List of Haunted Mansion Characters - Hatbox Ghost

Hatbox Ghost

The Hatbox Ghost was a character who originally appeared in the attic, on the opposite side of the room from the Bride. He was a cloaked figure with a grinning skeletal face, clutching a cane with a trembling hand. His head would disappear from his body and reappear from within the hat box he held in his other hand. He was removed shortly after the attraction opened at Disneyland due to the effect not working as intended, and has not returned since. In the Story and Song from the Haunted Mansion album, he is identified as the Bride's groom ("with each beat of his bride's heart..."). The headless groom theme was re-introduced into the attic scene in 2006, as part of the "Black Widow Bride" storyline.

Although the figure has the same face mold as the skeletal hitchhiking ghost, they are not meant to be the same character. Distinctive features of the Hatbox Ghost are a gold tooth and stringy hair. Since 2007, multiple photographs of the Hatbox Ghost have adorned the walls of the Corridor of Doors in the Walt Disney World Mansion.

The winter 1969 issue of Disney's Backstage Magazine featured a comic starring a Hatbox Ghost look-alike named Gaylord Ghoul. At the end of the comic, the character is revealed to be merely a man in a mask.

In the Slave Labor Graphics comics, the Hatbox Ghost in life was a sea captain named Randall Pace, who was beheaded with a sword by his first mate, William Gracey. Captain Pace's ghost eventually wrought vengeance upon Gracey.

Guillermo del Toro has stated that his upcoming Haunted Mansion film will feature the Hatbox Ghost as a pivotal figure in the story, and that the mythology of the Mansion will be centered around the character. Del Toro analogized his version of the Hatbox Ghost to a spider sitting in the middle of a "web" of Haunted Mansions.

The look of the Hatbox Ghost may have been inspired by the Man in the Beaver Hat, played by Lon Chaney in the 1927 film, London After Midnight.