Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney. Christmas.... It's Christmas.. YAY!!!!! Excuse me, I'll calm down. Haunted Mansion Holiday is a popular Haunted Mansion Christmas lay over featuring characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas that launched in 2001. And while I know that it's super popular, I have no desire to check it out as I personally do not care for The Nightmare Before Christmas as it's not a movie for me but The Nightmare Before Christmas was not the first themed lay over considered for The Haunted Mansion during the holiday season. Rather, something that is closer to my hear was considered...
Yes, that's right, A Christmas Carol. And believe it or not, Disney has done quite a few adaptions of this beloved tale. And I've already looked at two of them including the very first one, the beloved short that came from that album. But there are many more including perhaps one of my favorite Muppets movies and what I consider my favorite take on this classic tale.. The Muppet Christmas Carol, the 2009 film adaption from Robert Zemeckis, which I do not hate.
And two episodes of TV shows based on classic Disney movies that took inspiration from A Christmas Carol featuring Disney Villains in the Scrooge role, Cruella and Hook respectively.
Oh, and if I may, I've also done my own take on a Christmas Carol for A Look at Disney. Now, why am I bringing all of these up because this month on A Look at Disney, I'll be celebrating my all time favorite Christmas story as I take a look at the various adaptions from Disney starting today with a look at the Christmas Lay Over that Disney had planned for The Haunted Mansion. Now, let's first look at why Disneyland ultimately decided against going with this theme.
Disney considered doing a retelling of A Christmas Carol, but decided against it due to the attraction's setting in New Orleans Square and the incongruity of bringing Santa Claus into the eerie environment of the Haunted Mansion.
Something that that struck me as odd was Disney wanting to keep Santa out of The Mansion because A, isn't Santa in The Nightmare Before Christmas and also I don't of any version of A Christmas Carol that features Santa Claus. Granted, I haven't seen every version of A Christmas Carol out there, so it may be that there does exist a version that features Jolly Old St. Nick. Now as for the other big reason....
decided against it due to the attraction's setting in New Orleans Square
This does make a bit more sense as A Christmas Carol is a well known story by a well known British author. So, I can see why they would think that wouldn't work. Though on the other hand, I do understand what they were probably thinking as A Christmas Carol is a ghost story. A fact that is sometimes overlooked. So, if they were going by that line of thinking then I understand how they came to the correlation.
Speaking as someone that has never experienced Haunted Mansion Holiday and has no desire, I have no idea how many scenes make up the ride but with A Christmas Carol, you have the beginning at Scrooge's place of business, Marley, the three ghosts and the ending. I feel like you'd have to stretch some of these scenes out in order to sustain a ride but then again, movies have stretched out these scenes and they work well. So, I may be overthinking this but this is more of what a could've been. I imagine that the two big highlights of the ride would be when Scrooge was visited by Marley during the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, which I imagine would take place during the Graveyard scene.
And the party at Fezziwig's would most likely be placed in the ballroom scene in the Mansion.
Now, this is just placement on my part and if I'm too be honest I don't know where some of the other scenes from this beloved tale would go because it's been a while since I've been on The Haunted Mansion but these were ones easy to place because the graveyard and the ballroom are two of the most well remembered parts of The Mansion.
And man, could you just imagine how cool the audio-animatronics would look? I have to imagine that both Jacob Marley and the Ghost of Christmas of Yet To Come would be the true highlights. I almost feel like that the Marley on this ride could have surpassed what The Muppets did with Marley and Marley.
Disney Imagineers have shown impressive feats with effects on the rides with the Mansion having some of the best effects on any Disney ride.
There truly isn't too much more on this that I could say other than I wish that it had happened as I know that I would've loved this and it would be one of my most anticipated things on my trip to Disneyland, this year. Having said all of this, I can't fault Disney for choosing to go with The Nightmare Before Christmas as while I may not like that movie, it does have a bit of a loyal following and it does seems that the popularity of that film has only been helped by the Christmas lay over. So, while I would've love this Christmas Carol lay over, Haunted Mansion Holiday in the long run was the better decision to go with as Nightmare is a bit more popular than Ah well, join me tomorrow as we look at one of my favorite takes on A Christmas Carol as I look at The Muppet Christmas Carol.
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