Have you ever seen a haunted house?

We're gonna bring ghosts from all over the world, but we haven't got the ghosts in there yet.

We're out collecting the ghosts.

Creepy creeps with eerie eyes start to shriek and harmonize Grim gringo Scott to.

Socialize.

Well, if you should decide to join us, final arrangements may be made at the end of the tour.

End of the tour?

Yeah.

Take two.

WDW Radio, your information station.

It's spooky season once again, and I love Halloween, especially at Walt Disney World.

But what if there was even more of it in the parks?

This week I'm sharing my five spooky Disney Halloween ideas for Walt Disney World.

New attractions, enhancements and experiences that blend nostalgia, creativity and a little bit of Disney magic.

I want to know from you which one's your favorite or what spooky idea would you love to see come to life in the parks?

Hello my friend and welcome to WW Radio, your guide to the Disney parks and experiences from around the world.

I am Lou Mongello and this is show number 844.

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And before we dive in, I want to very quickly apologize.

I know the show has come out somewhat sporadically over the last few weeks.

My travel schedule has been wonderfully crazy.

I will never complain about being busy or tired.

It is all thanks to because of with by and for you and I promise to get back on a regular schedule.

I hate missing any episodes any week because I feel like I let you down.

But between travel and speaking and events and my momentum event and visiting Catino's Disney's brand new Story Living by Disney Community, I'll have a full review and discussion next week, I promise.

So my schedule has just been crazy, but I promise to get better and be better and not let you down again.

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So go back, check out last week's episode for the question and thank you for your understanding and patience.

Thank you, as well as your support and kindness and friendship and love.

But for now, sit back, relax and enjoy this week's episode of the WDW Radio show.

This week I'm putting on my imaginary and imagineering hard hat and stepping into the role of at Home Imagineer.

I love Halloween.

I am an admitted kid at heart.

I love spooky season and the movies and the music and the costumes and even candy even though I'm not a sweets guy and pumpkin spiced everything and apple cider and the overlays and the Disney parks around the world as well as the additional parties and stories and experiences.

And Disney, especially globally does Halloween really well.

Obviously in Walt Disney World we have not so scary Halloween party which goes back to 1995 when tickets were $16.95.

Disneyland has the Oogie Boogie Bash and overseas Disneyland Paris has done things like a Halloween soiree.

Mickey's Halloween Celebration Parade Festival all October in Tokyo.

It's a relatively recent thing.

Around late 1990s, around 1997 they started having Disney's Halloween and guests would come in costumes.

They would do some parades.

Shanghai started their Halloween Carnival in 2018.

They also have a dance party and costume culture and themed snacks are starting to really grow.

Hong Kong Disneyland is where they really turn it up to 11.

Going back to 2007, they've had haunted Halloween with mazes.

They have Disney Halloween Time, a little bit softer villain meet and greets and some absolutely wild and somewhat scary walkthrough experiences like the Nightmare Experiment as well as the Maze of Madness.

The Nightmare Experiment continues and obviously Disney Cruise Line has Halloween on the high seas which goes back to 2013 on the Disney Dream.

But because I love it so much, I just wish there was more including and especially at Walt Disney World.

And I understand why we don't do some of the seasonal overlays like at Disneyland because the experience and vacationers here are different, whereas Disneyland is primarily locals and repeat visitors, etc.

But as Dame Judi Gent says, let's have some fun, shall we?

What if we could dream up our own spooky overlays and haunted ish experiences for the parks where our imaginations and probably budgets could go wild?

I am not saying that any of the following things I'm about to say are in any way realistic, but hopefully fun.

Maybe even provide a little spark of inspiration.

So these are my 5ish favorite what if Halloween concepts, ideas that blend story and history, maybe some nostalgia, a few happy haunts along the way.

And of course I want to hear from you.

I want to know which of these, if any, you would love to see come to Walt Disney World.

More importantly, what your idea for a spooky Halloween addition, overlay or experience you'd like to see come to Walt Disney World.

Again, to be clear, these are very, very, very blue sky, not fully flushed out.

Don't think about things like logist and budget and time etc.

But let your imaginations run wild.

And number one, I'm going to start in Epcot center, specifically in World Showcase for a Legends and Lore nighttime tour.

I want you to imagine a late night after hours, maybe even something like a candlelit tour during food and wine season festival that focuses on the mythological beasts and historical hauntings and folkloric shadows of some of the World Showcase pavilions and creatures of each culture.

This could even be like a sip, stroll and listen type experience where instead of costumes and ghosts, the focus is really on atmosphere and storytelling and sharing the legends and stories of each of the different pavilions.

So because you obviously come from future World, it's always going to be future world to me.

And you have to go left because left is right.

You start off in Mexico and maybe celebrate the spirits of Dia de los Muertos and you have this marigold flower bridge between the living and the dead guiding the loved ones home.

And if you listen closely, you might even hear the echoes of La Llorona, the weeping woman said to wander near the water searching for her lost children.

And to be clear, I do not claim to know any or all of the stories and fables and mythology and Halloween season ghost lore.

So these are just quick ideas from a kid who grew up in Jersey.

But over in Norway, obviously you have the land of trolls and Norse gods, but in the dark forests of Norway, there's the Legend of the Huldra, which is a beautiful forest spirit that lures travelers off the path with their song before vanishing into the mist.

In China, you have the legend of the moon rabbit, who you can see on clear nights near the Temple of Heaven.

Ghost stories are a major part of Chinese culture, especially during what they call the Hungry Ghost Festival in Germany, Obviously the medieval pass is filled with lots of eerie folklore that you could draw from.

Like the Lorelei is a siren haunt, the Ry river, and there's a legend of the kobolds and the dark black forest, which are these mysterious spirits of mines and hearths that were blamed for noises and missing tools.

In Italy, there are plenty of ghost stories and legends going back to ancient Rome, as well as a lot of Italian Catholic guilt and the legends of the lamures who were believed to be these vengeful spirits of the dead who would return if their rights were neglected.

Over in the American Adventure, obviously we have everything from Salem witches to colonial ghost tales to southern folklore.

I mean, the legends are as vast as the nation itself.

So I think there's a lot you can draw from here.

In Japanese folklore, beauty and terror sort of coexist.

So there are things like the Urai or ghosts that appear as figures in kimonos.

There's also the Kitsune, the shape shifting fox spirits that are said to trick travelers or sometimes protect them.

In Morocco, which I think is beautiful at night, you have the stories of the Jin, who are these beings of sort of smokeless fire that live among us, that are both kind and chaotic.

Over in the France pavilion, look, Paris is said to be one of the most haunted cities in Europe.

And I wish there was some way to create replicas of the miles of catacombs that live beneath its streets.

But there's also stories of Le Damlanche with the White lady who appears on lonely roads to warn travelers of dangers ahead.

Over in the uk, I think ghost stories are sort of part of Britain's DNA.

I think there's a way to sort of lean into the idea of stepping into this sort of Victorian ghost stories or the headless ghost of Anne Boy Lynn.

I think there's a lot that you could draw from here.

And the vast Canadian wilderness is also home to lots of eerie legends and creatures like the Wendingo, this spirit of both greed and hunger.

And again, I think there's just a lot to draw from here culturally from a storytelling perspective and having actors come and share these stories and legends in a way that's both educational as well as atmospheric.

I think it's more about leaning into the culture as opposed to the horror and honoring that real folklore with Epcot and Disney's legacy of edutainment DNA for what I think could really be sort of this cross between cultural storytelling and fun, very well themed supernatural theater.

And yes, I resisted the temptation to talk about the potential food opportunities.

Okay, next we're going to go number two.

We're gonna go over to the Magic Kingdom.

And still one of my favorite attractions, one that I think potentially offers a neat story and possibly somewhat realistic storytelling perspective, and one that also ties back to Walt Disney.

I want you to imagine the Haunted Railroad, sort of the ghost train of the Magic Kingdom, where you have nighttime runs of the Walt Disney World Railroad, featuring spooky narration and effects.

So during Halloween season, which I know begins in August, the railroad tell stories from each different land as a train circles the park at night.

Each segment has its own narrator, like a ghostly conductor or a mischievous spirit going through the tunnels.

I think you could have, like, theatrical fog effect at different stations or as you go through some of the different lands.

And again, every station, every area will tell a different ghost story attached to railroad history from phantom trains and vanished passengers and some of these historic railway mysteries.

And as you circle the park, the lighting will change to make some of these scenes that were very familiar look very different.

And so, like, Main street can talk about these opening day spirits that still walk the park.

And Frontierland Station shares Old west ghost town tales.

And Fantasyland could talk about some of these fairy tale warnings and enchanted forests at night.

And I could imagine having either the overhead conductor sharing these stories or real live actor conductors who are on the different train cars enhancing the experience.

And this is actually something that I think could realistically be executed because it doesn't really require much of a change of infrastructure.

And I think there's a high payoff factor for guests in terms of really effective storytelling.

For number three on my list, we're going to stay in Magic Kingdom.

Again, suspend your bit of disbelief because we're going to go over to Tomorrowland and Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress, A Century of Frights, where I think there could be this humorous and still heartwarming Halloween overlay showing how Americans have celebrated spooky season through time.

So, for example, each era and scene would showcase how we have experienced Halloween through the decade.

So in the 1900s, very simple.

The family's just going to gather around for parlor games and bobbing for apples and telling ghost stories by candlelight and the father can talk about, you know, the old country superstitions that they brought over and maybe even some subtle nods to spiritualism and seances that were popular back then in the 1920s.

It's about sitting around the radio that is crackling with that very early sort of first horror radio drama and think about how cool the costumes would be.

And they're carving turnips, which were the original jack o' lanterns before pumpkins.

And Uncle's going to talk about those new moving pictures with Lon Chaney before we move into the 1940s where the family is still listening to the radio, but this time it's sort of an Orson Welles style radio.

Horror and trick or treating is just start to becoming a thing.

And because of things like war rationing, costumes are being created from bedsheets and flour sacks.

And I think there's this cool opportunity for learning about history, right?

Those sort of wartime thrift costumes and things that really happened during that time, like the impact of the War of the Worlds broadcast moment.

Then, in the quote unquote modern day, the family is going to talk about their elaborate Halloween decorations outside that we can sort of see through the window.

There's animatronics and music and lights.

And they are planning to stream their horror movie marathon on Disney plus, talking about sort of the retro Halloween versus modern Halloween.

There could be some not so subtle nods to Disney's own Halloween content here.

So you have this sort of modern, smart home decor with still everything pumpkin spice and ugg boots and down vests and still this tie into there being a great big beautiful tomorrow.

And I think this concept works because I think it still keeps the charm of the attraction and more importantly, the family, while teaching how Halloween has evolved alongside technology and culture.

For number four, and I just realized there's probably gonna be more than five because I don't want to abandon a couple of these ideas.

For number four, we are going to.

This might be nightmare fuel, but we're gonna stay in Magic Kingdom.

We're gonna go over to Fantasyland to It's a Small World when the lights go out.

This is an after hours overlay celebrating how every culture is gonna once again, like what we talked about in Epcot, gonna sort of honor the spirits and the harvest.

And so as your boat passes through all of the different scenes, the lighting is very different.

The dolls are sort of sleeping in these much darker scenes.

And as your boat comes through, very subtle lighting is going to reveal them in nighttime moonlit settings, but also showcasing their unique Halloween or Harvest or Day of the Dead traditions like the Japanese Oban lanterns and Irish Samhain celebrations and the Chinese Hungry Ghost festivals.

So there is a different version of the music, almost sort of like a music box version of the song in a minor key.

So it's sort of gentle and mysterious as opposed to being scary, but really about celebrating how different cultures honor the supernatural and some of the changing seasons and in their own ways.

So it's not scary.

This is done very gently, very inclusively, very educationally.

So it's still a little, or for some people, a lot spooky, but still kind of comforting.

And I think it works because it's educational, it's culturally respectful, it uses the existing infrastructure and I think creates a very different emotional experience of a very familiar attraction.

And as I'm saying this out loud, I wish I could ask Richard Sherman what he would think of this idea and how he could make the It's a Small World theme, maybe in that minor key, just a little bit scary.

Er, I don't know.

We'll never know.

Anyway, we're going to stay in Magic Kingdom, where it seemed like a lot of my ideas are taking shape.

And finally we're going to get to something that involves one of my favorite parts of the Disney experience, which is, of course, food.

We're going to head over to Skipper Canteen and the haunted mess Hall.

And this is an experience that is as much about the actors as it is the environment, because I almost sort of picture this as an immersive dinner show where the Jungle Cruise skippers spend one cursed night in the canteen.

And what you do is you transform the restaurant into this immersive Halloween dining experience.

Right.

The Jungle Cruise Skippers are stuck in the canteen, and like the Adventures Club, some of the mounted animals and artifacts have come alive.

And throughout dinner, there are subtle or not so subtle animatronic movements.

There's projection effects on the walls, maybe showing some of the different jungle spirits.

I think you could even draw from some of Jungle Cruises and other stories around the world.

And I think the Skippers are performing as if they're sort of like trying to survive the night with obviously their humor still intact.

It's very easy to add or even rename some of the menu items with some spooky names, but keep some of the cool flavors.

And I think there's an opportunity here to emphasize the society of explorer and adventurer lore, where you have those tales of the cursed artifacts and the mysterious disappearances and some of the things that maybe were discovered in the Jungle, but maybe should have stayed lost and maybe even like guests could help try and break the curse.

I think there's a lot of opportunity here and I think it works because you have this contained space.

You can utilize the existing decor, add things like flickering lanterns or vines on the walls and glowing artifacts.

I think it's a ticketed experience.

I think you can leverage that sea mythology that I think Disney's been quietly building in the background.

More importantly, I think it showcases and brings to the forefront cast members and their talent as they perform in character.

I think there's jokes could meet jumpish moments.

I think there's a lot of reasons why it would work.

And I think from a somewhat selfish perspective, I think this is something that I would love, love, love to see.

Not because I love food, but I love Skipper Canteen, I love the Jungle Cruise, I love the actors, and I'd love to see more sea lure woven into not just the Halloween season, but all year long in the parks.

Number five on my list leans very heavily into not just nostalgia, but legend and legends.

This is the mysterious manor or the Museum of the Weird finally gets built.

Roly Crumps unrealized dream is finally brought to life.

This living in cabinet of Curiosities where imagination sort of haunts itself.

I want you to imagine this standalone attraction or maybe even something that is annexed to the Haunted Mansion.

Again, don't worry about logistics and where it would actually go.

Just follow me around the room with this.

That brings the Museum of the Weird to life.

This is a very surreal, immersive experience where every object tells a story and maybe things don't stay still for very long.

It is this celebration of the strange and the whimsical and the wonderful side of Disney's imagination.

And some of those things and those incredible ideas that never made it off the shelf at 1401 Flower Street.

It's not a haunted house.

It is a curiosity cabinet.

And maybe like this mysterious manor is this once forgotten, boarded up old museum that finally has its doors opened, tucked somewhere behind Liberty Square or even New Orleans Square at Disneyland.

And it was maybe like founded by this eccentric collector.

Who knows, maybe he was even one of Walt's earliest imagineers.

Who knows, Maybe his name was Roli.

Who knows, maybe he even vanished before the museum opened.

But every year on All Hallows Eve, the exhibits awaken and tell their stories once more.

I think this could be this as it was almost originally imagined, this walk through or even trackless sort of hybrid attraction.

Again, it's surreal, not scary.

Where the portraits follow you and these artifacts sort of murmur little secrets.

There is like I imagine again, I'm thinking back to some of the early concept art.

This music room that has like self playing instruments and floating chairs and melting candles and maybe even this corridor of lost dreams.

Maybe you sort of go into this back room where you see blueprints, not real blueprints, but imagineered blueprints of unbuilt rides that start to animate.

And I think there's so many opportunities for incredible Easter eggs and original artwork reproductions and sketches and nods to other haunted mansions and mystic manors and phantom manors around the world.

And I think it works because it honors very, you know, and Disney's Even done this at D23s in the past very the weird and wonderful legacy.

And I think there's this again, this.

There's this eerie wonder in terms of what this attraction could be.

Nods back to Disney's and imagineering's history and legacy and, and this sort of spiritual sequel or almost addendum to the Haunted Mansion.

And I think even from, you know, sort of a more grander scale, this is about imagination that never dies.

Like it's spooky.

Yes, a little bit.

But it's also a love letter to Walt's creative spirit, Rolly Crumps playfulness and the weird side of Disney's creative DNA.

And I'll call this 5A because, and I know I'm telling you to suspend your disbelief and maybe I can't suspend my own, but because of what it is and where I originally envisioned it would or could be.

It can't be.

This is Muppet Vision 3D Return to the Haunted Mansion.

This would have been or could be if they built a new theater or some other experience somewhere else.

A seasonal Halloween time film overlay which is almost like a sequel to Muppets Haunted Mansion on Disney plus, which I think by the way is not only some of the best Muppet stuff they've ever done on Disney plus.

I think it's some of the best original content ever put on Disney plus.

And the idea is that this is sort of a Muppet Halloween takeover.

And Gonzo and Pepe are filming a new documentary and the Electric Mayhem is there.

Like they're doing a jam session with this ghost band.

And I think you could have the Swedish Chef in a haunted kitchen.

Obviously Statler and Waldorf were there.

They've been ghosts all along.

Piggy.

There's this entire finale musical number and their rendition of grim grinning ghosts.

I think this Makes sense because I'd love to see more Muppets you could have rest in peace, use the original theater.

I think it's family friendly humor.

I think there's a cool like social buzz that would have have attached itself to this.

And I think it connects the Muppet and Haunted Mansion fandoms as they make this sort of mockumentary.

Like they can't go back to the Haunted Mansion again.

So Pepe is just like, all right, we're gonna go and film a documentary to make the really big money.

And that's exactly what this is.

They, the Muppets would sort of arrive at the mansion with their big 3D cameras and you would sort of go through these different acts and scene with all of the different characters.

And I think the pre show and the post show and gosh, I wish it was still there.

The gift shop could have all featured theming and story elements and merchandise to celebrate this idea of the Muppets Haunted Mansion.

Had the theater still been there, it would have been a very low lift in terms of a low barrier to entry with no major construction.

But alas, this and probably all of my ideas will never come to fruition.

It was more about sort of imagining two of my favorite things during my favorite time of year, Muppets and Haunted Mansion and one of my favorite Halloween shows which is the Muppets Haunted Mansion on Disney plus coming together for an in park sequel type experience and a couple of quick honorable mentions.

I had more ideas, but I want to try and keep it as much as I can to my five.

But these just sort of bear mentioning I think would obviously you have to somehow leverage the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

And what I wish we could see is a Twilight Zone Tower hotel year round or even seasonal lounge.

A highly themed and obviously we see this shift with things like Geo82 etc, a highly themed, possibly even adults only bar or lounge adjacent to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror where guests can come in for not just like an elevated experience, but can encounter these mysterious characters and maybe even solve a hotel mystery.

Maybe this is like, maybe it's even a ticketed experience.

I'm thinking out loud with multiple seatings per night.

Think like Hoop Dee Doo but in a lounge setting.

You can call it like the 5th Dimension Club or something.

And there's cool mixology focused cocktails, a lot of immersive detail that really sort of feels as though it came right out of the hotel and lobby and really have this storytelling driven experience that maybe just lasts, you know, a couple hours.

Throughout the night.

I just dig Tower of Terror.

I dig Halloween.

I just think something like that would be super, super cool.

Especially if it's something that's not just a passive sit in the lounge type of experience, but something not like an escape room, but almost like this.

Not murder, but like a murder mystery type experience that lasts a couple of hours and happens multiple times throughout the evening.

And then finally I tried to think of something and I asked myself, like, what if you could do something outside of the park that you didn't need a park ticket?

Or it wasn't an after hours experience.

And that brought me over to Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa because I think the architecture, the theming, the location could lend itself.

And I haven't sort of fully flushed this idea, but could almost lend itself to this limited run, almost sort of a signature dining experience that would transform one of the resort ballrooms, which are relatively sort of plain.

And I've seen what they've done at in for events in the past and weddings and corporate events.

They can convert this into an incredibly well themed, haunted turn of the century, almost like a masquerade ball, where not just guests could come either in, you know, semi formal dressy wear or sophisticated costumes, but there would be costumed actors there for this elaborate, albeit somewhat spooky banquet.

And I have one other concept for an attraction that I realize isn't necessarily spooky and doesn't even necessarily have to fit within the Halloween season.

So maybe I'll save this idea for another Blue sky concept show in the future.

But these are just a few 5ish of my ideas for new Halloween attractions, overlays and experiences that I would love to see come to Walt Disney World.

Some are spooky, some are nostalgic, but are all inspired by a little bit of Disney magic and some imagination and lots of caffeine.

But I want to hear from you.

What do you think of my ideas?

Which one would you like to see come to life?

Or more importantly, what kind of new Halloween experience would you create for Walt Disney World?

You can share your thoughts and your own ideas by joining the conversation and community over in the clubhouse on Facebook at www.radio.com clubhouse.

Or better yet, call the voicemail at 407-900-9391.

Tell me what you'd love to see in the parks next Halloween and I will play it on the air.

Because even if I get 999 great.

Ideas, there's room for a thousand.

Any volunteers.

That'S going to do it for this week's show.

Thank you once again for listening and for being part of the WWW family.

I am so incredibly grateful to and for you and I hope that you found some magic, some fun, some distraction and laughter in this week's show.

I hope that you feel better because of it.

And if you do and if you enjoy the show, please help spread the word.

Tell a Friend Share it on Social Tag me at lumangello.

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I am at Lou Mongello and you can Also visit lou mongello.com if you are looking for a speaker for your next conference event or for your school, or if you'd like to work together and have me try and help you turn what you love into what you do with one on one coaching, my momentum events and other content courses and community.

And I hope that you love and enjoy Spooky Season and Halloween as much as I do with your family, with your friends.

Whether you are trick or treating or not.

I'd love to see how you're celebrating Halloween.

Share your costumes, decorations, favorite treats or traditions over in the clubhouse.

Or if you share them on social, Be sure again to tag me umangello and until then, remember to be kind, choose the good.

Have a great day and even better tomorrow.

I love and appreciate you.

Thanks again.

Well, it sounds pretty good.

In fact, that's just the right spirit.

Hurry back.

Hurry back.

Be sure to bring your death certificate if you decide to join us.

Make final arrangements now.

We've been dying to have you.