The Ever-Changing Hatchetman
Greetings Ghost Fans,
This week, we take a look at a mysterious resident of the Haunted Mansion.
For many years, the painting of the Hatchet Man has resided in the Corridor of Doors at Disneyland. In fact, the painting has been there since opening day in 1969. A variation of the painting resides in the Sinister 11 of Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland as well. What is interesting is that numerous incarnations of this painting have resided in the Disneyland mansion.
While I do not have photos of every version, this will give you a slight sampling of the different art styles seen through the years.
Also, to settle a long debate: These paintings ARE the Ghost Hosts visual incarnation. The Ghost Host is NOT Master Gracey. Master Gracey is the formal portrait hanging above the Foyer Fireplace at Walt Disney World and now in the Portrait Hall of Disneyland. A piece of concept art has named this portrait (seen above) as the Ghost Host as drawn out by Marc Davis himself.
posted by Ghost Relations Dept. at 9:44 PM
9 Comments:
Interesting that he now makes an appearance in the Seance room as one of the mysterious Faces.
I much prefer the top two to the bottom one
"Master Gracey is the formal portrait hanging above the Foyer Fireplace at Walt Disney World and now in the Portrait Hall of Disneyland."
Just curious...are you basing this on the fan designation of this portrait, or the merchandising designation (from the lenticular pin) or is there a reference from the mansion itself?
You know who added the blood to the axe, don't you?
I am using the merchandising term for the portrait as Master Gracey. Also, in discussion with a few Imagineers about the portrait in the foyer, his original name was the Aging Man. The Imagineers I have spoken with do not mind the portrait in the foyer being called Master Gracey, but the body above the stretch room in a death phase, they said was disrespectful to the memory of Yale Gracey who was murdered.
So in short, I took the name Master Gracey from the merchandise of the Pin. Many of the fan stories refered to it as Master Gracey and then Merchandise picked up on it as well.
The bloody axe version was painted up by good old Steve Fink, an ex-Staff Shop Worker at Disneyland. Take a gander at his interview over on Doombuggies.com folks!
Say, that's interesting that he has a hatchet, now that the Disneyland bride also has one. I wonder if it's suppposed to be the same hatchet in the revised story?
Oh, i found this blog and searched the entire thing for a picture of this guy. Cool!
It's great to see all those representations in one place. I never got the blood on the hatchet. It wasn't part of the original concept and does nothing to enhance the subject's character. My impression had always been that figure in the painting had the axe simply because he had just chopped his way free of whatever the rope had been "holding him back", not that he was out for a Michael Myers style murder spree. I doubt that fits with the unfortunate "fan fiction" stories that circulate about peripheral characters like this guy (PLEASE - not another "Master Gracey" soap opera where the name on a tombstone outside the ride is attached to this or other characters on the inside), but it did seem to be the most obvious explanation.
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