We all know how the story goes. The pumpkin king gets a glimpse of Christmas and becomes obsessed. And suddenly, the only thing he’s good at, scaring people, is no longer enough.
At the heart of it all is a story of self-discovery. But let’s not forget the beautiful love story and all the catchy tunes.
The combination of unique character designs and deep themes make it a holiday classic for kids and adults.
If The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of your favorites, stick around. These facts will change how you see this beloved holiday movie.
The movie is based on Tim Burton’s 1982 poem.
The story begins in a store where Tim Burton witnessed Christmas decorations replacing Halloween decorations.
That’s when he got the inspiration to write the three-page poem of the same title. Over the years, he considered what to do with it. Should he make it into a TV special or even a short film?
Eventually, in 1990, he settled with Disney to make the animated stop-motion film you know today.
It took over three years to produce the movie.
Filming officially began in July 1991 and was completed in October 1993. Stop-motion is an incredible, painstaking art form.
To create the illusion of movement, the puppets are adjusted just a tiny bit for each frame. If you get the positioning wrong, you ruin everything. So you can’t rush the process.
For The Nightmare Before Christmas, each second required 24 frames. The production crew spent a whole week getting just one minute of footage!
The movie’s songs were written before the script.
Usually, music is made towards the end of production. This means composers often get to look at the movie script so that they can create songs that fit the narrative perfectly.
Surprisingly, Danny Elfman, the genius behind this film’s catchy songs, didn’t see the script.
So, how did he stick to the message of the film?
Well, he talked a lot with Burton, who described the scenes for him in great detail.
Tim Burton didn’t direct the movie.
Not to take away anything from Tim Burton, but he didn’t have as much of a hand in the production of the movie.
Of course, he was the producer and brains behind the original story, but he didn’t direct it. At the time, he was busy with another project, Batman Returns.
This is how The Nightmare Before Christmas landed in Henry Selick’s lap. This was his directorial debut, and although he didn’t get enough credit for it, he did a fantastic job.
Burton still came around a few times to see how filming was going.
Over 200 puppets were used.
While The Nightmare Before Christmas had only roughly 60 characters, each one had three or more duplicates. This brought the total number of puppets to a whopping 227.
Why so many?
Sometimes, filming would occur simultaneously on as many as 20 stages. So, having multiple versions of each character was essential to move the project along.
Each puppet had a steel armature, like a skeleton. The steel pieces were connected via hinge and ball joints, allowing the puppets to move smoothly. The armature was then covered with foam.
Walt Disney Studios felt Jack Skellington would be better with eyes.
There’s a reason eyes are called the window to the soul. They help convey a character’s emotions even before you hear any words.
So, it made sense for Disney to request eyes for the pumpkin king; he’s the main character, after all.
But Tim Burton and Henry Selick both opposed it, and it’s clear this was the right call.
Now, even without eyes, Jack Skellington’s facial expressions didn’t suffer, and he’s one of the most expressive characters in the movie.
Jack Skellington’s puppet had about 400 heads.
Speaking of expressions, Jack Skellington displayed a variety of facial expressions throughout the movie. But remember that no computer graphics were used.
So, the animators had to go old school and create over 400 heads, each featuring a different expression or emotion.
The filmmakers changed Jack’s head for every shot to match his actions. Now you begin to see why filming took so long!
Sally had one head but over 100 faces.
Sally’s long flowing hair made it difficult to make more heads for her.
Since the animators wanted to keep the hair the same throughout the film, they decided to change only the face panel.
Sally had ten different face types, each with eleven different expressions.
Henry Selick changed Jack’s outfit to a striped suit.
In the original character design, the pumpkin king wore an all-black suit.
But Selick noticed something: against dark backgrounds, you couldn’t spot Jack Skellington because of this dark outfit.
Selick ultimately changed Jack’s outfit to a pinstripe suit so the audience could see him better.
Animators working on Oogie Boogie’s lair had to use UV protection.
Oogie Boogies’ underground dungeon is brightly lit with blacklights like a fun game house.
Blacklights are normally safe, but spending long hours under them making tiny adjustments to the models added up.
Working on the Oogie Boogie set was the animators’ least favorite, as they had to protect themselves using sunscreen and UV protective glasses.
The original scriptwriter actually got kicked off the project.
Michael McDowell was the first pick to write the screenplay for The Nightmare Before Christmas.
He had written the script for Beetlejuice, so he had a good working relationship with Burton. But months went by, and McDowell didn’t deliver anything of substance.
Seeing that McDowell would delay the project even more, he was let go. In desperation, the production team contacted Caroline Thompson, and she saved the day.
Burton loathed Selick’s alternate ending for Oogie Boogie.
In Selick’s proposed final act for the film, there was supposed to be a big reveal, showing that Dr. Finkelstein had been behind Oogie Boogie all along.
When Burton heard of this, he was not happy. He was so enraged by the idea that he “erupted into a screaming fit” and kicked a hole in the wall. The idea went no further.
Jack Skellington had two voice actors.
If you listen closely, you might just be able to hear the subtle differences between Jack’s singing and speaking voice. This is because they were done by two different people.
Danny Elfman did all the singing and was supposed to perform the speaking lines as well. But when Burton heard Elfman read out the lines, his performance wasn’t up to par.
Chris Sarandon was then hired for the speaking roles because he sounded similar to Elfman.
The production crew unintentionally destroyed some set pieces when they left the garage door open.
Things didn’t always go according to plan on the set. The movie was shot in a warehouse in San Francisco, California, and it would get so hot sometimes since they didn’t have air conditioning.
During one of these filming sessions in hot weather, they made a huge mistake and opened the garage door to let in fresh air.
It wasn’t until they were done shooting for the day that they realized the humidity had melted some of the tree sculptures. They had no choice but to retake the shot.
The movie set had secret tunnels and trap doors for animators.
The animators needed to be able to reach the puppets easily, which was taken into account during the stage design.
Sometimes, the set pieces were placed so far apart that the animators couldn’t reach them.
To solve this problem, the stage designers simply created trap doors right beneath those puppets. This simple modification allowed animators to adjust puppets easily between takes.
Disney wanted to make a sequel with computer animation.
In 2001, Disney considered making a second part of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Only this time, they didn’t want to stick with the original stop-motion animation but instead explored using computer-generated images. Burton vehemently opposed the idea.
Although fans are still clamoring for another, Burton insists he’s not changing his decision, and the movie is already perfect as it is.
Disney thought this movie would dent their family-friendly image.
At first, Disney wasn’t so confident about this movie. It had quite a dark and heavy tone, which didn’t fit the typical cheerful, kid-friendly movies they were known for.
So, instead of releasing it under their name, they used their other company, Touchstone Pictures.
The Nightmare Before Christmas performed pretty well at the box office, but Selick always thought it would have done much better if Disney had put their name to it.
Politicians inspired the mayor of Halloween Town’s two faces.
Most people believe that politicians cannot be trusted. They say one thing to win elections but do the opposite as soon as they’ve won the seat.
This was precisely what inspired the design of the mayor puppet. He’s literally just another two-faced politician!
The movie wasn’t a huge box office hit at first.
The Nightmare Before Christmas made about 50 million dollars when it hit the box office.
While that might sound like a lot of money, it paled in comparison to Disney’s productions of the time. Aladdin, released the previous year, grossed about 217 million dollars.
The Nightmare Before Christmas found its audience in a surprising location, becoming a hit on VHS.
This movie today has a cult following and is an integral part of the Christmas and Halloween seasons.
Jack and Sally’s romance wasn’t part of the original story.
What’s the night before Christmas without the whirlwind romance between Jack and Sally? Certainly, this love story has many fans, but did you know it wasn’t part of the original poem?
In fact, Sally wasn’t a part of the original poem at all! Other main characters that aren’t featured in the poem are Oogie Boogie and Dr. Finkelstein.
Jack and Sally have kids later.
In the final movie scene, we see Jack and Sally confess their love for each other. But like many, you might have wondered what happened to their love after this.
Well, wonder no more!
In a song that didn’t make the final cut of The Nightmare Before Christmas, it’s revealed that Jack and Sally eventually have “four or five” skeleton children who play in a xylophone band.
Some say The Night Before Christmas is a Halloween movie, and others are convinced it’s a Christmas classic.
Whichever side of the divide you’re on, there’s no denying it is one of the best holiday movies ever made.
As you can tell now, a lot of work and passion went into making The Nightmare Before Christmas. So, the least you could do is go and give it another watch!
