Prudence Pock is a character from the Haunted Mansion.
History[]
Background[]
Prudence Pock was a British/English woman who had some unknown affiliation with the Haunted Mansion in New York. She was a poetess and librarian for the manor's library and was also a member of the Pock family of which many members are present in the mythology surrounding the Haunted Mansion.
Eventually Prudence died, apparently of writers block and was buried in a crypt outside of the mansion. Her crypt was covered in carvings of the manor's library and secret gothic glyphs. Within the tomb would be tapestries and an open book belonging to Prudence who would go on to haunt the crypt as a disembodied ghost. At some point in time (likely in the late 19th/early 20th century), a "SpectreCom" patented by one R.H. Goff was installed on her crypt, allowing her to communicate with mortals.
Development[]
Prudence's Pock was installed to the Haunted Mansion in Walt Disney World in 2011 as part of the interactive queue installation. She was named due to the surname Pock being common amongst Haunted Mansion characters, most notably with Phineas P. Pock being one of the Singing Busts.
Appearances[]
The Haunted Mansion[]
The crypt of Prudence Pock is found in the queue of the Haunted Mansion in the Magic Kingdom, providing interactive entertainment for guests. The sides of the crypt can be pushed in as a sort of game and their glyphs can be decoded to read, "Welcome home you foolish mortal, this mansion is your mystic portal, where eerie sights and spooky sounds fill these happy haunting grounds", each of the symbols also representing iconography from the Haunted Mansion.
The head of the crypt has a barred off window with a book inside that Prudence's invisible spirit writes poems on. Her voice can be heard from the SpectreCom speaker with guests being able to communicate solutions to ending her macabre rhymes.
Poems[]
- You must pay attention though life is so hectic. Ask Earl who did miss that fence was electric.
- Myrtle Jones, it was said could clear all of the hurdles. Until she was eaten by a large snapping turtle.
- Al was not scared to go out in the rain. Too bad that it was a class 5 hurricane.
- In honor of poor Charles, we're having a wake. He died from eating too much birthday cake.
- One night on safari, crazy Franz Geiger tried to ride a man-eating tiger.
- Deep in the wild, on his off-road machine, Greg found that his tank had no more gasoline.
- Sweet Hanna had taken a cruise to Manila. She was thrown overboard by an angry gorilla.
- Old Lucy, you see, had such poor eyesight. Instead of a candle, she lit dynamite.
- In the swamp, poor Sally Slater was eaten by an alligator.
- The miner forgot his warning canary. Now he mines six feet under the old cemetery.
- Irv thought he'd relax in his jungle cabana, but a really big monkey thought him a banana.
Other Appearances[]
Tales from the Haunted Mansion[]
Prudence is a character in the book Tales from the Haunted Mansion Volume IV: Memento Mori. Prudence is here a popular horror-author who was assembled to partake in a ghost-writer context within the Haunted Mansion, hosted by its librarian Amicus Arcane. The winner of the contest would replace Amicus as head of the mansion's library, a chamber filled with priceless first-editions ghost-stories.
Prudence is a sort of narrator for the book, being an inmate in a lunatic-asylum due to having supposedly been driven mad by the competition. Prudence is later revealed to have been dead the whole time, having been locked up to starve by her doctor who she now haunts and torments. After winning the competition with the story of her own death, Prudence declined Amicus' offer so she could continue haunting her killer.
Trivia[]
- Prudence's, "Sally Slater" poem was the first instance of the name Sally Slater which would be identified with the character of the Tightrope Walker seen in the Stretching Room.
- The SpectreCom is a tribute to imagineer Harper Goff, who created some of the first concept art for the Haunted Mansion.
- In concept art, her crypt would have depicted a statue of Prudence and an owl.
