Greetings, Ghost Fans and Foolish Mortals
Welcome to DoomBuggies, the world's premier internet-based tribute to Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion attractions. DoomBuggies is also a gathering place for like-minded fans of the famous rides, and provides a social hub for enthusiasts of the attractions and all sorts of spooky similarities. Launched on October 31, 1997, DoomBuggies has offered people - young and old, famous and infamous, slavishly devoted or casually intrigued - an opportunity to take a deep dive into the rich history of the Haunted Mansion and the fascinating experience of virtually experiencing the fabled home of Disney's 999 "happy haunts."
Back in 2001, Toronto radio host Jim Ducharme told his "Weekly Web Watch" audience that while "there are lots of web sites out there dedicated to the works of Walt Disney and his Imagineers, few come close" to DoomBuggies. Ducharme continued: "The site is so well done, and the information is so fascinating, that I'd be selfish to keep this under my hood any longer." Since then, DoomBuggies or its founder Jeff Baham have been featured in the New York Times, Time Life Books, Variety Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Orlando Sentinal, and many other publications as an authoritative source of information about the Haunted Mansion or its storied history.
In fact, the Walt Disney Company itself has partnered with DoomBuggies over the years in various ways, both officially and unofficially. In 1999, Disneyland reached out to DoomBuggies to request a coordinated marketing campaign for its 30th anniversary celebration for the Haunted Mansion - and then, in 2003, Walt Disney Pictures reached out to DoomBuggies to collaborate on extensive grassroots efforts in support of "The Haunted Mansion," a feature film directed by Ron Minkoff (co-director of "The Lion King") and producer Don Hahn. But beyond these very public efforts, Disney employees, divisions and licensees have regularly contacted DoomBuggies for help in research, artwork resources and fan outreach for everything from Walt Disney World's "Happiest Haunts" events to video game design, merchandise design, film character design, and a wide variety of other promotional efforts.
Early in DoomBuggies existence, New York Times bestselling speculative fiction author Cory Doctorow partnered with DoomBuggies by donating the domain "HauntedMansion.com" to the site, having determined that no matter what his end goal for the domain might have been, he couldn't imagine a better use for the address than to drive curious souls to the DoomBuggies site. Doctorow remains a committed Haunted Mansion enthusiast, basing his Locus Award-winning novel "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" in part on the Haunted Mansion, and regularly publishing articles about the Haunted Mansion on Boing Boing, a popular blog which he co-edits.
The Haunted Mansion has created a sort of cottage industry for the Walt Disney Company over the past decade, and more than a few Imagineers and Disney insiders have confessed to DoomBuggies that they believe that this web site was the match that lit the fuse which exploded Haunted Mansion fandom into a uniquely passionate community among all of the theme park enthusiasts around the world. Today, Haunted Mansion fandom continues to grow, providing the foundation for a never-ending flow of new merchandise, artwork, productions, promotions, and stories based on the original 1969 attraction.
Staying true to its "old school" roots, DoomBuggies is primarily a permanent online repository of history and multimedia information related to Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion. Rejecting the notions that destinations on the internet must routinely shift focus or become obsolete, or embrace interactivity or lose guests' interest, DoomBuggies remains a destination on the World Wide Web where visitors can simply make themselves comfortable, settle in, and lose themselves in the extensive history of the Haunted Mansion, learning something about Walt Disney, the people who worked for him, and his lasting legacy in the process.
About the founder
I'm Jeff Baham, the founder of DoomBuggies. I built the web site in the fall of 1997 as internet "tribute sites" were becoming the all the nerdy rage. During the pre-Google era of Usenet, AOL, GeoCities.com and Yahoo!, I discovered that in my career as an art director, web site design would be a necessary tool to tuck into my toolbox, so along with the rest of my generation of geeks, I taught myself HTML, using my fledgling collection of Haunted Mansion articles and memorabilia as fodder for a tribute to the attraction.
While this explains how the web site sprang into being, the reason that I chose the Haunted Mansion as a specific target is a bit more personal. I'm a monster kid, born in the '60s, growing up in the suburbs just a quick bike ride from the Rexall Five and Dime and the neighborhood news stand. While Rexall would supply my childhood collections of rabbits' feet, "You'll Die Laughing!" cards and Bazooka wrappers, the news stand was where I really dropped most of my allowance and lawn-mowing money on issues of Forrest Ackerman's "Famous Monsters" magazine and the occasional copy of "Starlog" (since George Lucas's mighty space opera was the other half of my childhood.) The three weeks or so of the Halloween season (starting the day in October that the costumes, masks and make-up hit the drugstore shelves) were the highlight of each year, with Imagineering's "Scar Stuf" and "Vampire Blood" commanding my attention, and my very light wallet. I can distinctly remember the gleeful aroma of a new Ben Cooper plastic Halloween mask on my face to this day.
More importantly, I also always owned a copy of Disneyland Records' "The Story and Song from The Haunted Mansion," due to my parent's belief that any Disneyland Records title was preferable to, say, the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack - another album I begged for, with no success. In fact, I went through a number of copies of "The Haunted Mansion," because I had a tendency to trace the pictures in the read-along book, often with the vinyl still in the gatefold. I would listen to that record ceaselessly during my wonder years, unaware that young "Mike" was the same actor that played "Richie Cunningham," who was also a regularly recurring part of my childhood. Though my family traveled to Disneyland annually, the real reason that I was intimately connected to the story and scenes from The Haunted Mansion was the repeated playing of that record (although it was probably my twelveth birthday before I would actually brave riding the attraction itself.)
If anyone had told ten-year-old Jeff that one day he would actually have the chance to re-create that record as live readers' theater with Peter Renoudet, the real voice of the "Ghost Host" from the record... well, that ten-year-old probably would have choked on his Hubba Bubba. And yet I have had the chance to do just that, three different times, in fact - a rare three-peat bucket list item that I didn't even know was on the list until the opportunity presented itself. DoomBuggies has presented me with many such opportunities over the decades. A chance to collaborate with Disneyland on their celebration of the Haunted Mansion's 30th anniversary; the chance to walk the sets of the "Haunted Mansion" movie with producer Don Hahn and director Rob Minkoff; celebrating the first 10 years of DoomBuggies at my own private Disneyland party with Neil Patrick Harris and "Grim Grinning Ghosts" songwriter X. Atencio; and many other special moments and memories. The web site has been given a number of awards over the years; among my favorites are the "Webby Award" honoree designation in 2006 and Forrest Ackerman's official "4E's Faves" award.
In fact, creating DoomBuggies.com has allowed me to connect in some greater and some lesser ways to people I'd long admired, and if you'll indulge a bit of name-dropping, I'd like to share that it's been my great honor to have had some brief professional interfacing with personal heroes including the aforementioned Forry Ackerman as well as Maila "Vampira" Nurmi before they both passed, having been given the privilege to do some design work for both. I've had the opportunity to interview Elvira, another fun gig. Back before he was part of the Pixar brain trust, Jonas Rivera wrote me a fan letter while working in Pixar's asset library. Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro was kind enough once to invite me to see his "man cave," his own personal house of horrors that eventually became the subject of a full exhibition at the LACMA (though sadly, I wasn't able to take him up on the offer, and would never consider bothering him with the idea now. He did kindly read my book and write an effusive review, however.) Academy Award winners John Myhre and Don Hahn have also praised DoomBuggies.com at one time or another, and Disney Imagineer Chris Merritt, artist Eric Robison, author Jeff Kurtti, and Disney artists Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily have become genuine friends - who could ask for more? Heck - I even got the chance to design a one-off Living Dead Dolls® creation for the 2006 Living Dead Dolls Art Show. Sweet!
Today, my career as an artist continues, and I am the art director for a Silicon Valley publishing group, a high school photography teacher, and a church keyboardist. In 2007, I founded the Mousetalgia Podcast - a west coast-based audio show about Disneyland and Disney history - and we broadcast a new episode every Monday. I regularly travel throughout the western United States to speak about the history of the Haunted Mansion - a perhaps-surprisingly popular topic - and I was able to host a panel discussion about the Haunted Mansion's 45th anniversary at "ScareLA" with Disney Legends Bob Gurr (creator of Disneyland's "Omnimover" system, a.k.a. the "Doom Buggy") and Alice Davis, the widow of legendary Imagineer Marc Davis, who created most of the Haunted Mansion's iconic characters.
In 2014, I wrote my first book, "The Unauthorized Story of Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion" published by Theme Park Press, which reached the "Top Seller" ranking in the "Theme Parks" category on Amazon.com. Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water, Crimson Peak, Pan's Labyrinth) writes of the book: "Having delved into Disney lore for decades and been immersed in the Haunted Mansion world since age 3, I thought I knew pretty much everything there was to know about my favorite ride ever. I was wrong. Prepare to be enchanted, bewildered and mesmerized by this beat-by-beat account of the Haunted Mansion's creation. A haunted tour that is both scholarly and thrilling. An "E" ticket ride to the darkest, most glorious regions of Disney's imagination!" Imagineer (and original Haunted Mansion designer) Rolly Crump wrote the foreword, which notes that he "even learned some things he wasn't aware of" in the book. You can help support DoomBuggies by buying yourself a copy today.
The Haunted Mansion is a source of endless mystery and intrigue, and many people have wanted to dialogue about the attraction over the years. The following list includes some of the podcasts I have appeared on to discuss the Haunted Mansion and/or DoomBuggies. Each host has a different take on the subject, and each interview offers its own curious avenues.
The Mouse Castle Lounge Podcast
The Season Pass: The Essential Theme Park Podcast
Skywalking Through Neverland Podcast, Episode 95
Skywalking Through Neverland Podcast, Episode 256
Word on the Main Steet Podcast
Thank you for your interest in the inner workings of DoomBuggies. If you like what we do, consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the site. There are a few cool rewards there, and more importantly, you'd be helping me maintain and grow the content on the web site in a very real, tangible way.
Hurry back!
Jeff Baham
Proprietor, DoomBuggies.com
Baham lives in the Silicon Valley with his family and Cleo Trappa, his pet Venus Fly Trap. To establish contact, leave him a voicemail toll-free at 1-888-5-HATBOX or email him at chefmayhem@aol.com.
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