Another of the Stretching Room pictures shows a ballerina with a parasol. As the picture stretches, it reveals that this young woman is on a tightrope, so maybe she’s a tightrope walker. Either way, the alligator below her doesn’t care. He’s just waiting for her to tire out and lose her balance or maybe for the rope to snap. We can conclude one of the two things happens to the young woman since she’s featured in this room in the Haunted Mansion. There would be no need for the living to have their portraits in this particular residence.

The Ballerina is iconic enough to be the subject of cosplayers and Disney Bounders. She has received a couple of names in various other media, but we’re sticking with Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion for the moment.

If you want more Haunted Mansion and creativity, get my book “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” If you want a different kind of Haunting fun, check out “When Hauntings Collide,” the story where you are the star.

The Quicksand Men live in the Stretching Room. The picture starts out with a relatively happy man in a bowler hat, arms crossed at his chest. As the haunted room actually stretches (or is it just your imagination?), visitors find the man is seated on another man’s shoulders. The second man is in turn on a third man’s shoulders. Alas, the third man is sinking into quicksand (a problem many of us older people thought would have been more prevalent in real life).

Some have proposed that each man lower on the proverbial totem pole is dressed more shabbily than the man above him, which could lead one to believe that this is a social commentary as well as a picture. Not being an expert in the fashion depicted in the painting, this could be true, or it could just be one’s imagination. I, for one, am not going to risk the quicksand to find out what the men in picture think.

If you want more Haunted Mansion and creativity, get my book “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” If you want a different kind of Haunting fun, check out “When Hauntings Collide,” the story where you are the star.

Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion spirits come in different levels of corporeal solidity. The Coffin Ghost in the conservatory is one of the most solid spirits in the attraction. It’s almost as if he’s been put alive in the coffin, but his skeletal arms betray him as he shouts for someone to let him outta here.

If you want more Haunted Mansion and creativity, get my book “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” If you want a different kind of Haunting fun, check out “When Hauntings Collide,” the story where you are the star.

In the ballroom, the women lead the men through their paces as they dance to the organ’s tune. The Pepper’s Ghost illusion is one of the largest in the world. For something that’s been around since the late 1800s, it still mystifies and creates wonder, even for those, who know how it works.

If you want more Haunted Mansion and creativity, get my book “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” If you want a different kind of Haunting fun, check out “When Hauntings Collide,” the story where you are the star.

This Portrait Corridor picture morphs from April to May to June, leaving guests wondering if it’s three woman or one woman in different months. December clinches the deal: These are pictures of the same woman, and she gets old fast. The portrait may no longer hang in the corridor, but it is forever in our hearts.

If you want more Haunted Mansion and creativity, get my book “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” If you want a different kind of Haunting fun, check out “When Hauntings Collide,” the story where you are the star.

You know the saying, “It’s not over until…” Probably not acceptable in today’s era. Still, this opera singer is singing her death aria as visitors leave the cemetery. She hits all the right notes as guests move toward the hitchhiking ghosts and the land of the living.

If you want more Haunted Mansion and creativity, get my book “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” If you want a different kind of Haunting fun, check out “When Hauntings Collide,” the story where you are the star.

Sprinkled through the last parts of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, the pop-up ghosts provide the only real possibility of a jump scare (since the knight was removed for cast member safety). They remind visitors that being dead isn’t all fun and games… for the living.

If you want more Haunted Mansion and creativity, get my book “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” If you want a different kind of Haunting fun, check out “When Hauntings Collide,” the story where you are the star.

In the Portrait Corridor, I dubbed the werecat lady as Cleopanther, though that name is no longer correct. A young, beautiful woman reclines on a couch. With the lightning flashes she becomes a panther, at least she used to. Now, she morphs into a white tiger. Who is she really? How did she change the type of cat she becomes?

Another name I coined, the Knightmare features a warrior on horseback. The horse rearing up as the lightning flashes, they lose their flesh and become skeletons. The knight is also known as the Black Prince.

If you want more Haunted Mansion and creativity, get my book “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” If you want a different kind of Haunting fun, check out “When Hauntings Collide,” the story where you are the star.

Forever framed back to back, these two combatants, are stuck in an eternal duel. Turn, fire, die. Turn, fire, kill. Shoot. This is one contest no one won, and no one ever will.

If you want more Haunted Mansion and creativity, get my book “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” If you want a different kind of Haunting fun, check out “When Hauntings Collide,” the story where you are the star.

The pair of ghosts make this tableau work. In life they were mortal enemies, albeit one with the power of life and death over the other. In death, they are able to sing in harmony, even when one has to hold his head in his arms. They’re both in surprisingly good spirits.

If you want more Haunted Mansion and creativity, get my book “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” If you want a different kind of Haunting fun, check out “When Hauntings Collide,” the story where you are the star.