It's October 1st and that means the countdown to Halloween has begun!!!! We start this year's "Tricks and Treats" with a great record from the Disney vaults. One of the greatest rides ever in the Disneyworld/Disneyland spectrum is The Haunted Mansion. No matter how many new and improved rides come along, the Mansion is still the king and I could ride it a hundred times in a row if I could. Back in the day, Disney used to release records that coincided with their various rides and the Haunted Mansion was no exception. In fact, the Mansion boasts three records to its name: one is "The Story and Song from the Haunted Mansion," an LP featuring a pre-Happy-Days Ronny Howard; then there is a shorter children's record titled "Walt Disney Presents the Haunted Mansion," one of Disney's many "See, Hear, Read" records narrated by Robie Lester, a popular narrator for many of Disney's childrens albums. The third Haunted Mansion story album is the B-side of "Trick or Treat," a Disneyland Record starring Donald Duck, his nephews, and Witch Hazel, with the original "Story and Song" recording edited down to fit completely on the B-side of this 12" LP. Today we are giving you the original "Story and Song from the Haunted Mansion" complete with the vocal talents of Ron Howard. Recorded in 1969 (a year after he stopped playing Andy Griffith's son Opie), "The Story and Song from the Haunted Mansion" featured the young "Ronny" Howard as "Mike," a young teen out on a date with "Karen". The story is narrated by the one-and-only Thurl Ravenscroft, who is one of Disney's best-known vocal talents (and is also known for being the original voice of Tony the Tiger, and the singer of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," from Chuck Jones' classic cartoon How the Grinch Stole Christmas). The ride's main scenes are faithfully represented, often with the original sound effects, making this an album worth buying a turntable for. If you don't have the original album (or a turntable for that matter), fear not faithful readers! We here at The World of Wonder offer it to you in digital form as our first "Treat" of 2009! Enjoy!
The Story and Song from The Haunted Mansion
BONUS: Here's s cool link to a super cool web site called "Doombuggies". It gives you everything you would ever want to know about the Haunted Mansion and then some! Stop on by and tell them Dartman sent you!
4 comments:
Rich: check out www.countdowntohalloween.com. There are a bunch of blogs taking part in Halloween blogging the whole month, mine being one of them. Leave a comment and let them know you're doing the same thing and they'll add you to the list of poarticipants on the site.
thanx for this!
i was wondering if you were planning on posting the "See, Hear, Read" record because i was contemplating posting my copy at some point this month but i don't want to step on your posting toes...or your Post Toasties.
I actually do not own that copy so post away. Thanks for asking. I wouldn't have taken it as an insult if you had done it and I had it ready to go. I have found that someone else usually has already posted a lot of my sharities or I see them posted after I have posted. No biggie. I know I'm not the only person in the world who owns these things and I think we all think that way. If it happens, it happens!
Heyya! Just back from the Kingdom myself and was pleased to see they finally released this on CD! It even includes a mini-booklet reprinting the original the came with the album.
If you're interested in an upgrade, shoot me an email.
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