History YMMV / TheNightmareBeforeChristmas

* UncannyValley:
** The HalloweenTown citizens. Justified because they're ''supposed'' to be creepy.
** A lot of the fans think the elves are creepy. They're too cheerful, dammit!
** The ''human children'' are creepier than most things hanging around Halloween Town.
** Have you ever seen fanart of Jack drawn realistically? Dear Lord, ''there's a reason why Jack is a ''cartoony'' skeleton!''

* ValuesResonance: Quite a few modern-day critics have [[https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/the-nightmare-before-christmas-tim-burtons-lesson-of-cultural-appropriation-gone-awry/Content?oid=2274073 appraised the film]] as a satire/metaphor for [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy cultural appropriation]], over twenty years before it became a hot-button issue. Jack, bored with his own holiday after leading since before anyone can remember, fetishizes and hijacks another holiday for his own sake, without any understanding of the tradition behind it, to the detriment of the holiday as a whole and the people who practice it. Despite having good intentions, his actions still do palpable harm.

* FoeYay:

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep The Mayor]] ends up falling down the stairs of Jack's house trying to get Jack. This is hilarious until you realize that the Mayor's voice actor Glenn Shadix died because of blunt trauma to the head following a fall at his Birmingham condo.

* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: Averted. As Halloween Town has made most of its appearances in ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'', it's been pretty good. ''Oogie's Revenge'' [[WhatCouldHaveBeen was going to be a movie sequel]], but Creator/TimBurton convinced Disney otherwise (see CashCowFranchise in the Trivia tab for the reason why). Considering that the sequel was going to be in CGI rather than in StopMotion, that gives you an idea on [[{{Sequelitis}} what the quality of the sequel might have been]].

%%Do NOT add Oogie Boogie as a Complete Monster without going to the cleanup thread in special efforts first.

* CryForTheDevil: Despite Oogie Boogie's cruel actions, it's not hard to feel at least a little bad for him due to the way he dies.

** The "Who" When You Call "Who's There" is implied to be the living embodiment of this trope. It's a mysterious, disembodied voice in the wind whose presence is able to invoke feeling of unease and fear in those who sense it.

** The "Who" When You Call "Who's There". It's a mysterious, disembodied voice in the wind.

* {{Narm}}:
** Clever though she may be, it's unfortunate that most of Sally's dialogue is an expository reminder to the audience about the state of the situation, or other obvious thoughts to herself.
** "Jack has been blown to smithereens!" Okay, Mayor, we know you're understandably upset, but could you have said that any less hilariously?

** "Jack, please, I'm only an elected official here! I can't make decisions by myself."

** More recently, some TakeAThirdOption and argue that Music/DannyElfman deserves more credit for the film as he gets, as even beyond providing Jack's singing voice and a whopping ''eleven'' songs that ended up in the finished film, several of the minor characters were created just so there could be someone to perform a new song he'd submitted.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Nightmare is big in Japan, which explains why Halloween Town is featured throughout the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series. There's also a manga adaptation by Jun Asuka, and an [[Manga/TheNightmareBeforeChristmasZerosJourney official sequel]] by Tokyopop. Tokyo Disneyland's version of Franchise/TheHauntedMansion is also the only other one in the Disney parks besides the California original to receive the Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay, where Jack and his friends take over the ride late in the year.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: The limited screentime [[BigBad Oogie]] [[EvilIsCool Boogie]] gets is a common criticism towards the film. Not counting a brief EarlyBirdCameo during the opening song that had to be confirmed via WordOfGod, he doesn't get properly introduced until halfway through the running time, and he serves as a PlotIrrelevantVillain only overall purpose in the plot is so that Jack can defeat him and redeem himself. Interestingly, he ''would'' have had far more screentime originally if [[spoiler: he turned out to be an alias of Finklestein]], but that probably would've been even ''more'' of a waste.

* MisaimedMarketing: For some reason, Disney likes to stock merchandise featuring Jack alongside that of the company's villain characters despite him being a ''hero''.
** He still does a lot of villainous things, even though it’s out of naïveté rather than malice.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: The limited screentime [[BigBad Oogie]] [[EvilIsCool Boogie]] gets is a common criticism towards the film. It doesn't help that, not counting a brief EarlyBirdCameo during the opening song that had to be confirmed via WordOfGod, he doesn't get properly introduced until halfway through the running time. Interestingly, he ''would'' have had far more screentime originally if [[spoiler: he turned out to be an alias of Finklestein]], but that probably would've been even ''more'' of a waste.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: Parts of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rivTGBzBMM "Sally's Song"]] sound very much like parts of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdmS4ndSAT8 Castle music]] from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld''.

** Sally. All the things she does for someone who doesn't reciprocate her feelings (at first) is heartbreaking. Though note that "not-reciprocate-Sally's-feelings" does NOT equal "hardly-notices-her". Moreover, until the very end of the movie, he didn't even know there were any feelings ''to'' reciprocate.

* FanficFuel: The other Holiday Doors. Beyond a brief appearance of the Easter Bunny, we don't know a single thing about Easter Town, let alone what's behind the other four(Valentines, St. Patrick's Day, Independence Day and Thanksgiving) doors. What's behind all of them? Who's running the towns and what do said towns look like? Thankfully though, the upcoming Light Novel sounds like it might give us some clues.

** Let's all sing ''This Is Halloween''! "Skeleton Jack might catch you in the back" -- Wait a tick...

** Creator/LindsayEllis once described Jack rather unsympathetically (albeit jokingly) as a "well-meaning idiot who uses his position of authority to impose his midlife crisis, willing or no, both onto his polity and of a sovereign foreign nation." Basically, Jack is a ''cultural imperialist!''

* HypeBacklash: Since it became a cultural icon with merchandise everywhere and is something of a SacredCow to certain audiences, people watching the film for the first time can easily go into it expecting something more than a simple but fun romp through Halloween and Christmas with dated animation and a mixed bag of writing quality.

* HypeBacklash: Since it became a cultural icon with merchandise everywhere and is something of a SacredCow to certain audiences, people watching the film for the first time can easily go into it expecting something more than a simple but fun romp through Halloween and Christmas with dated animation, a mixed bag of writing quality, and an admittedly cliche romance sideplot.

* HypeBacklash: Since it became a cultural icon with merchandise everywhere and is something of a SacredCow to certain audiences, people watching the film for the first time can easily go into it expecting something more than a simple but fun romp through Halloween and Christmas with dated animation and an admittedly cliche romance sideplot.

* HypeBacklash: Since it became a cultural icon with merchandise everywhere and is something of a SacredCow to certain audiences, people watching the film for the first time can often be expecting something a little more than a simple but fun romp through Halloween and Christmas with dated animation and an admittedly cliche romance sideplot.