It’s sometime between October 1 and December 25, which means it’s The Nightmare Before Christmas season. As I’m always profoundly impressed with how much art and skill this movie took to make, I decided to gracefully fall down a rabbit hole, and I came out with 17 unbelievably interesting facts about how the movie was made.
1.
There are 227 handmade puppets in the movie. Each puppet also had different faces for each facial expression. Jack had over 400 heads to convey different faces and movements.
2.
In the extended ending of the soundtrack, Santa revisits Halloweentown to find out that Jack has had kids. When Santa revisits Halloweentown, he finds Jack “with four or five skeleton children at hand.”
3.
Animators working in Oogie Boogie’s lair had to wear protective glasses and sunscreen because they were shooting long hours in black light.
5.
While Danny Elfman is Jack’s singing voice, Chris Sarandon, who also played Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride, is his speaking voice.
6.
Tim Burton wanted to make Jack a “reverse Grinch.” He wanted Jack to love Christmas so much that he wanted to do it himself.
7.
Tim Burton and movie director Henry Selick fought for Jack to have no eyes. Burton said, “The first rule of drawn animation is that you have to have eyes for expression. I thought it would be great to give life to these characters that have no eyes. Disney really fought for us to give Jack these friendly eyes instead of dark holes, but we wouldn’t budge.” Something interesting to note is that the skeletons in Coco DO have eyes, making Jack even more unique.
8.
They filmed at 24 frames per second, which meant they needed to pose each character 24 times for each second of the film.
9.
The movie was based on a poem Burton wrote several years earlier. While the poem doesn’t mention Sally, it is quite true to the movie.
10.
Actually, an excerpt from the poem can be heard during the beginning of Haunted Mansion Holiday (the Nightmare Before Christmas edition of The Haunted Mansion that Disneyland does for the holidays): “Twas the nightmare before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was peaceful, not even a mouse, The stockings all hung by the chimney with care, When opened that morning would cause such a scare! The children, all nestled so snug in their beds, Would have nightmares of monsters and skeleton heads!”
11.
Burton wrote the poem while he was working on The Black Cauldron and took it to several publishers to be made into a children’s book, but all the publishers ultimately passed.
12.
Jack’s iconic pinstripe suit was actually the idea of director Henry Selick, who noticed his body was getting lost in the black suit on the already dark background of Halloweentown.
13.
The herb garden Sally visits in the film has henbane and nightshade growing. Henbane was used medicinally to cause hallucinations, and nightshade acted as a poison throughout history.
14.
In a surprise twist, Oogie Boogie was originally going to be unraveled to reveal Dr. Finklestein, who did some light terrorizing because he was mad at how close Jack and Sally were. Still, the ending felt like it came out of nowhere and was ultimately scrapped.
15.
Actually, Tim Burton hated that ending so much, he kicked a hole in the wall. The crew cut the hole out of the wall and framed it.
16.
Jack Skellington makes a cameo in Coraline, James and the Giant Peach, and Beetlejuice.
17.
Lastly, and I can’t believe I didn’t realize this: The kids coming out Christmas morning are wearing Mickey and Donald pajamas!
Now, I have to ask…do you see Jack Skellington as a hero or a villain? I have strong feelings about him, but tell me what you think in the comments below!
