List of Haunted Mansion Characters - Ghost Host

Ghost Host

The Ghost Host is one of the first characters guests to the Mansion meet, so to speak. He remains invisible throughout the tour, guiding "foolish mortals" with an ominous Mid-Atlantic accented voice (provided by Paul Frees). His gleefully sardonic narration often features death-related puns and maniacal laughter. In the Stretching Room scene near the beginning of the tour, it is revealed that he committed suicide by hanging himself from the rafters in the cupola. During Haunted Mansion Holiday, the Ghost Host is voiced by Corey Burton. In the Tokyo Disneyland Mansion, the character is voiced in Japanese by Teichiro Hori.

A painting of the Ghost Host (based on concept art by Imagineer Marc Davis) can be found in the Corridor of Doors of the Disneyland Mansion, depicting a tall, thin, ghoulish-looking man with a noose around his neck, giving the evil eye and a sinister grin. He has long, messy white hair, pale blue skin, a hooked nose, and yellow eyeballs. His face bears a resemblance to that of the Old Witch, the "host" of EC Comics' The Haunt of Fear. He is dressed in a green tailcoat with purple or red lapels and cuffs, a purple vest, and blue pinstriped pants. He holds a hatchet in one hand and the severed rope in the other. The portrait has been repainted many times over the years, adding and subtracting details such as scarring around his eye and blood on the hatchet blade. In 2007, the Ghost Host portrait was added to a previously bare wall in the Corridor of Doors of the Walt Disney World Mansion. In this version, the shadow he casts behind him raises the hatchet menacingly. The Walt Disney World Mansion also has a separate painting of him with a different pose and a more natural flesh color, which was located in the hallway of "staring" portraits until 2007, when it was moved to the Doom Buggy loading area. In the current version of this portrait, he is depicted as having heterochromia (two different colored eyes). Since 2005, in the séance room of the Disneyland Mansion, his face appears on the wall as one of several faces in a cycle. According to Imagineer Jason Surrell, in his book The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies, the invisible pianist who casts a shadow in the Music Room (a room in the Walt Disney World and Tokyo versions of the attraction) is the Ghost Host.

Contrary to popular belief, he is not the character Master Gracey. The Ghost Host as Gracey meme was first spread via fan fiction written by Walt Disney World Cast Members that circulated widely online, and eventually made its way into licensed media adaptations, such as the 2003 film and the comics. This was based on the faulty assumption that the Ghost Host is the master of the house, and the "Master Gracey" tombstone, which in actuality was using an entirely different definition of "master." Early versions of the attraction script did attribute the Ghost Host as "the lord and master of this haunted mansion," but it was an aspect of the character that didn't make the final cut. In the second edition of his book, The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies, Imagineer Jason Surrell states that "the Ghost Host is not the master of the house—Gracey or otherwise—but merely one of 999 happy haunts." In press material from around the time of the attraction's opening in 1969, the Ghost Host is referred to as the "majordomo of the Mansion's skeleton staff."

One proposed concept for the Ghost Host was that he and the Raven would turn out to be the same character. This idea eventually changed to the Raven retaining a speaking role, but as a foil to the Ghost Host. In the final attraction, the Raven does not speak, and there is no overt relation to the Ghost Host.

A similar character, known as the Phantom, narrates Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris. He was originally voiced (in English) by horror movie icon Vincent Price, but was replaced by French actor Gérard Chevalier soon after the attraction opened. Price's voice is still used however, for the Phantom's evil laughter. Clips of Paul Frees' Ghost Host are used for the voice of the decapitated mayor seen near the end of the attraction.

In the 1969 record album The Story and Song from the Haunted Mansion, the Ghost Host was voiced by Pete Renaday, using an accent and manner of speaking inspired by English actor and horror movie icon Boris Karloff.

HalloWishes, a fireworks show that takes place at Walt Disney World during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, is narrated by the Ghost Host, voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson.

The Ghost Host's famous line "Welcome, foolish mortals" was reproduced by Corey Burton in the opening titles of the 2003 film. Rick Baker, who designed the makeup effects for the film, made a cameo appearance as the character (as visualized by Marc Davis) in the graveyard scene, crouching behind a tombstone. In a special feature on the DVD for the film, the Ghost Host was voiced by Tony Jay. The character Master Edward Gracey (Nathaniel Parker) hanged himself in the film's story - a reference to the Ghost Host's suicide in the attraction. In one scene, Ezra (Wallace Shawn) says the Ghost Host's line, "There's always my way."

In the video game, the disembodied voice of the villain Atticus Thorn (voiced by Corey Burton) is heard from time to time, and he uses the phrase "foolish mortal."

In 2010 at San Diego Comic-Con, a teaser for a new Haunted Mansion film being produced by Guillermo del Toro was shown, in which Ian McShane provided the voice of the Ghost Host. McShane also played Blackbeard in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Paul Frees, the original voice of the Ghost Host, played a pirate captain based on Blackbeard in the original Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.