“What is that?” Jack Skellington sings excitedly as he encounters Santa’s snowy, colorful village for the first time in “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” That’s what Disney executives worried about the idiosyncratic stop-motion animated musical asked themselves when they saw a rough cut.
“Whenever you do something like that, which was unheard of: stop motion, the main character has no eyeballs and it’s all music, what can you feel good about?” Burton said during a video call from London. “Of course they would be nervous about it.”
Burton’s “Nightmare,” currently back in theaters to mark its 30th anniversary, is now more popular than ever: a series of live concerts centered around the film is taking place this weekend at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Disney theme parks feature seasonal attractions inspired by his figurines and merchandise, from board games to home goods, are in abundance.
But the eccentric and endearing film hasn’t always been a ubiquitous part of our holiday watch list. Back in October 1993, Nightmare was released not as a Disney title, but under the studio’s more adult-oriented label, Touchstone Pictures.
“They were afraid it would hurt their brand,” director Henry Selick said in a video call from his home in Los Angeles. “If they had put the Disney name on it back then it would have been much more successful, but I understand it just didn’t feel like their other animated films.”
The unusual film is based on Burton’s original story and characters and was directed by Selick, now a veteran stop-motion artist with spots for MTV and a number of commercials under his belt. Burton’s frequent collaborators Michael McDowell and Caroline Thompson wrote the script.
Over its original run, Nightmare grossed $50 million at the domestic box office. And while that number is by no means dire, it’s a far cry from Disney animated hits like “Aladdin,” which grossed $217 million on U.S. screens alone just a year earlier.
At the time, Disney didn’t know how to market the operatic saga of Jack, a lanky, sharply dressed skeleton fascinated with bringing the wonder of Christmas to his monstrous friends in the spooky Halloween Town.
Selick initially worried that the number of songs Danny Elfman had composed for the film, a total of 10 tracks for the brisk 76-minute running time, would turn off viewers. In retrospect, he said that the memorable melodies were crucial to the film’s eventual success once audiences became familiar with its unconventional rules of storytelling and design.
These days, Selick can’t go a week without encountering a fan wearing a “Nightmare”-themed sweater, hat or other item of clothing.
“This year there is a 13-foot Jack Skellington that you can buy at Home Depot and people have it on their lawn,” Selick said. “I like it because it’s pretty bizarre and extreme. This isn’t just a t-shirt, this is a real commitment.”
For Burton, the character of Jack Skellington embodies a preoccupation he has often dealt with for years: the terrible idea of being misunderstood. “The idea behind it was based on the feelings people have when they perceive you as something dark or strange when in reality that’s not the case,” he recalls.
Selick compared the skeletal antihero’s amusingly manic behavior to one of his favorite Disney protagonists, Mr. Toad from the animated classic The Wind in the Willows. “I’ve always been drawn to characters like Jack Skellington,” Selick said. “He gets carried away by new things and exaggerates his enthusiasm.”
Burton, who grew up in the Los Angeles area, where Latino culture is heavily represented, also has a special affinity for Día de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday that sees mortality as a natural part of the cycle of life. That was one of his many inspirations for Nightmare. ”
“I have always felt connected to this celebration. People think of it as something dark, but it’s pretty bright,” Burton said. “That’s where juxtaposing those feelings of dark imagery with more spiritual, positive feelings connected with me very early in my life.”
For stop-motion as a technique, “Nightmare” marked a turning point, just before the advent of computer-generated animation. Selick praised cinematographer Pete Kozachik for introducing the tools that set the production apart, namely the design and construction of the rigs that made it difficult Mitchell film cameras made it possible to move frame by frame.
“That’s what made the movie so cinematic,” Selick said. “All previous stop-motion shots were done in single shots or very simple little panning shots,” the mostly static imagery that limited other stories told in the same medium. But, Selick continued, “What Pete brought was the freedom of camera movement that really made the film greater.”
While there was talk of adapting his concept for “Nightmare” into a TV special or adapting it into hand-drawn animation, Burton – who as a child loved Ray Harryhausen’s creations and Rankin/Bass stories like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” – held out until there was a team that could do it in stop motion.
“If you’ve ever been on a stop-motion set and seen its tactile beauty, it’s like going back to the beginning of filmmaking in the sense that it’s all about artists making puppets and sets. “It creates a feeling that is unparalleled,” said Burton.
Decades before he directed the stop-motion features Corpse Bride (2005) and Frankenweenie (2012), both of which earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature, Burton burst onto the scene with the 1982 short film Vincent .
“Other mediums are great, but for me this is the purest and most beautiful,” Burton added.
Selick admitted that the public’s lack of knowledge that he directed “Nightmare” upset him for a time. He has now come to terms with the lack of recognition because this milestone in his career would not have happened without “Tim’s brilliance and ideas”.
“I could definitely win bar bets for the rest of my life,” he said with a cheeky smile. “‘Who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas for $20?'”
For Selick, one of the signs that the film had become a classic came several years after the lukewarm response to its theatrical release but before Disney had fully embraced it. The director remembers kids coming to his house on Halloween night in homemade “Nightmare” character costumes and trick-or-treating before there were officially licensed versions.
“Sometimes I would bring them in with their parents and show them the original figure of Jack as Santa Claus in his sleigh with the reindeer that I had kept, and they would scream with joy,” Selick recalled as he trained his camera on the fragile figure in a glass showcase.
“It’s not really mine or Tim or Danny anymore,” Selick said. “It’s the movie of the world, and I kind of like that.”
Every fall since 2001, the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland transforms into a “nightmare”-inspired attraction called the Haunted Mansion Holiday. And every year, three nights a week from early September through October, Disneyland hosts the Oogie Boogie Bash, a Halloween party featuring the film’s ferocious villain named after him.
Burton believes these exhibitions embody the film’s evolution from an unclassifiable curiosity to a uniquely beloved object. “When I see this, I go back to the early days when the film was first made, and when I think about the journey it took, it symbolizes that in a very strange way,” Burton said.
Selick added that he was invited during the first year of the Haunted Mansion Holiday. “They didn’t try to make it one of their other characters,” he said. “They really got the aesthetic of the designs right.”
Last year saw the release of a sequel novel, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen, focusing on Jack’s love interest Sally, and a prequel comic, The Battle of the Pumpkin King. But three decades later, Burton claimed that the original animated film was a unique achievement.
“In a way, that’s the beauty of it the way it is. It’s a movie. It’s stop motion and tells his story. And that’s what makes it special for me,” Burton explained. “It’s its own thing, there aren’t five sequels and there’s no live-action reboot.”