The One-Eyed Black Cat was an unused character found in early concepts for the Haunted Mansion.
History[]
Development[]
In an unused X. Atencio script for the Haunted Mansion, the One-Eyed Black Cat would have been a sort of main-antagonist within the Haunted Mansion. The cat's role would be redacted and largely given over to development of the Raven we see in the final attraction. However, many of the elements planned for the raven which were carried over from the characterization of the cat went unused.
The function and design of the cat's head turning into something resembling a human skull was later used for the Attic's pop-up ghosts. These heads would be removed in the year 2006 with the refurbishment that incorporated Constance Hatchaway into the attraction.
Role[]
The Ghost Host would have warned you at the beginning of the attraction of the "Unnatural and dreadful one-eyed black cat" claiming that he detests mortals, especially happy ones. In the attraction the cat would have would have appeared near the climax of the ride in the form of nothing more than a red and green cat eye which has the corpselike cat's head materialize around it with the empty eye socket having a red glowing dot inside of it. The cat's head would then transform into that of a screaming green corpse head.
It is unknown how this effect would be achieved or presented. His eye could also be seen at other points in the ride, indicating the monster's status as a mastermind behind the events of the whole house.
Origins[]
Similarly to the Raven, the Cat was to be a reference to Edgar Allan Poe's gothic short story The Black Cat (1843), in which a violent alcoholic man stabs out his pet cat Pluto's eye and hangs the animal out of guilt. This is only for another black cat missing the same eye to show up at the man's door, with the difference of having a white patch of fur on its chest resembling a gallows.
The man comes to feel so paranoid and enraged by the cat that he intends to kill it, only for his wife to get in the way and for him to use the axe to murder his wife instead. He goes on to stuff his wife's body in an out-of-use brick chimney that he walled up behind her. When the police arrive to investigate, they are alerted of something being behind the chimney by meowing on the other side and when they tear down the wall they find the black cat sitting upon the wife's corpse. The killer is then arrested and sent away to imprisonment where he supposedly documents the story while in captivity.
This identification could tie into the, "Famous Ghosts and Ghosts trying to make a name for Themselves" element of the mansion's lore in-which the Ghost Relations Department of Disneyland tried to encourage ghosts from around the world to retire to the mansion. With this in mind it is possible that the Cat was intended to be the same undead one-eyed black cat from the famous Edgar Allan Poe story The Black Cat, and that the cat was one of the of the Famous Ghosts who retired in the Haunted Mansion (similarly to Great Caesar's Ghost or Dracula in the final attraction).
Legacy[]
Attractions[]
Disneyland[]
As part of a 2021 refurbishment, a statue of the cat with one glowing red eye was added to the attraction's loading area alongside April-December. During Haunted Mansion Holiday, a black/white pinstriped bow is tied around the cat's neck. The cat is also set to be incorporated into a 2024 outdoor queue expansion.
The Black Cat on the Composer's Crypt
Walt Disney World[]
In the queue outside of Liberty Square's mansion a carving of the cat is seen in the bottom right hand corner of the backside of the composer's crypt alongside many Rolly Crump/Museum of the Weird inspired musical instruments. If you put your hand up against the carving cat it can be heard meowing.
Printed materials[]
The Haunted Mansion: Frights of Fancy[]
Sydney Campbell, the protagonist of the Frights of Fancy graphic novel from IDW, wears a T-Shirt featuring the cat's face.
Trivia[]
- The Cat's true nature in a Mansion-related context (had he been installed) is ambiguous. He may have been a ghost shapeshifting as a cat, the ghost of a cat, or even a demon (or other form of spirit) that had never really been alive in the first place.
- The cat would have served as one of the few explicitly villainous or otherwise malevolent ghosts in the Haunted Mansion where-as most of those found in the attraction are neutral.
- This has since gained the cat a fair amount of reputation within the fandom as an antagonistic figure.