‘Muppets Haunted Mansion’ Brings New Energy, Synergy to Disney’s 2004 Purchase

In a way, I was predisposed to hate Muppets Haunted Mansion. I’ve loved the Muppets since I was a kid, and it’s no exaggeration to say that our mutual appreciation for them is one of the reasons my wife and I fell in love. I was a bit of a latecomer to Disney parks, since theme parks were very much not my parents’ thing, so I never went to Walt Disney World until I was 37, in 2010. However, my family has been there many times since, Haunted Mansion is one of our favorite rides, and we never leave the Magic Kingdom without going on it at least once. So you can see how it wouldn’t have been hard at all for Muppets Haunted Mansion to disappoint me. Indeed, most of the Disney-produced Muppets media that’s come out since they bought the property in 2004 has been somewhat to very disappointing.

I was pleasantly surprised to find I enjoyed it a great deal. It tells the story of Gonzo and Pepé the King Prawn visiting a haunted mansion in an attempt to win a prize by surviving the night. What follows are a series of bizarre adventures, mostly-pointless cameos, and many, many in-jokes. It’s hard to write about much of it without spoiling the fun…