Haunted Mansion Holiday (known in Tokyo Disneyland as Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare) is an annual holiday offering at Disneyland that combines The Haunted Mansion attraction with characters from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and has been held every year since 2001.
History[]
With the success of The Country Bear Christmas Special and It's a Small World Holiday, Steve Davison and Disney Imagineers decided that the Haunted Mansion will be the next Disneyland attraction to get a Holiday overlay after Steve and some Imagineers wondered about Santa Claus visiting the mansion. The first idea for the overlay was to have it retell [1]' A Christmas Carol before it was decided against it due to the attractions setting in New Orleans Square, and Imagineers also thought the idea of Santa visiting the mansion wouldn't be fitting. Imagineers would then decide to theme the overlay around The Nightmare Before Christmas after thinking about which Disney character would celebrate Christmas in the Haunted Mansion.
Haunted Mansion Holiday opened on October 3, 2001, and quickly became with guests and Disney fans, which lead to the attractions's FastPass machines being activated during the overlay (and are now always active).
With the success of Haunted Mansion Holiday, Walt Disney Imagineering made some plans to give the Haunted Mansion at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World the holiday overlay, but after seeing that Walt Disney World is a once and a lifetime park unlike Disneyland where most of the park guests are Anaheim locals, Disney decided to ship the props that were made for the attraction to Tokyo Disneyland's Haunted Mansion as the mansion shares the same exterior and layout from Disney World's version.
Storyline[]
Haunted Mansion Holiday takes place shortly after the events of the film, where Jack Skellington (who tried to create his very own twisted Christmas in a Halloween-style in the movie) now discovers the Haunted Mansion, home to 999 Happy Haunts. Deciding to spread joy to the mansion's gloomy residents for the holidays, Jack and his creepy crew from Halloween Town bring hundreds of Jack's original evil Christmas presents and decorations to the mansion and deck its happy haunting grounds for a thrilling and chilling holiday for the Grim Grinning Ghosts inhabiting the abandoned house, setting the stage for the ride itself.
Attraction Ride Through[]
Exterior Queue[]
Upon entering the grounds, guests can see the the Mansion decorated with jack-o-lanterns, garland, candles, and Halloween-style Christmas decorations. On the roof is Jack Skellington's coffin sleigh and stretched from the roof to the ground is his comical "Christmas Equation". There is also the countdown clock from Nightmare that tells how many days are left until Christmas. Outside the mansion, the music box track from Disneyland Paris' Phantom Manor plays.
At Tokyo Disneyland, the Mansion does not have a countdown clock or a Christmas Equation hanging from the roof because of the design differences between the mansions. Instead, pumpkin snowmen can be seen and orchestrations from the movie and ride play in the queue area.
The Foyer[]
Guests enter the foyer, which has been decorated with skull wreaths and garland. The Ghost Host begins to tell the story of the attraction in rhyme. From there, guests proceed into one of the two portrait chambers.
At Tokyo, a painting of Jack transforming from his usual suit to his Santa Claus suit, in place of the changing portrait of Master Gracey.
The Stretching Room[]
In the stretching room, the original stretching portraits have been replaced with stained-glass pictures depicting innocent Christmas scenes with wreaths as their frames. When the doors close, the chamber goes dark and begins to stretch. The pictures make sounds as if bursting into shards, and luminescent portraits of Halloween Town's Christmas vision are revealed including:
- The Man-Eating Wreath hanging on a door. Or Jack Skellington riding his sleigh outside the mansion.
- The evil toys emerging from the presents.
- Jack opening his sack as ghosts rise out.
- A massive carnivorous snake.
The Ghost Host begins reciting a dark variation of the "Twas the Night Before Christmas" poem as eerie music plays, extensively featuring a choir. The suspense builds up as a spider crosses the ceiling. Once the room stops stretching, the ceiling (which was revealed to be a stained glass ceiling) partially breaks, creating the grin of a jack-o'-lantern. It finally smashes all together revealing Jack and Zero in the attic with Jack cackling "Happy Holidays, everyone!". The room goes dark again, and a dread full scream and the shatter of bones can be heard with the grin of the jack-o'-lantern reappearing briefly. When the lights come back on, Jack and Zero are gone leaving only the Ghost Host's hanging body visible. The doors reopen, leading the guests into the hallway.
In Tokyo, and before 2013 at Disneyland, the Ghost Host's hanging body is replaced by the head of Jack Skellington.
The Portrait Corridor and Loading Area/Library, Music Room, and Stairway[]
The changing portraits here have also been replaced with ones depicting Jack Skellington, Sally, the Haunted Mansion, a snowman, and Santa Claus in his sleigh. The choir returns as the song Kidnap the Sandy Claws begins to play. A snowstorm appears to be taking place outside the windows and the three musicians from the movie are also standing outside. The staring busts have spider-webs in front of them that glisten with the words "NOEL" and "HO-HO-HO." The loading area is decorated with even more Halloween and Christmas decor and there is a huge animated Christmas card with many of the characters from Nightmare celebrating the season. The card is much of a treat to the eyes itself, featuring the words "MERRY CHRISTMAS" at the bottom of the card, where the message changes to "SCARY CHRISTMAS" intermittently.
At Tokyo, there is no portrait hall like Disneyland's. Instead, immediately after the portrait chamber, the guests enter the loading area, which is decorated with orange Christmas lights and Halloween pumpkins. After boarding, the guests glide underneath a landing from where Jack, Sally, and the Scary Teddy greet guests. The ride-through Portrait Corridor features portraits of the film's characters performing various activities and watching as the guests go by. Orange Christmas lights wrap around the staring busts in the library as Zero wraps a floating tree made out of books with tinsel garland. In the music room, guests see a life-size audio-animatronic Sally, sitting on the chair next to the ghostly piano that the Scary Teddy plays. The Doom Buggies then move up the stairs, passing terrified green cockroaches in cages with gift tags that read "For Oogie." At the top of the stairs, Oogie Boogie's shadow appears and turns into a Christmas tree shape in the full moon above. The original black-lighted rubber spiders remain.
The Endless Hallway and Corridor of Doors[]
At Disneyland, upon boarding the Doom Buggies (referred to as Black Christmas Sleighs in the overlay), guests ascend to the staircase. At the top, there are piles of presents with the Scary Teddy sitting on them, fishing for humans. As the Ghost Host continues telling the story, Zero is now seen floating in the endless hallway in place of the candelabra. The moving suit of armor wears a pumpkin mask and has garland wrapped around it. A pile of dog bones in front of the hallway and a wreath made of dog bones adorns the top of the hall. On one floating bone, a tag reads "To Zero". Presents sit in the chair and poinsettias reside next to that chair.
The corpse trapped in the coffin in the conservatory is unchanged, but the Scary Teddy now sits on it, hammering nails back in. A tag reading "Do Not Open Till Xmas" hangs from the lid. The dead funeral flowers have sprung to life and now perform the song Kidnap the Sandy Claws. The corridor of doors is now filled with the same comically-vicious flowers, all singing loudly. Guests then pass underneath a large yellow-eyed wreath with teeth, which all the flowers seem to be connected to. The demonic grandfather clock remains.
Seance Room[]
Madame Leota floats along with several glowing bottles surrounding her and now chants "The 13 Days of Christmas" while the Scary Teddy sits on the top of the chair behind Leota's table, ringing two tiny bells with the seance. A bewitched nutcracker with eyes glowing green moves its mouth in unison with Leota. The floating instruments have been replaced with huge tarot cards, depicting Leota's 13 Christmas gifts of which she is chanting.
In Tokyo, the raven remains in this scene and Leota is covered in candles with Lock, Shock, and Barrel appearing in the back of the room.
The Ballroom[]
The Doom Buggies then move into the ballroom. The ghosts here are the same, but the decorations have changed. The table is set for a Christmas party and a huge gingerbread house sits in the center. An immense dead Christmas tree (with one live branch at the top) covered in candles and spiders with lights now sits in the middle of the dance floor, but the ghosts waltz right through it. Zero floats above the scene near the tree. The curtains at the top of the staircase in the back of the hall have opened, revealing the mansion's library, complete with a floating tree made of books.
(In Tokyo, Jack and Sally's shadows are seen exchanging presents under the mistletoe behind that curtain instead. Also, instead of a gingerbread house, a giant cake is in the middle of the table.)
The Attic[]
The guests are then taken to the attic, where most of the usual props and characters have been replaced with a clutter of all sorts of creepy toys and presents. A huge snake coils around the room with a "naughty and nice" list in its mouth. Throughout the room, some of the evil toys come to life as the guests pass by, including three jack-in-the-boxes (one featuring a stylized skull, another a black cat's head, and another a jack-o-lantern), a bullet hole-ridden duck, a cymbal-crashing Oogie Boogie doll, and a monstrous train on tentacle-like tracks.
As the guests leave the attic and head out onto the balcony, where The Hatbox Ghost has adorned the top of his top hat with a decorative Christmas Skull pin and put a Santa Claus hat on top of the nearby stack of hatboxes.
The Graveyard[]
Snowflakes are seen falling instead of ghosts rising as guests Go down the stairs next to the balcony, the guests witness the Scary Teddy chewing on Christmas lights, threatening to blow a fuse. As the Doom Buggies reach the ground level, they pass by a towering audio-animatronic figure of Jack in his Sandy Claws outfit, wishing the guests a merry Christmas as a replacement for the wide-eyed caretaker that usually stands in his place, with Zero accompanying him in place of the caretaker's dog. The graveyard is now covered in snow and the spiral hill from the movie is featured as a centerpiece covered in glowing pumpkins. The music combines "Grim Grinning Ghosts", "Jingle Bells", "We Wish You A Merry Christmas", and "Jolly Old St. Nicholas". The vehicles pass under huge snow angels with pumpkin heads. The singing busts have been replaced with singing jack-o-lanterns at the base of the spiral hill. Before entering the crypt, guests see the Scary Teddy one last time, playing the trumpet with another pumpkin-headed snow angel above.
The Crypt/The Exit[]
Haunted Mansion and its front garden, at Christmas.
The Doom Buggies then enter the crypt, where an audio-animatronic Oogie Boogie stands next to a roulette wheel under black light, offering the guests some strange gifts. The guests see those bizarre presents instead of the Hitchhiking Ghosts when they go by the mirrors. If the present is a coffin imprinted with a question mark, Lock, Shock, and Barrel will pop out from behind each of the three mirrors.
The guests then arrive at the unload area, which is also filled with snow and jack-o-lanterns. As the guests travel up the speed ramp to the exit, a tiny version of Sally (taking the place of Little Leota) is seen thanking Jack as he flies away in his sleigh and tells the guests to hurry back.
In Tokyo's version of the final scene, the crypt features Lock, Shock, and Barrel inside some presents, hitching a ride with the guests. Sally bids goodbye and then the guests disembark in a wreath-adorned mausoleum.
Gingerbread Houses[]
Each year there is a different Gingerbread house in the dining room. They are real gingerbread houses designed by the talented culinary team of the Disneyland Resort.
- 2001: Haunted Mansion with arms counterbalancing each other
- 2002: Giant sack of presents in the shape of a mansion
- 2003: Oogie Boogie on a Gingerbread Roulette Wheel
- 2004: Zero Haunted Mansion Dog House
- 2005: Mansion with the Maneating Wreath with tentacles with forks going after gingerbread men.
- 2006: Possessed Gingerbread house with giant arms breaking apart the mansion from inside, and lifting off the roof of the mansion.
- 2007: Giant Jack in the Box Mansion with a Jester Jack and Jack O' Lanterns bouncing on springs.
- 2008: Mansion in the shape of a coffin, with a lid that lifts, and a giant gingerbread man that sits up in the coffin.
- 2009: Scary Go Round – Carousel with gingerbread Bonedeer as vehicles and Zero as one of the vehicles.
- 2010: Haunted Mansion gravestone with giant gingerbread Jack popping up from behind and the five singing pumpkins in front.
- 2011: Haunted Mansion that opens with monster teeth
- 2012: Jack's mansion from Halloweentown
- 2013: A gingerbread advent calendar featuring 13 doors.
- 2014: A house inspired by the Medieval Iron Maiden torture device with a gingerbread man inside.
- 2015: A house of cards built by spiders and gingerbread construction workers.
- 2016: A House appearing to be sewn together, with the arm of a ghost sticking out of it and sewing itself inside.
- 2017: Oogie Boogie with a mausoleum infested with spiders.
- 2018: A mansion decorated for Christmas that is being uprooted by a giant spider.
- 2019: The Haunted Mansion featuring gingerbread versions of its familiar characters in celebration of the attraction's 50th Anniversary.
- 2021: In celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the overlay, the gingerbread house takes on design elements from all previous houses.
- 2022: A gingerbread house with Lock, Shock, and Barrel operating a guillotine atop the dining room table that is cutting a cake.
- 2023: A mausoleum with a gingerbread ghost named Von Ginger inside, holding a fruit cake.
- 2024: Igor bringing to life a zombie gingerbread man on a lab machine.
At Tokyo Disneyland's Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare, this tradition is not carried out and the Gingerbread House's role is filled by a large Christmas Cake prop instead to account for cultural differences.
Voice Cast[]
- Corey Burton - Ghost Host
- Chris Sarandon - Jack Skellington
- Susanne Blakeslee - Madame Leota (voice)
- Kim Irvine - Madame Leota (face)
- Ken Page - Oogie Boogie
- Catherine O'Hara - Sally
Trivia[]
- Haunted Mansion Holiday is the only Disney seasonal overlay attraction to be around for two holidays.
- The original idea for the attraction was for it to have been themed around [2] A Christmas Carol. However, the idea was scrapped due to the attraction set in New Orleans Square.
- Prior to the debut of Haunted Mansion Holiday, Imagineers explored the idea of a standalone Nightmare Before Christmas dark ride. The idea was to ride around in a "Coffin Sleigh" and one of the conceptual works included being thrown down the chute to Oogie's lair.
- In pet cemetery, the tombstone of Sparky from Frankenweenie can be seen.
Gallery[]
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