Frankenstein's Monster is a scrapped character, existing only as a concept sketch by Ken Anderson, who was to appear as one of the residents of the Haunted Mansion in the original ride.
The character was clearly based off of the Creature from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus and it's counterpart in the 1931 James Whale film adaptations.
Description[]
Origins[]
Novel[]
Frankenstein's Monster was created by the mad scientist Victor Frankenstein in an effort to play god and create his own life. The monster was created by pieces of corpse stolen from funeral parlours and even pieces of animal carcass stolen from abbatoires. The creature was brought to life by a combination of science and alchemy (although in modern culture, galvinism is most famously equaited with the creature's creation) but while Victor designed the creature to be beautiful, when it came to life it was hideous.
Victor proceeded to dissown the monster out of terror and the creature was forced to fend for itself in the wild where it was turned mad from the persecution it suffered from. Eventually the monster returned into Victor's life and tried to blackmail him into creating a mate for it so he wouldn't be alone but Victor refused causing a feud between the two. Ultimately Victor chased the monster to the Arctic Circle but died of hypothermia and the monster is believed to have done so as-well.
Films[]
In the films Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) by director James Whale and released by Universal studios, we were introduced to the more iconographic version of the monster seen in concept-artwork for the Haunted Mansion. This version of the monster was created by one Henry von Frankenstein through the use of lightning and an atypical brain taken from a serial-killer, brought to life not long before Henry's wedding to his bride Elizabeth Lavenza.
After being created, the newly born monster was imprisoned by the doctor in his tower laboratory where he would be abandoned and terrorized by Victor's deranged hunchbacked assistant, Fritz who tormented him with a torch. The monster killed Fritz and escaped the tower, albeit with a pathological fear of fire and the relative intelligence of a child. When it came into the world, it found only scorn and hatred from the villagers of the region; in part due to the monster having accidentally drowned a young girl by throwing her in a river, thinking she'd float like a flower due to her dress.
When the monster tried to confront his creator in Castle Frankenstein, it only terrorized Victor's fiancee and resulted in an angry mob of villagers chasing the creature to a mill which they set on fire. The monster was presumed dead but in truth survived and went on to live with an old blind man who taught the monster language, how to overcome his fear of fire, and about the joys of life. This joy would be short lived when a couple villagers saw the monster living with the old man and chased him out, killed the old man and burned down the cottage.
Left alone, the monster decided to once again confront his creator and ask him to create a friend for him to live with. Thankfully for the monster, Frankenstein had recently been reunited with his old university companion Dr. Septimus Praetorius who was more than eager to use his own mad science to create an organism with Dr. Frankenstein. Using more corpse matter and a heart harvested from a murdered woman, they created, "The Bride of Frankenstein" companion for the monster, only for the newborn creature to be horrified by her own existence and the hideousness of the monster. Realizing the true nature of his existence, the monster pulled a lever to destroy the lab as a means of committing murder suicide but telling Frankenstein to flee first and seek a better life.
Notable Disney Appearances[]
- The Karloff version of Frankenstein's monster appeared in the 1933 Mickey Mouse cartoon, "Mickey's Gala Premier". He is seen alongside Count Dracula and the Mister Hyde.
- A creature modelled after Frankenstein's monster appears in crowd scenes as a resident of Halloween Town in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) of which Haunted Mansion Holiday and Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare are based.
- Duckenstein, an Italian "Great Parodies" adaptation of the story, cast Donald Duck as Victor Frankenstein, an artist that uses alchemy and cardboard to bring a cartoon drawing to life. The monster, named Growl, is a gentle giant unaware of his appearance being repulsive to people. The monster's desire for others of his kind is ultimately fulfilled in a happy ending where Victor tracks Growl to the Arctic to tell him he's established a place for other animated creatures to live in peace, essentially offering an origin for Toontown.
- A depiction of Frankenstein's Monster appeared in the ABC show Once Upon a Time where he was named Gerhardt Frankenstein and was Victor Frankenstein's brother, resurrected by combining black magic with science.
- This show also featured Madame Leota and Memento Mori.
Appearances[]
Haunted Mansion Holiday[]
The 2024 Gingerbread House depicts a gingerbread man modelled after Boris Karloff's depiction of the monster, being brought to life nearby Igor from the Nightmare Before Christmas.
Unused Scripts[]
In deleted scripts by Ken Anderson, the Haunted Mansion attraction would have revolved around the wedding of an undead bride and groom who in later scripts were named "Mademoiselle Vampire and "Monsieur Bogyman". The wedding's guest-list would have included the likes of the Headless Horseman, Count Dracula, Great Caesar's Ghost, the Lonesome Ghosts, and Frankenstein's Monster.
Duane Alt eventually made concept art of the creature behind bars with a design very clearly inspired by the Boris Karloff adaptaion of the character (considering his flat head).[1]
Trivia[]
- While Frankenstein's Monster never made it into the ride, the character of Sparky from Tim Burton's Frankenweenie who is inspired by the figure does have a form of cameo at the attraction during the seasonal Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay at Disneyland.
- The character of Doctor Finkelstein from the Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) who appears in Haunted Mansion Holiday and Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare was made as a pastiche of Dr. Frankenstein with his creation Sally being a sort of Frankenstein Monster.
- Mulch, a Muppet version of Frankenstein's Monster from Muppets Tonight, was featured among the Happy Haunts in Muppets Haunted Mansion.
- Frankenstein's Monster was one of several literary, historic and cinematic characters which Ken Anderson wished to include as "Famous Ghosts" for the mansion. Others reportedly included: Anne Boleyn, Lucrezia Borgia, Anne Bonny,Jack the Ripper, King Tut, Jacob Marley, Ebeneezer Scrooge, Captain Hook, Quasimodo, Erik the Opera Phantom, Count Dracula, the Canterville Ghost, Simon Legree, Little Eva, the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, Great Ceasar's Ghost and the Lonesome Ghosts.
- The monster's flat head was designed for the 1931 film Frankenstein by makeup artist Jack Pierce. This was done to visually represent how Frankenstein was not a trained surgeon so he could not properly perform brain-surgery on the creature so he rather opted to design the creature's skull like a can which was stitched shut at the top so he could open it up easily.
- Count Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, Quasimodo, the Phantom of the Opera and Mister Hyde are the only classic Universal movie monsters known to have been proposed to appear in the Haunted Mansion. Of them, only Count Dracula and an alternate version of Mr. Hyde would appear.
- It should be noted that the arsonist portrait was originally planned to be a werewolf, a mummy appears in the attraction, and a Creature from the Black Lagoon inspired monster once was depicted in Phantom Manor.