The Haunted Mansion

Haunted Mansion
Attraction's facade at Disneyland
Disneyland
Area	New Orleans Square
Status	Operating
Opening date	August 9, 1969
Magic Kingdom
Area	Liberty Square
Status	Operating
Opening date	October 1, 1971
Tokyo Disneyland
Area	Fantasyland
Status	Operating
Opening date	April 15, 1983
General statistics
Attraction type	Omnimover dark ride
Manufacturer	Arrow Development
Designer	WED Enterprises Walt Disney Imagineering
Theme	Haunted attraction
Music	"Grim Grinning Ghosts" composed by Buddy Baker
Vehicle type	Doom Buggy
Riders per vehicle	2–3
Duration	5:50–8:20 minutes
Audio-Animatronics	Yes
Host	Ghost Host (Paul Frees), (Teichiro Hori, Tokyo version)
Fastpass available
FastPass+ available
Must transfer from wheelchair
Assistive listening available

Haunted Mansion is a dark ride attraction located at Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, and Tokyo Disneyland. The attraction, although differing slightly in every location, places riders inside a haunted manor resided by "999 happy haunts".

Haunted Mansion features a ride-through tour in Omnimover vehicles called "Doom Buggies", and a walk-through show is displayed to riders waiting in the line queue. The attraction utilizes a range of technology, from centuries-old theatrical effects to modern special effects featuring spectral Audio-Animatronics. Haunted Mansion has inspired two similarly-themed attractions, Phantom Manor and Mystic Manor, which exist at Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland, respectively.

The idea for the Mansion predates Disneyland and WED Enterprises, to when Walt Disney hired the first of his Imagineers. The first known illustration of the park showed a main street setting, green fields, western village and a carnival. Disney Legend Harper Goff developed a black-and-white sketch of a crooked street leading away from main street by a peaceful church and graveyard, with a run-down manor perched high on a hill that towered over main street.

Disney assigned Imagineer Ken Anderson to create a story using Goff's idea. Plans were made to build a New Orleans-themed land in the small transition area between Frontierland and Adventureland. Weeks later, New Orleans Square appeared on the souvenir map and promised a thieves market, a pirate wax museum, and a haunted house walk-through. Anderson studied New Orleans and old plantations and came up with a drawing of an antebellum manor overgrown with weeds, dead trees, swarms of bats and boarded doors and windows topped by a screeching cat as a weather vane.