It's a well regarded example of Tim Burton's style, home to my 4th favorite skeleton,
and the inspiration for half of the clothing line at Hot Topic.
My name is Tim and today we're counting down 107 facts about "The Nightmare Before Christmas"!
Danny Elfman was the composer for The Nightmare Before Christmas. He is a longtime friend
and frequent collaborator of Tim Burton’s. He also created the main title theme for a
little show called The Simpsons. Maybe you’ve HEARD OF IT BECAUSE IT'S THE FREAKING SIMPSONS!
Chris Sarandon was cast to play Jack Skellington. The actor is best known for his role as Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride.
It turned out that Sarandon couldn’t sing,
so Danny Elfman provided the singing voice for Jack Skellington.
Elfman also voiced Barrel and the clown with the tear-away face.
Zero’s glowing noise is actually a tiny jack-o’-lantern.
Danny Elfman has said that writing songs for
The Nightmare Before Christmas was “one of the easiest jobs I’ve ever had. I had
a lot in common with Jack Skellington.”
In 2001, Walt Disney Pictures considered making
a computer animated sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas. Tim Burton managed to talk
them out of it. He’s said, “I was always very protective of The Nightmare Before Christmas
not to do sequels or things of that kind. You know, ‘Jack visits Thanksgiving world’
or other kinds of things just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people
that like it.” Which is a very noble thing to keep in mind when Sora comes visiting in Kingdom Hearts 2.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is based on
a three-page poem of the same name, which was written by Burton while he was a Disney
animator in the 1980s. He originally intended to adapt the poem into a television special
narrated by Vincent Price, or a children’s book. Instead it has been adapted into the entire apparel line at Hot Topic.
Burton’s poem draws inspiration from holiday television specials such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, as well as the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas.
Tim Burton was spurred to write the poem after seeing a store’s Halloween merchandise display
being taken down and replaced by a Christmas display. Seeing ghouls and goblins alongside
Santa and his reindeer got his creative juices flowing.
According to Henry Selick, Vincent Price,
Tim Burton’s childhood idol, was originally cast to play the role of Santa Claus. Unfortunately,
after Price’s wife passed away, his own health began to suffer and his vocal performances
were too weak to be used. They also had a sadness to them that made them unsuitable
for Santa Claus. To Selick’s great regret, they had to recast the role.
It took a team of one hundred people around three years to complete the film.
Twelve stop motion frames were shot for each second of the film. The final film was a total
of 109,440 frames!
If you pay attention to the street band in the film, particularly when they’re inside
the town hall, you’ll be able to notice a small man inside the bass. The character
is based on composer Danny Elfman.
The original introduction for the film was narrated by Patrick Stewart, but it was cut
at the last minute for unknown reasons. He can still be heard on the film’s soundtrack.
The 2008 Special Edition Blu-ray/DVD release of the film includes a reading of the original
poem that it’s based on by Christopher Lee. The poem is accompanied with new animated visuals.
There’s some back and forth debate on who
has the right to call the film their own. Henry Selick was its director and spent more
time on the set and production than Tim Burton did, but Burton claims that he owns the story
because it was all his idea. He wrote the original poem and most of the script, he designed
the characters, and he served as a producer on the film.
Tim Burton wanted to direct The Nightmare Before Christmas,
but was working on both Batman and Ed Wood and couldn’t find the time.
Henry Selick has estimated that Burton was only present a total of eight to ten days during the film’s production.
There is a verse in the song “This is Halloween”
with the words “tender lumplings everywhere.” The line is referring to a song written by
Danny Elfman for Oingo Boingo titled “Tender Lumplings.”
The most difficult shot to film in the entire movie was the one that has Jack reaching for
the doorknob to Christmasland. Getting the reflection in the doorknob to look just right
took a staggering degree of time and effort.
During the film’s production, the crew came
up with two inventions to assist them with animating. The first was a “light alarm”
that warned animators if any stage lights failed to come on. The second was a system
that enabled a stop motion puppeteer to seamlessly replace a puppet mid-shot.
Dr. Finklestein isn’t listed by name in the film’s cast credits. Instead, he’s
included as “Evil Scientist.”
Tim Burton and Danny Elfman may be buddies,
but that doesn’t mean they’re immune to “creative differences.” In fact, the ones
they encountered while working on The Nightmare Before Christmas led to Burton selecting Howard
Shore to compose for the film Ed Wood instead of Elfman.
The opening overhead shot of trees in the forest and the shot of bugs falling into Oogie
Boogie’s molten pit are the only two in the film to have been shot at 24 frames per second.
Since 2001, Disneyland California and Disneyland
Tokyo have had a seasonal overlay for the Haunted Mansion ride called Haunted Mansion
Holiday in California and Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare in Tokyo. It combines the
original ride with characters and elements from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
An instrumental version of “Kidnap the Sandy Claws” can be heard on The Haunted Mansion Holiday ride.
The Nightmare Before Christmas was originally going to be released under the Walt Disney
Pictures banner, which can be seen in its teaser trailer, but was moved to the Touchstone
Pictures label by the time its theatrical trailer was released. Michael Eisner, the
CEO and Chairman of The Walt Disney Company at the time, felt the film was “too dark for kids.”
When the film was re-released in October 2006,
it was once again under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.
The Nightmare Before Christmas poem by Tim Burton only contained the characters Jack,
Zero, and Santa. All other characters were original to the movie, with the exception
of some of the children who had their names mentioned in the poem.
Sally’s insides are composed of leaves.
The character Behemoth is based on the Swedish movie actor and wrestler Tor Johnson.
I'm not sure how Tor Johnson feels about that.
A crossed-out calculation on Jack’s blackboard declares that three times pi squared, multiplied
by 12 equals a Santa hat.
Some presents Jack delivers are references to earlier Tim Burton films.
The snake toy resembles a Sandworm from Beetlejuice.
The shrunken head toy is taken from the afterlife
waiting room in Beetlejuice.
The cat toy resembles the mascot for Shreck’s department store in Batman Returns.
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The duck toy is similar to a vehicle driven by the Penguin in Batman Returns.
The first home visited by Jack has what appear to be two commemorative Elvis Presley plates
hanging on a wall in the living room. This is likely a pointer to the iconic singer’s
song “Blue Christmas,” in which he croons “I’ll have a blue Christmas without you.”
Jonathan Davis of Korn has created a metal cover of “Kidnap the Sandy Claws.”
Each minute of The Nightmare Before Christmas took an entire week of filming.
There are around 60 different characters in the film, and each one has three or four duplicate puppets.
Despite the crazy number of puppets, the film’s
sculpture department only consisted of four people.
Jack Skellington had over four hundred different heads that were used during filming.
Because her long hair prevented animators
from swapping out her entire head, Sally had different masks for her various facial expressions instead.
There were ten different faces for Sally,
and each one had eleven different and unique expressions.
Many of the film’s sets required twenty to thirty lights to achieve its dramatic look.
The film’s sets may have been miniatures, but when they were being lit, they were given
the same treatment as full-sized movie sets.
Jack is available in the game LittleBigPlanet 2, as a DLC costume.
When Jack Skellington rides his sled on Christmas Eve, there’s a full moon out. This fact
can be used to narrow down which year the film takes place in. Possibilities include
1950, 1958, 1969, 1977, and 1988. Not all of these years had full moons, but they were
close enough to count.
There were thirteen animators working on the film.
The film utilized eight different camera crews.
The set of Halloween Town was designed to
break into smaller pieces because the whole thing was too large to fit in one space all
at once. So even though the indivudal pieces were tiny, the actual set of Halloween Town was massive!
Each puppet for the film contains an armature, which allows for flexible movement.
In order to animate Jack blinking, different
wedges would be shoved into his eyes. His blinks were three frames long.
Greg Olson, the film’s set designer, built a quarter scale mockup of Halloween Town that served as a model for the actual set.
The film’s sets had trapdoors that allowed
animators to pop up and and animate from below the structures.
If even a single frame had an issue, the film’s crew would have to start over and re-photograph
the entire scene. That would be like today if working on a CGI film, a shot had a messed up thing,
and your computer just caught fire!
The film required a total of 230 sets.
The 230 sets were set up in 19 different sound stages.
When working on songs for the film, Danny Elfman wasn’t given a script. Instead, Tim
Burton would describe scenes to him and Elfman would take over from there.
The film’s crew included over 100 specially trained camera operators, puppet makers, set builders, and prop makers.
The Nightmare Before Christmas almost got
made back in 1982. Disney was considering developing the concept into a short film or
30-minute TV special, but decided it was “too weird.”
They ended up reviving the project once they
saw the success of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice and Batman films.
Jack Skellington actually makes his first film appearance in Beetlejuice. You can spot his head on Beetlejuice’s carnival hat.
Tim Burton was friends with Henry Selick and was the one who hired him to direct the film.
The Nightmare Before Christmas was Selick’s directorial debut.
After The Nightmare Before Christmas, Selick
went on to direct two more well known stop-motion films. James and the Giant Peach and Coraline.
The visual style of the film’s sets was inspired by the ink illustrations of Ronald Searle and Edward Gorey.
In the film’s original ending, Oogie Boogie
was going to be Doctor Finklestein in disguise. This was changed before the film began shooting.
The Nightmare Before Christmas was only moderately successful at the box office. It only earned $50 million for its first theatrical run.
Re-releases have pushed its box office total up to around $75 million.
Disney planned on building a Nightmare Before
Christmas ride at Disneyland, next to the It’s A Small World ride. Tim Burton, who
owns a portion of the rights to the film’s characters, supposedly shot down the idea.
If you want some more Jack Skellington in your life, watch James and the Giant Peach. He makes a cameo as a pirate skeleton.
You can also spot his shadow in The Princess and the Frog.
And if you watch Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland,
he’s been turned into the print on the Mad Hatter’s bow tie.
The Pumpkin King can also be found on the yolk of an egg in Coraline.
In Burton’s original designs for Jack Skellington, he wore an all black suit. Selick is the one
who added the white stripes to Jack’s outfit.
On top of adding a fashionable twist to the
character’s clothes, the stripes also helped Jack stand out more against the film’s other
dark elements. In early camera tests, his black suit blended into the Halloween Town a little too well.
Animation and puppetry have a general rule
that eyes are important to connect to viewers. Because of this, and also probably because
missing eyeballs are a little terrifying, Disney insisted that Jack Skellington be given
eyes. But Burton and Selick stood firm on their stance that he didn’t need them, and
they were right. I mean, not about the general principle but they were right in this one decision.
Eyes are actually really important, they're the windows to the soul...
Edward Ivory replaced Vincent Price as the
voice of Santa Claus. He also replaced Patrick Stewart as the film’s narrator.
Cut footage from the film revealed that creator Tim Burton was supposed to make a cameo! His
decapitated head would have been used as a hockey puck by the ice-skating vampires, instead
of the jack-o-lantern that appeared in the final version of the film.
They may have pulled their name off of the
film, but Disney still let Selick and Burton work a Hidden Mickey into the movie. When
Jack’s presents are attacking, there’s a flying stuffed animal that’s meant to
be a Burton-ized Mickey Mouse. The girl it attacks is wearing a Mickey patterned nightgown,
and her brother has Donald Duck patterned PJs.
Behemoth’s previously mentioned resemblance to Tor Johnson was included as a reference
to Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space. Tim Burton was working on a biopic about the filmmaker that was in pre-production at the time.
Tim Burton is known for repeated collaborations,
and the cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas is no exception. He brought on Catherine O’Hara
and Glenn Shadix, who he had worked with on Beetlejuice, and Paul Reubens, who he knew
from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.
One deleted scene from the film would have had featured Behemoth singing about pretty presents during “Making Christmas.”
Another deleted scene had Oogie Boogie partying it up with the bugs that compose his innards.
Jack and Sally are both mentioned in the Blink
182 song “I Miss You.” The specific verse is “The unsuspecting victim of darkness
in the valley, We can live like Jake and Sally if we want."
The film’s official soundtrack had an epilogue that wasn’t included in the film.
The epilogue reveals that “many years later”, Santa
visited Jack in Halloween Town to find that the Pumpkin King had “four or five skeleton
children at hand.” Sounds like Jack and Sally sure got busy after the movie.
An early animation test made by Henry Selick had Jack voiced by the legendary voice actor Frank Welker.
Jack Skellington is the host of Disneyland’s Halloween Screams fireworks show.
Amy Lee, the singer of Evanescence, has covered “Sally’s Song.”
The film’s model artists would draw its
designs with their non-dominant hands to help give it that unnerving kick.
The film’s sets and costume designs were influenced by German Expressionism.
Caroline Thomas, the writer of the film’s screenplay, has said that “while Jack’s
dilemma gives The Nightmare Before Christmas its plot, Sally’s gives it its heart.”
Zero is definitely a ghost, but the movie seems to imply that he still needs to breathe.
When he’s shown sleeping in his basket, his chest moves up and down.
Oogie Boogie is meant to be one of the worst things you could get on Halloween. A sack full of bugs.
Despite the fact that he’s the antagonist
of the film, Tim Burton does not consider Oogie Boogie to be evil.
Santa’s naughty-or-nice list was fabricated by using two very thin sheets of paper to
sandwich a piece of aluminum voice. This enabled animators to keep it still, but flexible.
The world of The Nightmare Before Christmas was included in the Disney/Square Enix game, Kingdom Hearts.
The PlayStation game MediEvil is based on the visual style of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Tim Burton did have plans to make a second
movie tied to The Nightmare Before Christmas, but decided it would “spoil the magic of
the first movie.” Its title would have been “The Unlucky Clover (presumably about St. Patrick's Day).
Obvious fact runner-up, Jack’s last name is, of course, a play on the world skeleton.
The Jack Skellington puppets created for the film were made out of clay.
It was originally planned for Sally to have
trouble walking, but animators scrapped this idea because she came off looking like she was drunk.
Lock, Shock, and Barrel’s names are derived from the saying “Lock, stock, and barrel.”
The trio were meant to emulate how actual children their age act.
Tim Burton has said, that “Although the title makes the film sound a little scary,
I see The Nightmare Before Christmas as a positive story, without any truly bad characters."
The characters are trying to do something good and just get a little mixed up."
Thanks for watching ToonedUp's 107 where we cover everything you ever wanted to know about your favorite cartoons.
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And if like this 107 Fact video, you might also enjoy 107 Facts about Inside Out!
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