Characters / The Haunted Mansion

This page covers a few of the characters from various incarnations of the ride.

For characters specifically from the 2003 film, see here. For characters specifically from the 2023 film, see here.

For a list of actors and actresses who have appeared in this franchise and have pages on this wiki, see here.

The Haunted Mansion (Disneyland / Walt Disney World / Tokyo Disneyland)

The Ghost Host

The Ghost Host

"Of course, there's always my way."

Voice Actors:

Paul Frees (original ride)

Peter Renaday (LP, opening day announcement)

Fred Frees (30th Anniversary CD)

Corey Burton (Haunted Mansion Holiday, film, Kinect: Disneyland Adventures)

Joe Leahy (safety spiels)

Tony Jay (film DVD bonus features)

Fabio Rodriguez (Spanish safety spiels)

Teichiro Hori (Japanese)

Uncle Deadly (50th Anniversary staged album reading)

Will Arnett (Muppets Haunted Mansion)

The Host and The Narrator of the rides, the Ghost Host is the unseen voice that accompanies guests around the mansion. He was Driven to Suicide by hanging from the rafters in the mansion's cupola. The Ghost Host uses Black Comedy to entertain and possibly intimidate the guests, scaring them several times, and often invites them to join the mansion's residents as resident number one-thousand. He is not called Master Gracey in the "current" canon, although that's a little complicated here.

At first, the name Master Gracey (readable on a tombstone in the graveyard) and the Ghost Host character weren't related. But the fans started to theorize about that, and some merchandise and a poster displayed in the official parks were signed "Master Gracey, your Ghost Host". In the movie, Gracey is indeed the master of the house (something he was never intended to be at first), but is not the Ghost Host. In the comics, they're the same character. Today, this connection is no longer used in official merchandise, but a lot of fanfics continue to use it.

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• Affably Evil: He may find joy in scaring guests, but he is a damn good host to them during their visit.
• Ax-Crazy: His picture shows him holding a hatchet with a deranged look on his face, although fortunately he's mostly ditched this for Black Comedy.
  • Although one or two artists have depicted him holding a bloody hatchet, the original Marc Davis painting implies that he used his hatchet to free himself from the frayed rope next to him.
• Black Humor: The Ghost Host enjoys taunting and scaring the ride's guests with macabre puns.
  The Ghost Host: Oh, I didn't mean to frighten you prematurely. The real chills come later!
• Driven to Suicide: Via hanging, although he quickly came back as a ghost.
• Evil Laugh: For a given definition of "evil," anyway, but he does love to let out a bone-chilling chortle once in a while.
  Now I will raise the safety bar... and a ghost will follow you home! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!
• Evil Sounds Deep: Again, not evil, per se, but his voice definitely evokes this trope.
• Ghost Butler: He closes the walls to the octagonal portrait gallery after you enter, noting that there are no longer any entrances or exits to the chamber.
• The Host: Your ghost host.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Oooh boy. The whole house has it in spades, and the Ghost Host is the most striking example.
  • A common belief among fans was that the Ghost Host was none other than "Master Gracey" (see this character's entry), who hung himself after the bride character died. Since this theory was created by Disneyland employees, it is not official and keeps being vehemently denied by the creators, but it still managed to worm its way into merchandise. At any rate, even the details of this theory are multiple-choice (Was he a pirate captain? Was he the guy who built the Mansion, or did he just inherit it? Did he really love the Bride?).
  • The original intent was that the Ghost Host was the Hatchet Man (the guy pictured here), a scary, apparently murderous fellow. Some cut dialogues also include the fact that he was, indeed, the Lord and Master of the mansion when he was alive. However, the portrait was rather discreetly presented in the ride.
  • Corey Burton (the current voice actor for The Ghost Host) admitted to believing that he's not a specific ghost but the voice of the manor itself.
  • Muppets Haunted Mansion's ending reveals him as "The Great MacGuffin", Gonzo's Stage Magician idol that disappeared in the Mansion on a Halloween night in the early 1920s.
  • Once the fans heard about the Imagineers jossing the Master Gracey theory, they cooked up an alternate version stating that the Hatchet Man was the brother/uncle of Master Gracey (and perhaps named Vincent Beauregard Gracey or Beauregard Ghast, depending on who you ask). Who the Bride is related to at that point is unclear, too.
• Mad Eye: His picture displays his right eye looking more deranged than the left.
• The Narrator: Acts as the tour guide and host of the Haunted Mansion, guiding the guests around the retirement home of the restless. Doubles as an Unreliable Narrator, deliberately forgetting to warn guests of important things and doesn't "mean to frighten [them] prematurely".
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: His corpse is revealed to be hanging from the attic rafters above the stretching gallery.
• Pungeon Master: Pretty good at it.
  All our ghosts have been dying to meet you.
• Rhymes on a Dime: To maintain the Haunted Mansion Holiday theme
  His usual cadence includes a rhyme scheme.
• Verbal Tic: He sure tends to say "please" a lot.
  Kindly step all the way in, please, and make room for everyone.
  And let's all stay together, please.
  Take your loved ones by the hand, please, and kindly watch your step.
  And no flash pictures, please.
  Do not pull down on the safety bar, please.
• The Voice: We never see his ghostly form, but we do see him in the flesh.

The Family Plot

Family Plot

Played by (Muppets Haunted Mansion):

Alfonso Bibeiro (Fred)

Ed Asner (Brother Claude)

Chrissy Metz (Harriet)

Jeannie Mai (Cousin Maude)

Danny Trejo (Cousin Huet)

Sasheer Zamata (Mary)

A small cemetery outside the Mansion where most of its former occupants are buried. The epitaphs on their tombstones give implications as to how they died.

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• Canon Foreigner: Mary, who "wrote mysteries with masterful quill not knowing the ink of words could kill", was made for Muppets Haunted Mansion.
• Clear My Name: Cousin Huet's epitaph implies they were wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn't commit and either were executed or died in imprisonment. The latter is more explicitly implicated in Muppets Haunted Mansion where Huet wears a prisoner's outfit and appears in a mausoleum akin to a prison cell.
• Rhymes on a Dime: The tombstones all have this aesthetic. This extends into the "Rest In Peace" sequence from Muppets Haunted Mansion.
• Squashed Flat: Fred died when "a great big rock fell on his head". This is even more pronounced in Muppets Haunted Mansion, where Fred's body has ended up being compressed as a result of what happened.

The Subjects of the Stretching Portraits

Portraits of various mansion residents "as they appeared in their corruptible, mortal state," situated in the Stretching Room.

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In General

• Face Death with Dignity: If anything, they don't seem to mind the gruesome deaths that await them in their portraits.
• Rule of Symbolism: With the exception of Constance, the subjects of the portraits seem to represent futility. The Quicksand Men represent the futility of money, the Dynamite Man represents power and the Tightrope Girl represents beauty.

Men in Quicksand

Three men sitting on top of each other's shoulders in a vain attempt to escape some quicksand.

• Oh, Crap!: The one at the bottom realizes what they're trapped in.

Alexander Nitrokoff

A sharp-dressed man that was blown up by a keg of dynamite that he just so happened to be standing on seen among the portraits in the Stretching Room.

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• Ascended Extra: Is given this treatment in the Frights of Fancy comic.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: Once the room stretches, he's revealed to not be wearing pants.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Lack of pants notwithstanding, he's well dressed from head to toe.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: A mild variant in the Frights of Fancy comic: Alexander can change the patterns on his boxers at will.

Sarah "Sally" Slater a.k.a. Daisy de la Cruz

Voice Actress: Hynden Walch (Ghost Post)

An ill-fated tightrope walker that was devoured by an alligator seen among the portraits in the Stretching Room, Sally has become more prominent in newer Mansion media as a chipper and outgoing member of the Mansion's ghostly community.

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• Adaptational Villainy: The Slave Labor Graphics comic incarnation of the character, Daisy de la Cruz, was a Circe figure that turned various gentleman callers into alligators for her collection, with her death ultimately being karmic justice coming for her.
• Ascended Extra: Is given this treatment in the Ghost Post and Frights of Fancy comic.

Constance Hatchaway

See below

The Coffin Man

Coffin Man

"All our ghosts have been...dying to meet you. This one can hardly contain himself."

Voice Actor: Xavier Atencio

A body in a coffin, struggling to pry off the nailed-down lid. Official sources describe the scene as a "premature funeral", but it's unclear if he's alive or undead, or a ghost trapped in his mortal body. In the original Haunted Mansion, he's in the plant conservatory, while he appears in a different coffin in Phantom Canyon in the Paris attraction.

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• And I Must Scream: Definitely doesn't count as a "happy haunt", as he's trapped in a coffin and can't get out.
• Buried Alive: He might be quite soon, if he is indeed alive.
• Creator Cameo: Voiced by X. Atencio, a scriptwriter for the Mansion.
• The Faceless: All we see are his gnarled old hands pushing up against the lid.
• Multiple-Choice Past: As with many characters, spinoffs have given different suggestions for his identity.
  • The Slave Labor Graphics comics identified him as "Mr. Davis", one of the architects that built the Mansion for Master Gracey, only to be sealed in a mechanized coffin by his business partner that himself ended up becoming the floating Candelabra after getting lost in the labyrinthine Endless Hallway.
  • A web game, The Black Widow Bride, identified him as Frank Banks, one of Constance's husbands.
  • The Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween storytellers Madames Carlotta and Renatta have claimed the coffin occupant was their lover Billy Bob.
• Sickly Green Glow: Green light comes from the interior of the coffin.

Corridor of Doors

"...unfortunately, they all seem to have trouble getting through."

A hallway of restless spirits either trapped behind or in the doors. After the Coffin Man, they show that the ghosts in the house need Leota's help to be freed.

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• Blackout Basement: Implied behind one of the doors with a cry of "Who turned out the lights?"
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: The haunted wallpaper, with glowing and animated eyes in the face patterns.
• Hell Is That Noise: Growling, breathing, banging knockers, turning handles, and the chiming of the demonic clock are the sounds you hear.
• Nothing Is Scarier: We never see the spirits behind the doors, if they're even behind them. Also, the shadowy claw that passes over the clock.
• Vader Breath: One of the doors bulges outward with heavy breathing, in a shout-out to The Haunting (1963).
• The Walls Have Eyes: The spirits have literally haunted the architecture, with faces in the wallpaper, and in different parts of the doors and doorframes.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Subverted. The clock has 13 hours, and its hands are spinning rapidly while it chimes constantly. Only the Walt Disney World version truly strikes thirteen, however, as the others have only twelve hour markings with the top one replaced with the number 13.

Madame Leota

Madame Leota

"Serpents and spiders, tail of a rat...call in the spirits, wherever they're at."

Facial Performers:

Leota Thomas (née Toombs) (Original Attraction)

Kim Irvine (Haunted Mansion Holiday)

Oona Lind (Phantom Manor, face and voice)

Suzy Joachim (Once Upon a Time)

Voice Actors:

Eleanor Audley (Original Attraction)

Susan Blakeslee (Haunted Mansion Holiday, Kinect: Disneyland Adventures, Ghost Post)

Lisa Donahey, Sakiko Uran (video game)

The spirit of a psychic medium, whose head appears inside a crystal ball. From her chamber, she performs a Spooky Séance to contact the spirits from beyond. She has a tombstone outside the ride which has moving eyes.

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• Adaptational Villainy: While in the Mansion, she's essentially good and summons the ghosts to let them be free to party, her Phantom Manor counterpart is a sinister medium who brings in the spirits so the Phantom can hold a mock wedding party to torment Melanie, all while gleefully foretelling the doomed marriage, and in the SLG comics, she is an Ax-Crazy medium who is responsible for the curse that made the mansion haunted in the first place.
• Big Good: In most iterations:
  • In the original Haunted Mansion rides, Leota is the force responsible for setting the frustrated spirits free so they can fully manifest and enjoy their afterlife.
  • In the film, video game, and Marvel comic books, she guides the protagonist (Jim Evers, Zeke Halloway, and Danny, respectively) to break the curse of the mansion. She also helped guests do the same in the Ghost Post ARG, though she was rather grumpier about it there.
  • In Haunted Mansion Holiday, her recitation of gifts given to her by her “ghoul love” for her to in turn use as a medium include positive talismans such as “nine magic crystals that sparkled with a force that is pure”, “five lucky charms, to understand the right from wrong”, “three lifelines extending help to those in need”, and “two passion potions, that love and romance might succeed”.
  • Much of the merchandise around the 50th Anniversary emphasizes her as a protective and helpful medium.
• Crystal Ball: She inhabits one, and her design blurs the line between hair and the archetypal magic mist inside one. Her ball turns into a glass Christmas ornament for the Haunted Mansion Holiday.
• Deadpan Snarker: In the film.
• Exposition Fairy: In the video game.
• Fortune Teller: Emphasized in the film where her room is decorated like a fortune teller's tent and Ramsley refers to her as a gypsy woman. While she serves more as a spirit medium in the Mansions, Phantom Manor throws in some apparent divination skills, too.
• Hot Witch: Probably not always intended, as the original head in the Disneyland mansion wore scraggly white hair, but despite her face never changing all these years (except to be played by Leota Thomas’s Generation Xerox daughter Kim Irvine during the holiday overlay) the gradual use of thick, billowing wigs in various shades of green, purple and blue combined with Thomas’s and Irvine’s elegant, pretty features have made her this. By the 50th anniversary, glamorous Leota had become a major marketing character, and her full-body manifestations at the parks are played by beautiful young women.
• Irony: Leota is a medium inside her medium, rather than a person looking into her ball. Also, she's a spirit summoning others, rather than someone living contacting the spirit world.
• Living Statue: Her tombstone at the Walt Disney World queue will occasionally open its eyes and look around.
• Oracular Head: An otherworldly woman whose head is encased in a crystal ball and has psychic powers.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Well, she's actually mostly different from the others in the mansion because she uses her ball to stay permanently materialized, which allows her to help summon the others so they can have their graveyard party. A number of tie-in events at the parks have gradually established that she's powerful enough to manifest as a full-bodied ghost, dressed in the clothes she wore when alive, but her ball seems to be her comfort zone.
• Psychic Children: According to the Haunted Mansion 50th anniversary event, Leota is rumored to have had powers even as a child.
• Psychic Powers: Able to sense and communicate with the afterlife, and is likely responsible for the floating objects in her room.
• Rhymes on a Dime: In the attraction, this is justified as her only dialogue is recited incantations from her spell book.
• Salem Is Witch Country: In the Walt Disney World storyline, she is a good witch who escaped the Salem persecutions by fleeing to New York's Hudson Valley and being taken in by the Gracey family.
• Sealed Good in a Can: In the video game, it's revealed that the Big Bad Atticus Thorn trapped her within her crystal ball to prevent her from interfering with his efforts to conquer the afterlife.
• Spooky Séance: Leota's seance features floating musical instruments that play at the hands of spirits and floating, spinning table. Madame Leota herself floats in her ball above the table during the seance.
• Supernatural Floating Hair: While it doesn't actually move, her design invokes this, with hair that resembles floating, swirling magic inside her crystal ball.
• Tarot Motifs: Madame Leota has tarot cards laid out on her table.
• Tuckerization: Madame Leota is named after Leota Thomas (whose first married surname was Toombs), whose face was used for the character and for the Ghostess. Her daughter, Kim Irvine, would then portray Madame Leota for the Haunted Mansion Holiday, which began after her mother's death.
• Vague Age: Could be anywhere from her thirties or so to elderly, which is made even more confusing by her severe cheekbones and heavy makeup. She was illustrated as an old hag in the original souvenir record's storybook, but by the 50th anniversary she had become reliably depicted in tie-in art and merchandise as a glamorous, relatively young woman, and her full-bodied manifestations at special park events are portrayed by youngish actresses. Phantom Manor's alternate Leota is a bit heavyset but still no clearer in terms of age.^note For what it's worth, Leota Thomas was around 44 when she shot the footage used as Madame Leota's face in the non-Paris parks.
• The Walls Have Eyes: Subverted. Madame Leota has a gravestone in the mansion's grounds, and the lovely face carved on it will periodically open its eyes and look around.
• Wicked Witch: In versions where she plays a more malevolent role.
  • In Phantom Manor she's a sinister medium who summons witch and warlock spirits for the Phantom's a mock wedding party to torment Melanie.
  • In the SLG comics, she is an Ax-Crazy medium who is responsible for the curse that made the mansion haunted in the first place..
  • In Once Upon a Time season 7 episode "Secret Garden", she's recruited by the season's main antagonist Mother Gothel to join the Coven of the Eight, a coven of dark, powerful witches.

The Beating Heart Bride

Beating Heart a.k.a. "The Bride" or "Emily" or "Elizabeth"

*thump-thump* *thump-thump* *thump-thump*...

Voice Actor: Vanessa Marshall, Kiyomi Asai (video game)

The Bride was one of the most iconic figures of the attraction. She went through many designs, most of which (except the first one) depict her as a forlorn, waiting figure. They all share one trait: a red, glowing, beating heart, whose sound fills the Attic of the Mansion, which she haunts. While the bride character was redone with Constance Hatchaway replacing her in the American Mansions and Melanie Ravenswood being used in Phantom Manor, Beating Heart is still in place at the Tokyo Disneyland Mansion.

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• Amazing Technicolor Population: Some of her figures have noticeably blue skin in an attempt at ghostliness.
• Black Widow: In the short-lived days of the Hatbox Ghost, the original Bride could have been interpreted as this, with Hattie as her victim.
• Characterization Marches On: The Black Widow implications were totally dropped once the Hatbox Ghost was gone, and she was retconned as the tragic, forlorn bride whose marriage had been stopped in some way.
• Decomposite Character: The Beating Heart Bride was evidently a Black Widow who had to be changed to a lonely waiting bride very early in the attraction's history. The two subsequent versions of the Bride build on each, with Melanie in Phantom Manor being central to the story as a tragic bride-who-never-was, and Constance, who replaced Beating Heart in the American Mansions, leaned hard into the murderous story that seemed to have been the original intent.
• Dem Bones: The first version of the figure, "Skeletor", appeared as a skeletal corpse.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: Some incarnations of the bride had these. Not all of them, though.
• Heart in the Wrong Place: Too far to the left, as shown in the picture above.
• Hide the Evidence: The first bride, if she was the Hatbox Ghost's murderer in the early ride, was the one to have hidden his head in a hatbox, as shown by his gimmick and the pop-up ghouls in various boxes in the scene.
• Implied Love Interest: It has been theorized that she was the bride of the Hatbox Ghost, in the ride's earliest days due to the fact that his Hatbox trick was made to coincide with her heartbeat. Older supplementary materials even explicitly say that the Hatbox Ghost was her groom.
• I Will Wait for You: Most incarnation were implied to have been waiting for their grooms, still holding a candle for them even after dying.
• Mystical White Hair: An ethereal feature on some of her figures.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Each of the bride's incarnations in the rides have been disturbing in some way.
• Noodle Incident: An unusually tragic example: unlike Constance, she had no specific backstory, but only hints, and you're supposed to wonder what tragic event made her a ghost in the first place. However, one update of the scene implied that she was jilted or possibly died before she could make it to the altar in the first place, with the pop-up ghosts being dressed as grooms and mockingly calling "I do".
• Nothing Is Scarier: In her time, Beating Heart just showed up in the story, with no previous explanation. Just silently standing with a glowing red heartbeat.
• Race Lift: In Tokyo, she seems to be portrayed as a Japanese woman, as her face looks Asian.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: It seems she was intended to be a villainous figure with the Hatbox Ghost as an implied victim, but since his effect failed, she was left to be a mournful figure.
• Together in Death: If the above theory about being the Hatbox Ghost's bride is true, then early days of her and "Hattie" in the attic shows that even death didn't stop them from being together forever.

Constance Hatchaway

Constance Hatchaway

"til...death...do us part".

Performance Model: Julia Lee (Disneyland, Walt Disney World)

Voice Actor: Kat Cressida (Disneyland, Walt Disney World)

The Bride (see upper) is the character in the rides with the most different character interpretations. While most of them can be compiled as varying versions of the same "Beating Heart" character, in 2006, Walt Disney World and the Californian Disneyland got what is widely considered a different character: Constance Hatchaway, The Bride with a Past and a Black Widow, having married at least five men and murdering them to gain their fortunes (which is symbolized by the fact that with each new man she married, she added a new string of pearls to her necklace).

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• Adaptational Heroism: Is given this treatment in pretty much every adaptation, with the Tales from the Haunted Mansion book series being the only possible exception.
• Alpha Bitch: Acts this way in the Frights of Fancy comic, probably to make the story more kid-friendly while keeping her as an antagonist.
• Ascended Extra: Was a mostly nameless character on a portrait for 37 years until they kicked her upstairs and gave her a new name and backstory.
• Black Widow: Constance earns the nickname "The Black Widow Bride".
• The Bride with a Past: Constance is really an Ax-Crazy Black Widow.
• The Dreaded: In the Marvel comics series, mostly because in death she's acquired the ability to behead other ghosts! Even the Captain is terrified of her.
• Girl with Psycho Weapon: Constance chopped off her husbands' heads, and periodically materializes her axe while hanging out in the attic.
• Gold Digger: Each of her husbands are higher up on the social ladder, culminating with her last husband being one of the Mansion's owners.
  • Ambrose Harper: The son of farmers.
  • Frank Banks: A banker.
  • The Marquis de Doome: A foreign diplomat.
  • Reginald Caine: A railroad baron.
  • George Hightower: One of the Haunted Mansion's owners.
• Hide the Evidence: While never stated outright, since the first days of the attraction, there have been references to the outdated "head in a hatbox" trope, where the head of a victim would be hidden inside a hatbox, alluded to by the Hatbox Ghost and some pop-up heads in false hatboxes. In 2015, the Hatbox Ghost's return and signature gimmick, plus the arrival of several hatboxes in the attic (which don't contain the husband's hats- those are on a rack) suggests that Constance might have hidden the grooms' heads in them.
• Karma Houdini: If her gallery portrait (pictured right) is to be believed, she's gotten away with murder several times without consequence and lived a long life. Of course, the fact that she is a ghost can be seen as her punishment, but she seems reasonably happy with it.
• Knight of Cerebus: All of the incarnations of the bride have been much darker and scarier figures in the otherwise light-hearted attraction. However, the scene switches to the fun graveyard jamboree after the Attic.
• Madwoman in the Attic: A psychotic, gold-digging bride who hangs out in the mansion's attic, who thus fits the trope name literally. She is seemingly hanging out in the Attic of her own will, though; she hasn't been put there.
• Meaningful Punny Name: She constantly deprives wealth and life from her doomed husbands via her weapon, a hatchet. Plus 'Constance' can also be seen as ironic, since it implies marital constance, which is certainly not her defining trait.
• Mythology Gag: Her mother's name in the Marvel comics is Abigail Patecleaver, which was the original name of the Black Widow stretching portrait in Marc Davis's notes. However, in this continuity, her mother seems to be an innocent woman herself, and thinks her poor daughter just has rotten luck.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Each of the bride's incarnations in the rides have been disturbing in some way. More than her appearance though, it's Constance's distorted echoing voice which is especially disturbing.
• Off with His Head!: This is how Constance killed her husbands, and their portraits in the attic change accordingly to reflect this.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: In the 2016 Marvel comic, where she didn't even kill her husbands for an evil yet psychologically plausible goal like hoarding their wealth- she did it so she could keep having fancy weddings and because she just really, really likes beheading people (and other ghosts).
• They Really Do Love Each Other: The Ghost Post app states that all her husbands still love her, even after she murdered them, and she seems to at least enjoy their company.
• Unfinished Business: An unusual variation, where it's implied that the house used to be hers (at least by marriage), but now she's stuck haunting the scene of her final crime until she gets posthumously put to justice. The Hatbox Ghost is implied to be there to help the guests see it done.
• Villainous Rescue: Constance destroys the villainous Captain in the Marvel comics series by decapitating him more or less out of annoyance (and because she really likes decapitating people), incidentally giving the Big Good Hatbox Ghost time to claim the Captain's head and seal it away before he can reconstitute himself.

The Hatbox Ghost

The Hatbox Ghost

Guess who's back?

Voice Actors:

Paul Frees (original ride)

Corey Burton (Haunted Holidays)

Perhaps the biggest Ensemble Dark Horse for the fans after the Hitchhiking Ghosts. The Hatbox Ghost (also nicknamed "Old Hatty") was a skeletal spectre seen in the attic with the bride, his head vanishing into the hatbox he carried and back to his body. Unfortunately, the character's trick often didn't work so he was quickly removed just days after the ride's release. However, he was so memorable that fans had been requesting his return for decades. Finally, after a 46-year absence, he made his triumphant, long-awaited return in May of 2015 just in time for Disneyland's 60th anniversary.

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• Body In A Hatbox: Or part of one, anyway.
• Creepy Good: Possibly. Depite his unnerving appearance, his role appears to be to tell the riders where to look for Constance's victims' heads. He also takes the role of the Big Good alongside Madame Leota in the 2016 comics, where he's an enigmatic mentor to Danny.
• Dem Bones: Visible ribs and his face is more bone than flesh.
• Demoted to Extra: During the time he was absent from the ride, a photo of him could still be seen in the hallway sequence near the clock and the "Tomb, Sweet Tombs" sign.
• Evil Laugh: Gained one in 2015, which he performs each time his head is about to vanish, though he may not be evil in the first place.
• Implied Love Interest: He is theorized to be the groom of the Beating-Heart Bride, due to the fact that his original trick coincided with the bride's heartbeat. Early supplementary materials even explicitly say that she was his bride.
• Losing Your Head: His head vanishes from his neck, appears in his hatbox, and then returns to normal.
• Put on a Bus: And absent for over forty years, though an advanced animatronic dressed like him appeared on display at 2013's Disney D23. Imagineers dodged any questions about a return, which many took to mean "yes". That being said...
  • The Bus Came Back: The Hatbox Ghost returned to the Disneyland Mansion beginning on May 9, 2015. It is an entirely different figure from the one at D23 and more faithful to the original character.
• Slasher Smile: He seems to have a permanent one, though whether it's from malice or decomposition is unclear.
• Special Effects Evolution: Went from a very simplistic figure with a failed lighting gimmick, plastic wrap-covered body, and just a little animation in his cane hand to the most fluid moving figure in the attraction with a detailed skeleton sculpt beneath his transparent clothing, an animated face (courtesy of the "Leota effect", but in reverse) and a mixture of digital techniques and physical heads to achieve the effect.
• Together in Death: If the theory about him being the Beating-Heart Bride's groom is true, then the early days of the ride shows that even death couldn't keep them apart.
• Walking the Earth: The Marvel series uses this as an explanation for his absence from the Mansion, exploring haunted places all around the world through his knowledge of how to navigate the Endless Staircase.

The Caretaker and his Dog

The Caretaker and his dog

You think they'd both be used to them by now.

Voice Actor: Bill Farmer (video game)

Possibly the attraction's only "living" characters, the Cartaker, also known as the Groundskeeper, maintains the mansion and the backyard cemetery guests see towards the end of the ride. With his dog at his side, he stands there holding a lamp and shovel, trembling and completely frozen in fear at the sight of the countless ghosts that abound the area.

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• Adaptation Species Change: The starting with the 2003 movie and the video game tie-in, the Caretaker started to appear as a ghost instead of a mortal.
• Canine Companion: His dog trembles and whimpers just as he does.
• Deer in the Headlights: He's been frightened with a look of horror on his face in the same spot since 1969.
• I See Dead People: And he's not alone.
• No Name Given: Been there for half a century and we still don't know his name nor that of the dog. However, supplemental franchise material have given him multiple names like Dick O'Dell, Horace Fusslebottom, Zeke Holloway, and Clyde. The mansion at Walt Disney World had a crate in the queue that identified him as Silas Crump, named after imagineer Rolly Crump.
  • His dog has been semi-officially named as "Bones".
• Old Retainer: And you hate your job?
• Token Human: The Caretaker is the only living person on the mansion grounds, in contrast to the 999 happy haunts.

The Singing Busts

The Singing Busts

"When the crypt doors creak and the tombstones queak/The spooks come out for a singing wake..."

Voice Actors:

Jay Meyer, Thurl Ravenscroft, Verne Rowe, Bob Ebright, and Chuck Schroeder (original ride)

Shelby Grimm, Harry J. Campbell, William T. Lewis, Tim Reeder, and Bob Hartley (film, video game)

A quintet of singing busts found in the graveyard scenes. They sing the ride's Theme Song "Grim Grinning Ghosts". Four members of them appear in Phantom Manor, and four other versions appear in the film singing different songs to answer Eddie Murphy's questions.

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• Evil Laugh: Uncle Theodore ends the song with one.
• Living Statues: Five singing busts.
• Large Ham: They sing while making extremely overexaggerated facial expressions.
• Losing Your Head: Uncle Theodore (Thurl Ravenscroft's character)'s head is cursed to fall off according to Word of Dante.
• No Name Given: Uncle Theodore is the only one of the busts to be named outside of concept art. The other four are Ned Nub, Cousin Algernon, Rollo Rumkin, and Phineas P. Pock.
• Theme Tune: "Grim Grinning Ghosts"...come out to socialiiiizzzzze.

The Hitchhiking Ghosts

The Hitchhiking Ghosts

"Now I will raise the safety bar and a ghost will follow you home."

Voice Actors:

Bill Farmer (all three in video game)

Kurt von Schmittou (all three in Disney World)

Tom Kenny (Ezra in Kinect: Disneyland Adventures)

Steve Stanton (Phineas in Ghost Post)

Pete Renaday (Ezra in Ghost Post)

Dee Bradley Baker (Gus in Ghost Post)

There's a little thing that should be mentioned: Beware of Hitchhiking Ghosts. These three ghosts appear at the end of the ride, hitching a ride in the guests' Doom Buggies. The Ghost Host comments that the ghosts will follow guests home after guests pass by a row of mirrors to see them sitting in their Doom Buggies.

The three ghosts are now commonly known as Phineas (the fat ghost in a top hat), Ezra (the tall skeletal guy) and Gus (the hairy dwarf prisoner). These names originally came from fan fiction written by cast members but became so well-known that they are now often included in official Disney-sanctioned material. They are quite the Ensemble Darkhorses and the iconic characters of the ride. They only make a brief appearance in the film.

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• Beware of Hitchhiking Ghosts: The Ghost Host warns guests about Hitchhiking Ghosts at the end of the tour, and these guys are the ghosts in question. Not too long after the guests encounter them, the ghosts board their doom buggies.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Phineas (big), Ezra (thin), Gus (short).
• Breakout Characters: These three make cameo appearances outside of the mansion in House of Mouse, where they sing a jazzy cover of "Grim Grinning Ghosts".
• Comic Trio: Commonly interpreted as Ezra (the schemer), Phineas (the powerless one) and Gus (the dingbat).
• Dem Bones: Ezra appears as a tall, thin, skeletal figure.
• Demoted to Extra: The Hitchhiking Ghosts only appear in a cameo in the film.
• Depraved Dwarf: Gus, in some iterations. In others, he pointedly averts this, despite his prisoner's garb- his 2019 "Host-a-Ghost" jar (a theme park souvenir allowing guests to bring a ghost home with them in a spirit jar) claims he was in fact innocent and wrongfully imprisoned, but also so naive and cheerful that he simply waited out his life sentence in anticipation of being free as a ghost.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Gus appears in the graveyard next to the executioner right before the crypt.
• Epic Flail: Gus' ball and chain.
• Grumpy Old Man: Gus becomes this in the Ghost Post companion app.
• Implacable Ghosts: They hitchhike home with everyone.
• Mascot: They appear on much of the attraction merchandise and sometimes on merchandise for the theme park in general.
• Snake Oil Salesman: Phineas has regularly been depicted as one, with current materials suggesting he was a victim of one of his own experimental batches. An older backstory suggests that he was chased out of town and off a cliff after one such sale.
• Southern Gentleman: Ezra becomes this in the Ghost Post companion app.

Little Leota

Little Leota

"Hurry baaaccck...hurry baaacck."

Voice Actor: Leota Toombs Thomas (original ride)

A tiny spirit, Little Leota appears at the end of the ride, bidding guests farewell but eerily invites them to "hurry back" and bring their death certificates in order to join the Haunted Mansion as new residents. Officially, her name is "The Ghostess", but it's never used.

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• One-Steve Limit: Averted. She has the same name as to Madame Leota, though they might be the same character after all.
• The Stinger: Disneyland ride-style.
• We Will Meet Again: Little Leota's farewell spiel - "Hurry ba-ack, hurry ba-ack! Be sure to bring your death certificate, if you decide to join us… Make your final arrangements now. We've been… dying to have you."

The Aging Man/Master Gracey

The Aging Man ("Master Gracey")

^{Click here to see his final state.}

A gentleman whose portrait is featured in the original versions of The Haunted Mansion. Though he was never intended be by the developers, many fans have come to believe he might be Master Gracey, the former owner of the mansion.

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• Adaptation Expansion: The movie gives him a fleshed-out backstory and personality. He would also feature in Tokyo Disneyland's Ghost Registry campaign for the Disney Story Beyond project as "The Withering Man", but playing him up as the most mysterious ghost in the Mansion.
• Composite Character: The portrait was quite clearly meant to be the Mansion's version of Dorian Gray, as one of the "famous ghosts from all over the world" having retired to the Haunted Mansion. The Master Gracey persona the fans know is a mix of this Dorian Gray and of a separate character whose name appears on a tombstone: "Master Gracey".
• Expy: Of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, to the point that some people call him Dorian Gracey. Though before the fans started raving about how he was Master Gracey, the Imagineers might have intended him to really be Dorian Gray, not just an expy.
  • On a more general level, his initial, youthful appearance rather strongly resembles 19th century liberal MP William Coningham◊ (incidentally the foster brother of Arctic explorer James Fitzjames, who is probably best known to modern audiences from The Terror).
• Rapid Aging: He ages from a young man into a decaying corpse in his portrait in the Florida and Tokyo attractions.
• The Spook: In the "Ghost Registry" campaign, nobody knows who the Withering Man is and he always remains silent, with his entry in the Ghost Registry only being filled with observations of his behavior from the staff and wild rumors spread around as gossip by the ghostly residents.
• Two-Faced: Is depicted in the "Ghost Registry" campaign this way.

Phantom Manor (Disneyland Paris)

The Phantom

The Phantom (Henry Ravenswood)

I'll be waiting for you on the... other side. Have a frightfully good time!

Voice Actors: Vincent Price (English, French, post-2019) Bernarde Alane (French, post-2019), Gérard Chevalier (French, pre-2019)

The Host of Phantom Manor. Unlike his original predecessor, he's the main villain of the ride. He was a very mysterious character and as a matter of fact, there were two hypotheses who could he be: an evil spirit who fell in love with Melanie and then killed her groom by hanging him by the neck from the rafters and then condemned the poor bride to haunt the house forever. In the second one, he was Henry Ravenswood, owner of the manor and Melanie's father. He disapproved of her wedding and plans to leave town and combined with his losses in his Big Thunder Mountain gold mine holdings, he snapped when an earthquake came and killed him. But his restless spirit would not be denied. What he did is the same as the first hypothesis.

The 2019 refurbishment of the attraction, in an effort to offer a clearer storyline, has chosen to firmly identify the Phantom as Henry, though WDI had been leaning towards that solution for a long time.

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• Abusive Parents: As Henry Ravenswood's ghost, he first objected to his daughter's wedding and was willing to stop it at any costs. This is expanded in the 2019 refurbishment to arranging the deaths of previous suitors. As the Phantom, he killed Melanie's groom by hanging him and then condemned his daughter to haunt the mansion for all eternity.
• Adaptational Villainy: The original Ghost Host was quite sinister, but apparently just of the prankster-type variety and not truly malicious. Here, he's a murderer and definitely more evil and malevolent.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: He's always seen in a fine suit and a hat.
• Big Bad: Not just of the ride, but of Frontierland as a whole if you think about it. He started the mine in Big Thunder Mountain, which causes the earthquake that your train hits riding up the third lift hill. And that's just his backstory. This might explain why the roller coaster is themed to appear like it's been abandoned for years.
• Bowdlerised: Prior to 2019's refurbishment, the Phantom's final appearances in the ride were as a rotting corpse as shown above. After the refurbishment, he appears as a skeleton all throughout.
• Cain and Abel: An early script by Jeff Burke reveals that the Phantom as Henry Ravenswood had a brother named Arthur, who served as his financier. While Henry was brash and arrogant, Arthur was more refined and level-headed.
• Combat Pragmatist: A portrait shows him and an opponent about to initiate a gun duel. When lightning flashes, the image changes to show Henry dishonorably shooting the other man in the back before he could turn around. This may have even been one of Melanie's suitors.
• Dem Bones: He's an undead skeleton in the graveyard scene.
• Evil Laugh: Vincent Price's evil laugh is used.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Gerard Chevalier's voice is this.
• Faux Affably Evil: He apologizes to the guests for having them scared like his predecessor, but he's more sarcastic than affable. This was enforced with Chévalier's narration as his lines are written and spoken in the polite form.
• For the Evulz: Looks like there's no reason why he does all his bad stuff. And if there is one, he apparently loves to do it.
• Ghostly Goals: Type B. He intends to never let Melanie leave Ravenswood manor, having arranged her suitors' deaths when he was alive, and continuing to haunt her from beyond the grave.
• Hate Sink: He was a horrible father to Melanie in life, murdering every man who came to court her for his own selfish reasons, and only became even worse in death by endlessly tormenting his daughter and outright mocking her dream of being married by holding a ghostly reenactment of the night he murdered her would-be husband at her wedding reception, cackling away at her misery. Yeah, there is nothing redeemable about this guy whatsoever.
• High Collar of Doom: His silhouette is marked by a top hat and a vampiric pointy collar.
• Incest Subtext: Especially noticeable after the 2019 refurbishment. Rather than snapping at the prospect of his daughter being taken away from him forever (still bad, but more attributable to paternal feeling gone horribly wrong), he now has been clarified to have murdered at least five suitors solely for the purpose of having her to himself.
• Knight of Cerebus: Unlike the rest of the ghosts who are tormented souls, he's a purely evil and homicidal spirit who enjoys being bad, and seems intent on tormenting Melanie.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: In the 2019 update, it's revealed that the Phantom, as Henry, arranged for all of his daughter's would-be suitors to die by a variety of unfortunate circumstances.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Prior to the 2019 overhaul that firmly confirmed the former, he was either Henry Ravenswood's ghost or simply an evil spirit of unknown origins.
• Never Bareheaded: A dapper top is a constant part of his wardrobe. Well, except for his zombie-like form before the ride's refurbishment.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Especially in his appearance as a ghoul-like creature pre-refurbishment.
• Obviously Evil: Skeletal, dressed completely in black, and with a pointy collar? Yep, that's not a nice dude.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: A sinister organ rendition of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" can be heard whenever he shows up in person.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Phantom has glowing red pinhole lights where his eyes should be after the 2019 refurbishment.
• Sadist: He loves to taunt the guests about their supposedly upcoming doom and laughs evilly at Melanie's misery.
• The Spook: He's literally one. His origins are vague in the attraction itself, but the backstory spells out his identity pretty well.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Subverted, as the Manor is much darker in tone than the Mansions.

Melanie Ravenswood

Melanie Ravenswood

"You may not believe it but beauty once lived in this house."

Voice Actors: Oona Lind (voice), Katherine Meyring (singing)

The ill-fated bride of Phantom Manor. On her fateful wedding day, her groom never appeared, actually hung and murdered by the Phantom. Determined to wait for him, Melanie wandered her home until his eventual return, never removing her dress. However, even in old age and death, she still waits for a wedding that will never be.

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• Adaptational Wimp: Somewhat in the 2019 refurbishment. In the original ride, Melanie's story is very much the same, but she seems to have somewhat retained her sanity and performs a Heroic Sacrifice by helping guests out of the Manor. In the 2019 refurbishment, this is removed and Melanie simply goes completely insane and ends up begging guests to help her.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: Her ethereal, lovely voice, echos through the halls of the Manor, and the entirety of Thunder Mesa.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Even in death, she remains the eternal ravishingly beautiful bride.
• Big Good: The closest thing the guests have to a friend in the ride, though as of the 2019 refurbishment she's so broken by over a century of her father's abuse that she also begs them to marry her and take her with them.
• Broken Bird: Waiting for over a century for her groom- and living with her father's abuse- has taken its toll on her. She appears as an old woman, crying in her boudoir, and her Leitmotif takes a more somber tone in the scene.
• Expy: She was physically modeled on Christine Daaè, who (in that version) is also a beautiful, haunted brunette who at one point appears in a wedding dress under extremely dire and un-romantic circumstances.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: The 2019 refurbishment has expanded on the story to show that her father disapproved of all the men that courted her. A new ending has Melanie, so desperate for affection after years of loneliness and torment from the Phantom that she proposes to guests in the vain hope that one of them will take her away from the manor.
• I Will Wait for You: Melanie does this for her dead groom, into death and beyond.
• Leitmotif: Melanie sings a haunting tune throughout the attraction.
• Spell My Name With An S: This being Disneyland Paris and all, you'll sometimes find her name spelled à la française: "Mélanie".
• Widowed at the Wedding: Subverted since she never had the chance to get married and her husband-to-be disappeared.

Other media

Sydney

Sydney Campbell

The protagonist of the Frights of Fancy comic, she is the newest resident of the Haunted Mansion.

Amicus Arcane

Amicus Arcane

The Mansion's librarian introduced in the Tales From The Haunted Mansion book series, also serving as the narrator for the scary stories in each book.

• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Passes on at the end of the last Tales book, giving the role of librarian to Willa.
• Canon Immigrant: He was given a Host-A-Ghost Jar in 2019 as part of the franchise's 50th anniversary, signifying that he's now considered part of the ride's continuity.
  • He also has a cameo in the Storm & Shade novel.
• Lemony Narrator: He always throws in a macabre comment directed at certain plot points in each book.
• Pungeon Master: He loves throwing out scary puns after each story.
• Slasher Smile: He loves making these at the end of each book, but he's only interested in giving a good scare to the readers.

The Fearsome Foursome

The Fearsome Foursome

A club of scary story fans comprised of Tim, Willa, Noah and Steve that serve as the protagonists of the book series Tales From the Haunted Mansion. They're four of the Mansion's newest ghosts by the end of the first book.

• Shout-Out: Tim's last name is Maitland, after the ghostly couple in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice

Audrey

Audrey Perez

The protagonist of the Storm & Shade young adult novel.

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