Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Rob: [00:00:00] Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Welcome, foolish mortals- ... to Dear Watchers, an omniversal comic book podcast where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.

Guido: We are traveling with you through the stories, the worlds, and the dark rides that make up an omniverse of fictional realities we all love

Guido: And your hitchhiking watchers on this journey are me, Guido

Rob: And me, Madam Rob.

Guido: You've got the hair for it.

Rob: I do, yes. And we, before we begin today's trip into the afterlife, Guido, I... People must think we're dead because we haven't been on- ... for so long, but we are in fact alive.

Guido: We are very, very busy. And so yeah, I guess we're, uh, for now becoming a bit of a monthly [00:01:00] podcast. Hopefully we'll increase that number as time goes on, but as our regular listeners know, we have a second podcast that people can hear us on.

Guido: So this episode is actually inspired by the last episode of our Sleepover Retro Countdown show.

Rob: Why? Yes, because we explored the forbidden worlds of Disney.

Guido: Yeah.

Rob: We interviewed the director Joshua Bailey, who is the person behind a new amazing documentary called Stolen Kingdom, all about urban exploring and the Disney black market.

Guido: Yeah, and it was a fun conversation to count down some of all of our favorite parts of Disney parks.

Rob: Mm-hmm.

Guido: And in doing that, we were thinking a lot about Disney, and so here we are, a nice companion. Go listen to the Sleepover Retro Countdown show. You can [00:02:00] even watch us on YouTube. And you can meet Josh Bailey on there, and then strap into your little Doom buggy.

Guido: I think they call them Doom buggies. Doom

Rob: buggies, yes.

Guido: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just funny, 'cause I don't know, I guess it's a riff on dune buggy. Yes. But-

Rob: Are you just getting that now?

Guido: No, I get it. I've always gotten it, but I just don't think it's very clever. But for today, strap into your Doom buggy.

Rob: Yes, because if you are joining us for the first time, we have three parts of our journey through the multiverse today: origins of the story, exploring multiversity, and pondering possibilities.

Rob: So thanks for coming along.

Guido: And remember, we appreciate a five-star review wherever you're listening to us, and make sure you find us on social media at Dear Watchers.

Rob: And with that, welcome to episode 179, and let's check out what's happening in the omniverse with our travel today's alternate universe.

Rob: [00:03:00] Today we creak open the door to answer the spectral question: What if you became the 1,000th happy haunt of Disney's Haunted Mansion? Yes. Real Disney files will get that reference right away. Even without being a Disney file, I feel like this is one of the rides- You know there's 999 ... that probably permeates a lot of other people, hence the one million movies that have been made about it recently.

Guido: That's true, which we will get to, but today's alternate Earth is Earth-52319, which is a single appearance Marvel universe Earth. Never been revisited so far, but it is part of the Disney Kingdoms imprint, which is in 2014 and had four or five miniseries all based on theme park rides. I guess arguably I think those books are set in the same continuity, which is [00:04:00] why, like in this book, we see a reference to the Matterhorn- Mm-hmm

Guido: for example. So we've never visited this Earth. We've actually never visited a Disney character before. Wow. Yeah, which is... I mean, I guess Marvel is all Disney characters at this point. All their own Disney characters. But let's assume that there's still some separation. So this will be our first trip, and what better way than to start with the Disney theme parks?

Rob: We will talk about the titular ride in just a bit, but Guido, what is your background with Disney parks in general?

Guido: Well, I was born in Florida.

Rob: Yes, that's true.

Guido: I don't, I don't like to parade that information around. But I was. Didn't live there very long, but went as a child to Disney parks a lot.

Rob: So you did go there before you moved to New Jersey?

Guido: Yeah, even though I was four or five. It certainly, I think a two, three, four-year-old is a good prime candidate to go to Disney. Mm-hmm. And then growing up we went there a lot, I guess just because it was a familiar place. It's not like we [00:05:00] had family we were visiting or anything, but we would go to Florida a lot.

Guido: So I had some childhood background, but then it sort of stopped. I didn't go so much as a teenager. Once or twice I remember going. Actually once, like, with my sister, and then once when I was, like, 15 I went by myself. Uh, and then it was really in my, I guess, like, late 20s I had a brief time as a Disney adult.

Guido: One of those people who would go- You're

Rob: coming out of the closet right now- Yeah ... as a Disney adult.

Guido: And I was going to Southern California for work a lot, so I went to Disneyland probably every month. I used to know a lot of people with resident season passes. Mm. And so I'd go every time I went, and sometimes I'd try to go to Orlando, and I went to explore the parks a lot in that era, and haven't been to a park in at least 15 years.

Guido: So yeah, I have a lot of experience. I like a lot about them. I think like most people, and like we talked about [00:06:00] with Josh Bailey, like, they're fascinating places and the storytelling is what is really most compelling for them, and they create a lot of tense relationships for people who don't like corporate- Yes

Guido: overlords, and don't like, uh, control for profit and sanitization of culture. So, you know, it's an interesting relationship. Or

Rob: children. Being around children.

Guido: Or children. It's true. Uh, how about you? What is your background with the parks?

Rob: Yeah, so first off, I've never have been to Disneyland. I do feel like I need to check that off my list- Mm-hmm

Rob: at some point.

Guido: Yeah.

Rob: We, growing up in New Jersey, though, did go to Disney World. Not nearly as much as you. I probably went, I don't know, maybe six times growing up. I went once with school with, like, the choir- Oh, that's rare ... or the band or something like that. And then I only went [00:07:00] once as an adult, probably about 15 years ago.

Rob: And it was quite glorious to go as an adult- ... because then you just realize when you're not there with children, you can kinda do whatever you want. So I just went with one of my best friends, and you just don't have to, "Oh, we don't wanna wait on that line right now," or, "We wanna eat whenever we wanna eat."

Rob: It is kind of nice to just to be able to do that. And I think the whole thing is the growing up in New Jersey and, and being a special thing that you only did every few years, it was so much also the build-up and the planning of going. And that was an interesting thing to talk to Josh about, and all these people who grow up in Orlando or around Orlando, or you're going there so often.

Rob: For me, it was like, "Okay, I gotta plan months out what are the rides I wanna do." And just that experience of, like, when you're first driving up and you're, like, coming to the gates, it is, like, [00:08:00] the closest thing we have to Jurassic Park. Where you're having that feel of like, "Oh my gosh, I'm entering this other world," which as you said, some people don't like it because it's so contained.

Rob: But there is something kind of freeing almost about that too, because you're just within this sto- you're sto- you're within storytelling from the minute you enter the gate.

Guido: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a fascinating, fascinating place, which is part of why Stolen Kingdom is such an interesting movie to see people who engage it in a different way, and why today I'm interested to dig into the possibility of telling stories out of the artificial construct of the park.

Rob: So we've g- we've grabbed our FastPass. We, we've maneuvered around the bat stations, and we're finally at the entrance of origins of our story.

Rob: [00:09:00] today for Origins of the Story, why don't we talk about the Haunted Mansion ride? Because this has to be one of the most famous theme park rides in the planet, I would imagine.

Guido: Yeah, I think you pointed out Pirates of the Caribbean m- is probably tied or maybe even slightly ekes this one out, but absolutely these two rides are, must be the two most famous- And only because-

Guido: theme park rides ... their

Rob: movies have been much more successful than the Haunted Mansion movies Well,

Guido: it's also a longer running ride. Mm. It's a, a slightly more novel ride, although I think there's some novelty to this one, but it's ex- a- atypical in so many ways. So yeah, I, uh, but I think d- definitely these two rides, if you ask someone what is famous about Disney, they're probably gonna name one of these two things.

Guido: Yeah. A Disney park, or if [00:10:00] you ask someone for some of the most famous theme park rides anywhere, it's gonna be one of these two. So I think you're right, but let's get into some background on the Haunted Mansion.

Rob: Yeah, so Disney's Haunted Mansion, it was one of Disneyland's longest gestating attractions.

Rob: So it was first conceived around 1951, and it took nearly two decades, which is pretty crazy to think-

Guido: Yeah ...

Rob: from sketch to opening. And I didn't even know this, because I always went to Disney World, I didn't even realize that it's set in this New Orleans atmosphere. And New Orleans Square, that exterior was finished by 1963, but then it sat, almost like a haunted mansion-

Rob: it sat unoccupied until 1969 while Walt Disney and his Imagineers were diverted to the '64-'65 New York World's Fair, and whose technology later fed into the Haunted Mansion ride. And [00:11:00] again, kinda creepy with death and everything. Walt Disney died in 1966, making the Mansion the first major Disney attraction to open without him.

Guido: Yes. As we know, every single Disney, especially theme park, has some lore to it. Mm-hmm. Yes. And this one's no, no, uh, exception to that. So the finished ride was the work of a number of Disney Imagineer legends, including designers Marc Davis and Claude Coats, the illusion specialist Rolly Crump-

Rob: The

Guido: best in the-

Guido: and Yale Gracey ...

Rob: on the planet. Yale Gracey's pretty good too, but Rolly Crump, come on.

Guido: Well, my favorite was always, 'cause I loved the music, which I'm sure you did too, X Atencio. Oh, yes. Because the record was always credited to X Atencio- Yes. ... who wrote the script and the lyrics to Grim Grinning Ghosts. And the ride finally opened at Disneyland August 9th, 1969, with the Doom Buggies on the mover system, home to the [00:12:00] 999 happy haunts, and later got the Disney World version in '71, and the Tokyo Disneyland version in '83.

Guido: So it is quite a ride to the Haunted Mansion. And I think Of all the rides at Disney, I actually do think this is the one I've been on the most also. Yeah Because not only is it fun and there's so much to look at, but I, when I was going to Disney a lot, I would specifically go around Christmas because they would re-theme the Haunted Mansion, and it was so cool to watch a ride you know so well get completely redone in all these subtle ways.

Guido: The g- it's a Christmas party, and the decorations are all Christmas, and it was so cool. They did it at Disneyland. They still do it at Disneyland. I think they started doing it at Disney World. It is just one of the coolest things that they re-theme a ride for a season, so [00:13:00] that meant I went on it that much more, too.

Guido: Mm. So yeah, I'm a big fan of this ride. It's not my favorite ride, but I'm a big fan of it.

Rob: Yeah, I d- think it's probably the ride I also went on the most because as a little kid when I, which was most of the time I went to Disney World, there were some rides, like Space Mountain, I couldn't go on because I was too short.

Rob: I was too tiny, but-

Guido: And still are ...

Rob: and still am. But I just barely make it today. But Haunted Mansion was one of those rides that it can be thrilling, it can feel more adult than, say, Peter Pan or It's a Small World. If you're a kid, you feel like you're doing something that has a little bit of a forbidden-ness.

Rob: A dark

Guido: edge

Rob: So a dark edge- ... to Haunted Mansion.

Guido: Which does not exist at Disney, but yes.

Rob: And I loved, and still do, I loved horror and Universal Monsters and all that stuff from when I was six years old, so this very much tied into that kind of aesthetic of classic [00:14:00] Hollywood horror in that way.

Guido: It's also the ride I remember as a kid, and maybe even into certainly my teenage years, I don't know, of when I became a D- Disney adult, but, uh, where you, you go through it and you're like, "Wow, how'd they do that?"

Rob: Yes.

Guido: Yeah. Like, it just has, it does have some of the coolest effects because it's using holograms so much, and it's using them with mirrors 'cause it's the 1960s, so it's not even using, like, modern technology to achieve these things. Obviously, now it is. It's, it's

Rob: called- But- ... Pepper's Ghost. Did you know

Guido: that?

Guido: That's- That's what the name of the mirror trick is? That's

Rob: the name of the- Oh ... mirror trick, and it's still used today when you see even, like, a hologram, like, uh, the Tupac hologram that was, like, 10, 10 years ago. It's still often Pepper's Ghost, so you can only look at it really straight on. Like, you can't look at it from all around.

Guido: But it's just such a cool... I mean, first of all, the projection of Madame Leota. Mm-hmm. But then, too, all of the dancing [00:15:00] ghosts in that, the, the ballroom/dining room scene are just incredible and always are amazing. And then certainly at the end when the ghost is in the buggy with you, it just uses that technology so cool, and again, it's- Not like a modern incarnation of it.

Guido: So I get why this ride resonates.

Rob: Well, I think one of the things that Disney does so well in so many of their rides, but I think this one might be one of the epitomes of it, is that sense that you're getting the storytelling from the moment you're in. 'Cause I remember there's long lines, like in, when you're in the graveyard- Mm-hmm

Rob: waiting to get in, you're reading all the funny tombstones. And then I, I always think of these bat stanchions as you're coming in. And wasn't until we watched a documentary, I think on Disney Plus, a few years ago, where I even realized that the stretching portrait is an elevator It's taking you down ... and taking you down, and that really the whole ride is [00:16:00] underground.

Rob: Like it didn't even occur to me. But that's, again, it's like the ride hasn't really even started yet when one of the most iconic things about this ride has happened with the portrait.

Guido: Well, or the opposite, the ride starts-

Rob: Yes, the ride starts- ... the moment you walk

Guido: through the

Rob: gate ... yes, exactly.

Guido: Yeah ... which is part of the Disney magic- Mm-hmm

Guido: of course. And especially in these storytelling rides. I think that's the interesting thing, I mean, every ride has a slight story, but some are clearly a lot more well-developed than others, and I think Haunted Mansion is certainly one of those where- Yeah ... it, like Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, like Pirates of the Caribbean, there is a world you walk into the moment you-

Rob: Yeah

Guido: start to engage the ride, and that's really cool.

Rob: Well, even thinking, like, Splash Mountain, RIP, it's like you think of the giant-

Guido: Yeah, but it's Princess Tiana now

Rob: Oh, damn. That's true ... I love Princess Tiana. That's true. But you think of the big splash at the end, but that's like two seconds of the ride.

Rob: Right. The rest of it is like you're just drifting along- You're just traveling through these

Guido: little

Rob: stories ... seeing stories [00:17:00] and vignettes. Yeah. I mean, and, and h- and Tower of Terror is very similar too. So yeah, this one is almost a more of a sustained feel throughout because there's not

Guido: that big moment.

Guido: Well, and the detail is there too, which it is what's cool. There was a moment in that time in my 20s where I was like, "I wanna be an Imagineer."

Rob: No.

Guido: Because it is cool that there are these people who, and because it's a such a unique form of storytelling, there are these people who get to do that, get to create an experience.

Guido: And it's funny, 'cause it's what you and I do with our store and our screenings of Stay, like we are really interested in building out the experience for people. And definitely this ride is such a good example of why Disney is so famous and so popular in spite of also potentially being so awful and horrible.

Guido: Is because the detail is so incredible Yes ... and it's just, you are transported. You, you, you watch these ride-through videos, which we watched a recent one in preparation for this episode, [00:18:00] and you are just transported. Uh, you can be the most cynical person in the world, and I- You are ... can't imagine- Yeah

Guido: that you could go through that ride and not feel a little bit of magic. And

Rob: there's so many details, because I was watching, we were watching this ride-through, which is in, like, crisp- crystal crisp, like, HD, and there's still things where it's like, "Okay, I need a whole nother ride-through with the other camera angles."

Rob: Right,

Guido: so you

Rob: can see everything else. Because there's just something that's-

Guido: Totally ...

Rob: everywhere. 'Cause

Guido: you can look in any direction and see something.

Rob: Mm-hmm.

Guido: So really incredible storytelling for the Haunted Mansion ride that makes sense why there's a whole world in there to tap.

Rob: Well, I'm, I'm pulling down on the lever on our dune buggy, so keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle.

Rob: It's time for Exploring Multiversity.

Rob: [00:19:00] And today on Exploring Multiversity, we're asking the question: what if you became the 1,000th happy haunt- ... of Disney's Haunted Mansion? That is also a tongue twister. And this is from Haunted Mansion number one through five. This is from Marvel, the Disney Kingdoms line, from March to July 2016.

Guido: This is written by Joshua Williamson, penciled and inked by Jorge Coelho, colored by Jean-François Beaulieu, lettered by VC's Joe Caramagna, cover artist is Ian Gist, and it's edited by Jeff, Jeff Youngquist.

Guido: And this line, uh, you probably don't even remember this line. No. I remembered it because Figment came out in it. Mm. Which maybe one day we'll cover Figment. I... Figment's my favorite. I was a big f- EPCOT was my favorite ...

Rob: I was a huge Figment fan. I had a Figment stuffed [00:20:00] animal, yep.

Guido: Well, I don't know if either of us will love the comic, 'cause it's steampunk, but-

Guido: uh, but still, it's Figment. Anyway, so these Were an interesting project right after the acquisition. This is actually- Oh, okay ... considered the most, the first formal... Obviously, Disney and Marvel had collaborated a lot pre-acquisition, and obviously they, you can call it collaboration post-acquisition so much.

Guido: But this is, Disney has purchased Marvel, and this is sort of the first big formal collaboration in which Marvel is printing Disney content in the comic book company.

Rob: Well, and that makes sense, too, because do you know off the top of your head, were there anything like this, like Disney comic... I mean, obviously there were Disney comics with Disney characters, but were they- No, not at the time

Rob: going too much into the rides?

Guido: No. That's what's interesting in trying to do research for this episode, knowing that the Disney parks were an interesting thing to mine. This [00:21:00] is one of the only... They have since done, like, a lot of young adult novels and things like that, tie-in books. But they haven't mined the content of the parks all that much, with a few exceptions, and those two exceptions are Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion- Mm

Guido: have been really mined, possibly to death, um- ... but we'll get into in our third segment.

Rob: To death. Ooh.

Guido: Exactly. So, uh, a quick summary of these books, in case people haven't read them, which would make sense, but they are out there. They are on Marvel Unlimited, I believe. So our, we have a lead teenage character who's been curious about this dilapidated mansion near his home in New Orleans, which has all sorts of rumors around it, uh, capturing some of the stories of the ghosts that we know, like that there's a homicidal bride or a headless horseman or psychic mediums.

Guido: And his [00:22:00] grandfather goes to the Matterhorn, disappears. And so-

Rob: Well, dies.

Guido: Dies. Disappears. That's right. We, yes, ultimately dies. Uh-

Rob: He's an adventure, adventuring, adventure lover, and like, quite like a hunky daddy grandpa as drawn in this comic. Well, he's

Guido: the character who, at the Matterhorn, I think. Oh, he is.

Guido: Okay. Yeah. There is that guy. He looks like the guy from, uh, the Rankin/Bass a little bit too.

Rob: He does look a bit like that. Yeah. But, but sexier.

Guido: So- So anyway, he gets lured, Danny gets drawn into the mansion, meets the 999 ghosts. Leota sort of sets up that his father's ghost is trapped in the house, and Danny is, uh, meeting the ghosts who are looking for a 1,000th ghost, and they start to unpack the lore of a cursed pirate captain who has trapped them all in the house and is trying to make them all evil.

Guido: They all came as happy ghosts, but they're not allowed to [00:23:00] leave because he's looking for the treasure, and it turns out that Leota lied. Spoiler alert, the grandfather's ghost is not in the house. She's trying to get Danny to help them all escape. And of course, ultimately, he does help them escape and sees his grandfather's ghost outside of the, the mansion.

Rob: Yes, it is as convoluted as that, that, uh, uh that

Guido: summary was. It is somewhat convoluted, but it's easy to follow, I'd

Rob: say. It is easy to follow, yes, yes.

Guido: Yeah. So what'd you think?

Rob: I think it's a good... You wanna check... These, these kind of comics, I think you wanna check all the boxes of- Mm-hmm ... like I wanna- Definitely

Rob: touch on all of these characters, which I think this certainly did. I think where it didn't, wasn't necessarily the strongest, and I think we can talk definitely about, like, adapting this kind of source material, is that, yeah, the story, like the, the cap- the pirate captain is looking for a treasure, but the treasure never exists.

Rob: Danny is doing this because he thinks his grandfather's [00:24:00] soul or ghost is trapped in the haunted mansion, but his, he's not actually trapped in the haunted mansion, but then we see his ghost at the end. Like, there's a lot of things where it's like we all think it's this thing, but it's not really this thing.

Rob: It's like,

Guido: hmm. Well, I guess 'cause what Josh Williamson's doing is stringing together a whole bunch of stories that don't really connect.

Rob: Yeah.

Guido: I mean, we looked it up and some of this story is coming out of, like, the Imagineers' backstory that they wrote or things that some of these things have been added only decades later to the actual canon of the ride.

Guido: But the ride clearly was not created with one single cohesive story, and he's trying to link, you know, how do Madame Leota and the bride and these ghosts and the hitchhiking ghosts, how do they all tie together? And so I think he's doing a, a pretty good job with that.

Rob: Yeah. In fact, we were looking it up that in one of the original- [00:25:00] blueprints for the ride, there was a character named Captain Gore, and he was gonna be one of the antagonists of the ride, an evil pirate captain.

Rob: And he never even made it into the ride, but they clearly then took that inspiration from the annals of the, of the h- Disney archives there to create this character. So yeah, as you said, and what's, what's interesting in, in the introduction by one of the, uh, the head imagineer that came with the collected edition, he even talks about, like, that people have asked over time, "What is the story of the Haunted Mansion?"

Rob: And everyone has a different answer to that. Yeah. Which I think is one of the challenges, and I'm sure also one of the fun things when you're trying to adapt this into any kind of linear narrative medium.

Guido: Yeah. Agreed. And I think Williamson does a good job, too, with picking the You want the protagonist to [00:26:00] be a younger person.

Guido: Mm-hmm. You want them to be... It's the, it's got some Disney trope in it- Yes ... which is good, right? He's lost his- The lost pioneer ... hero figure ... hero figure. Yeah.

Rob: Yeah.

Guido: Who he keeps flashing back to inspiration that his grandfather gave him. He is-

Rob: He's not a brave kid. Like, he's- Yeah ... that's one of, of course, like his character arc through this is that he kind of runs from trouble, and that he's then embracing being braver here.

Rob: Almost to the grandfather's almost a little, like, reckless because early on Danny is like, "Yeah, the kids at school wanted me to like jump a pool with my bike, and I didn't do it." And the grandfather's like, "Why didn't you do that?" Right. "I once

Guido: jumped over

Rob: a gorge." I just once jumped over a gorge. Yeah. It's like, this doesn't seem like good advice to give to this 15-year-old.

Guido: But he also ends up dying- And then he does end up dying ... on an adventure. So maybe he's not the one to follow his advice. Yeah. I was surprised that he was actually dead and, and there was nothing supernatural [00:27:00] in it. There's a few moments. The other moment that I love, too, is when, again, spoiler, but in the end the bride is the one who actually defeats the pirate ghost because she, she's pretty much only motivated by keeping h- her husband there and cutting off his head.

Guido: So she'll do that to whoever enters her- Yeah ... area. And so they're leaving the house, and the captain's trying to defeat them all, and she swings the ax, and it's like a clear cut in the panels. Like, she swings the ax, and on the next panel she's got like the shadow of what looks like his head.

Rob: Mm-hmm.

Guido: They don't ever show, and it's a ghost, so who cares?

Guido: But it's, like, very-

Rob: Well, they, they do even make it

Guido: clear later, like- It's dark. It's got a dark edge as close as a Disney kids comic- Yes ... is going to allow it to go.

Rob: They then make it clear, like, the captain's ghost is still there. He just, like, can't regenerate or put himself back together, so.

Guido: Yeah.

Rob: Yeah.

Guido: Well, it's very funny. This is a tangent, but I [00:28:00] didn't even think of this actually while reading it. Joshua Williamson wrote that series Dark Ride, which I really liked- Oh, yeah ... and wanted you to read, and it wrapped up, and it's about a 20, 25 issue series about a theme park- possibly led by someone who might be Satan or made a deal with Satan, and then his children trying to take over the theme park.

Guido: And it's really funny to me that I'm just realizing that, you know, almost 10 years later after writing this, he wrote that. I'm sure either h- these are things he loved already, or the seeds of that story might have been planted in his- Mm-hmm ... writing of this, 'cause he clearly knows the ride, knows the details- Yeah

Guido: he put in, loves it, and likes playing with some of the dark undertones a little bit. Again, as far as a Disney kids comic is gonna allow him to, so.

Rob: And I think also the Jorge Calejo art complements the storytelling well. I think it, it's not ever [00:29:00] looking too kiddy and cartoony. Yeah,

Guido: it's not too cartoony, which would, would be fun to see some cartoony work of the kind of classic '60s Disneyland look.

Guido: But yeah, this is a good translation into the comic book- Mm-hmm ... state, I'd say.

Rob: Yeah. And, and he captures, obviously he also had the challenge of, okay, we have, you have to have, have the Hatbox Ghost look like the Hatbox Ghost, and all those kind of things. Yeah. So he does a good job with that, but has a bit more creative liberty when it comes to some of the other characters.

Rob: Like, I don't... There's another one who's kinda leading the partying, and I'm sure he was inspired by or maybe it's even very accurate to the one that's in the ride. Yeah. But there he had, I think, probably a little bit more artistic license than he did with, like, the bride character per se.

Guido: Yeah. So I think it's fun.

Guido: Would you have wanted to read an ongoing series set in this world?

Rob: No, I definitely don't think so, but I would be interested in, [00:30:00] I think, an, an ongoing series about different rides in that way. I do think, as you said, and I think we'll get into this in our final segment, like, there's s- some rides that, like this one, Pirates, that they've c- constantly revisit, but there's such a deep bench of other rides to tell stories about, especially in, like, a comic book form, where you're not limited to, say, special effects and things like that, that you would in movies.

Guido: Yeah. And you can go back into rides that don't exist anymore.

Rob: Exactly.

Guido: As they did- Mm ... with doing Figment at that point. I mean, Figment hadn't been around very much. But anyway, that's a story for another day.

Rob: Yes. Well, before this ride comes to an end and your hitchhiker ghost comes home with you, let us ponder some possibilities.

Rob: [00:31:00] So Guido, what are we talking about for Pondering Possibilities?

Guido: We could talk about a few things. I think let's just look at, uh, the extensions of all of what we've talked about. So, The Haunted Mansion has had two major Hollywood screen adaptations, in 2003 and 2023, as well as that Muppet Haunted Mansion- Mm-hmm

Guido: special. So we can talk about those movies. The ride itself has an evolving storyline. We've seen that some of the elements, even in Josh Williamson's comic, got introduced decades later, so that's an interesting piece. And then Disney Kingdoms as a whole, and whether or not there could be other attraction-based comics.

Guido: So pick one.

Rob: Well, I think the general thing that I'm thinking of is, is it... How do, how do you translate these rides, which really essentially have no [00:32:00] plot and last, what, 10, 15 minutes, into a movie that is 90 minutes, two hours long? Like, is, is that... Where's... There, that is a challenge there, and I never saw the Eddie Murphy one, but, like, we did see the 2023 movie that Justin Simien directed.

Rob: Like, there, it is a struggle, 'cause you're taking something that's meant to be over in a few minutes, and it's like, "Okay, now I need to get a two-hour long movie out of this." I

Guido: don't even know if that's the struggle so much. To me, the struggle, and I liked the 2023 movie especially. I haven't seen the Eddie Murphy one in 23 years.

Guido: But I think the struggle is it almost feels like a prequel, where... And it doesn't have to feel like a prequel, 'cause the, the ride doesn't exist in the story of the ride, right? Like, they're not, none of these have done a meta. Actually, mm, that's something I'd like to see. Mm. I'd like to see a movie that tells a story [00:33:00] that has, like, a meta element- That would be interesting

Guido: where it is a ride- Yeah ... but then the story goes from there. Anyway, that hasn't happened with The Haunted Mansion, as far as I know. None of these movies do it, certainly. And but the, so the prequel constraint, it feels like to me, is like you know how the story's gonna end. You don't know how you're gonna get there, but you know how the story's gonna end because it's going to follow, I guess because they're so closely trying to follow the arc of the ride.

Guido: That's it. That even though what you're saying is true, like, they're not, there's not a lot of detail in the ride, and so they have to flesh it out. That's fine. That doesn't bother me. What I think is hard is, like, they're following the arc of the ride, so you know it's gonna get resolved, and it's gonna involve the Hatbox, and it's going to, uh, involve a hitchhiking ghost.

Guido: Yeah. Like, you just know that's how it's gonna end.

Rob: And that's the difference between the Haunted Mansion movies, I think, and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Guido: Uh-huh.

Rob: [00:34:00] Because Pirates of the Caribbean, it's Treasure Island. It's, you know, Disney didn't invent it, right? They're like, these stories go back.

Rob: It's just a Disney-fied-

Guido: And they keep revisiting it ...

Rob: pirate-

Guido: Yeah ...

Rob: movie. And I, but you don't go and watch those movies and go, "Oh, that's all the stuff from the ride." But, like, in the Haunted Mansion movies, like, they have to hit all those points, and it's, like, a restriction in a b- not always a good way.

Rob: 'Cause as you say, like, you know where it's going in that sort of

Guido: arc. I almost think the better... I think there are two future options for Haunted Mansion, to me, would be, one, either what I just said and thought of, which is some sort of meta story where the ride exists as a ride, and then- Mm-hmm. I love that

Guido: the supernatural is pulled in. Or what I kept thinking while reading this comic was an anthology. An anthology, I could even see an anthology cartoon- Mm-hmm ... working really well, where every episode tells a story of some of the ghosts.

Rob: Mm-hmm.

Guido: And what links them all- Ooh, that's fun ... is [00:35:00] that they're all in this mansion together, and maybe there's a serialized arc to, like, why are they in this mansion together?

Guido: Who knows? But regardless, you just go, you zoom in on one of the ghosts who's partying in the, in the dining room. You zoom in on Madame Leota, obviously. You zoom in on the bride, obviously. Well, each

Rob: of the characters in the, in the stretching portraits, which I don't think we actually have ever- Right .

Guido: No, that's true

Guido: seen

Rob: their

Guido: stories either. Turn those into characters.

Rob: And like-

Guido: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. So I think those are the two paths that you could take and not feel like a retread. I

Rob: love that. I think- I think that's great ...

Guido: I think everything else has felt like a retread.

Rob: Yeah. And I w- what's so interesting is what we were even talking about from the beginning, where Walt died right before this ride b- became out.

Rob: Like, I've never seen that meta version where it's like, it's Walt's ghost- Yeah ... haunting the Haunted Mansion. I'm gonna assume that

Guido: they're not allowing that story- Yeah ... to come, to happen, 'cause there's already all that [00:36:00] apocryphal stuff of his head being frozen and all that. Yes, that's true. So I have a feeling they're not gonna lean into that side of it.

Guido: So zooming out a little bit, though, do you think this Kingdoms line has potential? Like, should- I, I mean, you said you want more from theme park attraction, so should there be more comics doing this? Or, like, what... How should they do that? How should they pull the stories out of these rides out?

Rob: Well, like I mentioned a bit before, I think the great thing with comics is it gives you a flexibility that you don't have in film or TV, because a lot of these rides would also, also require probably significant budget to do, to, to depict on screen.

Rob: But you don't have to worry about that with comics. I think there is a freedom there that you have. Also, like we were saying, in terms of time period, with comics... I mean, with movies it has to be 90 minutes, with series it has to be even longer. But with a [00:37:00] comic, you can kind of adjust to how long- Mm-hmm

Rob: you want that to be. So I think that could be beneficial when you're adapting something that is relatively short to begin with.

Guido: Yeah. Yeah, 'cause you don't even have to do monthly books. They could do a graphic novel. Mm-hmm. They could do all different ways of telling these stories if they wanted to step back into that world.

Guido: So perhaps one day we'll step back into the Disney Kingdoms line- Yeah ... and, and explore

Rob: more

Guido: of it.

Rob: Are there other rides that you'd want to see them do? 'Cause I have one off the top of my head, but other rides that you would wanna see depicted in comic book form

Guido: No, I lo- Figment would've been the one, and they did that.

Guido: Again, it's a little steam punky for my tastes, which is not my thing. But I think that might be it. What are you thinking?

Rob: Well, of course, by the other famous haunted ride, Tower of Terror, and I think that could also

Guido: lend itself- Yeah, that one I'm sure has a rights issue.

Rob: Yes.

Guido: That is why they don't do it, but yeah.

Rob: And it could [00:38:00] lend itself well to an anthology as well, 'cause you could be exploring all the different guests. The different hotel

Guido: guests,

Rob: yeah. And there. And the other one, which you, 'cause you mentioned doing rides that no longer exist, one of my other favorites, another creepy, dark ride, was the Maelstrom ride in Norway.

Rob: Oh yeah, yeah. In Epcot,

Guido: yeah.

Rob: Uh, yeah, the Norway world in Epcot, and that had trolls and, like, cool little creatures and- And oil

Guido: rigs.

Rob: Oil rigs, yes, they do. Um, yeah. Yeah. You don't remember? I need to watch

Guido: the rest of this one too. Yeah.

Rob: Because oil was a big export,

Guido: so you go through, and then suddenly you're just sort of drifting in this little lake, and there's all oil rigs around you.

Rob: Oh, I, I need to watch, I need to watch a ride. I remember, like, trolls and very, like, creepy, like, depictions.

Guido: Well, what's cool is it has a backwards moment too. You go down a- Yes ...

Rob: a waterfall backwards Well, the trolls send you backwards. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But right away, yeah. Well, there you got a little bit of en- environmentalism you can work into the comic, and creatures.

Rob: Yeah.

Guido: Yeah, I think Epcot is very untapped, but part of the issue is, is that they've, like, [00:39:00] undone so much of the Epcot of yore. So I don't know how they would do it, but there's so much to the history of Epcot, as is also depicted in the documentary Stolen Kingdom.

Rob: Mm-hmm.

Guido: All right. Well, dear haunted ghosts-

Guido: that is a wrap. Dear watchers, thank you for listening. I have been your, I can't remember, uh, your hitchhiking ghost, Guido.

Rob: And I have been Madame

Guido: Rubbola. Oh yeah, there you go.

Rob: Oh, I didn't even say that to begin with.

Guido: The reading list is in the show notes. Follow us online. Let us know your favorite Disney park ride @dearwatchers.

Rob: And leave us a five-star review wherever you listen. We'll be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.

Guido: In the meantime, keep pondering the possibilities