On Sunday, Season’s Screamings closed out its three-day holiday-themed horror convention with a special presentation from Director Kirk Thatcher on the first-ever Muppets Halloween special, “Muppets Haunted Mansion.” The conversation, led by Midsummer Scream co-founder and executive director David Markland, shared with fans behind-the-scenes anecdotes and easter eggs from the production of the Disney+ Original.
While the special debuted on October 8, 2021, on Disney+, Thatcher shared that he’d wanted to create something with the Muppets and Halloween since 1990. The original concept was for the Muppets to go to a haunted house, just not one tied to an IP like The Haunted Mansion. Over the years, the idea evolved from a special to a movie and even a video game where some of your favorite Muppets would take on the roles of some of your favorite classic monsters.
But it wasn’t until “Muppets Haunted Mansion” that a Halloween special gained any traction. Initially greenlit as a 90-minute special, Thatcher shared that “Muppets Haunted Mansion” was supposed to be released in 2020 but was delayed by the pandemic. When they finally got the go-ahead, the special was cut to an hour, forcing Thatcher and team to remove some additional music numbers that were originally part of the film.
While the special took inspiration from the classic Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland, Thatcher shared that the actual mansion created for the film was inspired by unused concept art for Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris. The mansion and its exterior are almost entirely digital, in fact, only three real sets were used during the film’s production: The party house, which was just a small open space at Soapbox Films that got a paint job and had a mirror and fireplace added to it, the attic, and the seance room.
The special took advantage of technology adopted by Disney during the making of “The Mandalorian,” which used massive LED walls that display digital sets. Paired with Unreal Engine and some serious computer power, these virtual sets made it look as though the actors and Muppets were in an elaborate mansion interior, even if they weren’t.
Within the mansion “sets” are a slew of Easter eggs, which Thatcher shared during the presentation with the help of some concept art slides from Production Designer Darcy Prevost, who was initially scheduled to appear with Thatcher during the panel.
The Easter eggs in the film start early. In fact, one appears in the first 30 seconds of the special. Though initially shrouded in fog, if you look closely at the hood ornament on the limousine transporting Gonzo and Pepe to the mansion, you’ll notice it was made to look like the bat stanchions famously seen in the haunted mansion attraction queue.
Once at the mansion, the front gate features three different Easter eggs. First, the mansion’s address 924 is a nod to the birthday of Muppets creator Jim Henson. The address plaque itself also features an Easter egg where the horned demon that usually tops the plaque was replaced with the head of one of the newer members of the Muppet family, Mo Frackle.
The gate also features an Easter egg that looks like Kermit’s eyes. While you can’t see the eyes in the special’s opening sequence, you can get a glimpse of them at the end of the film after Gonzo’s escape.
Once in the mansion, the stretching room features muppetized versions of the infamous portraits found on the mansion walls and muppetized versions of the room’s wall sconces and grates, which also happen to be easter eggs.
If you look closely, the wall sconces aren’t your traditional candle-holding gargoyle, as seen in Disney’s Haunted Mansion. These sconces are actually Mahna Mahna and the Snowths, the Muppets that are perhaps best known for their performance of the song, “Mah Na Mah Na.” Each sconce features Mahna Mahna holding the Snowths above his head like candles.
As part of the design of the stretching room, the base of the room featured a series of grates featuring an intricate cutout of the Muppet, Mean Mamma. Though Thatcher shared it during his presentation as one of the Easter eggs, when I revisited the special for this piece, it does not appear that the Mean Mamma grate made it into the film.
The next Easter egg shared by Thatcher appears when Gonzo and Pepe begin making their way into the mansion and find their way into the Hall of Doors. While much of the decor in this section was kept true to the Disney attraction, the filmmakers did take some liberties with the grates above the doors.
Appearing first above the door when Gonzo and Pepe leave the stretching room and then again after Pepe’s run-in with John Stamos, the stylized grates are made to look like the face of the massive monster Muppet Sweetums.
The last Easter egg shared by Thatcher during the presentation was the homage paid to the opening sequence of the original Muppet Show that takes place in the ballroom during the musical number “Life Hereafter.” If you watch, you’ll notice at the end several muppets appear atop the balcony and are fashioned in a way that looks extremely similar to the opening sequence of the original Muppet Show.
While the Easter eggs were a big part of Thatcher’s presentation, perhaps the most entertaining elements were the tales of concepts that didn’t make it into the film.
One of the first concepts Thatcher shared was his original idea for the Newsman’s changing portrait. In the special, the Newsman’s photo reacts to the lightning by exposing a basic skeleton matching the figure’s muppet physique, but Thatcher’s original concept for the character was to show the bones of a hand inside the Newsman. According to Thatcher, Disney wasn’t too keen on implying that the Muppets, were in fact, puppets.
Taking inspiration from another famous mansion, the Muppets Haunted Mansion also almost featured a grotto with bunnies. A nod to the Playboy Mansion and Playboy Bunnies, Pepe was initially going to wind up here instead of the Famous People’s Room with John Stamos.
The scene was to feature a group of Muppet bunnies in bikinis hanging out in a grotto that would lure Pepe in before exposing their true form of vampire bunnies. The idea didn’t make it into the film, but the scene with John Stamos in the Famous People’s Room follows a similar formula.
One of the last stories Thatcher shared about the film, besides a desire to do more Halloween Muppets work (after all, there have been nearly half a dozen Muppet Christmas movies and specials), was the inspiration for Gonzo’s fear of aging in the film.
In the special, the thing that would trap Gonzo in the mansion was his inability to face his greatest fear. As he gazes into a mysterious mirror, he discovers his greatest fear is the fear of aging, and as he looks in the mirror, an aged Gonzo stares back at him.
The idea for this came from a story his friend shared as a kid after riding The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. Thatcher shared that after a trip to Disneyland, his friend told him that in The Haunted Mansion, Disney somehow made him appear older in the mirror at the end of the ride. If you’ve ridden The Haunted Mansion at any point, you’ll know that nothing like this ever happens.
Thatcher later figured out that his friend just happened to be the right size and height and sitting in just the right spot to be perfectly in line with the projection of the hitchhiking ghost Gus, which made it look as if he was now an older man. The mix-up stuck with Thatcher, and he used it as part of the story in “Muppets Haunted Mansion.”
If you missed “Muppets Haunted Mansion” when it debuted on the Disney+ streaming platform back in October, it is available to stream now. The Original Special stars Muppets Gonzo and Pepe The Prawn as they’re challenged to spend a night in the most grim grinning place on Earth…The Haunted Mansion. Starring in the special alongside fan-favorite Muppets are Will Arnett (as The Ghost Host), Yvette Nicole Brown (as The Hearse Driver), Darren Criss (as The Caretaker), and Taraji P. Henson (as The Bride).
