Armchair Imagineering: Halloweenland

Disneyland has been in the Halloween business for less than a decade.

Oh, sure, there were bits and pieces. We've gotten a few jack-o-lanterns on Main Street for as long as I can remember. Seasonal character plush has a long history, Halloween included.* Haunted Mansion Holiday—which is treated like a Halloween overlay, even though it really isn't one—started in 2001.

But the first big, park-wide Halloween blowout wasn't until 2006.

It's kind of ironic, because other area theme parks have been doing Halloween events for a lot longer. Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights and Six Flags Magic Mountain's Fright Fest both date back to the early Nineties, and the first instance of Knott's Scary Farm was in 1973. So why was Disneyland so late to the Dead Man's Party?

Because of image, basically. Theme parks are entertainment venues. “Halloween” plus “entertainment” usually amounts to the horror genre. There are many ways of doing horror, but none of them are usually considered “family-friendly,” and since that's what Disney trades on, a typical theme park Halloween experience—strobe lights and haunted mazes and “scare-acters” leaping out at people and loud rave music—was right out. It was all part of the dichotomy that held sway throughout the Eighties and Nineties, in which Disneyland was considered “tame” and safe for families with young children, while all the other parks positioned themselves as the hip, edgy, teen-oriented alternative. Disneyland didn't need a big to-do for Halloween—in the theme park realm, it had a virtual monopoly on Christmas.

All this is so much rambling. The upshot is that Disneyland has not really been doing Halloween in a large-scale way for very long. And if you ask me (which hopefully you do, since you're reading my blog), the Powers That Be haven't really mastered it yet. Halloween Time still has a ways to go before it's really polished to Disney-caliber perfection. The seasonal decorations and themes are too sporadic throughout the park. I really think the place could benefit from a systematic, land-by-land makeover during this time. There are many dimensions to Halloween in the current era—a park as diverse as Disneyland could indulge them all.

So without further ado, here is my vision of Halloweenland!

Main Entrance and Main Street, USA

There isn't much I would change about these areas, which receive the bulk of the décor as it is. Main Street is especially impressive, with dozens of unique jack-o-lanterns lining the building ledges, a massive Mickey pumpkin in Town Square, and the Fab Five meeting and greeting in adorable costumes. Even some of the shops have unique interior decorations—my favorite is the Fortuosity Shop, which has a couple hundred artificial crows perched on the upper shelves and chandeliers...presumably attracted by all the shiny watches and jewelry!

The Plaza Hub could use some work, though. For no adequately explained reason, they put seven more jack-o-lanterns—one for each themed land, featuring an animated character associated with that land—around the Partners statue. The display is bafflingly unrelated to anything. Except for Jack Skellington representing New Orleans Square, the images have nothing to do with the actual seasonal offerings around the park. As signposts for the lands themselves, they are redundant because the Hub already serves as your first glimpse of the various themes, by design. It comes across very pasted-together: “We have additional themed lands, and cartoon characters that sometimes hang out there! Also, it is October!”

Since my plan involves at least one special Halloween attraction in every land, let's ditch these things and replace them with genuine hints of what lies ahead. The Adventureland pumpkin would feature a spider, the Frontierland one a sugar skull, etc. I might add a few more pumpkins in the flower beds around the Hub, just chilling with the marigolds and chrysanthemums.

Adventureland

Huge spiders. Huger snakes. Carnivorous plants. Flashing eyes in the darkness. Halloween in Adventureland should revolve around the fear of getting eaten by the things that lurk in the untamed jungle. For best results, the walkway décor would only hint at the danger without being too overt. For continuity, I want each themed area to have its own style of pumpkin decorations—the ones in Adventureland would be big and warty, yet dwarfed by their own vines and leaves...and some would be marred with slash marks obviously made by animal claws.

As for attractions? The only thing really needed is a “lights-out” version of the Jungle Cruise, run after dark and focusing on the predators, with fog machines on the river banks and lots of spooky, animalistic sounds emanating from the foliage. For a deluxe experience, puppeteers armed with scary creatures would lurk at key points during the ride, so that a sudden spotlight could create a jump-scare involving a monster that reacts appropriately to each boatload of guests instead of going through rote animatronic motions. Jokes? Of course there would be jokes—it's not the Jungle Cruise without them—but the tone should be one of black humor as a coping mechanism for real fear. I think something like this could be rolled out in about 20 minutes—roughly the time it would take for the last daytime boatload to make its circuit and empty out completely. Anyone preferring the regular Jungle Cruise would be free to visit during the day.

New Orleans Square

If it weren't for the premature opening of Haunted Mansion Holiday, New Orleans Square would be made for Halloween pretty much as it is. Obviously, if Halloweenland were drawn to my specifications, that particular ride overlay wouldn't be in effect yet. All that the area would really need is to bring its normal ride content out in the open, on the walkways. This would be a face-character-intensive area, but most of them would be nameless walkarounds included for atmosphere rather than photo-ops—undead pirates, ghosts running errands, perhaps some recognizable characters like the Haunted Mansion's Groundskeeper or Hatchet Man...and maybe for a taste of real culture, Baron Samedi himself!

The pumpkins here would be jack-o-lanterns like those on Main Street, displayed on the second- and third-story balconies along with other decorations suitable for private home use. This being New Orleans Square, plenty of blinged-out domino masks would be in evidence; they'd just be predominantly black, silver, and orange rather than purple, gold, and green.

Critter Country

We've had a lot of spooky stuff in the last two lands. Critter Country would go in a very different direction, focusing on the “harvest season” aspect of Hallowen. Wreaths and garlands of autumn leaves would adorn the buildings, and the landscape areas would feature lots of cornstalks, scarecrows, and heaps of fall produce. The jack-o-lanterns would all be friendly...and we do know for a fact that the denizens of Critter Country carve jack-o-lanterns, because of this thing right at the beginning of the indoor portion of Splash Mountain:

Maybe there could be a few more of those around.

Meanwhile, the characters appearing at the Pooh Corner meet and greet would have costume accessories on over their furry bodies—domino masks, capes, hats, etc. Why should the Fab Five over on Main Street have all the fun?

Frontierland

Frontierland actually sees a lot done for Halloween already...or rather, for Halloween and Dia de los Muertos! The latter is growing in prominence in Southern California due to our sizable population of Mexican immigrants, so it's entirely fitting that an annual display of calaveras figures and other decorations (along with explanatory plaques for those not in the know) goes up in the El Zocalo area. I quite like it; it can definitely stay. And maybe I'd import the all-female mariachi band that plays wearing sugar skull makeup in California Adventure at this time of year.

For the past several years, Big Thunder Ranch has been the site of all sorts of holiday-related events with a country-style slant. The Halloween celebrations have included elaborately carved pumpkins on display, mask-making, and Disney Villain meet-and-greets. Sadly, the Ranch itself is soon to be bulldozed to make room for the new Star Wars themed area,** but there's still plenty of potential for Halloween content in Frontierland! The Old West is rife with ghost stories and legends of the supernatural. Ghost trains, ghost riders in the sky, freakish things from Native folklore. There's even a genre term for it: the Weird West, encompassing all of the above plus more modern concepts like zombie gunslingers and vampire-hunting itinerant preachers.

I'm not sure how best to incorporate all this into Frontierland as we know it. Here are some possibilities:

• Walkaround characters like those suggested for New Orleans Square.
• Some sort of spooky performance inside the Golden Horseshoe. “Golden Horseshoe Re-BOO,” maybe? That seems like the sort of corny title they'd come up with.
• A seasonal recorded spiel on the Mark Twain, emphasizing ghost stories and promoting the various Halloween events taking place on and around the Rivers of America, just as the standard spiel promotes the regular attractions.
• Projections of ghostly miners and prospectors inside the caverns of Big Thunder Mountain.

This section would not be complete without a mention of the Halloween Tree:

This is an oak tree outside Bonanza Outfitters, decorated with orange lights and small jack-o-lanterns, in honor of the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name. It's a nice tribute to a prominent science-fiction author (and Disneyland fan), but I have to wonder...why Frontierland? Is it just because that's where the most suitable tree was? I can buy that. But if it could be made feasible, I would move this particular icon (see below).

Fantasyland

Without the Ranch venue, the Villains have to go somewhere, right? Or go back somewhere, technically, since before the Ranch was put to seasonal purpose a few years ago, the Villain meet-and-greets were located in Fantasyland...which makes a lot more sense to begin with, doesn't it? How many Disney Villains can you think of that really fit in Frontierland?***

So the gist of Halloween in Fantasyland should be putting the Villains front and center...or front and west-of-center, rather. Fantasy Faire, installed for the purpose of having a permanent Princess meet-and-greet location and serving that function admirably to the point of tooth decay, would be taken over by the Villains.

But let it never be said that I refuse to bow to reality. I know there would still be immense demand on the part of young children to see the Princesses. So this, like the Jungle Cruise, would be a day/night thing—normal Princess appearances during daylight hours, and Villains after nightfall when the little ones have gone to bed. In the meantime, maybe some of the twee banners in the Faire and inside the Royal Hall could be swapped out for darker ones suggesting the Villains, with lots of black and red and purple.

I would also devise some kind of Villain-centric show to go in the Royal Theatre, again at night. Even something as simple as a handful of Villains singing those oh-so-memorable “villain songs” would add some Halloween energy to this area.

But that's just Fantasy Faire...what about the rest of Fantasyland? I'm not sure it really needs a whole lot more. Lots of pumpkin decorations are a must, of course, and here I am specifically thinking of this variety of pumpkin, which goes by the charming and utterly appropriate name of fairytale pumpkin. Like the ones in Adventureland, they would be depicted still on the vine, but the vines themselves would be graceful rather than imposing, with lacy-edged leaves and delicately spiraling tendrils.

Come to think of it, at least one Disney character from a fairy tale is very heavily associated with pumpkins, isn't she? I'm no major fan of the film Cinderella, but if space could be arranged, it would be great for the title character and her Fairy Godmother to have their own meet-and-greet in a pumpkin patch, complete with the transformed coach. Throw in a few references to masked balls, have the Godmother dispense costume advice to guests...I'm actually really warming up to this idea!

What else...?

There could always be more Villains making walkway appearances throughout Fantasyland, of course. The ones in the Royal Hall would be face characters, befitting the private interaction, so for the walkways, you'd get head characters like Captain Hook and the Queen of Hearts. The “it's a small world” facade could be subject to a nighttime projection show, much as it is during the Christmas season. It might be possible to re-purpose the Fantasyland Theatre for another show at night.**** Snow White's Scary Adventures could get some much-needed promotion.

Mickey's Toontown

Whereas Critter Country's Halloween is kid-friendly and rustic, the one for Mickey's Toontown would be kid-friendly and suburban. All the houses in the Neighborhood would be decked out with jack-o-lanterns (implied to have been grown pre-sculpted in Goofy's garden) and yard decorations (for those with yards). There would be nothing genuinely gruesome; the paper-bag ghosts would have friendly faces and the fake gravestones would have angel carvings. Things could be silly, such as a zombie arm thrusting out of the earth holding a tennis racket.

This is also the one land that I think could benefit from having a special music loop just for the Halloween season. It already gets one during the Halloween party events, but the tracklist is pretty flat—a few of the less-threatening villain songs and some tracks from a couple of Disney Records Halloween-themed albums aimed at preschoolers. I would much rather have something akin to Toontown's Christmas loop, combining classic Disney characters with seasonal songs from the jazz and swing eras. Surprisingly enough, there are quite a few of the latter, many from artists who have done prominent voice work for Disney—Louis Prima and Thurl Ravenscroft, to name just two—and who would sound right at home in such a loop. For the former, Disney could dip into their portfolio and pull out songs like “Trick or Treat” (from the Donald Duck short of the same name), “Disney's Halloween Treat,” and the instrumental theme from the House of Mouse special “House of Villains.” It's all good stuff, all light enough for young kids, and all in tune with classic Disney.

And speaking of classic Disney, let's have some special appearances by Halloween-suitable characters from the short subjects! The Lonesome Ghosts and Witch Hazel leap readily to mind—are there any others?

Tomorrowland

Tomorrowland already has Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy and needs little else. But that's not to say it shouldn't get anything else. In last week's post, I made brief mention of the fact that space aliens are sometimes considered part of the canon of Halloween monsters. They're not the only science-fiction concept to have some cachet in the horror genre. Robot uprisings, escaped genetic experiments, theremin music...all the trappings of 1950s B-movies could have a place. In fact, let's make an activity out of that—photo-ops against backgrounds reminiscent of Fifties-era movie posters, where you get to pose with costumed characters resembling such monsters.

Bands hired for Tomorrowland Terrace should have “Thriller,” “Dead Man's Party,” and “I Put a Spell on You” in their repertoires.

Remember Frontierland's Halloween Tree? (If not...just scroll up.) If it could be done gracefully, I would move it to Tomorrowland—either by literally transplanting the existing tree or designating one in the area. Why? Because Ray Bradbury was a science-fiction author. The synopsis of The Halloween Tree makes it seem more like educational fantasy than science-fiction per se, but tribute to a prominent writer in a genre should ideally go in the land closest to that genre, no?

As for pumpkins, this would be the one area of the park to feature real ones instead of artificial. In fact, for this to really work, some of the “Agrifuture” plant beds would have to be planted with pumpkin vines year-round, so that they would bear their distinctive fruit in time for Halloween. But at least that's one decoration that, once set up and properly maintained, would install itself!

Nighttime Shows

At present, the only way to see the Halloween Screams fireworks show is to shell out extra to attend one of the Halloween parties, which is not only expensive, but usually must be done weeks in advance due to their overwhelming popularity. No more, I say! I would make this the standard fireworks show for this time of year and let all the guests see it.

I would pass on the mini-parade that accompanies the parties, however. It came across as cheap to me the one time I saw it.

That basically covers the direction I would take Halloween Time at Disneyland if I were in charge. More unique experiences, more thematic resonance, and MORE PUMPKINS! If you have any ideas of your own, please share them in the comments! See you next week!

* I have a St. Patrick's Day Goofy somewhere.

** I promise not to fly into a rage about it right now.

*** Stinky Pete and Alameda Slim, basically, and if the second one makes you go “Who?”, then my point exactly.

**** Yes, I have heard the rumor that they're planning to demolish the theatre because the construction of Star Wars Galaxy is forcing a re-routing of the Disneyland Railroad. I'm praying it's false.