History Fridge / TheHauntedMansion

* While it might seem at first glance that the new ending of Phantom Manor's story implies that the Bride's attempt to propose to guests is her attempt to lure them to their death, this gesture is actually less a case of being lured into a trap and more of a plea for help in the story's context. When Melanie tried to marry her fifth and final suitor, she was making plans to leave Thunder Mesa. That said, by the end of the ride it is clear that she still wants to leave. And she intends to do that through YOU, the guest.

* In the stretching room, the Ghost host tells you to find your way out, followed by "There's always my way..." and the room goes dark, lightning lights up the ceiling, revealing a hanging body. As a young child, most assume Hosty meant 'his' way by journeying through the mansion, or taking the secret passage that opens immediately after the lights come back. But think about it for a while... If you still don't get it, the hanging corpse is the Ghost Host's, and he just told you that the only reliable way of leaving this room is by ''committing suicide like him''.

* Why does the Hatbox Ghost do his head trick at all? Imagine you're a new rider and have never even heard of the HBG. As the ride progresses into the attic, you notice the wedding tableaux, with the bride gaining a string of pearls in each portrait and the groom's heads disappearing from the photographs. Your assumption is correct; that each of the husbands was murdered for their money. There are also some hatboxes in the attic, one for each husband. That's not too odd, you think, since the husbands all had hats, though the hats of each husband are all kept as trophies on a rack. After you pass Constance herself, you see an elderly ghost leaning on a cane and carrying a hatbox. He looks you in the eye before chuckling, and his head disappears from his shoulders, traveling into his hatbox. The ghost turns his hat meaningfully toward the head in the box before it goes back, as if indicating that it's not just a simple trick. ''By doing this, the Hatbox Ghost has told you exactly what's in those hatboxes in the attic, and it's clearly not the hats.'' Why would he tell you? It's incriminating evidence that could bring Constance to justice.

** The basic interpretation is that as a ghost, you'll be able to float through the walls, like the Ghost Host can. But if by "way out" you mean not only way out of the Stretching Room, but way out of the Mansion itself, this adds a whole new layer of FridgeHorror: that would mean the living Ghost Host was stuck in the Mansion, and committed suicide to try to escape And since he's there to narrate for you, ''even that didn't work''.

* Why is the Haunted Mansion in Japan in Fantasyland? It's because that Japanese Ghost Stories are in the vein of Fairy Tales within Japanese culture.

* Why does the Hatbox Ghost do his head trick at all? Imagine you're a new rider and have never even heard of the HBG. As the ride progresses into the attic, you notice the wedding tableaux, with the bride gaining a string of pearls in each portrait and the groom's heads disappearing from the photographs. Your assumption is correct; that each of the husbands was murdered for their money. There are also some hatboxes in the attic, one for each husband. That's not too odd, you think, since the husbands all had hats. After you pass Constance herself, you see an elderly ghost leaning on a cane and carrying a hatbox. He looks you in the eye before chuckling, and his head disappears from his shoulders, traveling into his hatbox. The ghost turns his hat meaningfully toward the head in the box before it goes back, as if indicating that it's not just a simple trick. ''By doing this, the Hatbox Ghost has told you exactly what's in those hatboxes in the attic.'' Why? It's incriminating evidence that could bring Constance to justice.

* Why does the Hatbox Ghost do his head trick at all? Imagine you're a new rider and have never even heard of the HBG. As the ride progresses into the attic, you notice the wedding tableaux, with the bride gaining a string of pearls in each portrait and the groom's heads disappearing from the photographs. Your assumption is correct; that each of the husbands was murdered for their money. There are also some hatboxes in the attic, one for each husband. That's not too odd, you think, since the husbands all had hats. After you pass Constance herself, you see an elderly ghost leaning on a cane and carrying a hatbox. He looks you in the eye before chuckling, and his head disappears from his shoulders, traveling into his hatbox. The ghost turns his hat meaningfully toward the head in the box before it goes back, as if indicating that it's not just a simple trick. ''By doing this, the Hatbox Ghost has told you exactly what's in those hatboxes in the attic.'' Why? It's incriminating evidence that could bring Constance to justice.[[note]] Of course, all that is a retconned rationalization of the new Hatbox Ghost's place, and is not quite what was intended by the original Imagineers. The original Attic had no haunted portraits (although it ''did'' have two disembodied heads leaping from hatboxes) and it was left ambiguous whether the Bride was old Hattie's killer or just the ''motive'' for his killing. [[/note]]

* FridgeBrilliance: Why does the Hatbox Ghost do his head trick at all? Imagine you're a new rider and have never even heard of the HBG. As the ride progresses into the attic, you notice the wedding tableaux, with the bride gaining a string of pearls in each portrait and the groom's heads disappearing from the photographs. Your assumption is correct; that each of the husbands was murdered for their money. There are also some hatboxes in the attic, one for each husband. That's not too odd, you think, since the husbands all had hats. After you pass Constance herself, you see an elderly ghost leaning on a cane and carrying a hatbox. He looks you in the eye before chuckling, and his head disappears from his shoulders, traveling into his hatbox. The ghost turns his hat meaningfully toward the head in the box before it goes back, as if indicating that it's not just a simple trick. ''By doing this, the Hatbox Ghost has told you exactly what's in those hatboxes in the attic.'' Why? It's incriminating evidence that could bring Constance to justice.[[note]] Of course, all that is a retconned rationalization of the new Hatbox Ghost's place, and is not quite what was intended by the original Imagineers. The original Attic had no haunted portraits (although it ''did'' have two disembodied heads leaping from hatboxes) and it was left ambiguous whether the Bride was old Hattie's killer or just the ''motive'' for his killing. [[/note]]

* Fridge Horror: The placement of the house in Liberty Square in Florida has long been a head-scratcher, as the land is otherwise based on real-life colonial period America. It gets deeper than suggesting the founding fathers had a few haunted houses: When Walt Disney began discussing the Haunted Mansion, the original concept for the was to make it an attraction in Main Street USA. Turning the town into an Uncanny Village with its presence. Which is even scarier if you consider Main Street was based on Walt's childhood memories of Marceline, Missouri.
** Part of the Liberty Square Mansion's placement is based on Sleepy Hollow and Edgar Allen Poe's works though.
** And the main reason it's there is because New Orleans Square (where it sits in Disneyland) got cut early on in the Magic Kingdom's planning stages.
** [[http://passport2dreams.blogspot.com/2010/05/history-and-haunted-mansion.html Passport to Dreams Old and New]] finds a Fridge Brilliance to the WDW Mansion's placement in Liberty Square close to the Hall of Presidents: The Spiritualism movement. Madame Leota was clearly a spiritualist in life and still calls on the spirits of the dead in the afterlife. Meanwhile, the Hall of Presidents prominently features Abraham Lincoln, himself tied to the movement, and in some way is also about recalling the dead in order to inspire the living.
** For [[{{Tailikku}} this troper]], he wrote a paper on the scenes of the ride that scared him shitless as a child and took notice to the claw shadow in the Clock room. The way it seems to swoop over the clock in front of the Doombuggy gives the impression that the Ghost Host wants you for himself.
** I'm pretty young, so Constance has been there ever since I can remember... but I still had a major moment of being LateToThePunchline, because I didn't actually get her story until I was like 12.
** Thank you David Ravenswood for pointing this out: In Phantom Manor he took notice to the Phantom in two particular scenes: the painting of the manor (Ballroom) and Phantom Canyon. In the painting, there is a dark cloud with a skull. This cloud has a fairly human body, with hands of flesh and blood. This cloud is supposed to represent the Phantom himself as he underwent a disquienting metamorphosis from human to undead. The Phantom in the canyon has a slightly mortal feeling about him. That's because he's in his mortal state in the canyon! This can possibly support the fact that in the very next scene, Melanie is shown as a skeleton while a few scenes earlier, she was middle-aged. This can bring about one explanation: the Phantom is slowly sucking the life force from Melanie in order to gather souls from the realm of the living!
** In the stretching room, the Ghost host tells you to find your way out, followed by "There's always my way..." and the room goes dark, lightning lights up the ceiling, revealing a hanging body. Now, if fanon is correct, The ghost host is Master Gracey, who committed suicide. As a young child, I assumed Gracey meant 'his' way by journeying through the mansion, however, coupled with the belief that the ghost host was Gracey, and that Gracey hung himself, that 'my way' line seems a lot more sinister... Think about it for a while... And if you still dont get it: Holy Crap! Did a DISNEY character just encourage people to do suicide?!!!
** Not actually Gracey, the Ghost Host has been revealed to be the skeletal heterochromatic man with the hatchet in the portrait hall and a broken rope around his neck.
*** He was sugesting it, not encouraging it. But that adds another layer of fridge horror. The Ghost Host was stuck in the Mansion, and committed suicide to try to escape. It didn't work, since his spirit remained in the Mansion, and he's doomed to be the "Ghost Host" forever.

* FridgeBrilliance: Why does the Hatbox Ghost do his head trick at all? Imagine you're a new rider and have never even heard of the HBG. As the ride progresses into the attic, you notice the wedding tableaux, with the bride gaining a string of pearls in each portrait and the groom's heads disappearing from the photographs. Your assumption is correct; that each of the husbands was murdered for their money. There are also some hatboxes in the attic, one for each husband. That's not too odd, you think, since the husbands all had hats. After you pass Constance herself, you see an elderly ghost leaning on a cane and carrying a hatbox. He looks you in the eye before chuckling, and his head disappears from his shoulders, traveling into his hatbox. The ghost turns his hat meaningfully toward the head in the box before it goes back, as if indicating that it's not just a simple trick. ''By doing this, the Hatbox Ghost has told you exactly what's in those hatboxes in the attic.'' Why? It's incriminating evidence that could bring Constance to justice.[[note]] Of course, all that is a retconned rationalization of the new Hatbox Ghost's place, and is not quite what was intended by the original Imagineers. The original Attic had no haunted portraits (although it ''did'' have two disembodied heads leaping from hatboxes) and it was left ambiguous whether the Bride was old Hattie's killer or just the ''motive'' for his killing. [[/not]]

* FridgeBrilliance: Why does the Hatbox Ghost do his head trick at all? Imagine you're a new rider and have never even heard of the HBG. As the ride progresses into the attic, you notice the wedding tableaux, with the bride gaining a string of pearls in each portrait and the groom's heads disappearing from the photographs. Your assumption is correct; that each of the husbands was murdered for their money. There are also some hatboxes in the attic, one for each husband. That's not too odd, you think, since the husbands all had hats. After you pass Constance herself, you see an elderly ghost leaning on a cane and carrying a hatbox. He looks you in the eye before chuckling, and his head disappears from his shoulders, traveling into his hatbox. The ghost turns his hat meaningfully toward the head in the box before it goes back, as if indicating that it's not just a simple trick. ''By doing this, the Hatbox Ghost has told you exactly what's in those hatboxes in the attic.'' Why? It's incriminating evidence that could bring Constance to justice.

* FridgeBrilliance: Why does the Hatbox Ghost's head appear to shrink once it flies into his box? ''He's a ghost'', so his spirit manifestation allows his head to separate and change size.
** Why does he do his head trick at all? Imagine you're a new rider and have never even heard of the HBG. As the ride progresses into the attic, you notice the wedding tableaux, with the bride gaining a string of pearls in each portrait and the groom's heads disappearing from the photographs. Your assumption is correct; that each of the husbands was murdered for their money. There are also some hatboxes in the attic, one for each husband. That's not too odd, you think, since the husbands all had hats. After you pass Constance herself, you see an elderly ghost leaning on a cane and carrying a hatbox. He looks you in the eye before chuckling, and his head disappears from his shoulders, traveling into his hatbox. The ghost turns his hat meaningfully toward the head in the box before it goes back, as if indicating that it's not just a simple trick. ''By doing this, the Hatbox Ghost has told you exactly what's in those hatboxes in the attic.'' Why? It's incriminating evidence that could bring Constance to justice, and free the husbands or even the HBG himself.

** Why does he do his head trick at all? Imagine you're a new rider and have never even heard of the HBG. As the ride progresses into the attic, you notice the wedding tableaux, with the bride gaining a string of pearls in each portrait and the groom's heads disappearing from the photographs. Your assumption is correct; that each of the husbands was murdered for their money. There are also some hatboxes in the attic, one for each husband. That's not too odd, you think, since the husbands all had hats. After you pass Constance herself, you see an elderly ghost leaning on a cane and carrying a hatbox. He looks you in the eye before chuckling, and his head disappears from his shoulders, traveling into his hatbox. The ghost turns his hat meaningfully toward the head in the box before it goes back, as if indicating that it's not just a simple trick. ''By doing this, the Hatbox Ghost has told you exactly what's in those hatboxes in the attic.'' Why? It's incriminating evidence that could bring Constance to justice, and free the husbands or the HBG himself.
** [[http://passport2dreams.blogspot.com/2010/05/history-and-haunted-mansion.html Passport to Dreams Old and New]] finds a Fridge Brilliance to the WDW Mansion's placement in Liberty Square close to the Hall of Presidents: The Spiritualism movement. Madame Leota was clearly a spiritualist in life and still calls on the spirits of the dead in the afterlife. Meanwhile, the Hall of Presidents prominently features Abraham Lincoln, himself tied to the movement, and in some way is also about recalling the dead in order to inspire the living.

** Why does he do his head trick at all? Imagine you're a new rider and have never even heard of the HBG. As the ride progresses into the attic, you notice the wedding tableaux, with the bride gaining a string of pearls in each portrait and the groom's heads disappearing from the photographs. Your assumption is correct; that each of the husbands was murdered for their money. There are also some hatboxes in the attic, one for each husband. That's not too, odd, you think, since the husbands all had hats. After you pass Constance herself, you see an elderly ghost leaning on a cane and carrying a hatbox. He looks you in the eye before chuckling, and his head disappears from his shoulders, traveling into his hatbox. The ghost turns his hat meaningfully toward the head in the box before it goes back, as if indicating that it's not just a simple trick. ''By doing this, the Hatbox Ghost has told you exactly what's in those hatboxes in the attic.'' Why? It's incriminating evidence that could bring Constance to justice, and free the husbands or the HBG himself.

** Why does he do his head trick at all? ''He's showing you, the visitor, what happened to Constance's husbands.'' Notice that every husband has a hatbox. And Hatty deliberately motions toward his box when his head travels into it. Perhaps he wants to bring Constance to justice and get her ghost out of the attic, although why this is is unknown.

* All of Constance's husbands were identified by their hats. As of May 2015, all of them also have hatboxes...Each husband was decapitated. Perhaps the boxes had best remain closed.

* All of Constance's husbands were identified by their hats. As of May 2015, all of them also have hatboxes...

*** He was sugesting it, not encouraging it. But that adds another layer of fridge horror. The Ghost Host was stuck in the Mansion, and committed suicide to try to escape. It didn't work, since his spirit remained in the Mansion, and he's doomed to be the "Ghost Host" forever.

** Not actually Gracey, the Ghost Host has been revealed to be the skeletal heterochromatic man with the hatchet in the portrait hall.

** For [[Tailikku this troper]], he wrote a paper on the scenes of the ride that scared him shitless as a child and took notice to the claw shadow in the Clock room. The way it seems to swoop over the clock in front of the Doombuggy gives the impression that the Ghost Host wants you for himself.

** I'm pretty young, so Constance has been there ever since I can remember... but I still had a major SwissMoment, because I didn't actually get her story until I was like 12.

* For [[Tailikku this troper]], he wrote a paper on the scenes of the ride that scared him shitless as a child and took notice to the claw shadow in the Clock room. The way it seems to swoop over the clock in front of the Doombuggy gives the impression that the Ghost Host wants you for himself.