D23 Expo – Haunted Mansion: Celebrating 50 Years

To Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland a presentation was held at 12:30pm in the D23 Expo Arena.  There was some confusion on photo/video rules (namely they told our section no but let other sections) so I have no pictures/video of my own from presentation.  Below are images Disney provided.

Kevin Lively, story editor for Imagineering, hosted the presentation.   The celebration included several Imagineers sharing some of their Haunted Mansion stories.   While the presentation was going on two artists, Yumi & Xaio Qing, were on stage creating a couple paintings that were to be sold afterwards to raise funds for the Ryman Arts.  Daniel Joseph, a senior special effects and illusion designer for Walt Disney Imagineering, shared how some of the effects inside the Mansion are done in a Mr. Wizard type presentation.   Chris Merick, a show designer at Walt Disney Imagineering and co-author of the upcoming Marc Davis book, took the stage and talked about his love for the Haunted Mansion and his connection to Marc & Alice Davis.  He reached out to and was able to interview the Davis’s during college for a project and over the years became friends with them.   There were several videos played during the course of the presentation, one a Jungle Cruise inspired Skipper Tour of the Haunted Mansion.  Jillian Pagan from Walt Disney Imagineering talked about the script for the Haunted Mansion and this led to a dramatic reading of an early script from July 19, 1969 of the Haunted Mansion.  The reading was lead by by Sally Slater, the tight rope walker from the mansion. She was joined by Kelsey McCullough who works for Walt Disney Imagineering and is a granddaughter of Disney Legend X Atencio and Uncle Deadly from the Muppets.