The headless summoner beloved by mortals

Before Futurama embraced the concept of heads in jars, my housemate Madame Leota had already placed her stamp on the concept. What’s strange about the seer is that she’s a master of communicating with the supernatural, which she also happens to be. Since dead people can already talk to dead people, she saves most of her shtick for humans, many of whom are easily seduced by mediocre couplets. To wit, Leota’s most famous poem is also allegedly a spell. You know it as:

“Serpents and spiders, tail of a rat; call in the spirits, wherever they're at.

Rap on a table; it's time to respond. Send us a message from somewhere beyond.

Goblins and ghoulies from last Halloween: awaken the spirits with your tambourine.

Creepies and crawlies, toads in a pond; let there be music, from regions beyond!

Wizards and witches, wherever you dwell, give us a hint, by ringing a bell!"

And no, it’s not your imagination. At one point, she rhymes “beyond” with “beyond”. Since I’m a Ghost Host rather than a professor and this isn’t Poetry Appreciation 101, I won’t ding her for the laziness of her incantation. Instead, I’ll simply point out that Leota is a bit of an odd duck even by the standards of the residents of the Haunted Mansion.

Whereas most of the Ghoulies materialize out of thin air and relish the haunting of the living, Leota’s behavior is inscrutable. Is she even on our side? A lot of humans believe that she’s trying to help them, yet it’s her spell that summons my 998 other friends out to play. Does that make her good or bad?

Her disembodied head floats in a jar, and the jar itself levitates at times. As she recites her spell, musical instruments begin to play even though no musicians are in sight. Once she completes her magic, the summoning is complete, and my friends begin their supernatural party. You’ve seen them singing in the graveyard and dancing in the ballroom. Madame Leota is the one who makes it all possible, yet mortals love her anyway. Perhaps it’s the cleverness of her tombstone. It reads:

Dear Sweet Leota,

Beloved by All

In Regions Beyond Now,

But Having a Ball

And they say nobody rides for free…

 

Image: Disney

Just when you think the ride has ended at The Haunted Mansion, three lovable scamps spoil your ascending mood. These blokes don’t want you to exit the estate unscathed. It’s their job to jump aboard your Doom Buggy and follow you out of the park. That way, they can cling to your soul beyond the point when you naively consider yourself safe from the 999 residents of the manor.

You know them as the Hitchhiking Ghosts, and their popularity rivals my own. Did you realize that they have actual names? It’s true, albeit unofficial according to Disney, although they still use these names in one of their mobile games based on The Haunted Mansion. The traveler with the suitcase is named Phineas. The prison escapee who turns you into an accessory to the crime is Gus. And the too-thin fellow who is all bones and no skin is Ezra.

Before they appear at the end of the ride, you’ll notice Gus regularly resides at the Graveyard. I question his wisdom, as he stands close to the Executioner, someone who is ostensibly his mortal enemy in life. Still, you have to hand it to Gus. He’s committed to his character. He drags a heavy ball and chain with him wherever he goes. And he also hasn’t shaved since before ZZ Top popularized the disheveled look.

Gus is slightly different from his cohorts in that he gets a singing part in the Graveyard scene. His current dialogue is: “When the crypt doors creak and the tombstones quake, spooks come out for a screaming wake.” That line should sound familiar to you, even if it’s changed in recent years from the original verse that ended with “swinging wake.” Yet again, Disney vacillates between scary and silly. You should know the tune since it’s the beginning of “Grim Grinning Ghosts,” the theme song of my domicile.

For Phineas and Ezra, what you know of them comes from their appearances. Phineas is a hunchbacked man who always has his luggage in hand. He also a kicky top hat, appreciating that the perfect accessories elevate the entire outfit. Ezra the skeletal ghost may look familiar to you. He has the facial model of the Hatbox Ghost, and he is never seen without his hat, either. Since he’s already dead, his head remains firmly attached to his body, though. Oddly, in spite of the popularity of Ezra, Gus, and Phineas, Disney’s team of storytellers never chose to fill in their backstory, a glaring omission in an otherwise meticulously detailed attraction.

The final note about the trio is that Disney used to employ parlor tricks and old school magic illusions to foster the perception that the Hitchhiking Ghosts were traveling home with you. In recent years, however, new school CGI animation has replaced the magic tricks of yore. Now, the Hitchhiking Ghosts can appear in the car with you, switch the heads of you and your passenger, and other tricks. Still, as a relic of a bygone era myself, I miss the days when a hidden mirror convinced guests that they had unwelcome guests in their Doom Buggies.

Allow myself to introduce…myself.

Image: Disney

The final popular character in the discussion is yours truly, the Ghost Host. My story is one you already heard above. I was a loving husband who just so happened to kill my wife once she uncovered my startling secret. I’d been a bloodthirsty pirate in my previous life before I settled down and got married. Once the missus learned of my former transgressions, she got a bit too judge-y, so I got a bit too kill-y.

Rather than forgive me for an unfortunate incident that sent her to the next world, she preached vengeance instead. She lingered in the nether region between worlds, haunting me to the brink of madness. Eventually, I grew tired of her nagging, as so many husbands do. I decided it was better to tie a noose around my neck then jump from the rafters rather than spend another second listening to her. In this way, I lived the dream of every long-suffering husband.

Alas, the bliss of oblivion never came to me. The madam in question claimed former ownership of the mansion where I lived, a place with no windows and no doors. She chose to trap my soul here, which just goes to show that I was right to stab her in the first place. 

Actually, that’s the popular version of the tale. Doom Buggy fanatics know that what I actually just described was the legend of Mr. Gore, the pirate mentioned above. It was then co-opted by Master Gracey, who also isn’t necessarily me. Yes, he hanged to death and I hanged to death, but that might just be a coincidence. In the movie and comic book versions of The Haunted Mansion, we are one and the same. For the Disneyland and Walt Disney World rides, however, he’s not me. Neither is Mr. Gore. The entire thing is confusing to this simple spirit. Sometimes, I share the memories of Master Gracey while other times I feel like an anonymous man who couldn’t go on living.

What is certain is that I have some musical skills. If you’re ever at the Florida or Tokyo versions of my ride, notice the shadows playing the piano. I’m doing that! You won’t ever see the Hatbox Ghost playing the piano with his mind. Yes, I’m clearly bitter about that spooksperson vote.

The important biographical note about your friendly neighborhood Ghost Host is that I’m the body you see at the top of the Stretching Room. My entire purpose is to warn you that the only way to leave The Haunted Mansion is to become a part of it. Sure, I quip from time to time as I commentate on the proceedings across the estate, but if anyone has earned the right to express gallows humor, it’s me. The entire building is my gallows.

To a larger point, my position at The Haunted Mansion is a bit odd. If you don’t believe that I am Master Gracey, I have no true back story beyond the details of my death. Sure, I’m a breakout star of the afterlife, the caustic narrator who enriches your stroll through the estate, but you’d think an entertainer as gifted as myself would have had more going on when I was alive. It’s vexing. I’m almost two centuries old. It’s late in the game to suffer through this sort of identity crisis.

Despite the gaps in my own biography, I’ve now covered the spectrum of the major players at The Haunted Mansion. The Bride aka the Black Widow Bride aka sweet Melanie Ravenswood is either a helpless victim, a horrific wife, or an unfortunate victim of circumstance and murder most foul.

The Hatbox Ghost was a heavily hyped but poorly designed haunt who should have faded into oblivion. Instead, he returned decades later and better than before. He also stole a gig that rightfully belonged to yours truly.

Meanwhile, the Hitchhiking Ghosts are friendly but largely undefined blokes, only one of whom gets to appear in the main part of the attraction. The others simply wait until the end then perform cheesier pranks than Ashton Kutcher’s.

And I, the Ghost Host, continue to lord over this otherworld realm where 999 spirits interact with theme park tourists. I may or may not be one of two different other gentlemen who happened to hang from the rafters, but I’m told I’m neither of them. It’s a humiliating position for the master of ceremonies at the greatest of Disney theme park attractions.