely once again and go back to the look of the original Sam McKim maps, more sketchy-graphic and linear, but preserving the Campbell design overall, except for deleting the no longer necessary show building (qua bulletin board). Putting a couple of the hitchhikers on the map seemed sufficient.
This edition was reprinted in '79, '82, '83, '84, and '87. I have to admit that I don't know who the artist was. No one else seems to know either. If I ever find out who it was, I'll put it here (hooray for the blog format). It's okay, but I think it suffers by comparison with McKim. When it comes to pseudo-Sam, Chris Merritt does it better.
In 1989 some alterations were made to accommodate the inclusion of Splash Mountain. The hitchers were moved into the front yard, but little else was changed. Same artist, it seems.
In 1995 they redid the whole thing again. The artist was Nina Rae Vaughn. It seems like the goal was to bring in a some of the lushness of the Campbell version. The wraparound graveyard is finally gone (or obscured), and the south porch has finally been given its pediment, but the non-existent front entrance still persists. A few more interior characters appear (Mdm L and the Caretaker). It was reprinted in 2000.
For the 2001 edition (reprinted in '05 and '08), Flashpass Gardens was included, and the front entrance was finally put where it belongs.
I have not thought it worthwhile to chart all the little depictions of the Mansion in the park guides, other than the mid-sixties items above, but I find it curious that since at least 2013 (and probably earlier), a strange sort of "Winchester Mystery House" architectural sprawl has served as the HM icon.
McKim Returns!
Getting back to the big wall maps, there is a wonderful tale to be told about Paris Disneyland. It seems that they convinced Sam McKim himself to come out of retirement and do their souvenir map, and the depiction of Phantom Manor is a sheer delight, full of Sam's distinctive humor and with his graphic skills undiminished and on full display, as if 1958 was yesterday. What a treat.
A always, thanks to all you Forgottenistas for making this blog worthwhile! Long Forgotten continues to pick up new readers, so . . . there ya go.
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