This article lists characters seen in the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas and the video games The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King and The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge.

Design The filmmakers constructed 230 puppets to represent the characters in the film, with Jack Skellington having "around four hundred heads", allowing the expression of every possible emotion.Richard Rickitt, Special Effects: The History and Technique (Watson-Guptill, 2000), 159-160. Sally's mouth movements "were animated through the replacement method. During the animation process, only Sally's face 'mask' was removed to preserve the order of her long red hair. Sally had ten types of faces, each made with a series of eleven expressions and synchronised mouth movements."Maureen Furniss, Art in motion: animation aesthetics (1998), 168.

Main Jack Skellington

The film's protagonist, Jack Skellington is a skeleton who holds the title of The Pumpkin King. He is popular among the residents of Halloween Town for his charming personality and aim to please, as he is well-meaning despite a lack of inhibition. He is in charge of Halloween, but repeating the same routine for years has caused him to feel his inspiration for his own holiday waning. However, after stumbling into Christmas Town, he gains new ideas and inspiration. He also appears in The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge.Ed. H. Leigh Davis, "Jack Skellington," Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge Official Strategy Guide (Indianapolis: Pearson Education, 2006), 2. He is voiced in all canon appearances by Chris Sarandon, and his singing voice in the film was provided by Danny Elfman. Since the film was originally released for adults, as it was thought to be "too dark and scary for kids", in non-English speaking countries, Disney Character Voices International only dubbed the film in a few languages in which adult and kids films are usually dubbed, while in other countries it was released with subtitles. Some versions dubbed only the spoken lines, leaving the songs in English. Jack Skellington made a cameo in the film James and the Giant Peach as the "pirate captain".Jerry Beck, The Animated Movie Guide: The Ultimate Illustrated Reference to Cartoon, Stop-motion, And Computer-generated Feature Films (Chicago Review Press, 2005), 127. He also appears in the Robot Chicken episode "Anne Marie's Pride", where he is voiced by Victor Yerrid.

Sally

Sally is Jack Skellington's love interest, a kind, shy, and determined rag doll who tells him that Christmas and Halloween should not mix and is the only one to have doubts about his Christmas plan. Fiona Apple provides the vocals for "Sally's Song" on the 2006 special edition of The Nightmare Before Christmas: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, while Amy Lee provides the vocals for "Sally's Song" on Nightmare Revisited. She also appears in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge.Ed. H. Leigh Davis, "Sally," Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge Official Strategy Guide (Indianapolis: Pearson Education, 2006), 6. She has detachable limbs stuffed with fall leaves and often falls apart, requiring her to sew herself back together, which she carries a set of sewing needles and thread for. She was stolen by Doctor Finkelstein, Halloween Town's resident MAD SCIENTIST, at a young age to be his companion. Their relationship is rather tense, as Finkelstein insists on keeping her imprisoned under the pretext of protecting her from the outside world and not wanting her to discover her original parents who reside in Dream Town in another realm. However, Sally is restless and curious, and despite his attempts to keep her imprisoned, she often manages to escape by sedating him with deadly nightshade. It is this restlessness and a desire for something better in her life that draws her to Jack Skellington. In the beginning of the film, she idolizes and admires him like many residents of Halloween Town. However, she discovers they are connected by the desire for something more in their lives, and her feelings for him intensify. The two refer to each other as "friends", though Jack seems unaware of Sally's true feelings for him. This is because she is too shy to admit them to him, but shows them through her kindness until the end of the film, where she finally confesses to him. On the album to the film, it is mentioned that years later, Sandy Claws returned to Halloween Town and saw Jack had four or five skeleton children. While not confirmed in the original film, the official sequel novel, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen, reveals that she married Jack. Bryan Theiss declares that "Sally is one of those rare fantasy characters we can relate to on a certain level as much as we can to real-world characters on a more literal level."Bryan Theiss, The Scarecrow Video Movie Guide (2004), 35. She was voiced by Catherine O'Hara in the film, Disney Parks attractions, and the Gameloft-developed video games Disney Speedstorm and Disney Dreamlight Valley, while Kath Soucie voices her in the Kingdom Hearts video games and The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge.

Oogie Boogie

The Oogie Boogie ManJerry Beck, The Animated Movie Guide: The Ultimate Illustrated Reference to Cartoon, Stop-motion, And Computer-generated Feature Films (Chicago Review Press, 2005), p. 179. is the main antagonist, who is a large burlap sack full of bugs. Oogie Boogie did not appear in Tim Burton's original poem, but Burton later sketched a portrait of what appeared to be a potato sack man with horrible things inside. The Oogie puppet was two feet high, twice the height of the other puppets. Ken Page claims that he based his performance as Oogie as "somewhere between Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz and the voice of the demon in The Exorcist". In his autobiography Burton on Burton, Burton says that Oogie Boogie was loosely inspired by Cab Calloway's appearances in several Betty Boop cartoons, and that he asked Danny Elfman to make Oogie's song in Nightmare resemble Calloway's 1931 recording of the song "Minnie the Moocher". Elfman ended up referencing the Betty Boop cartoon The Old Man of the Mountain (1933), which also featured Calloway; Santa's line "Well, what are you going to do?" and Oogie Boogie's response of "I'm gonna do the best I can!" are directly taken from it. As seen on the Special Edition DVD, another idea for Oogie's identity was for him to be Dr. Finkelstein in disguise to take revenge on Jack and Sally, but Burton scrapped the idea and it was not pursued past storyboards. Despite the fact that Oogie is mostly separated from the inhabitants of Halloween Town, it appears they allow him to take part in their celebration, as his shadow appears on the moon in the opening song "This Is Halloween". He lives in an underground lair full of torture devices, each of which features a casino-like appearance, which along with his use of dice suggest an addiction to gambling. During "Oogie Boogie's Song", his lair is lit with black lights, which he glows bright green under. After the lights dim, the bright color is sapped from his lair, transforming its appearance into that of a dank, cellar-like dungeon. Above his lair is the clubhouse of Lock, Shock, and Barrel, who feed him bugs through a metal chute. It is initially believed that Oogie cannot be killed or die, but it is later revealed he can if his brain, the lead bug, is destroyed. In the film, Lock, Shock and Barrel kidnap Santa Claus and send him down to Oogie Boogie's lair, where Sally attempts to rescue him after learning of his fate, but is captured. Oogie then tortures and tries to kill Sally and Santa Claus, but is foiled by Jack, who pulls a thread loose from him, ripping off the sack covering him and causing most of his bugs to fall into the lava. The lead bug is then squashed by Santa, and the rest of the bugs scurry off. In The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King, his origins and the birth of his rivalry with Jack were revealed. It reveals that he once had his own holiday called Bug Day, which was forgotten by the people of the real world. Oogie escaped, found Halloween Town, and decided that it would be the new Bug Day. He and his army of insects invaded the town and nearly took it over, but Jack was able to stop them and Oogie. Oogie survived and was imprisoned within his underground lair, and Jack warns that if he ever left his lair, it would be "game over!" for him. Oogie complied, but secretly vowed revenge. In the 2004 video game The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge, Oogie is resurrected by his henchmen Lock, Shock, and Barrel, who sew him back together. He quickly deceives the residents of Halloween Town and tricks the townspeople into making traps for Jack, stating that Jack would not return if they do not make an even scarier Halloween for next year. He then attempts to become the Seven Holidays King by kidnapping the leaders of the holidays and tries to murder Santa Claus again. His plans are foiled by Jack, but he puts up a fight in the Holiday Trash Hill by turning into a gigantic junk-filled version of himself named "Mega-Oogie." He is again destroyed when his bugs come out of him. Oogie also appears with other Disney Villains at Halloween events such as the Haunted Mansion Holiday at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland, the HalloWishes and Halloween Screams fireworks shows at the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland, respectively, World of Color: Villainous at Disney California Adventure, and during the "Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party", "Mickey's Halloween Party", and "Oogie Boogie Bash" separate-admission ("hard ticket") events. Oogie Boogie also appears in the video game Kingdom Hearts as an ally of Maleficent. He reappears in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories as an enemy based on Sora's memories of him, and in Kingdom Hearts II, where he attempts to turn Santa Claus into a Heartless.

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