Happy Haunts Materialize: The Hat Box Ghost Returns

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Let's cut right to the chase. I think he's good. (Our post on the original HBG is HERE.)

pix above and below from Disney Parks Blog 

Here are some 3D's in different sizes. Find your "magic eye" comfort level.

On May 9, 2015, the legendary Hat Box Ghost reappeared after a nearly 46-year absence. When it was announced that no, really, this time for sure, no foolin', the HBG was going to return to the HM, and a temporary construction wall went up to prove it, there were not a few among us more worried than excited. Hatbox is a cult figure, one for the true blue doombugs, and among them there is a solid consensus that when it comes to the Haunted Mansion, the track record of Walt Disney Imagineering over the past decade has left something to be derided. You can review the bullet points below if you want particulars, or you can skip them if you'd rather bask in the 100% positive vibes currently washing over the Long-Forgotten blogsite.


Why We Were Weelly, Weelly Worried

• Floating Leota (2005) has never gotten anything more than a lukewarm response. The change felt, and still feels, wrong. Here's where treating this thing like a work of art proves its worth. What had always been the calm, stabilizing center of the ride was now simply another floating object. Everything about her—her chronological placement in the show flow, her pivotal position in the three-act play that is the Haunted Mansion, even her physical location in the room—announces that "here is the center, the eye of the storm." Nothing was gained and something was lost when she took flight.

• The marked improvement in the way the changing portraits work (also 2005) and the gratitude from traditionalists for returning the presentation to its original lightning-flash mode was spoiled somewhat by disappointment over the removal of the beloved April-December portrait. Some of us have never forgiven them for that. I think she is missed more than they figured she would be. I think there are Imagineers who miss her more than they thought they would.

• Constance (2006) is intensely disliked by the hardcore fans. Not only is the effect poorly done, but we all resent having a story shoved down our throats. The attic has been turned into a tedious interlude between the ballroom and the graveyard. In fairness, there is some nice special effects work with the five wedding portraits, but I'd take a single blast-up spook over the whole lot of them any day.

• On the other hand, the 2007 "Rehaunting" of the Orlando Mansion was for the most part a smashing success, especially the Escher-like staircases. The sound system and augmented soundtrack in the stretching gallery have also been well received. The ghostly eyes that segue into the wallpaper upstairs are imaginative and appropriate. The only real sour note here has to do with the baffling Disneylandification of the Orlando Mansion, watering down its unique personality in a pointless attempt to make it more like the Anaheim original. The Disneylandish changing portrait hall (goodbye "Sinister 11" and their watchful eyes) and the redecoration of the COD are probably the chief offenders here. Foxxy simply wants to know why, and others among us do too.

• The 2011 interactive queue at WDW remains the worst thing that has ever happened to any of the Mansions in their entire history.  Bring on the bulldozers. The CG mirror hitchhikers are marginally better but still inferior to what they replaced. In a haunted house, "Oh, they just do that with computers" cannot compare with, "Wait. How do they do that?" And there is still no possible excuse for a CG Ezra that doesn't even look like Ezra.

So you can see why May 9 was anticipated with anxiety and suspicion. What were we going to do if they totally screwed up the Hat Box Ghost? We'll never know, because they didn't.

There is a vast amount of great videography and photography out there. (HERE, HERE, HERE for video; HERE, HERE, HERE for photos, and there's plenty more where that came from.) There is an official Disney video HERE.


Random Observations

He's not inside the attic, in his original position, but a few yards away, just outside the exit. Not much was there previously:

Thanks to friends in low places, I know that they've been seriously considering that location for the HBG since at least 2009. The reason is that they can control the lighting better in that location than they can inside the attic. In fact, I'm told that a HBG figure was actually installed and tested in 2009. There were problems, but they were still going ahead with the project, hoping to have him ready for the Mansion's 40th anniversary, but the plug was pulled at the last minute.

The entire area out there has been beautifully redesigned as a large porch with a pergola, including (faux) wrought ironwork somewhat similar in design to what the HM has out front.  Behind the HBG are double doors partially open. There is a group of fanged and red-eyed bats inside, hanging upside down and extremely difficult to photograph. Here's the best I've seen so far:

pic by Macro at Micechat

Some think that possibly this is a nod to an unused piece of Marc Davis concept art we've posted more than once:

There are hatboxes everywhere. Each of the five wedding portraits inside the attic now has a hatbox nearby, there is a stack of three more in front of the HBG to his left, and there's another pile of five on his right, some of them stacked on a hand truck. Since hand trucks are not exactly stereotypical haunted house paraphernalia, one suspects that a story item will eventually emerge involving the arrival or retrieval of gobs of hatboxes. Presumably, this will tie the new guy back into the attic scene. Not really looking forward to that, but at least for now it's a mystery.

[EDIT 4-30-22] One more thing I just learned. As we know, all of the human figures in the ride are assigned "figure numbers." The original HBG was #42. When he was removed, they simply left that space blank or marked it "OMITTED."  Anyway, Nicolaas Preijers informs me that the costume storage lockers backstage, beneath the attic scene, have printed lists posted, and the new HBG is #42. Like he'd never been gone.


So, What's Not to Like?

According to some, plenty.

Some Mansion fans don't like the new avatar, predictively enough, and I suppose some of them may wonder why yours curmudgeonly truly seems so satisfied with the new HBG. For whatever they're worth, here are my responses to some of the objections that have been raised.

The number one complaint is that he's got a computer generated face that wriggles and smirks. Everyone knows that's what it is, so there goes all the mystery. "Oh, it's done with computers" = no magic, remember? The CG hitchhikers at WDW are horrible. The HBG isn't as bad as they, but can't we keep the cartoons out of the Mansion?

In response, let me point out that Madame Leota, Little Leota, and the Singing Busts also have CG faces that wriggle and smirk (let's leave Connie out of this for now). Hmm? What's that? You say they're not CG? They're film of actual faces? You're right, of course, but I wonder what percentage of new riders under the age of 30 or so unthinkingly assume that those faces are CG images. Our thorough knowledge of the difference between the two ways of projecting a face may keep us from seeing how similar the results have become. Mansioneers, we'd better face the fact that the days are gone when the "Leota Effect" inspires gasps of surprise and wonderment as to how it's done, even if the way these Millennials think it is done is wrong! "Oh, it's CG" is the new "Oh, it's a hologram."

There isn't that much wriggling and smirking anyway. His eyes blink and his pupils move. I find it hard to believe that Yale Gracey would not have incorporating those features in the original figure if he could have found a good way to do so. So far as I can tell, the only other animation that takes place is when his eye sockets squint angrily. I find it easy to accept this bit of cartooning because it is consciously designed and directed toward the creation of a particular effect that cannot be done otherwise. Several riders have noted how downright creepy it is when Hattie seems to make direct eye contact with you at one point and gives you a fiendish scowl. Well, his face has to react in some way for such an effect to be achieved. Add to this how surprisingly close the new HBG stands to the doombuggies, and we're told you can get a real chill from the new HBG, going right down your spine. In pursuit of such a worthy purpose, a bit of animation is absolutely necessary. I say huzzah and congratulate them for their remarkable restraint in this area.

We are all grateful that the face itself is scrupulously faithful to the original.

We were worried that the art direction for the project was going to hark back to the original Marc Davis concept sketches,
or try to find a "happy medium" between the two approaches. This pseudo-animation cell has been out there for a year or so.

Marc's original sketch has been published and posted many times. Here's a close-up:

(Note that the doorway and the bats from this concept sketch have been adapted and incorporated.)

By the way, I suppose it's heresy, but I've always thought the face in that second sketch is weak. Even the great Marc Davis didn't give us the Sistine Chapel every time out, and in my opinion this simply isn't one of his best.

Here's another point. With the CG hitchhikers, you watch them like you'd watch a cartoon show. In contrast, the face of the HBG isn't really the show itself; it's more like an element in a show. The HBG is a solid, fully-dimensional AA figure, much praised for its fluid and yet restrained movement (there's that word again). It's just enough to say, "Yes, I'm alive" without saying, "Look, I can dance!" It serves as the stage for a show, and not just any show but a magic show.


It's Magic!

It took us all of two days, I think, to figure out how the trick is done. I won't spoil it for you. (There's probably a "spoiler" cloaking device somewhere around here at Blogger, but pthh, I'll just put the Forbidden Knowledge in a Comment.) Suffice it to say that the trick involves scrim, a two-way mirror, clever misdirection, a basically simple mechanical gimmick, a "black art well," and strategically placed lighting. In other words, we're essentially back in front of a 19th century magic show, the main difference being that the rabbit popping in and out of the hat is a dummy rabbit with a modern, inner-projected face. The official Disney video for the debut of the new HBG refers to the use of "fundamental tricks and illusions" already pioneered by Yale Gracey. That's true enough:

Sketches by Yale Gracey

It's already the case that guesses as to how it's done generally make it more complicated than it is.

In my book, that's one of the signs of a good magic trick. All of this warms the heart, let me tell you.

Since virtually every explanation of why the original effect didn't work says that the figure was just too close to the track for the face to convincingly disappear, I have to wonder if the placement of the new figure right in your effin' face bespeaks a certain triumphalism after so successfully licking the problem. Fun to think so, anyway. A little end-zone dance would be fully justified.

gif from Tumblr

The magician most directly responsible for pulling this thing off is Special Effects

Designer Daniel Joseph, seen here (right) with show producer Jeff Shaver-Moskowitz (left).

I understand that calling Mr. Joseph a great admirer of Yale Gracey would be quite the understatement, and the opportunity to pick up one of his master's projects that couldn't work in 1969 and getting it to work in 2015 is something he has described as "a project of passion and a dream. Something I've dreamt of working on since I was a boy. We hope you are proud Yale, you will always by my idol!"


More Quibbles

There have been a few other complaints about the new figure. The main one is his laugh. Throughout the Mansionariat there is uniform agreement that the chuckle is too robust. We all think it should be a scratchy, nutty, old-man cackle, not this deep rumble that could be a Paul Frees Ghost Host outtake. Though I agree with the criticism, it's not a deal breaker for me. Maybe I'm too grateful that a simple chuckle once per cycle is all they put in there. We had nightmares of him chattering away like Connie's fraternal twin.

Another quibble: they didn't bring back the quivering hand on top of his cane (which is the one feature I remember most vividly from the original HBG). This too makes him seem less the old man that he was. But here again, I can't get too worked up. Quick, violent vibration is sheer hell on machinery. Eventually it shakes things to pieces. If you want proof, just look at this well-known and unique shot of the original HBG in situ. It's a few weeks old at maximum, and his wrist is already shot.

Possibly this was what Wayne Jackson was referring to when he said:

"The gag worked, but it was a maintenance problem" (MDIHOW 399).

Post Script: The Long Campaign

It occurs to me that no one has ever documented the "Bring Back the Hat Box Ghost" movement that led us finally to May 9, 2015. In our previous post on the HBG, I was content with explaining in some detail why and how he became a legend, but I touched only briefly on the public discussions which generated the "put him back in the attic" fanatic fan antics (say it ten times real fast). Now might be a good time to take a look back.

It all began in the letters section of E-Ticket Magazine.  Issue #16 (Summer 1993) featured a long article on the Haunted Mansion, which inspired the following letter from Michelle Hill in the next issue (#17, Winter 1993-94):

And so the opening shot is fired. Note that she not only remembers him, she misses him. The editors (Jack and Leon Janzen) answered her letter with the following: "We were aware of your headless ghoul as we prepared the Haunted Mansion story. We've seen original ride layout plans which indicate his exact location in the Attic, opposite from the Bride and to the left [sic] of the vehicles. He's not the Groom...early written treatments say that's the corpse hanging by the neck in the 'stretching room.' Our best information prior to printing #16 (we did ask around...) was that this figure never made it into the ride as opened. Can anyone else confirm Michelle's memory...?" 

The next issue featured a great many letters in response (#18, Spring 1994, pp 34-35). Sometime in the interim it apparently became customary to refer to him as "the Hat Box Ghost" (or "the Hatbox Ghost"). The editors opened the section by noting that Michelle Hill's letter had "spurred additional comment from readers. We were challenged to find a photo of him, so here's a rare shot of the ghost with his mentor, Yale Gracey, and some of your opinions regarding the existence of the 'Hat Box Ghost' in the original Haunted Mansion..." According to Michelle Hill, they got the photo from Tony Baxter. It was one of the publicity photos of the prototype figure with Yale Gracey that we discussed in the earlier HBG post. No one yet realized that it was not the actual figure but a prototype.

The letters that followed were interesting.

"...In response to Michelle Hill's letter re: the "Hatbox Ghost" in the attic, I have a few bits of information about that long-vanished spectre. A composite photo featuring this character was included in the old Disneyland hardcover souvenir book (pg 89 of 'The First Quarter Century'). Confusion as to this character's identity is due in part to the sound track album in which Thurl Ravenscroft describes the evil figure and then identifies the female spook as his bride. I hope I've either added some light, or some enshroudment" - Brent Swanson, Idaho Falls, ID.

"I can provide some corroborating evidence on the Mansion's 'Hat Box Ghost' legend. Indeed this ghost was planned to appear in the attic with the bride, and according to the Disneyland LP record based on the attraction, he is indeed her groom. His photo appears on page 89 of the DL souvenir book with the white cover. Whether this ghost actually was in the Mansion or not, I seem to remember him but I was barely seven years old when the Mansion opened (and no doubt I spent most of the ride with my hands over my eyes). If they built him, they must have used him at least for awhile. I've seen a ride layout used to familiarize new workers with the show, and it shows the 'Hat Box Ghost' to the right of the Bride and the track. Hopefully another reader will provide a definitive answer, because I'd like to know myself" - Scott Weitz, Burbank, CA.

Both these letters refer to this page in the Disneyland: The First Quarter Century book:

We mentioned this in the previous HBG post. The same page appeared in subsequent editions of the book (...First Thirty Years, ...First Thirty-Five Years). The most significant thing is that this was probably the first reuse of one of the old publicity photos in the more permanent format of a book rather than in ephemeral publications like newspapers and magazines.

The next letter is especially interesting:

"To answer your question about whether the 'ghoul with the hat box' made it into the Haunted Mansion, the answer is yes! He appeared in the attic to the right of the exit, where the Bride is now. A photo of him appears on pg 2 of the 1968 WDP Annual Report, where WED designer Yale Gracey adjusts him for his appearance. It was one of my favorite figures in the ride. I also remember his face was later blacked out (showing only his other face in the hat box) before he was removed. I missed him and wished they would put him back in the ride" - Brett R. Thompson, Pasadena, CA.

The descriptions of the figure and his location are accurate. The reference to a 1968 publication indicates that the Yale Gracey publicity photos had already been taken by then, and so the HBG character was obviously planned for the attraction by then. (In my first HBG post I reported erroneously that the photo session dated to early 1969.) Most interestingly for our purposes, this is the first time we hear anything like a plea to bring back the Hat Box Ghost. It will be 21 years before it happens.

"I can confirm Michelle Hill's Haunted Mansion nightmare. The ghoul in the attic was definitely in place when I first rode the Haunted Mansion on August 10, 1969 (my 23rd birthday). He was positioned approximately where the Bride is now located, so as to be one of the last things you saw before exiting to the graveyard scene. The bride was located on your left as you passed the first set of leaping heads (just to the right of the door to the doombuggy storage area). Another change from day one is a shortening of the Ghost Host's narration in the hall area. He used to talk virtually the entire length of the hallway and therefore was a bit distracting. I'd love to see a copy of the original script as I don't remember what he said in that area" - Chuck Nathan, Tucson, AZ.

Again, the descriptions are all accurate. The extra dialogue Chuck refers to is, of course, the "All our ghosts have been dying to meet you..." and "Perhaps Madame Leota can establish contact..." lines, which were there in the beginning and have been in and out several times since then. More importantly for our purposes, this letter solidifies the chronology of events in those first few days: the HBG was there for the CM "soft opening" August 7-8, he was removed for the quasi-official grand opening to the public August 9, and from this letter we know that he was already reinstalled by the 10th. We don't know about the next few days, but I saw him on Thursday the 14th.

"I too have considered the Haunted Mansion an all-time favorite attraction. The mystery of the elusive attic Groom figure (or lack of such) has mystified me. I specifically recall seeing a photo of the finished Audio Animatronic figure in a circa 1970 issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland in an article about the attraction. This same photo appears in Walt Disney's World of Fantasy by Adrian Bailey, and appears to have been photo-graphed in the ballroom setting. I would be curious to know exactly why it was retired from the cast of 999" - Brian Follansbee, Concord, NH.

The photo in the "Famous Monsters" article was none other than the one printed on that same page of E-Ticket, the publicity shot in which Yale is on the left holding the head down in the hatbox.

The editors then introduce the last letter. (The elliptical punctuation is original.) "...our final comment on the enigmatic Hat Box Ghost comes from Walt Disney Imagineering's Tony Baxter..."

"Dear Leon and Jack ... I'm including a general show set plan which may help to enlighten the Haunted Mansion Mystery. It clearly and accurately describes the location of the hat-box ghost and also calls out the original location of the bride (just ahead of the current placement and on the opposite side.) My guess is the bride is currently in the exact location of the hat-box ghost as their [sic] would be a hole in the floor for the base frame of the figure that would be usable at this point." 

"During the pre-opening week, August 1st through 7th, employees were invited to ride, and during the test for ride durability, we were able to ride two to four hours at a time without getting off. The hat-box ghost was installed and running during this period. It is possible that guests also rode the attraction in this time frame and saw the figure. The gag was to have his head become invisible and then appear in the box and constantly reverse back and forth. Unfortunately they couldn't get the head on the body to vanish effectively in this location. My theory is that it was designed to work in the same way as the ballroom and they tried to adapt the effect to this more conventional location and it wasn't convincing. The bride stood in front of a bunch of props that were also later removed. It seemed like a lot of drapery material made from transparent plastic."

"The original sound track from September, 1969 shows tracks that have later been removed and others that are currently buried by noise. Most memorable to me during that first August preview week was the complete 'Toccata & Fugue' as in Fantasia played throughout the graveyard queue while waiting to enter. This did a lot to build anticipation. The crow played a bigger role, but it was very damaging to the eerie nature of the show and has been minimized." Tony discusses some unrelated matters and concludes with, "I hope this helps clear up some mysteries of the Mansion, sincerely..." - Tony Baxter, Walt Disney Imagineering, Glendale, CA.

Most of this letter has been previously available at Doombuggies.com for a long time. The note about the original location of the bride as "just ahead of the current placement and on the opposite side" is peculiar, and the original props around her subsequently removed have been discussed elsewhere. It is well known that Tony's theory here to the effect that a "Pepper's Ghost" technique was used with the HBG was likely inspired by the Yale Gracey publicity shots and is incorrect.

Enter Chris Merritt

There things lay until E-Ticket Magazine #32 in the Fall of 1999. Most of you have never seen and never will see the actual article, so in the interest of making historical documents available, here 'tis.

The wide circulation of these photos and the information in this 1999 article probably did as much as anything else to fuel an informal campaign to bring back the HBG, which—to be frank—was mostly just fans moaning on chatboards about how much they'd like to see him returned, how technology surely must exist that would enable it, and so on. This sort of talk appeared regularly at the fora of Doombuggies.com, at Micechat, and elsewhere—all of which sources were and are monitored by WDI. Imagineers like Chris Merritt and Tony Baxter had felt the love right away and eventually started lobbying for the project, but without the 1993-94 discussions in the letters section of E-Ticket, I don't suppose any real awareness of him would have surfaced, and the snowball may never have gotten rolling.

You Just Gotta See This. Oh, and This.

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7-11 is indeed a lucky combination.
 

July 9 saw the appearance of some home movie footage from August of 1969, probably taken during the opening week of the Haunted Mansion, or not long after.  There is a murky but important shot of the original attic bride, lasting about three seconds, and some much better film of the Hat Box Ghost, which is the real prize, of course.

This historic footage was discovered by Todd J. Pierce and posted at the Disney History Institute blogsite.  Being the anal old cuss that I am, I have a few quibbles with the narrative that accompanies the edited film.  The photograph Todd mentions as appearing "40 years" after the Mansion first opened has actually been up at the Doombuggies.com site since October of 2001. To get really picky, the sign hanging at the entrance went up in January of 1965 and not 1963. But forget about those nit-picks.  This is about as close to a Holy Grail for Mansionites as you're ever likely to see.


While we're on the subject of film, another video you just GOTTA see if you haven't already is the Martin/Warren ride-thru video of the WDW Mansion, filmed in 2009.  It sets a new standard for this sort of thing, miles above anything else out there, including official Disney product.  It's about an hour long, intending to give you every tasty detail of the ride.  The sound quality is also excellent, so be sure to listen with headphones sometime.


The Haunted Mansion WDW 2009 HD from Martins Videos on Vimeo.

For many Orlando fans, the three-and-a-half year interval between the major refurb of September 2007 and the disastrous new additions in April 2011 represents the gold standard, the best any Mansion has been since 1969 (notwithstanding the addition of Constance).  It is our good fortune that the Martin/Warren video was made during this period.

Getting back to 7-11, as luck would have it, July 14 saw the publication of an October 1975 photo of the Disneyland attic bride, proving that the "Corpse Bride" variety was indeed used at Anaheim.  That, plus the newly discovered HBG footage, led to the revamping of our early history of the attic bride.  We can thank the Major at Gorillas Don't Blog for that one.

Here Comes the Bride, Part Four: Constance, Hat Boxes, and the Meaning of the Attic

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This post was written before the return of the Hatbox Ghost in 2015. An additional paragraph has been added to deal with that.

(Photo by Jeff Fillmore)

Warning label.  We're going to get pretty heavy here before we get light, but you'll get no apologies from me.  I happen to believe that people always and everywhere keep talking about the same old things, whether they're writing big, thick theology books or scripts for situation comedies.  Stupid jokes or philosophical systems—it doesn't matter.  We are all natural born theologians and moralists, and darn it, we just can't help ourselves; everything we discuss with each other echoes into and out from something vast and serious.  No matter how trivial and superficial we think we are being, Deep calls to Deep (Ps 42:7).  Connie will show up some paragraphs down, but if what goes first is not your cup of tea...well, no doubt there's a blog out there dedicated to hidden Mickeys in the Haunted Mansions.  Google, and go in peace.  Rest assured that there will be another installment of "Here Comes the Bride" to deal with some of the interesting inspirations for Constance and even some intimations of her future.

It's all good.

The current incarnation of the attic bride is a unique and ambitious attempt to swell the Mansion's cast of characters and expand and solidify its backstory.  No longer is the HM simply a retirement home for ghosts from all over the world, brought here by invitation but getting stuck in the fabric of the house itself until Madame Leota fixes the snag so that they can materialize and start schmoozin' and boozin'.  Until now, this basic plot has been the only backstory to the HM that could claim official sanction, and indeed it accords with what the Ghost Host tells you and accounts for most of what you see.  But it has never completely covered the phenomena presented.  For example, the Ghost Host has a further tie to the house.  (The other end is tied to his neck.)  What's with that?  Was he an owner at one point?  That would explain why the hosting duties fell to him, and perhaps the retirement home idea was his, but it suggests that the house had its own haunted history before that.

The other thing that suggests a previous history is the attic.  Attics are places of concealment, of hidden horrible secrets.  Moreover, the attic has always functioned as the asterisk on the big Marc Davis joke.  The first thing to do is make it clear what that joke is, because that joke accounts for 90% of the HM.  That joke is the broad, firm base from which other, smaller things may deviate.

As we saw in an earlier post, at first you think the ghosts are malevolent and out to get you, but it turns out that "they pretend to terrorize" and really don't care about you at all; they just want to get to a state of comfortable materialization so that they can enjoy themselves.  Ha ha, the joke's on you:  you thought they were hostile, and you were wrong.

The point of the joke, the moral of the story, the message of the Mansion, is that fear of death is overblown.

That's it in a nutshell.  I mean, you really don't know if it's a chamber of horrors on the other side of the veil, do you?  No one really knows, right?  Perhaps the scary hauntings you hear about are just naughty pranks, perhaps all is forgiven and all is well and everyone's having a jolly good time over there.  So long as you don't know which is the case, you might as well take the optimistic view.  That's the vision presented to you by Mr. Davis.  In his portrait of the afterlife, the executioner and the knight he dispatched are now best buds.  There is no revenge, no bitterness, not even any residual hierarchy of power on the other side of the grave—kings and queens are playing like children!  Yeah, there are those two duelists still going at it, but it's more a matter of both of them being humorously stuck in a cycle of irresolvable earthly business than a tragic vision of implacable hatred.  You almost suspect that they're doing it as a game now.  After all, what happens when a ghost shoots a ghost?  Is he going to die or something?  See?  Joke!  Ever'body laugh.

Without going even deeper than we need to, we might briefly note that there is a certain resonance between this joke and traditional Christian theology, wherein Death is defeated and rendered harmless ("where is thy sting?"), and ultimately the story of the universe is told as a comedy and not a tragedy.  In this sense, the Haunted Mansion is simply expressing an optimistic hope firmly rooted in Western culture.  "All shall be well."

Okay, now the asterisk, now the "yes, but."  Equally part of the Western and Christian worldview is the notion that the afterlife is also the place where justice is finally served (it sure as hell ain't on this side of the veil, in case you hadn't noticed).  Justice implies judgment, and judgment is bad news for the bad.  That happy optimistic vision hopes that enough mitigating circumstances will ultimately be found so that everybody, or almost everybody, gets off, but if the wisdom of the ages is given any weight, there remains a residual pool of those who choose evil without any possible excuse for it and put themselves beyond the reach of even the most generous of post-mortem visions.

Disney traffics heavily in traditional fairy tales, correct?  You'll note that the villains in fairy tales are often very villainous indeed.  It might sometimes be possible to understand them, but you cannot excuse them.  They have made their alliance with Death.  You cannot redeem them; what you do is, you kill them.  In truth, the world of traditional fairy tales is pretty stark and grim, and Disney has always faithfully represented this fact.  Fairy tales are also a good place to check out the aforementioned wisdom of the ages.  It's not surprising that Davis's warm bath of good feeling has a sober asterisk attached.

The HM is just complex enough to give a nodding acknowledgment to this darker truth while celebrating the rosier vision.  This could have been accomplished in a number of ways, but the route the Imagineers chose (by intuition—don't ever think I'm claiming that they sat around and thought about all of this consciously), is the detective mystery.  What is it that motivates the sleuth in all of those whodunnits?  Bringing the criminal to justice.  Making sure the guilty party doesn't get away with it.  You don't associate Sherlock Holmes with forgiveness, do you?  Now ordinarily, writers of detective fiction banish the supernatural from their pages.  That's because the readers are supposed to be able to figure out who did it based on clues dropped along the way.  If you throw angels and demons and ghosts in there, it spoils the whole thing.  No one can reasonably be expected to anticipate a deux ex machina resolution to a mystery.  But the reverse is not true:  crime and detection are not absent from ghost lore.  Too many ghosts busy themselves with revealing where the body is hidden, or where the knife was buried, or by terrorizing the guilty into confessing their crime.  These ghosts, at any rate, are not in a forgiving mood.  They want justice.

In our discussion of the Hat Box Ghost, we showed that the whole attic scene originally was held together by the head-in-a-hatbox symbol, which hails from the world of crime mystery.  You're in the attic, which is one of the two places in an old house where horrible secrets and crimes are hidden (the other is the cellar, of course).  You see that hatbox, and you have a dreadful suspicion that there's a severed head in it, and when your suspicion is confirmed, you realize you're looking at a murder, and you wonder what happened and who did it.  Like a good murder mystery, the attic gives you just enough clues to conclude that the bride is the guilty party, as we saw.  What's the Hat Box Ghost up to, anyway?  He's showing you what happened.  Got his noggin whacked off and hidden in a hatbox.  The murderer evidently got away with it, but now the victim's ghost has come back to reveal the awful truth to the world.  The crime is illustrated before your eyes and it is linked to the bride via the synchronized heartbeat.  Very efficient storytelling—this all takes about a second and a half.  These guys are GOOD.

Note that the question of justice enters in here—you wonder who committed the crime—whereas when you see the knight in the graveyard, who is just as beheaded as the HBG is, you don't ask any such questions.  The perp is right there, after all, and neither of them care any more, and you don't even know which was in the right and which was in the wrong.  And you don't care either.  You regard the two beheading victims in completely different ways.  Creepy atmosphere + a hatbox in the attic = bingo,  you're in murder mystery land.

Oh, all right, I hear those fingers drumming on the tabletop.  You've been good, so here.  Here's a few more Connie shots by Jeff Fillmore (aka ~Life by the Drop~ at flickr).  She's miserably hard to photograph, and I don't know how he does it, but IMO Mr. F. has got the best Connie shots on the Web.

From beginning to end, the attic scene has never been free of the grisly-hatbox symbol.  It is just as fundamental as the bride herself.  We noted how the two blast-up ghosts were skullish heads popping from hatboxes.  They were there from 1969 until 2006.  You can go back earlier.  Here again is a shot of the scale model, which we've seen before:

Let's pan to the right and see what got cropped out.  Well looky there.  I see two hatboxes, and one of them is suspiciously isolated.  You look inside, I just had dinner.

Next up, some Claude Coats concept art for the attic:

Well, I'm not so sure that it isn't an innocent hatbox in this case.  But this is an attic.  No doubt something horrid is hidden there.  Any guesses where the body is?  Possibly the trunk, but if you didn't think, "Maybe walled up in the brickwork of that chimney," you really need to read more books and see more movies.  See how it works?  They know that you just know these things.

When they were kicking around ideas for a New Bride in the mid-2000's, there was a range of ideas put out there for consideration.  One widely-reproduced sketch that passes as "concept art for Constance" actually stayed very close to the then-current bride.  Still has the candle, still has the beating heart, still has the bouquet, and still has the blank white eyes.  Just a coked-up version of the previous, "blue-faced" bride, really.

Oh, and if you come across a less-severely cropped version...well whaddya know:

Here's the Frank tableau in the finished make-over at Disneyland:

Nice.  And here's a piece of concept art for it.  (Nudge nudge:  lower left, atbox-hay on the oor-flay).

Just in case you think I'm imagining things, some concept art for Constance throws subtlety to the wind and takes us directly back to Hat Box Ghost territory.  Oh, and notice how close this Connie is to the finished character:

Ewww.  That'll put you off your Eggs Benedict.

Reportedly, there were plans to put a stack of five hatboxes across from Constance in the HBG's old spot, with the names of her five husbands on them.  Hatbox city.  One report even suggested that they would light up and glow from within.  That didn't happen, but they did put a hat-rack there, with hats on it matching Connie's hubbies in the portraits.  Heh heh.  When they put Constance into the WDW attic in 2007, they too got a hat-rack, but they also got the stack of hatboxes.  No name tags or lights though.

Wouldn't want to be in there on a warm day.  Notice the swords laying around.  You don't suppose that means anything, do you?

With the grisly-hatbox symbol, you've got CRIME looking for PUNISHMENT.  You've uncovered something deliberately hidden.  There's a murderer out there somewhere, a score to settle, a vengeance yet denied.  Question:  How has the attic bride always been different from most of the other ghosts you see?  Answer:  She's not happy.  No socializing for her.  Even Constance is only experiencing the lunatic glee of the criminally insane.  If you insist on calling it "happy," then it's kind of a Charles Manson happy, you know?  I wouldn't say she's happy.  She's not forgiven or forgiving, not within the embrace of any resolution.  But is justice being served?  Well, if she wasn't so utterly wacked-out, she'd realize that she's exposing herself and being exposed.  Hattie with his damning heart-beat box is gone, but now we've got five haunted wedding portraits with the husbands' heads disappearing.  Those portraits are five ghostly fingers from beyond the grave laying accusation.  And yet, those guys aren't happy either, and they don't even get the relief of being too crazy to care.  You don't see forgiveness, but you don't see just deserts either.  The ghostly revelations inspire no remorse in Connie, and she's suffering no reprisal.  Her madness has taken her to a place without punishment, but also without love.

This is a very sour note in the HM, and it may well be a thematic blunder.  The Connie addition is seriously flawed.  Unlike the knight and executioner, there has not been any post-mortem reconciliation in this case.  They're grim ghosts without the grinning part.  If there were a way to show the husbands yukking it up with Connie, all of them laughing at the silly fuss their earthly crime drama stirred up, then they'd be part of the Marc Davis all-is-now-well joke.  Or, alternately, if the hubbies were allowed to show some sense of satisfaction that at last the murderer has been caught out, putting their spirits to rest, avenging them, giving them something to grin about like the old Hat Box Ghost, then they would fit into the traditional role of the attic as the "justice must be satisfied" asterisk added to the otherwise merry universalism of the Haunted Mansion.  As things stand, the message of the attic is, "the Devil wins," however lightly and humorously expressed.  Yes, you will survive death and live forever; but no, there is no guarantee that you will find either justice or forgiveness on the other side.  That's a common enough stance in modern horror, of course, but it is utterly foreign to the Mansions.  Or it was, until May 2006.

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

Now that we've arrived at the current incarnation of the attic bride, here would be

the place to place two handy murals, showing the character down through the years.

At Disneyland, the Corpse Bride version of Beating Heart was the original, lasting from Aug 1969 until the late 70's. Black-faced Beating Heart replaced her and lasted until 1995. Then it's the blue-faced bride, unveiled or veiled (1995—May 2006), and Constance (May 2006—Jan 2025).

UPDATE: And now, of course, we can add a sixth bride to the lineup: the new Connie, who debuted Jan 18, 2025.

 

Mike Kindrich

At WDW, we started out with a somewhat milder version of the Corpse Bride (Oct 1971—1973), followed by a black faced version until 1997. Blue face, with wild hair, lasted from 1997 to 2007. Constance debuted in the fall of 2007.

October 2019 Addendum.

Now that the Hatbox Ghost has returned, what are we to make of the attic? Not only did he return, but oodles of hatboxes came with him. He's got three stacked on his left and five on his right. Not only that, but one conspicuous hatbox has been added to each of the five tableaux featuring the husband portraits. Obviously the latter detail is supposed to raise the horrifying suspicion that Connie has kept each head as a souvenir. But I don't know what to make of the piles of extra hatboxes that came with HBG2. Egads, are we to think they too contain heads? Or if that seems improbable, are they there perhaps to tease us? to tell us, "You know, sometimes a hatbox is just a hatbox" and cast doubt on our suspicions? I don't know.

The Bride and the Leaping Skull

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In evaluating the thematic cohesion of the original attic, in which the two blast-up ghosts foreshadowed the Hat Box Ghost, who in turn was husband to the Beating Heart bride, I thought it would be helpful to re-create the original bride in her original position as much as possible, showing how the second blast-up may have looked positioned directly in front of her.

It should be stipulated that it is possible that no blast-up was in that location when the HM opened.  The blueprints show that as of May 1969 there was no popup planned for there.  They show instead a popup at the right side of the attic exit, just inside the attic.  I have no recollection of that arrangement, and I suspect but cannot now prove that they decided to move the popup (a blast-up type) to its position in front of the bride before the ride opened.  A blast-up was in that spot until Constance showed up in 2006, and no one seems to remember a popup by the exit.

According to Tony Baxter, documentary evidence suggests that "a lot of drapery material made from transparent plastic" was there with the bride. In reality, we now know (thanks to new evidence rediscovered in August 2013) that between the two attic posts in front of her was stretched, floor to ceiling and post to post, a sheet of plastic or nylon, and perhaps this is the fabric that Tony was referring to.  It probably would have served the purpose of making her look cloudier or distorted.  This accords very well with my personal memories, which I described in 2007 like this:  "Well, when we saw her there 8/14/69 my brother and I both thought she looked murky. The fabric [of which Tony B spoke] plus the figure plus the adjacent wooden attic structure almost made her look like she was standing in a doorway or cabinet or something. My theory is that they were worried that a simple figure so close to the track would just look like a mannequin, and they deliberately tried to obscure her a bit."  
At that time I knew nothing about the plastic/nylon screen between the parallel attic posts. That would explain the impression of her standing in a cabinet or doorway.

There are no photos, but some murky film footage emerged in July of 2011, and together with other clues we have established that this version of Beating Heart was the "Corpse Bride" version.  I've worked up a pair of photoshops of the scene, one with the blast-up hidden and one with it in sight.  If this is indeed what was there originally, the way the two figures were arranged violently juxtaposed them.  Their relationship would have been made clear by the Hat Box Ghost.

Just to get your bearings, here's the same scene pre-Constance, in 2002.  Note the piano on the far right, added in 1995.

And here's the same scene today, uglified by the flash but useful for getting your spatial orientation.