Grim Grinning Ghosts
"Grim Grinning Ghosts (The Screaming Song)" is the theme song for The Haunted Mansion franchise and its attractions at Disney theme parks. It was composed by Buddy Baker, with lyrics written by X Atencio.[1] Its melody has been adapted for numerous uses since its composition in the late 1960s.
Variations[edit]
Haunted Mansion[edit]
Many different music loops are used throughout the Haunted Mansion attractions at Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and Tokyo Disneyland. Speakers disguised within the sets allow the music to fade in and out as guests pass through the different areas. The following variations of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" can be heard in these attractions.
In film[edit]
Disney released the videos Disney Sing Along Songs: Disneyland Fun – It's a Small World and Disney Sing Along Songs: Let's Go to Disneyland Paris! as it composed the song.
When Walt Disney Pictures released the 2003 film adaptation, composer Mark Mancina was asked to write the film's music. Like Phantom Manor's soundtrack, the movie score is orchestral and uses "Grim Grinning Ghosts" frequently. However, Mancina used "Grim Grinning Ghosts" in somewhat different ways from Debney, focusing more on relatively light-hearted background music and ominous crescendos of orchestra and organ than on waltz-like passion. Cues such as the film's overture allowed Mancina to work with both "Grim Grinning Ghosts" and a theme of his own invention. A scene in the mansion's graveyard also features the attraction's singing busts, whose musical selections include a few lines from the song. The vast majority of the film's music, though, was never officially released as a soundtrack, though copies of a complete album given to staff and orchestra members can occasionally be found for sale. Four minutes of the score did make it onto the "Haunted Hits" CD release, which groups "Sara Passes Out", the overture, and "Going to Heaven" into one track entitled "Overture from The Haunted Mansion". However, none of the orchestral and/or organ statements of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" are heard on this album.
Despite these, the Overture also pays homage to the ride's organ heard in the Foyer and Corridor of Doors, as it is played in a similar style of a funeral dirge, but the melody is done on a cathedral-style organ, with orchestral strings backing it up, creating a more ominous atmosphere.
For the 2023 film Haunted Mansion, director Justin Simien confirmed that composer Kris Bowers included several interpolations of the theme in his score, stating, "Our composer, Kris Bowers, turned those simple phrases into one of the most lush, exciting movie scores I've heard."[3]