The Haunted House, also known as Phantom House or simply Haunted House, is a Mickey Mouse short animated film first released on December 2, 1929, as part of the Mickey Mouse film series. The cartoon was produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by Celebrity Productions.
The film follows Mickey Mouse trapped in a haunted house and forced to play music. It was directed by Walt Disney, who also provided the voice of Mickey. Ub Iwerks was the primary animator and Carl Stalling wrote the original music.
The Haunted House borrowed animation from Disney’s first Silly Symphony, The Skeleton Dance, which was released earlier in 1929. The Haunted House was Mickey’s first cartoon with a horror theme and led the way to later films such as The Gorilla Mystery (1930), The Mad Doctor (1933), Lonesome Ghosts (1937), and Runaway Brain (1995).
Inspired by Walt Disney’s and Ub Iwerks’ Silly Symphonies animated short The Skeleton Dance, Tim Burton pays homage to the frolicking skeletons of swing in this fun little diddy, Remains of the Day.
Remains of the Day
Danny Elfman (2005)
Hey! Give me a listen, you corpses of cheer. Least less of you who still got an ear, I’ll tell ‘ya a story, make your skeleton cry, of our own judiciously lovely corpse bride. Die, die we all pass away, but don’t wear a frown ‘cuz it’s really okay. You might try n’ hide, and you might try n’ pray, but we all end up the remains of the day.
Die die die yeah yeah, die die die.
Well! Our girl is a beauty known for miles around. A mysterious stranger came into town. He was plenty good lookin’ but down on his cash, and our poor little baby she fell hard and fast, when her daddy said no, she just couldn’t cope, so our lovers came up with a plan to elope.
Die, die we all pass away, but don’t wear a frown ‘cuz it’s really okay. You might try n’ hide, and you might try n’ pray, but we all end up the remains of the day.
Die die die yeah yeah, die die die yeah yeah die die die yeah yeah die die die yeah yeah
Yeah, so they conjured up a plan to meet late at night, they told not a soul kept the whole thing tight. Now her mother’s wedding dress fit like a glove, you don’t need much when you’re really in love. Except for a few things or so I’m told, like the family jewels and a satchel of gold. Then next to the graveyard by the old oak tree, on a dark foggy night at a quarter to three, she was ready to go, but where was he?
(And then?) She waited (And then?) There in the shadows, was it a man? (And then?) Her little heart beat sooo loud! (And THEN?) And then baby, everything went black.
Now when she opened her eyes, she was dead as dust, her jewels were missin’ and her heart was bust, so she made a vow lyin’ under that tree that she’d wait for her true love to come set her free. Always waitin’ for someone to ask for her hand, when outta the blue comes this groovy young man, who vows forever, to be by her side, and that’s the story of our own, corpse bride
Die, die we all pass away, but don’t wear a frown ‘cuz it’s really okay. You might try n’ hide, and you might try n’ pray, but we all end up the remains of the day.
The Skeleton Dance is a 1929 Silly Symphony animated short subject produced and directed by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks. In the film, four human skeletons dance and make music around a spooky graveyard — a modern film example of medieval European “danse macabre” imagery. It was the first entry in the Silly Symphony series.
The origins for The Skeleton Dance can be traced to mid-1928, when Walt Disney was on his way to New York to arrange a distribution deal for his new Mickey Mouse cartoons and to record the soundtrack for his first sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie. During a stopover in Kansas City, Disney paid a visit to his old acquaintance Carl Stalling, then an organist at the Isis Theatre, to compose scores for his first two Mickey shorts, Plane Crazy and The Gallopin’ Gaucho. While there, Stalling proposed to Disney a series of “musical novelty” cartoons combining music and animation, which would become the genesis for the Silly Symphony series, and pitched an idea about skeletons dancing in a graveyard. Stalling would eventually join Disney’s studio as staff composer. Animation on The Skeleton Dance began in January 1929, with Ub Iwerks animating the majority of the film in almost six weeks.
