New details shared about Disney’s unproduced HAUNTED MANSION animated series

Several years ago it was announced that Disney would be developing an animated series based on its popular film Haunted palace theme park attraction. Unfortunately, the series never got the green light.

The series was developed by the creator of Kubo and the Two-String, Shannon Tindleand a teaser trailer was actually produced for the series, which you can watch below.

During a recent interview with CinemaBlend, Tindle shared some new details about the project and how it was inspired by one of the original animators of Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men, Marco Daviswho became a major attraction designer at Disneyland and Disney World.

Speaking about how the project came about, Tindle said: “I’m a huge fan. I love Mark Davis. I love his work and his transition from one of the Nine Old Men of animation to working at WED.

“So yeah, it was one of those things where I was in my suit at Disney and I said, ‘I have an idea for Haunted palace.’ And so we developed it first as an ongoing series, and then we turned around and said, what if we did it as a mini-series? The teaser is out there somewhere. The teaser is out there. I’d like to do it.”

All that had previously been revealed about the series is that it would focus on a young girl dealing with the grief of a lost loved one. But now we have some additional information on some other ideas the show would have incorporated.

Tindle explains that the series would bring together multiple characters from Disney’s history into a cinematic universe of sorts. One of them was Herbie the Love Bug.

He said, “And I will say that this idea I had was to go to all these wild, haunted places, and I went to a parking lot in a shopping mall, and you see these ghostly lights coming through the fog.

“And the little girl, who is the protagonist, says, ‘Oh my God, what kind of spirit am I going to meet here?’ And it’s Herbie the Love Bug, and that was my explanation for Herbie, it’s Herbie’s witch.

“Lou Romano did some wonderful paintings for this, and that just gives you an idea. I wanted to intervene. I thought, “Disney has all these amazing characters, let’s use them.” But you know, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Hey, maybe they’ll come back to the table with that. I’d like to do that.”

Speaking previously about the series, Tindle said: “My goal was to take inspiration from all the stories created by the artists at WED (Disney’s Imagineering division) and unite them into one giant narrative. The story would span several years and focus about different characters, but they add up to one big, interconnected story.”

He went on to talk about the tone of the series by saying that it would have “a lot of fun and silly elements.” It was explained that it “would be contained within a larger story in which viewers entered the show through the eyes of a character dealing with grief over a recently deceased loved one.”

It’s a shame that Disney gave up on the series because it would have been a lot of fun to watch!