Mickey & Friends – Haunted Mansion Series

Deep within the Vinylmation Vault, Where hinges creak in doorless chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls. Whenever candlelights flicker where the air is deathly still. That is the time when Vinylmations are present, practicing their terror with vinylmation delight and here is where the story begins! The Haunted Mansion is one of my all time favorite attractions and I’ll never get tired of this amazing attraction. Well this week we look at the Mickey & Friends Haunted Mansion Series and how the fabulous characters take on the roll of some of the most amazingly spooky haunts that call the Haunted Mansion home.

 

 

One cannot read a Disney Book without the mention of the Haunted Mansion and its amazing story of how it was designed and then brought to life into the Haunted Mansion we love today. Its an amazing experience that begins well before you enter the gated entrance of the attraction. To me, the fun begins when one first encounters the Maids and Butlers Cast Members, “CM’s” who greet and usher along the guests in the attraction. I love that some really take their job very seriously and make for a wonderful and sometimes a bit eerie experience. For this series Mickey and Minnie play these rolls of the spooky and ghostly roles as the unimpressed Butler and Maid CM’s. I just love the clothing detail on Mickey and Minnie. The distant look they give is spot on with characters they are portraying. If you want to get a different feel of another character simply pop the head off and place another on the body and “Poof” Pluto the Butler, “Poof” Clarabelle the Maid and so on. To be honest most people have done this well before I even started collection in 2011.

Portraying the role of the Chop Happy Bride Constance from the attic is Daisy Duck does a great job and really gives the feeling of being the murderous bride she is. What makes Daisy look so great is her facial expression especially her piercing eyes and virtuous grin? The uses of the eerily ghostly colors like they have used several times before to convey the haunting feel before are perfect.

Taking a different approach in casting Pete as the opera singer located in the graveyard scene just sings out a comedic finale. The look on Pete’s face as he is trying to sing all of the high notes is pure zaniness!

Mark Davis said once in an interview about the Haunted Mansion as is not over till the fat lady sings! I always look forward to this transition from the chillingly seriousness to fanciful and fun that transforms the guests from life to the afterlife that happens from the Doom Buggy descends from the attic to the graveyard. It is believed that when you leave the attic and down into the graveyard you are transitioning from your mortal life to the afterlife and now all of the characters are more of a solid look indicating you is have died and can now see the ghosts in their afterlife.

A bit of a surprise for me was Donald as the Organ player. It is one of my favorite scenes of the whole attraction but I think Donald could have been better Utilized perhaps somewhere else? But at the same time I can argue that the Organ Player has not been portrayed anytime in the past. Maybe instead he could have been one of the Shotgun portraits. That would have been great! There’s so much detail on this one and definitely a plus for me. Looking on the ears you can see the organ Pipes and Ghostly notes flowing upwards from the Organ Pipes.

But out of the entire group I just love Goofy as the Caretaker. Everything in this vinyl is perfect. It’s well done. The lantern is a nice effect and the fence and tombstones on the ears is a great touch. I do wish this set had a Pluto in it as the scared Jr. Vinylmation!

 

This is an amazing set and including the Mystery Bakery Phineas, Gus & the Hatbox Ghost is a cost effective way to collect the Haunted Mansion Series!

 

I am starting to like theses type of series it a fun way to collect them. So if you if you had the opportunity to make changes within this series what would you do?

Photo Credits:

www.disneysouthernbelle.weebly.com

www.onezumiverse.com

www.whimsicalworldtravel.com

www.hauntedmansion.denisesdreams.com