Book Review: Disneyland After Dark

DISNEYLAND AFTER DARK

An Unauthorized Guide to the Happiest (Haunted) Place on Earth

Retold by Richard Carradine

Illustrated by Lisa Mouse

2009

109 Pages

GHOULA Press – Los Angeles

www.ghoula.org

Disneyland After Dark is one of the more unusual Disneyland guidebooks. While many books provide touring tips or tell you ever wanted to know about the design or give park trivia, this book focuses on the many ghost stories that are attached to the Disneyland resort. Even if you don’t believe in ghost stories, the author makes you wonder why these stories get started and why they continue to get retold.

Richard Carradine has got credibility when it comes to the Disney theme parks. The author’s father was a 30-year veteran at Imagineering. His mother was one of the two original “Snow Whites” handpicked by Walt Disney for the 1964 World’s Fair. He even appears in the “Tomorrow’s Child” sequence that was in Spaceship Earth. So combining his passion for the parks with his job as the President of the Ghost Hunters of Urban Los Angeles, this book seemed like a natural fit. These are the stories that he has been collecting for years.

One must start with the realization that much of what is told in the book is just speculation. A rumor, any rumor can find a place in this book. For example, one biggie is the suggestion that Disneyland could be haunted because it was built on an “Indian burial ground” somewhere to the southeast. Nothing is dismissed entirely.

To aide the reader, he defines a ghost as the “retained energy.” It is a spiritual energy that can manifest itself in many ways, from the unfocused presence to what is referred to in the ghost-hunting community as ‘residue energy,’ where the “ghost” over and over again in a loop repeats a specific action.

The book comes with a handy chart of every ride that has been the sight of a death. Each of these “Fatal Attractions” is fertile ground for the ghost hunter. He retells the story of the perpetually lit lamp in Walt’s apartment that I first heard from Mouseketeer Bobby Burgess many years ago.

Of interest from a design point of view was Walt’s obsession with the number 13. The book cites numerous examples of how this number is enshrined in the park. This is where I learned about the Penny Arcade. Two buildings that represent two sides of a coin flank the Penny Arcade. One building features a sun (light, yes) and the other features a moon (darkness, no). These are two icons commonly used on “spirit boards” like an Ouija Board.

There is a section where the author provides a number of links between the effects and scenes in the Haunted Mansion and the horror movie director William Castle. Here is another observation that I have never heard before. All of the dark rides in Fantasyland are about “punishing deviant behavior.” You are always being punished for “disobeying the rules of society.” One more includes the fact that every land in the park features some aspect of life. There is a sense that somebody lives upstairs and is occupied by somebody. The one exception is Tomorrowland. There is no sign of life. However, here one finds that every plant is edible.

Overall the slim book is a fun and quick read. The subject matter is just morbid enough to be quite fascinating. You get a sense the place is filled with ghosts and they are not all hanging out at the Haunted Mansion. Disney’s California Adventure, Downtown Disney, and the Hotels are also included.