Here's another photo, obviously taken mere moments after the first one.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Haunted Mansion, October 1975
I love the exterior of Anaheim's Haunted Mansion almost as much as the interior. Walt Disney famously did not want his "haunted house" to be a broken-down hulk of peeling paint, crumbling chimneys, and crooked shutters. Instead, it is clean and sturdy, with graceful columns and wrought iron, manicured gardens and beautiful magnolia trees. You can just make out the weather vane that is in the form of a sailing ship.
Here's another photo, obviously taken mere moments after the first one.
Here's another photo, obviously taken mere moments after the first one.
Pure perfection! I hope they don't foist Orlando's new interactive queue onto Anaheim's Mansion!
ReplyDeleteEr, interactive queue? What have they done to it?
ReplyDeleteI remember being very young and looking up at his building and realizing for the first time that buildings could be art; that the sides could be as beautiful as the front; and every individual part should be as beautiful as possible.
ReplyDeleteQuite a revelation for a kid that grew up in So Cal 60's Suburbia.
@KG, Same here. I credit early exposure to Disneyland design with influencing my career choice.
ReplyDeleteThis building in particular is strikingly well done.
JG
The architecture is gorgeous, there is timelessness in the buildings from before. Disney should take back some of the ideas behind their vintage creations. A lot of designs nowadays just don't give enough classic feel to the people, I hope they would try to experiment with some vintage look. Nice share.
ReplyDeletelovely and scary at the same time!! great pictures today :-)
ReplyDeleteTM, I kind of agree... all of those "improvements" look kind of lame to me.
ReplyDeleteAnon, they added various crypts, tombstones and statues and make noises, squirt water, talk to you, etc. Apparently you can bypass all of that silliness if you don't care about it.
Katella and JG and Cindy, I've always thought that the Haunted Mansion exterior was amazing!
Nancy, I hope these photos didn't scare you too much ;-)
I vividly remember my first encounter with the HM in 1975, the same year these were taken.
ReplyDeleteMy parents left my sister and I on the porch with the cast member taking tickets because the CM said the ride might be too scary for us. I was six and my sister was three. We never saw them again.
Could something like that happen today? Can you imagine just leaving your kids with a cast member? Can you imagine a cast member offering to babysit your kids for ten minutes or so? Not that cast members today are rude or uncaring, but the I can't imagine the Park would be happy with the liability issues that could arise. It's one thing to rescue a lost child and keep them safe until the parents can be located (and we appreciated that when our youngest wandered off on his own Park expedition when he was four), but quite another to accept responsibility for a couple of kids without knowing for sure when or even if their parents would ever return.
Wonderful photos! I have ALWAYS love OUR mansion.
ReplyDeleteChuck: Yikes!
Major, will you have any interior shots of the mansion? I have a funny story that would be better with an interior.
ReplyDeleteJG
Chuck, I often think of all kinds of things from my childhood that parents couldn't do today. My mom would drop us off at Knott's (we were all pre-teens) for a few hours and would pick us up later.
ReplyDeleteJG, I think I only have one Mansion interior from this same lot... I'll try to post it soon.