Sometimes digging deep into my Disney files can yield buried treasure. Such is the case today with this piece of concept art filed years ago, here depicting the Haunted Mansion as it would have appeared at the end of Main Street U.S.A.
If my memory serves me correctly, it was the early 1960's and the great early Imagineer Ken Anderson crafted this piece at the request of Walt Disney himself. It's quite a piece of art!
There's a detail not so easily seen in this size, but if you click on it for the largest version, you'll find two young boys eyeing the decrepit old house with a strange mix of fear and intrigue. Just the right mix of emotions, I'd say.
As with so few iconic Disney attractions, the Haunted Mansion is/was a perfect candidate to be placed in different locations in each castle park. Of course, in Disneyland, it's home is New Orleans Square and in the Magic Kingdom in Florida, it's found in Liberty Square. Disneyland Paris places Phantom Manor in Frontierland, and in Tokyo the mansion is found in Fantasyland. Should another Magic Kingdom ever be built with a Main Street U.S.A., I'd vote for the suits to resurrect this original idea and bring the project full circle.
(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)
2 comments:
That is not piece of Haunted Mansion concept art but the exterior for the Old Applegate house from the Mickey Mouse Club's Hardy Boy's "The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure" The house exterior appears in many episodes as well as the opening theme song "Pieces of Eight" Simply google this and you can compare the rendering to the house exterior- which is probably a matte painting. It's a dead-ringer!
-Mike Cozart
Thank you, Mike.
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