What would Halloween be without Disney Characters? The Halloween Season usually has lots of rare characters come out in the park, whether it’s a Disney Villain or a classic character in special Halloween outfits.
We’ve made a selection of character photos from the Halloween Seasons of 2003 to 2011:
Over the past few Halloween seasons, there has been quite a selection of Halloween merchandise released.
We’ve compiled a selection of merchandise from over the years in this slideshow.
Tip: click the first thumbnail and keep clicking the enlarged image to go forward. Captions are provided below each image.
The Phantom Cruise Line was a huge ghostly sculpture that appeared to pull the Mark Twain Riverboat during the Halloween Season of 2003 and 2004. It didn’t return for the 2005 season after several technical issues and even a derailment.
Did you ever have the chance to see the Phantom Cruise Line cross the Rivers of the Far West?
In 2005 the Halloween season was expanded with more Disneyland Paris-unique characters, called the Pink Witches. The story behind it was that Pink Witches arrived in Disneyland Park and set up a convention meeting in Halloweenland, called the Pink Witch Academy. Their sole purpose was to battle the Pumpkin Men and made the guests choose sides.
With the arrival of these new decorations, many Disney fans world wide were shocked by the cheap designs and build. On top of that, a collection of Pink Witches representing European countries were considered by many fans and guests as an insult.
Judge for yourself with these photos from 2005:
The Halloween Season just started at Disneyland Paris and the decorations look better than ever! But this wasn’t always the case. A few years back the Disneyland Paris Entertainment department created their own characters called The Pumpkin Men. They first appeared randomly around 2002 and 2003, but it wasn’t until 2004 when they were introduced in the park with an actual story. This story was posted on Main Street, U.S.A. and retells how the Pumpkin Men are born and how they ended up frozen on Main Street, U.S.A.
Read the official story and browse through our archival pictures of the Halloween Season of 2004.
Once upon a Halloween
Once upon a time, and for every Halloween since, in a mystical “marvelous” and mischievous place called Halloweenland, there grows the magical Pumkinwood Forest.
At this autumnal time of year, when nature turns orange, the great trumpet flowers bloom on the pumpkin vines to herald the season.
The friendly scarecrows nurture the patch, so full to bursting with these very special pumpkin seedlings.
On the night when the full October moon shines bright, Halloween magic calls the wines to arise and entwine: Pumpkin trees flourish out of the garden.
The fruit of these twisted trees are fantastic creatures, half Halloween and half Human. Gloved hands and booted feet pop out of the autumnal plants and onto their buds from brushes and buckets. The bloom in the light of the harvest moon to become… PUMPKIN MEN!
Pumpkin Men are painters with a passion. Their true Halloween trick or treat fun comes from the obsession to paint everything that comes along their path the most splendid color: orange.
Once the last pumpkin man has picked himself from the wine, off they go, with their gear in tow, to fill up their buckets with their bright orange paint.
The paint comes from the Pumpkin Paint Pit of Big Thunder Mountain. The orange mountain glows in the middle of the wicked Waters of the Far West, inviting the Pumpkin Men to come and take possession of the magic orange pigment to fabricate their paint.
However, the river is full of Spooky Specter Slime. Evil Spirit emerge from the water to ambush and capture the Pumpkin Men. But our Halloween heroes have devised very clever solutions for getting to and from their pit without falling into the wicked waters. If the Pumpkin Men fall into the murky slime, they go bad and turn green!
Just prior to the stroke of midnight, this jolly team of Pumpkin Men painters sneak their way out Halloween Land, rolling a humongous pumpkin onto Central Plaza. These Pumpin Men are full of Trick or Treat Magic. They blow orange pigment dust over the pumpkin and it grows before their eyes into an impressively Giant Jack ‘o’ Lantern.
It is easy as Pumpkin Pie for the Pumpkin Men to begin their splashing and splatching of orange paint on Main Street, U.S.A. The electric arches erected on the main thorough fare provide great shoots and ladders for our acrobatic artists, who scale the façades with ease.
The Pumpkin Men are having so much fun that they hardly noticed the screechy screams of Gruzella, the wacky witch who is making her way to Halloween Land for the enchanted evening of incantations.
Gruzella takes her favorite blind corner hairpin turn, and is caught by surprise! Smack in the middle of a cackling giggle, she smashes, crashes, plunges and just plain spatches into the Gazebo in Town Square.
Time stand still.
The unlucky Pumpkin Men are statisfied! Mummytized! Freeze-Fried right in mid-stroke of their orange masterpiece!
Those Pumpkin Men, who were not in the wrong place at the wrong time, continue their trick or treat mischief throughout the Halloween festival season. Whether frozen in an archway in full swing of orange artistic folly, or enchanted and articulately live, the Pumpkin Men have one creed… They come out only once a year during Halloween to do what?
PAINT OF COURSE!!!
When you visit Walt Disney Studios Park and you’re in for a snack, there’s Disney Blockbuster Cafe right across Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster avec Aerosmith. It has two themed rooms: High School Musical and Pirates of the Caribbean, but did you know this wasn’t always like that? Up until June 2009 the place was called Backlot Express Restaurant and was themed to a props storage room!
(Top: Backlot Express Restaurant; Bottom: Disney Blockbuster Café)
Upon entering Backlot Express, you would’ve noticed a large collection of stuff (or junk) you’d find at a flea market, all grouped together. But among that “junk” there were also real movie props from productions as Dinotopia, 102 Dalmations and Armageddon. In the main room where the food counters were located, there were a few bigger props attached to the ceiling. Among them a large generic shark, a Kit Kat glider and an original Imperial Speed Bike from Star Wars Episove IV: Return of the Jedi. There was even a Space Pod from the now closed Horizons attraction from Epcot.
In the room on the left hand side of the main room, more generic “props” could be found. The walls were decorated with clocks of all sizes, as well as photo frames and signs. There were also several storyboards on the walls, including artwork for a Kit Kat commercial.
A shelf suspended from the ceiling hid several props from Armageddon, as well as a scale model of Disney’s California Adventure Park information kiosk and blue prints of a “Special Effects Building” for Disney-MGM Studios.
All of these props disappeared in the Disneyland Paris Imagineering archives and got replaced by the Pirates of the Caribbean and High School Musical props and costumes, none of which are originals…
Though it wasn’t perfect, one has to agree that the theming of the restaurant wasn’t the main issue, the food offering was and still is, as no changes have been made there…
Take the photo tours and judge for yourself:
For many Disneyland Paris fans, Café des Cascadeurs is the only table service restaurant that can be found in the park and sadly, it’s rarely open. But did you know besides the fact it serves burgers & fries, it has an actual history going back to 1950?!
The whole metal diner shell actually originates from New Jersey, New York where it was used as an actual diner called “The Excellent Diner”. It served classic American fast food up until 1995 when it was sold and shipped to Germany. It’s history from there on is unknown, but somehow a group of Walt Disney Imagineers found out about this excellent retro gem and purchased it for the Walt Disney Studios Park.
The interior of the diner was completely rebuild and brand new signs were designed to match the existing design.
Café des Cascadeurs opened a few months after Walt Disney Studios Park had opened on 16 March 2002.
Next time when you have the chance to have lunch here, remember you’re probably sitting in one of the oldest items that can be found in the entire resort!
Take the photo tour:
A big thank you goes to Jordan Zakarin who e-mailed me the history of The Excellent Diner a few years ago. Read his blog post, including a picture of the original diner here.
For several years Disney Village had been celebrating Chinese New Year with animation, games and decorations. We took a look inside our archives and found a photo set going back to February 2005.
Photos Magiques 