A unique Easter egg has been added to Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion as it switches to “Haunted Mansion Holidays,” a seasonal event between Halloween and Christmas each year.
This tribute was first discovered by mouse chat, captured footage of the ride’s reopening on Friday. Blink and you’ll miss it. Hidden among a bunch of colorful presents is a creepy figure that looks like it’s made of white candle wax.
Candleman’s history goes back to the very origins of the classic attraction. The Haunted Mansion project was one of the park’s most controversial projects, due in part to its ambiguity. “We were not given much direction on this project,” wrote Laurie Crump, one of the Imagineers’ leaders, in his memoirs. As a result, some, like Crump, sought out authentic haunted houses full of fear and mystery. Others disparaged the idea of a children’s theme park, pushing for a haunted house that was more fun than creepy.
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Mr. Crump’s Haunted Mansion mock-ups were so terrifying that he said his administrative staff refused to clean his workroom, and that Walt Disney himself “couldn’t sleep an inch” after seeing them. I professed it. In the end, we all agreed that Haunted Mansion would be a combination of both. That’s why it’s pretty chilling at the beginning, before things get decidedly more playful in the graveyard scene.
Crump told SFGATE in a 2021 interview that Disney came back the next day with a new proposal. The scarier part was entering the “Museum of the Weird” walk-through attraction at the end of the Haunted Mansion. However, this idea died with Disney’s death in 1966, and his Haunted Mansion opened three years later.
“There’s something you have to understand: People weren’t happy with it from the beginning,” Crump told SFGATE. “Nobody wanted to do it. It was Walt’s idea in the first place.”
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What was left on the cutting room floor was Clamp’s terrifying “Candleman,” a nightmarish demonic figure made of wax. However, this is the first time Candleman has been inside the Haunted Mansion. In the attic scene, a small figure can be seen, clearly based on Clamp’s concept of his art. As the Doombuggy moves through the attic, be sure to look to the left. It’s near the yellow and black tail of a giant serpent peering behind a flickering candlestick.
The addition of Candleman is almost certainly a tribute to Crump, who died in March at age 93. He was the last living Imagineer who worked on the Haunted Mansion.
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