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The Nightmare Before Christmas

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The Nightmare Before Christmas
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Did you know? The animators had to create over 400 different heads for Jack Skellington so they could swap them out to make all his different facial expressions. elaborate

Fact 1 of 26

26 facts about The Nightmare Before Christmas

  1. 1
    Many people mistakenly think Tim Burton directed the movie because of his recognizable style, but it was actually directed by Henry Selick.
  2. 2
    Because the puppets were so delicate, the crew built trapdoors into the floors of the set so animators could reach up from underneath to adjust the puppets without bumping the scenery.
  3. 3
    There is a brief scene where the Easter Bunny appears, looking very confused and out of place in the middle of a snowy Christmas scene.
  4. 4
    Zero's glowing nose was inspired by the classic story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but turned into a pumpkin-themed version.
  5. 5
    The movie soundtrack features a song called Making Christmas, which is sung by the entire cast of Halloween Town in a very chaotic way.
  6. 6
    Many people assume that Tim Burton designed every single character, but the artist Rick Heinrichs actually sculpted the original models.
  7. 7
    Some scenes required the animators to place individual pieces of dust on the set to make it look like a spooky, old, and abandoned building.
  8. 8
    Oogie Boogie is the only character in the film who is entirely made of a sack filled with bugs.
  9. 9
    Tim Burton did not direct the movie himself; Henry Selick was the director, though Burton produced it and wrote the original poem.
  10. 10
    The Mayor of Halloween Town has two faces that rotate on his head to show his changing mood from happy to sad.
  11. 11
    Jack Skellington makes a cameo appearance as a pirate captain in the 1996 movie James and the Giant Peach.
  12. 12
    It is surprisingly hard to walk like a skeleton when you are a puppet made of wire and clay.
  13. 13
    The film's color palette changes from dark, moody Halloween colors to bright, cheery Christmas colors as Jack tries to embrace the new holiday.
  14. 14
    The animators had to build special trapdoors in the floor of the set so they could reach up through the ground to move the puppets without being seen on camera.
  15. 15
    In the original poem written by Tim Burton, the character of Santa Claus was actually called the Sandy Claws from the very beginning.
  16. 16
    The film features a hidden portrait of Tim Burton and Henry Selick as vampires in the movie's background.
  17. 17
    Because Jack has no eyelids, the animators had to use different sets of eyes that were slightly more closed or open to show him blinking or squinting.
  18. 18
    The movie was originally going to have a much scarier version of the ending where Oogie Boogie was revealed to be Dr. Finkelstein in disguise.
  19. 19
    Jack Skellington appears in the background of the 2009 movie Coraline as a tiny drawing on an egg.
  20. 20
    The film uses a technique called replacement animation, which means instead of moving parts of the face, they just swap out the entire face or head to change an expression.
  21. 21
    Some of the puppets were so small that animators had to use tweezers to move their tiny fingers for the cameras.
  22. 22
    The stop-motion puppets had metal skeletons called armatures inside them so they could be bent and posed without breaking.
  23. 23
    Oogie Boogie is essentially a giant burlap sack filled with thousands of tiny, squirming bugs.
  24. 24
    Jack Skellington makes a cameo appearance in the movie James and the Giant Peach as the captain of a ghost ship.
  25. 25
    The animators had to create over 400 different heads for Jack Skellington so they could swap them out to make all his different facial expressions.
  26. 26
    Even though many people assume Tim Burton directed the film because it is often marketed with his name, it was actually directed by Henry Selick, while Burton served as the producer and provided the original story and character designs.
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