A faceless bride, and a pantsless groom - my kinda mansion! :D

I agree! And for the same reasons!! Eisener's out and it looks like the new powers that be are remembering the imagination that went into Disneyland in the first place, and how Walt sid that, basically, it will never be completed as long as there are fresh new ideas. And I'm sure he also meant QUALITY ideas.

Yes, but Walt also fairly emphatically worked to cut out any semblance of a literal story line in the Mansion during its development. That's one of the reasons it took so long to finalize. After Walt's death, there was a drawn out battle between imagineers who wanted to create a storyline and those that wanted to leave it open-ended as Walt envisioned it. While I'm not opposed to change, I agree with Walt (and iSm and Flippyshark) on this one that the Mansion is better served as a spooky house of mystery than as a storybook.

I was going to stop in on my way home from the game on Sunday but the sunshine stole my brain. I'll have to attempt to remember to ride it on Thursday. Before my nap of course...

I guess this post says it all about how I feel about the changes. In fact I forgot all about them until I ran into DP at MA and then this post.

Hmm this seems a bit revisionist to me - I think the main conflict was between scary versus goofy /Claude Coates atmospherics that make up the mansion's begiinings versus the Frank Davis charicatures that make up the second half...

On another note - I love Phantom Mannor, and presume it to be repetable even if I can't repeat it.

I see iSm's point on this one, though. I liked PM and rode it twice. But I don't know if I love it enough to ride it over and over (you know, if I had an AP and lived an hour away from DLP). The ghost town confuses me. :D

I'm gonna be chastised for this ... but I find Phantom Manor to be inferior to the Haunted Mansion in many ways. One of which is certainly the telling of a story that I would become tired of .... if I had the opportunity to become tired of it.


And I don't find G.D.'s history to be revisionist. Certainly, € is right that main argument was between scary and comedic ... but the better part of the decades-long gestation of the Haunted Mansion was the steady pruning of anything resembling a definite storyline. Since Walt was around for all but the last 2 years of that gestation, I find it safe to assume that the storyless direction was the one Walt desired.

I'm not one to say that Walt was always right and it's Walt's way or the highway. But let's face it .... Walt was nearly always right, and the Haunted Mansion was one of Walt's attractions - - and a tremendously successful one.

I would suggest the Imagineers go build their own attraction if they want to veer away from Walt's philosophies for the Mansion. Put Phantom Manor in DCA for all I care. Don't fu ck with the Haunted Mansion. They piss me off at their peril. I have to die sometime, ya know.

OK....I'm going to sound incredibly ignorant here, but what is Phantom Manor?

The version of Haunted Mansion at Disneyland Paris

It's a western-themed Haunted Mansionesque attraction at Disneyland Paris. It pretty much follows the Haunted Mansion progression of scenes - Foyer, Stretchroom, Doombuggies, Hallway, Seance Room, Ballroom, Graveyard - - but it does so while telling a definite story of a meloncholy bride and the murderous Phantom who killed her groom.

The Bride and the Phantom appear again and again throughout the attraction, grafting a definitive storyline onto the haunted house experience.

It's not as absurd as having your 80th "first flight" Star Tours pilot, but it does give the impression (to me, at least) of the same thing happening over and over .... not altogether inappropriate for a haunting, mind you.