#on the plus side it only took Victor one arrangement to get to the necessary level

[victorluvsalice]

-->Upon arriving at the store, everyone got put on a task -- Victor started Copypastoing jam jars to fill up those shelves; Alice got sent downstairs to make boxes of blackberry jam, raspberry jam, mayonnaise, and custard; Smiler got busy on the apothecary bench to make more gummies; and I put out all the products everyone had already made on the shelves. I also tried to put the wrapped white meat out in the meat display, only to discover the game would not let me mark it for sale. Welp, guess it's red meat only in the meat department of this store! I stuck it in the fridges in the basement processing room instead -- I'm sure we can make use of it later!

-->However, I quickly discovered that I had a much more important use for Victor than copying everything in sight -- mainly, since Smiler was busy with their gummies, I needed Victor on flower-arranging duty to replace the wilting bouquets! Because his ability to Repairio them only affects their overall quality, not their freshness level. To my surprise, though, when I had him Repairio an arrangement (to make it Excellent quality, as only Excellent and above can be scented) and then try to scent it with bluebells to make it Timeless, I discovered he COULDN'T -- turns out Victor never actually made it to Flower Arranging level 4, which is the level you need for bluebell-scenting. I promptly had him make an arrangement to get himself up to the proper level, THEN get scenting. Hey, it only makes sense to have multiple Sims who can make nice flower arrangements and make them smell pretty -- and it keeps him from overloading in between bouts of Copypasto. :p

-->Anyway, while Victor was busy making, Repairioing, and scenting flower arrangements (to the point where he actually got another Talent point from all the Repairios -- I put it into Mote Hound so I could work my way up to the talent that reduces charge gain from all spells), Alice and Smiler were just as busy downstairs making more product! Namely, after making more deodorant gummies, Smiler moved on to making individual cans of fishcakes with the remaining fish in their inventory, while Alice continued making boxes of jam and more bags of sugar (because we ALWAYS need sugar). I discovered during this process that individual bags of sugar and flour (as in the base Cottage Living ingredients) CAN be pulled out of the inventory, set around the shop, and Copypastoed -- but the damn things wouldn't fit on SrslySims's consignment shelves, so I couldn't actually experiment with putting them out for sale. *grumbles* It is WEIRD, what won't actually fit on those shelves... Oh, and Alice also made some regular old jars of blackberry jam to fill in gaps on the shelves...a process which made the stove break, so Smiler went and fixed that for her while she went and finished up their fishcakes. *shakehead* The fun never stops in this store, does it?

[longforgottenunofficial]

That’s My Queue

The back half of the queue area for the Disneyland Haunted Mansion has a long and curious history. Major additions to the berm took place in September of 2016...

...but the queueing area down below remained the same, still looking much as it does in these older photos:        

"That's my favorite brass knob.  That one, right there."

That last one from Daveland has some magic in it, so stay tuned.  (A big tip o' the hat to Dave.)

I'm old enough to remember this section when it hosted the family plot graveyard, a short-lived minor masterpiece remembered today by few. Back in the opening year, when a much higher percentage of riders had no idea what lay in store for them, the queue graveyard was virtually the only clue you had as to the tone of the attraction. Plus, the lines were longer and slower back then, so you had plenty of time to contemplate the epitaphs (and if you were a geek, to memorize them). If you're a Mansion fan, you really ought to know about this long-forgotten gem. In the original version of this post (which has been rewritten umpteen times as new material has come to light), I was content at this point to simply remark that there aren't many photographs of the little cemetery, and I threw this meager montage at you before continuing:

I also mentioned that you could get a glimpse of the old graveyard in the 1970 Osmonds Disneyland Showtime episode, which featured the HM.

But in August of 2016 Gregg Ziak published these spectacular photos of the original graveyard at the "Vintage Disneyland" page on Facebook:

So I figure I'd put up some of the better photos I've got rather than that ugly little montage. I'm not at liberty to show you every photo I've got, but these are among the best. This first is actually a bw photo by Athenamama that I've colorized and processed in various ways. Turned out nice.

You know this one.

"It's the backside of Wathel!" (Some of you will get that; some won't. Some who do will wish they hadn't.)

As it happens, one of the extant photos of the family plot was taken from exactly the same spot as the Daveland photo above.  Not only that, but this 1996-98 photo by Allen Huffmann at DisneyFans...

...was taken from almost the same spot as a publicity shot of the Osmonds in the old cemetery, one of several pubbies released to the papers before their March 1970 TV program...

...and from that wretched photo a serviceable rendition of the boneyard sans Osmonds (and Kurt) can be made.

Between the two sets, a pair of cunningly-crafted animated gifs should show you exactly where the old graveyard was located. And since Long Forgotten is all about cunningly-crafted, here y'go (with our thanks to Captain Halfbeard for the gifs).

There were eight stones in the family plot, arranged like this:

I've put the best photos I currently have of each of the eight original stones side-by-side with the new, 2016 versions in the post on that topic, so there is no longer any need for a miserable montage here. Check 'em out. Did I hear someone say they wanted "magic eye" 3D's?  We got 'em, in two groovy sizes.  Dude, it's like being there.

As many of you know, the epitaphs were composed by show writer X. Atencio as wry tributes to various Imagineers who worked on the Haunted Mansion.  Here are the original Disneyland eight, left to right in the layout above, with the Imagineer thus honored:

The WDW set was probably created at the same time, but it is not identical to the DL set.  Orlando has only five of the DL eight, leaving out Cousin Victor, Phineas Pock, and Rolo Rumkin.  On the other hand, they have several others that Anaheim did not have originally:

RIP Good friend Gordon Now you've crossed the river Jordan Here lies a man named Martin The lights went out on this old Spartan Rest in peace, Cousin Huet We all know you didn't do it RIP In memorium [sic], Uncle Myall Here you'll lie for quite a while Here lies good old Fred A great big rock fell on his head RIP RIP Mr. Sewell The victim of a dirty duel Peaceful Rest Dear departed Brother Dave He chased a bear into a cave

In 2002 a new animated tombstone was added at WDW:

Dear sweet Leota, beloved by all In regions beyond now, but having a ball The Imagineers being honored in these WDW epitaphs are listed here, if you're interested.  I'm too lazy to duplicate all that info now, and we've got other ground to cover. (I do give some special attention to the Martin stone HERE, because it's often misattributed.) You hear these epitaphs described as "witty" and even "frightfully funny," an example of Boot Hill-type gallows humor ("Here lies Lester Moore.  Four slugs from a .44.  No Les.  No Moore.").  Okay, many of them are, but let's face it:  in others the whimsy is so subtle as to be practically non-existent.  "In memory of our patriarch, dear departed Grandpa Marc." "Master Gracey laid to rest, no mourning please at his request."  I have to stop here as my laughter becomes uncontrollable.  No, really, if there's humor in there, it's so dry that even an Englishman might miss it.  Don't get me wrong; I love it.  It's the comedic equivalent of watching someone trying to see how slowly he can ride a bike without falling over. The family plot was actually constructed in June of 1969, and so it was there by opening day in August, but the park quickly realized that they needed more room for crowd control, and the graveyard was doomed almost from birth. The current arrangement of back-and-forth queueing replaced the little cemetery at the beginning of May, 1970, less than nine months after the Mansion opened. X wanted to award the stones to the Imagineers to whom they paid tribute, and so they ordered up a fresh batch of headstones for installation up on the berm.  As it turns out, the only guy who took his tombstone home (as far as we know) was X himself.  It's still sitting in his backyard today.  Marc's sat by his desk for a time, until he finally couldn't stand having his own tombstone staring at him while he was trying to work, and he got rid of it.  Rolly's stone ended up inside the ride, in the graveyard scene, not far from the singing bust that also goes by the name of Rollo Rumkin [sic]. Wathel Rogers' and Vic Greene's stones went onto the berm, along with Phineas Pock, which wasn't a tribute to anyone. The fates of "Master Gracey" and "Brother Claude" are unknown. It's possible they went up on the berm too, but according to "Anonymous" in the Comments section below, who claims to have intimate knowledge about the subsequent history of the stones, only three were recycled. Take it FWIW. Exactly where the berm transferees were located on the hillside, we don't know, but don't worry: I'll devote a whole post to the berm graveyard one of these days.

(©Disney video) Pock Marked "Phineas Pock" may have originally been the name they were going to give to the Ghost Host.  Reportedly, there's a blueprint around of an unused WDW tombstone reading "Phineas Pock, Lord and Master."  Be that as it may, they got a lot of mileage out of the name.  One of the singing busts is "Phineas P. Pock."  It's on the blueprints and on the leaders for the film strips they used to use for the effect, so that one is as official as it can possibly be.

The purported author of the popular old souvenir booklet, Magic from the Haunted Mansion, is a certain "Phineas J. Pock."

And then there's the "Phineas Pock" who died in 1720 and starred in a radio ad when the Mansion first opened in 1969: Phineas Pock Radio Ad [Audio Link]

In the spring of 2011, up popped a Phineas stone in the expanded graveyard at WDW:

For the sake of completeness, I suppose I should mention that one of the new crypts in the WDW queue is for "Prudence Pock." No doubt some people associate Mr. Pock with the rotund hitchhiker, who is also known as "Phineas," but that name actually originated with a cast member who probably was influenced by the plethora of Pocks already there.  If you want to try to sort out this peck of Pocks, feel free.  It's just a funny name. Plots That Follow The Plots There is a great deal of logical continuity to the mass of data presented to you with the HM.  It's hard to know how much of it is deliberate, how much is dumb luck, how much is the Imagineering team's artistic instincts firing on all cylinders, and how much is the Haunted Mansion Muse, overseeing the project at all times and eliminating patent absurdities as they arise.  The two human graveyards are a good example (there are two pet cemeteries too). In your imagination, the queue graveyard—in either its ground level or its original berm incarnations—was not to be confused with the graveyard scene that provides the ride's climax. That graveyard is a very old public cemetery, next to which the Mansion was built sometime during the 19th c. It's "out back" in some vague sense, behind the berm and the trees, not visible from the front. The Caretaker is not connected with the HM but is a public employee, caring for that old municipal cemetery. That's why you go through that big iron gate to get into it, and that's why Collin Campbell put a sign on the gatepost in his painting of it.

It's "something-something Glade Cemetery."  Maybe "Whispering Glade"?

The headstones back there are uniformly in the style of 16th-18th century New England grave markers, and many of them are dated accordingly.  They're much older than the house, in other words.

There are hidden tributes on those, too, but that's yet another blog post. In contrast, the boneyard out front was, as I've already called it several times, the family plot, the private family burial grounds. That explains the relatively modern (i.e., 19th c.) tombstone designs, and that explains the familial terminology: "Grandpa," "Brother," "Cousin." How carefully all of this was thought out—like I say, I can't tell.  But the coherence in details like this, even when it isn't strictly necessary, is one of the things that embolden me to reach for the word "art" without embarrassment. There is an unexpected imaginative unity in the whole presentation. Whether or not the new (2016) berm graveyard follows suit is debatable. The stones are, for the first time, made to look old. They're worn and cracked. That, together with the wall-top fencing, might encourage guests to assume that the berm graveyard is simply the "back there" graveyard spilling over the hilltop and down to the wall. Be that as it may, our little tour of the short-lived, original, long-forgotten, front yard cemetery is now completed.

Originally Posted: Friday, July 16, 2010 Original Link: [x]