One-Eyed Black Cat

The One-Eyed Black Cat is a character from unused scripts for the Haunted Mansion, based on the titular antagonist of Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat (1843).
==History==
===Development history===
====The Black Cat====
The Black Cat was clearly inspired by the 1843 Gothic-horror story The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. In said story, an alcoholic man and his wife have a menagerie of pets including a black cat named Pluto. In a drunken rage one night, the man uses a pen to carve out one of Pluto's eyeballs, though he regrets doing so after. Unable to cope with the cat as a living reminder of his loss of control, the man kills Pluto by hanging it from the neck in the tree outside his house.
Following this event, the man's house burned down leaving him and his wife to find a new home. At this new home, they came upon a one-eyed black cat nearly identical to Pluto, albeit for a white patch on its chest which the man saw as being in the shape of a gallows. The couple took in this cat and gave it the name of Pluto in tribute to their old beloved pet, though the husband was neurotically afraid of the creature. One night the man had a complete breakdown due to fearing the cat and his wife not believing him, so he took a hatchet and murdered his wife.
The husband stuffed his wife's corpse in an out-of-use chimney within the basement and bricked over it. When police arrived, they began to hear a sound coming from the chimney which they noticed was recently bricked over. To the man's protest, they tore open the chimney and within found the wife's corpse with the one-eyed black cat sitting atop it. The man was subsequently arrested and it is ultimately left ambiguous as to if the cat was truly supernatural or a figment of his broken mind.
====The Haunted Mansion====
The One-Eyed Black Cat was the main antagonist of the Haunted Mansion in an unused script written by X. Atencio. Guests would have been warned by the Ghost Host at the beginning of the ride to beware of the cat as it is a powerful being which has a hatred of mortals. The red-glowing slit eye of the cat would watch guests throughout the attraction until eventually appearing as an undead cat's head. This head would then transform into the rotting corpse of a human as guests made their escape.
==Appearances==
===Disney Parks===
====The Haunted Mansion====
=====Disneyland=====
In 2021, a statue of the black cat (which is ironically white) was integrated into the interior queue of the Haunted Mansion. It appears nearby the portrait of April-December and has one glowing red left eye.
=====Magic Kingdom=====
There is a stone carving of the one-eyed black cat featured on the composer's crypt. When guests place their hands on it, it makes meowing sounds to the melody, "Grim Grinning Ghosts".
===Printed materials===
====The Haunted Mansion: Frights of Fancy====
The protagonist of this story, Sydney Campbell wears a t-shirt with the design of the one-eyed black cat on it.
==Trivia==
*The Black Cat and the Raven are both Haunted Mansion characters based on paranormal animals from the literary cannon of Edgar Allan Poe.
==Gallery==
PlutoCat.webp|The cat as seen in the queue for Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion
Category:Unused concepts
Category:Theme park characters
Category:Cats
Category:The Haunted Mansion characters
Category:Villains
Category:Deleted characters
Category:Spirits
Category:Deceased characters
Category:Disney characters