Headscratchers / The Nightmare Before Christmas

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• As Jack goes from one house to another delivering scary toys, one citizen of Christmas Town barricades his fireplace with his couch WHILE THERE'S A FIRE INSIDE. I honestly have no idea what he was thinking, or for that matter what Burton was thinking to put that in. And if the citizens of Christmas Town know they have a Santa Claus, why would they even bother to light fires on the night of Christmas Eve?
  • Presumably the person who moved the couch was so alarmed by all the scary-bogus-Santa news reports that they just weren't thinking. As for having a fire going before the news broke, possibly they'd intended to put the fire out before they went to bed.
  • Santa's not bothered by fire anyway, clearly, since then no one would be able to have a nice fire on Christmas Eve.
  • Not a citizen of Christmas Town; that's clearly happening in the "outside world".
• Santa has the ability to do magic. He uses his magic to fly out of Oogie's lair after Jack rescues him. Couldn't he have done that before when he was in Oogie's clutches and taken Sally and himself to safety?
• The Mayor goes to Jack's house to discuss next Halloween's plans, only to fall down the steps and then be told by the men standing next to the gate that "he hasn't been home all night". Why did they let the mayor through the gate if they knew nobody was home?
  • They're just a musical band, not guards. It's not their duty to decide whether or not people can come in. Besides, the Mayor was in such a good mood, and they were probably afraid to be the ones to spoil it for him. Also, it seems that Jack had never gone missing like this before, so the Mayor may not have even believed them if they tried to tell him that Jack wasn't home.
  • For all they knew, the Mayor already knew Jack wasn't there and had stopped by to slip a note through the letter slot for Jack to find when he did get home.
  • You have to remember, they were literally woken up 2 seconds before the Mayor went up those stairs (his car wakes them up, he says "Mornin' Gents", then goes up the stairs). They were probably too groggy to react immediately or just assumed that Jack had returned home while they were asleep.
• How did no one in Christmas Town notice the 6-foot fucking skeleton running around?
  • From what I could understand, they were all too busy getting ready for Christmas to notice a stealthy skeleton sneaking around (and singing... yeah). He was almost noticed during that musical number, though...
  • It also helps that, considering that it's Christmas Town, everyone is probably full of joy and acceptance (unless you kidnap them).
  • Well...he is the pumpkin king, so he probably needs to be good at hiding (did you see how he entered to Oogie's lair, saved Sally and Sandy Claws and sat on the ramp instead of them, and all that without Oogie noticing?)
    • Now his stealthiness may work in Halloween Town, where he can blend in with the scenery, but in Christmas Town, he's this big black spindly thing crawling around in a colorful area. Kinda hard to miss.
    • He spent a lot of time as a mobile snowman...?
    • He would blend into the scenery of Christmas Town as well, given he's as white as the snow, and is skinny enough to easily hide behind a Christmas tree if needed.
  • The entire dance number was based on him hiding from everyone. He hid. Obviously.
• So, about Sally. Some people seem to consider her an animated rag doll. I beg your pardon ? First of all, what has an animated rag doll to do with Halloween ? It's more christmasish than anything else. And then, everything about her suggests me that she's more a female Frankenstein monster (Blue/green skin ? Check. Created by a mad scientist ? Check. This mad scientist uses electricity to reanimate corpses ? Check — see the way he creates the reindeers —.). So WHY do people call her a rag doll when she's obviously a Frankenstein Monster/Cute Monster hybrid.
  • She leaves her arm behind and later falls from a tower without pain, and even sews herself back together and puts what is quite obviosly stuffing back into its place after the latter incident (though the stuffing seemed to be more dry leaves than rags but still.)
  • Ever heard of the Creepy Doll? There's an easily missed line that confirms it. Oogie Boogie taunts her with, "What did you say about luck, ragdoll?"
    • I know that line, but I always took it as an insult: she's stitched in so many places that Oogie mocks her by saying she looks like a ragdoll.
  • Actually several residents are toy-like, including the Mayor, the Clown and the matryoshka doll monster. In any case, she could be both, the idea that the Frankenstein Monster comes from a series of dead parts stitched together is from the Boris Karloff film, the original book Frankenstein never explain how exactly the monster was created but is implied that he was some sort of homunculi harvested in human tissue. We know that Finkelstein animates inorganic materials (like the reindeers) so she might be both a Creepy Doll and a Frankenstein-like creature at the same time.
    • It looks like the skeletal reindeer are bones, so he's not animating inorganic materials; he's re-animating bones.
  • If you've never considered rag dolls scary enough to be a Halloween thing, then you've obviously never been a three-year-old with a Creepy Doll draped over the chair next to your bed at night.
• The line in "What's This?," "They kiss? Why, that looks so unique!" How would Jack know what a kiss is if it's so unique to their culture?
  • In addition, how did he know what snowballs and mistletoe are?
    • See the It Just Bugs Me for Enchanted. In Disney worlds, characters just know everything that we would, to make up perfectly fitting songs for any occasion, even if they have no clue what they're singing about.
    • Contrast: The Little Mermaid (1989)...
    • Mistletoe is very poisonous, that's probably why he knew what it was. I think he knew what kissing was, he was just unfamiliar with the tradition of doing it under a hanging plant.
    • Popping in to point out he must know what it is… Jack and Sally kiss at the end, remember?
    • And Dr Finkelstein tries to kiss his clone. The Halloween people know about kissing, it's just the tradition of kissing under mistletoe that's "unique".
    • And Inspired!
    • Concerning snowballs: Canada, despite being Canada, must experience Halloween. Therefore, Jack knows what snow is. There are mentions of monsters under beds (children's beds, I assume), so balls must be known to Halloween Town. He just fit the two words together when he saw the snowballs.
    • Perhaps he subconsciously remembers this stuff from back when he was alive, and not undead, even if he won't allow himself to access all of his memories, certain stuff still stands out to him.
    • Though if that was the case, then the citizens of Halloween Town shouldn't have reacted the way they did when Santa made it snow. They said stuff like, What's this, why it's completely new! Must be a Christmas thing!" and such. So unless Jack's the only one who ever leaves Halloween Town, then that still doesn't make sense (and before someone says that Jack is the only one to leave Halloween Town, then who did the vampires drink the blood of in order to get the award? I know it's just a small part of the movie, but it's a part of it).
    • When snow falls on Halloween, it adds to the spookiness; when it falls on Christmas, it adds to the festiveness.
    • I've always preferred to think that the Halloween Town vampires feed on animal blood...
    • Well, it's possible that Halloween Town citizens only go to the real world on Halloween (and the vampires could be living on animal and/or other citizens' blood or something like that) and it never snowed when they went. Jack could have heard the elves talk about the snow, and since he didn't, presumably, bring any snow back with him, it's possible that either Jack didn't tell the citizens about snow, or he did and they forgot about it.
    • The Halloween Town citizens didn't know what snow was because it's not part of the iconography of Halloween. Before the events of the movie, they all had a laser-like focus on the Platonic elements of Halloween—being scary, typical late-autumn imagery, etc. If they encountered snow on Earth the night of October 31, it might not even register with them because it's not part of what they're meant to understand.
    • Not all residents seem confuse with what snow is, only some like the Mayor and the Wolf Man. The vampires start playing hockey right after it starts (and the fact that they have hockey sticks says something) so it probably depends on the monsters and their respective lore. The vampire is a monster from Eastern European countries where snow is more common.
    • Dropping or throwing snowballs at people who don't give out treats could be a perfectly reasonable "trick" for snowy Halloweens.
• In the ending track of the official soundtrack, Santa narrates about a visit he paid to Halloween Town several years after the events of the movie. This, in itself, is fine and dandy. But the thing that bugs me is that it is explicitly stated that Jack and Sally have kids. "Five skeleton children", if I recall correctly. If Jack is supposed to merely be a (poorly-proportioned) human skeleton, then he should not be in possession of a baculum (penis bone), and I would sincerely hope, for the sake of my childhood, that Sally isn't that kind of doll. So, I ask you, how, exactly, do a skeleton and a rag doll, neither in possession of genitalia, procreate? Did the zombie stork deliver them? Were they found under pumpkin leaves? Were they assembled from the corpses of normal dead children?
  • Jack popped a boner.
    • And Sally wanted to jump his bones-* shot*
    • Didn't anybody even think that perhaps a sto—er, vulture could've delivered them?
    • I'm a paleontologist, and I vote delivery Hatzegopteryx◊.
  • Dr. Finklestein made them. He made Sally, the reindeer, and his genderswapped clone, so why not?
    • But wouldn't that make Dr. Finkelstein the parent, rather then Jack and Sally?
    • Adoption is a thing. Although I guess in this case it'd be more like surrogancy...
    • Considering Sally and Dr. Finkelstein's rather turbulent relationship, it's questionable rather or not Sally would have the doctor being the creator of her kids.
    • They could well have mended their differences after Sally was free to live her own life, and Dr F had someone to help care for him.
    • Maybe Sally learned how to animate corpses while she was living with Dr Finkelstein.
  • They adopted, Halloween Town is actually hell, and as kids died, Jack & Sally gathered them up into their family. Of course, that particular song is non-canon, as it wasn't used… so… maybe Danny Elfman just went a bit too far, and Tim Burton had it cut because he started to think about it too?
  • Well, to be fair he did say four or five children.
  • Maybe Jack is a child of Death and a Toon? At the fansite someone suggested that Jack has strap-on balls. I've already bought the Brain Bleach.
  • According to the DVD Commentary, Tim Burton said that Jack not eating is worrying so in Jack's case (and Sally's case too - she also apparently eats) if they need to eat like living people, reproduction isn't all that out there. Of course, their form of reproduction might be different then ours, like they could hold hands while feeling love to reproduce. Though that puts a different spin on the ending . . .
  • Does it matter? This has been conveniently ignored in all the other NBC media anyways.
    • That's mainly because we never seen the kids. But it's important enough to be released on the first and the latest soundtrack.
  • "...that skeleton man, with four or five skeleton children at hand, playing strange little tunes in their xylophone band..." Nowhere does it say that they're Jack and Sally's children. I like to think that he was the Halloween Town equivalent of a community music class instructor or glee club director (that is, both teacher and instrument). Learning Christmas carols in minor keys for the holiday, perhaps.
    • But why mention them in the first place? That's the problem I have with that theory. If they wanted to show Jack has learned his lesson, they could have easily have him discussing plans with the citizens or even a romantic moment with Sally, why those skeleton children? And why put emphasis on SKELETON children, unless implying that they were his?
    • * shrugs* Because it's a better Pet the Dog Reformation-Establishing Moment than making plans and risking the implication that everything's about to go haywire again? Skeleton fits the meter and shows that they're from Halloween Town. They probably are supposed to be his kids, though.
    • Hmmm, good point. However, if they weren't suppose to be his kids, the writers were just asking for confusion putting "skeleton children" in there ("monster children" would fit the meter and be less confusing).
    • Maybe it's a xylophone band because they're playing their own bones, so they need to be skeletons to play in that particular band.
  • It's official. Somebody needs to ask Tim Burton or Henry Selick about this.
  • In Xanth, skeletons reproduce by taking one of each of their own bones together with a pile of other bones… or something to that extent, it's been awhile since I read #17. Perhaps something along these lines?
    • Still, why children? While Jack and Sally would probably love being parents, I don't think they'd like to be parents to little kids (presumably, the kids in the poem are little) forever. I remember seeing a webcomic where the author had Dr. Finklestein create kids for Jack and Sally, and they were in their teens (because apparently teenagers are a lot easier to take care of than little kids).
    • Teenagers are spooky/creepy. :-)
    • But why would one presume the children are "little kids"? They need to be old enough to play.
  • It could be that they aren't a skeleton and a corpse, just very vague fantasy beings made to fit the theme of the assigned holiday. I always just thought of them as walking, talking Halloween decorations rather than being literal versions of what they represent.
    • That sounds like an awesome theory, not to mention good material for Fan Fic in the right hands . . . except Jack refers to himself as being dead in "Jack's Lament". If he was a vague fantasy being, why would he do that?
    • Because when he mentions that he's dead, he's talking about scaring people and being in character. He represents a skeleton, so, by assumption of his victim, a dead person.
  • Concerning Jack, I am always amused by the fact that everyone says, "oh, Jack's a skeleton, therefore he doesn't have the downstairs equipment." Seriously, where's the evidence that Jack's 100 percent skeleton? Has anyone ever seen Jack naked?^note Fangirls, please restrain yourselves from volunteering. And no, the James and the Giant Peach cameo doesn't count, as it's arguable if that's canon to Nightmare.
    • In agreement with the above, it always seems odd that people don't question the fact that Jack has eyelids, a (forked) tongue, and fingers which can be pricked by Sally's sewing needle, but they insist on realism when it comes to the "how can Jack have kids?" question.
    • Nor do they question why Jack and Sally can walk, talk, sing, eat, can die, etc. Actually, it's pretty bizarre that out of the things to cry foul on, it's something from a cut-off poem.
  • Plus, I don't care how "hung" you are, there's no competing with a guy who can remove his femur bone any time he wants. Sally's going to be one happy ragdoll thing, tell you what.
    • And since Sally can remove her body parts whenever she wants, Jack is gonna be one happy skeleton. Seriously, there's some incredible Power Perversion Potential in their relationship, which explains a lot . . .
    • Everyone, everyone, we're talking about Jack Skellington, not Geoff Peterson! I think we can safely assume that Jack and Sally got their kids from an undead Halloween stork.
    • Just as an extra point; Jack is a cartoon caricature of a skeleton, not a real skeleton, hence why he can crash into a sign and have his face get squashed like plasticine... or kiss someone, for that matter. Not wanting to speculate *too* far, but his cartoony-ness might lend itself to other possibilities too (ditto with Sally.)
  • In Zombie Roomie, one of the characters (a grim reaper) isnt a skeleton, but has a very thin skin, maybe what we assume to be jacks bones are actually bone white skin, hence the eyelids and moving lips, also if jack eats he must have organs.
  • We can also ask why Oogie Boogie seems to feel sexual attraction toward Sally (or Sally’s leg) if is a bag of bugs. But, the needle scene seems to be there to tell the audience that Jack is not literally a skeleton and can be hurt. Also some of Oogie's attempts to kill Jack in the climax (like using a casino machine firing squad) would not work with a skeleton but even so Jack avoids the bullets, so yes, Jack is not literally an skeleton is somehow more organic. On other note, we do see several monster kids like the mummy, the gargoyle and the zombie kid who is even around his mother in some scenes (and yes, they could be a mother and son that died together, or it could be that the residents do reproduce somehow), not to mention the Oogie Boys that seem to be human (and that’s another headscratcher all together).
    • Well, in respect to the bullet part, it's also possible that Jack just avoided them because even if he's a living skeleton, the bullets could still break and shatter his bones.
    • If one looks closely at freeze frames of them, one can tell that the "Oogie Boys" are not quite human. (Skin tone, pointy teeth, faces that are actually creepier than their masks...)
  • In a movie where there are living, autonomous skeletons and ragdolls, you think they need human genitals to reproduce?! Odds are there's some sort of Halloweentown creature rules about how reproduction works. For all we know, Jack hides around a corner and jumps out and scares Sally and her scream of terror turns into a baby creature.
• Why did Lock, Shock, and Barrel tell the townsfolk that Jack is still alive and lead them to Oogie's lair? Even The Other Wiki notes how strange this is.
  • If nothing else, it was probably to stay out of trouble or redeem them to the audience. Might explain their lack of any sort of real punishment.
  • A deleted scene has Jack stumbling across them (as he slides down that rope into Oogie's lair) and scare the hell out of them. Presumably, they went to get the townsfolk under his orders after that.
  • They work for Oogie out of fear, and they knew Jack was pissed. Factor in that Jack and Oogie are the only two people we've seen that can scare them (other people are afraid them, like the Mayor), and it's likely they might fear Jack more than Oogie. If that wasn't enough motive to quickly switch sides, I don't know what is.
• If Jack "read these Christmas books so many times, why is he still saying "Sandy Claws" the whole movie?
  • Accent. Try changing how you say a word once you're used to it. Anyway, it doesn't matter unless he hears it aloud. Does anyone ever say it?
    • It's more than an accent. Upon meeting Santa, he literally says "Why you have hands! You don't have claws at all!"
    • Oddly enough, it's Oogie Boogie that says it right.
    • He does? The captions say he says "Sandy Claws" like everybody else.
    • Perhaps Jack assumed it was a strange spelling, or Funetik Aksent?
    • His brain is hardwired to make everything seem scary, and "Sandy Claws" Is probably the creepiest possible mutation of the name.
  • Jack is a poor study; he is shown only giving cursory glances to his books.
• This it just bugs me is in relation to the whole "how-can-Jack-and-Sally-have-kids-when-they're-dead" thing. How come most of the fans, as far as I can tell, will accept the prequel and sequel games as canon when neither Henry Selick nor Tim Burton nor Danny Elfman had involvement with them, yet something on the soundtrack, which at least the words must come from the writers and/or Danny Elfman, is contested? I know, it's not possible for dead people to reproduce, but neither is dead people walking, talking, singing, or having the need to eat, which Jack and Sally obviously does. Can't we say "it's a fantasy" and move on?
  • I remember reading that Pumpkin King (The GBA game) happens a year BEFORE the movie, while Oogie's Revenge (The PS2 and Xbox game) happens only a year AFTER, where as they had "four or five children" years after, if I remember the poem correctly, also, I remember reading Danny Elfman's name in the latter's credits.
    • The timeline isn't the problem. The problem is that fans are more likely to take games that aren't created by the original creators as canon over a cut-off poem that was.
• Sally gives Jack an, uh, "meal" or something to that amount to show her affection for him and Jack seems rather pleased with it. Presumably, this means that the concept of giving gifts them isn't completely alien to the residents of Halloween Town. So why is it so hard for them to understand what Christmas presents are?
  • Perhaps the giving of gifts they get, but it's the "wrapping-them-up-in-pretty-paper-with-a-bow" bit that confuses them.
  • While not entirely canon to the movie/games, in Kingdom Hearts II, Jack was noted to have picked up a box, with the paper torn off and bow discarded, stepping on the doll that was inside, and say "What a shame, it looked like such a nice present". My only response to this is that Jack and the residents of Halloween Town believe that giving a present is determined by how nice it looks. Then again, he seems to know that a gift is really inside the box, in the game and movie.
  • Jack's problem isn't that he doesn't understand what a present is, it's that his definition of what makes a nice present is filtered through his Halloween Town mind. He thinks scary and horrific things are best and pretty and happy things are boring. It's the entire reason his Christmas goes badly. remember, it's not just that the town didn't understand Christmas, Jack was overseeing everything and approving and rejecting ideas.
  • Sally and Jack are special; from the start we see that they are both unhappy with the monotony of Halloween. Understanding gift-giving might be something that they (and especially Sally) get even while the other Halloween Town residents do not.
    • It's also notable that Sally has her "vision," with the dead flower turning into a Christmas tree, immediately after giving Jack the gift; almost like the act of pure, unselfish giving in itself let her make a momentary connection to the spirit of Christmas (although immediately afterwards it all goes up in flames because, in the end, she's still a Halloween creature.) It's also notable that Sally is the only one who seems to really get that they're missing what Christmas is really about (and the only one whom Santa Claus considers "sane"); even Jack eventually gets carried away and never quite figures it out. The film never spells it out, but the real meaning of Christmas, which Jack never finds, is the spirit of giving. Sally is the one who comes closest to realising this — and is the one character in the film who carries out a truly pure, un-selfish act of giving. This is not a coincidence!

• I really want to see what's in "St.Patrick's Day Town".
  • One would assume it involves getting completely and utterly shitfaced drunk on a regular basis.
    • So it's just Dublin, then?
    • CollegeHumor has answered your question.
  • I wanna see Thanksgiving Day Town.
    • I wanna know who's in charge of Thanksgiving Town. Most of the others, you can guess (e.g. Uncle Sam for July 4th), but that one's a bit of a puzzle.
    • WordOfGod: It's the Turkey King, who has his head chopped off every year.
    • Was there a 4th of July door? I seem to remember that all doors were for international holydays (except for Thanksgiving, though it might be considered international due to Eagleland Osmosis). If there’s a town for every national holiday like Australia’s Day and Mexico’s Independence then there will be like 200 doors.
    • There was a firecracker-marked door, but it wasn't specifically stated to be a Fourth of July door. The doors aren't in chronological order - the turkey door is between Easter and Christmas, not Halloween and Christmas - so the firecracker could easily be for New Year's Day instead. Could be that leadership of that town is handed over from a very elderly Year X to a tiny baby Year X+1 each time they hold their big event.
    • I wanna see Valentine Town!
    • Perhaps the fireworks door is more many to be a "National Festivity" town. Fourth of July, Canada Day, Mexican Independence Day, etc). The spirit of celebrating your country and your home, your heritage, etc.
• A minor thing, but I have always wondered why Jack has an electric chair in his home. Is it the Halloween Town equivalent of a massage chair or something?
  • Remember what electricity is to robots like Bender...
    • And if you take Pumpkin King into consideration, you actually heal by sitting in electric chairs. There's some more Fridge Logic for you.
    • This actually make sense if you consider the fact that Dr. Finklestein got Jack some skeletal reindeer by zapping the bones with electricity.
    • Electricity=life
• Does anyone else think they should've established how everyone gets to the real world in the beginning of the movie? I've always been confused about its nature and just assumed that Santa Claus-Jack goes to a very different part of Christmas Town instead, so showing the real world earlier on would've been more helpful.
  • My guess would be that once they leave the "City Limits", they arrive in a certain part of the world, hence why Sandy Claws flies away in his sleigh, however, Jack was seen using a gravestone as a teleport between the real world and Halloween Town, so maybe the Halloween residents leave via graves, leaving town, or magic. This would also explain why the Hinterlands lead to the Holiday Doors.
    • I always thought that they could use openings decorated to represent their holidays as portals. That's why someone made the holiday trees, and how Jack can use a random tomb he just happened to land near to get to get to Halloween Town. Their towns exist in the "real" world, the doors are just shortcuts.
  • I liked that they didn't explain it. It's eerie and interesting, and I think that's the point. He just...wandered into Limbo, like it was meant to be. Like Fate cleared a path for him.
    • This actually makes a bit of sense when you factor in the Hinterlands levels in the Oogie's Revenge game. You do a lot of wandering around to find the misplaced holiday doors, and you can literally be on one corner of the map, go to another location, check the map again, and find you're suddenly on the other side. So maybe it's possible you can't find the doors unless you're looking for them. Jack, in the film, was looking for something new, and hence, they appeared. This could also be why no one has ever noticed them before he did—-because they weren't looking for them before.
• Soooooooooo........What Happened To The Elves? Seriously, you would think that Mrs. Claus or the elves would worry about the fact that, respectively, their husband and leader was kidnapped and taken to a ghoulish world.
  • And unless Jack somehow sneaked a snowmobile and a large bag of presents out of storage without any of them noticing, they would have a pretty good idea who to blame when three trick-or-treaters kidnapped Santa.
  • Who says they knew about Halloween Town? Santa didn't seem to.
  • That is actually explained in an early draft of the movie script, right in the starting narration, where Santa states that the residents of one holiday town don't know anything at all about the other worlds.
  • Not to mention, when Santa IS kidnapped, it's just the day before Christmas. As far as we know, the reaction of the Christmas Town folks would be just like that of the Halloween Town folks, and they'd comb all of Christmas Town before looking anywhere else.
• Why the fuck does everyone say that Jack hardly notices Sally? He's obviously friends with her, and the way he says her name with the first time we see them together is awfully fond for someone who "doesn't notice her" (or someone who's Just Friends). The only times he ignores her (which . . . is two of their three interactions in the movie. Dammit.) could be explained by him being too excited for Christmas, which came to bite him in the bony ass.
  • Theres a big difference between knowing someone/being their friend, and being their friend but not realizing they have feelings for you. Probably a few Tropes for it.
• How come there's no candy in Halloween Town? It seems like a pretty big part of the holiday to leave out. You'd think that they'd at least get giving candy out at Christmas time, even if it'd be unseasonal things like candy corn.
  • Because monsters don't give out candy on Halloween. Probably why Lock, Shock, and Barrel are so irate.
    • When the trio first enters the scene, you can see that Barrel has a lollipop.
    • Well, if you look closely, after Santa gets his head out of the sack in the town square, there is some candy stuck to his beard, thus proving that not only does it exist, but the trio had some. Here's a clip showing this, starting at 0:38. However, it's not there during the Oogie Boogie song.
  • The corpse kid ate it all (that's why he's so fat)
  • The job of Halloween Town isn't to give out the candy, it's to make it a spooky holiday. In other words, it's to put the "trick" into "Trick or Treat!".
• Why, oh why did Jack trust Lock, Shock, and Barrel to take care of Santa and not take him to Oogie? The rest of Jack's Idiot Hero moments are understandable, but that is just plain Too Dumb to Live. Why not trust someone else like, say, Sally to take care of him?
  • Agreed. While it is understandable why he would want them to go and catch him (it's implied that they know what they're doing, which begs the question of whether or not they've kidnapped people before), but there was nothing stopping him from handing "custody" of Santa to Sally, or really, any of the other monsters.
  • Maybe because they are kids. Santa Claus is supposed to be like a caregiver towards children, and I'm sure he'd run away if anyone else from Halloween Town tried to take him.
  • Jack was distracted and not thinking clearly.
• As much as I love Jack, the part where he gets angry at Lock, Shock, and Barrel for going through the wrong door seems pretty douchey to me. I mean, he didn't even tell them that there's more than one door, it's his fault that they kidnapped the Easter Bunny!
  • Actually, he said "Which door? There's more than one!". They just got the wrong shape.
    • And then he holds up a Christmas tree-shaped cookie. "Sandy Claws is behind the door shaped like this!" After which, Shock grabs Lock's throat with an, "I told you!", implying that Jack probably did tell them, they forgot, and picked the wrong one.
• I've been thinking...is Sally really a Stalker with a Crush? The only times Sally is stalking without due cause (trying to get Jack to not go through with Christmas) that I can think of is when she listens to Jack in "Jack's Lament" and when she goes to give him the little gift basket. The former actually doesn't really count, as she was there first when Jack came into the cemetery. So is she?
  • Yes.
    • Could you be a bit more specific as why she is, that josses the above arguments?
    • During Jack's Lament, she follows him around, but is very particular about not wanting him to see her. Stalking is stalking, even if the intent is completely innocent.
    • I decided to look up the actual definition of stalking, and yourdictionary.com gave the law definition:
      A form of harassment generally comprised of repeated persistent following with no legitimate reason and with the intention of harming, or so as to arouse anxiety or fear of harm in the person being followed. Stalking may also take the form of harassing telephone calls, computer communications, letter-writing, etc.
  • So, at least by that definition and, if the website is to be believed, legally, Sally isn't a stalker, as in "Jack's Lament" and when she delivers the food basket, she didn't have the intention of harm^note  and, like I said before, Sally was in the graveyard first, not to mention she did have a somewhat valid reason for not wanting to be seen: 1. she's obviously very shy, and 2. when Jack starts to singing how he doesn't want to be the Pumpkin King anymore, it's pretty understandable why Sally didn't want to interrupt him. The Pumpkin King doesn't want the crown anymore? What is this!?! (His singing probably didn't hurt either), and as for all the other times, trying to get your best friend (as they obviously are friends) to not get himself into trouble (remember that Sally's premeditation had a Christmas tree going up into flames, so the trouble is pretty big) is a pretty legitimate reason to follow him.
    • Let's put it this way. If a man watches a woman through her windows and follows her to work/outings/ect. but doesn't directly interact with her or try to harm her, that's still stalking, whether his intent is to harm her, freak her out, or just observe her.
  • Let's consider this: she was in the graveyard first, hiding from Finkelstein. Perhaps she didn't want him to see her in such a sorry state, missing an arm. Almost as soon as he entered the graveyard he began his lamenting - perhaps she didn't want to interrupt and embarrass him at that time. The second time they encounter each other, she knows he's been working tirelessly researching Christmas, and brings him a meal. He sees her at this time and knows it was her, not a creepy random gift. It felt implied to me that she left him because she knew he was busy, and staid outside his house to avoid returning to her own. Then the next encounter was when he sought her out, where she tried to warn him. I think at this point that this may be a segment for YMMV.
• In Oogie's Revenge and the first Kingdom Hearts game they animated Jack's mouth wrong. They stretched and squashed it into shape instead of replacing the position of the mouth frame-by-frame like in the original movie, and it bugs me. His face loses its vivacious quality without it. They fixed it in Kingdom Hearts 2, but still...
  • And on that note, why didn't someone tell Chris Sarandon that it was "Finkle-STINE" in the movie, not "Finkle-STEEN" like he pronounced it in the games? I'm splitting hairs, but that's what this page is for...
    • Did anyone ever call the Dr. by his name in the movie? I've watched it an awful lot (especially when The Insomnia Donkey kicks me), and I can't remember ever hearing anyone call him by name in the movie. Then again, most of the times I watching it, I'm running on two or three days without sleep, so I could very easily be sleeping through or missing things like that. (I usually say "Finkle-STEEN" anyway; even if it's not what the creators intended, I think it would be an awesomely hilarious Shout-Out to Young Frankenstein if it's pronounced "-Steen".)
    • Yeah, when Dr. Finklestein goes to get his Christmas job from Jack, you can hear the Mayor in the background saying, "Dr. Finkle-STINE, to the front of the line!"
• This is coming out of left field, but am I the only one who thinks the characters should have French accents? I'm not quite sure why (maybe it's the music . . .), but something about Nightmare screams "French" to me. Maybe I'm just being weird.
  • Nah, they need West Country accents. "I don't know nuffink about any skellingtons..."
  • They'd probably have French accents in Valentine's Day Town. Or some kind of Canadian accent. Remember, Canada is the home of the Naked News. Yes, the link is also out of left field, but we're here to enjoy ourselves, so why not?
  • Perhaps they should have German accents; a lot of the town is based on German Expressionism.
• Maybe it's just me being a major fangirl of Jack, but I don't think that the military was quite justified with shooting Jack down with missiles. Yes, the toys Jack gave out was scaring the crap out of the kids, but, as far as we can tell, they didn't hurt anyone. In fact, one of the toys (the jack-o-lantern jack-in-the-box given to the fat kid) was better for the kid than what Santa gave him (a candy cane) because it gave the kid needed exercise — and I'm not the only one who noticed that. Wanting to stop Jack from scaring the kids on Christmas? Quite reasonable. Blowing him up with missiles? Overkill, mate, overkill.
  • It's tough to be sure because apparently the government considers Santa Claus to be real in this universe, but I think it might have to do with the fact that Jack was a skeletal abomination flying in the sky in a coffin-shapedsleigh. You'd be forgiven for thinking it was some kind of otherworldly demonic entity, rather than a well-meaning cartoon skeleton from Halloween Town.
    • Wow, nice fat shaming there. God forbid a fat kid gets treats on Christmas. How dare he.
    • Remember that Santa brings you what you ask for. The fat kid probably asked for candy. Actually, all of the presents seem to be scary versions of what the kids ask for: the one with the shrunken head probably asked for a companion, and Jack brings that, while Santa gives him a puppy; the African American kids asked for a doll and probably some kind of bath toy, and they get a vampire doll and a zombie duck (and seem happy with them, until they go berserk) and Santa replaces them with a normal doll and a boat, etc. The fat kid probably requested something to eat, and that's why he ends with a scary pumpkin.
  • Shooting him down right off the bat may be a little harsh, but the military didn't have many options to get his attention. He was flying, after all. However, it would have made more sense to send some jets to fly alongside him and try to escort him to a landing or have police waiting to arrest him at his next location.
    • Especially with the fact that, like it was noted on the main page, the military shot Jack down over a suburban area. Seriously, they're lucky Jack fell into a graveyard instead of a random house. Though there's always the possibility that they shot him down right of the bat because he's a skeleton. After all, we know Jack's a good guy, but that's not what the military sees. They see a skeletal horror going around terrorizing the world's children who'll probably not listen to reason.
  • Is it really just scaring though? I know we don't see any casualties, but think about it; Jack left a big snake in one house that started eating the tree (not hard to think it'd go after everyone else), a man-eating plant in the shape of a wreath (I'm going by the original poem's description of it, but I'm thinking it's the same), a vampire teddy bear and undead duck that actively tried to attack little children. I know this is the normal scaring procedure for Halloween, but no one expects their Christmas gifts to try and attack/possibly kill them, and to the normal humans this seems like a mean-spirited act at best, and a possible attempt at mass murder at worst. Since Jack was flying through the air and getting around with hardly a problem, I think the military felt they had less of a choice than to shoot him down wherever they could.
    • True, but there's still a few problems. One, it's still very irresponsible of the military to shoot Jack down over a suburban area when there is plenty of country side. Also, considering Jack's and the town's general attitude to Oogie, it's obvious that while they love scaring, they don't enjoy hurting people (in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Jack even tells Sora that the citizens of Halloween Town enjoy scaring people, not hurting them, though whether or not this is canon is debatable), so how likely is the presents going to actually hurt people? Also, Rule of Perception. We never see the military consider any other sort of option, nor do we see anything done to save the kids from the attacking toys in the first place. As far as we can tell, it's only when Sandy Claws Santa Claus comes to set things right is when the kids get any sort of help from the toys. Granted, they were going for the cause of the problem, but still, seriously, what the hell, police/military?!
    • Okay, I just read info added on the main page but a more knowledgeable person. The police/military weren't being as stupid as I thought.
    • This is Halloween lyric "that's our job/but we're not mean" they enjoy scaring but not being a dick about it.
    • You're welcome, civilian.
• Alright, since there's debate on the main page, let's discuss it here: who's the true King of Town, Jack or the Mayor?
  • My theory is that Jack is King of Halloween Land — e.g., the whole Halloween territory. Meanwhile, the Mayor is the elected mayor for the town. So while the Mayor is the guy to ask if you want a building permit or whatever, Jack is the guy who makes the law, and he can override the Mayor's decisions if need be. Moreover, the Mayor would probably have nothing to say about stuff happening on Spiral Hill or in the Hinterlands, since they're outside the city borders. However, since Halloween Town is the only residential area in all of Halloween Land, it becomes kind of redundant, hence the confusion. Think the mayor of New York versus the Governor of the State of New York.
  • The Mayor has all the official power in theory, but between his own wimpiness ("I CAN'T MAKE DECISIONS BY MYSELF!") and the town's worship of Jack's celebrity, Jack ends up in charge for most intents and purposes.
    • Sounds good, but I'm still skeptical of the idea that Jack is "just a celebrity". This lyric in Jack's Lament "He'd give it all up/if he only could . . ." makes it sound like Jack has to be the Pumpkin King, which is unlikely if Jack's only a celebrity. Now, I know a lot a celebrities feel they have obligations, and that very well could be the case for Jack, but being the scariest guy in town doesn't sound so obligatory, as anyone else could take that job. I just get the feeling that Jack has, for a lack of a better word, some sort of legal obligation, like he inherited the Pumpkin King crown or something. *shrugs* I dunno, it's just me.
    • Seeing as how the town completely depends on him, going so far as to freak out if he's gone for even one night, it's not as easy as giving it up. I doubt it's anything legally binding, and in theory he could just decide to give up, but that'd require ignoring everybody in town.
    • Gee, that makes Jack even more pitiful.
    • I always regarded The Mayor's "I can't make decisions by myself!" as a Parental Bonus. It makes me laugh, at least.
  • Okay, I just read the trope, and part of the trope is the king having little or zero competence. So Jack doesn't fit as while he's an Idiot Hero, Jack definitely knows how to run things and has quite a bit of competence.
  • I always thought that The Mayor is responsible to the town itself, while Jack is responsible to planning the Halloween celebration. The thing is that there's not so much beside Halloween in Halloween Town and The Mayor's a wimp.
  • It could be a constitutional monarchy with the Mayor as the Prime Minister and the Halloween King as the Monarch like in the UK.
  • Jack is the King of the holiday Halloween. Hence, he directs all annual preparations for Halloween and ensures that everyone does their jobs to make the holiday scary. The Mayor is in charge of Halloween Town. He'll handle all the things that are necessary to run and maintain any old town, whether it's full of monsters, elves, or ordinary humans, e.g. keeping the streets and utilities in good repair.

• When Jack is shot down by the police and the people realize that Santa isn't coming, instead of going for a "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" moral and teaching Jack that Christmas was never just about the presents and decoration like he thought, they actually announce that Christmas will be cancelled this year because Santa can't come. Apparently, Christianity doesn't even exist in this universe.
  • In the "real world" of this movie, Christmas exists as it is seen by children. That is why you never see the adults' faces, Santa really delivers presents, and the military will shoot down a Santa impersonator. From a kid's point of view, a lack of presents would mean Christmas really was cancelled. The movie just portrays this as the reaction of the entire world.
  • Christians didn't always celebrate Christmas, you know. Christmas was originally a pagan celebration of the winter solstice that was absorbed into Christianity to combat the pagan celebrations. It's possible that in this universe that with the holidays having their own worlds, that the holiday Christmas, and by extension Easter, are celebrated in their secular forms, and the religious forms are celebrated separately. There's two possible reasons why they didn't go with a How the Grinch Stole Christmas! moral: 1. if the human children didn't care about getting presents (or, more likely, worrying about Santa's well-being), Jack won't have a reason to rush back and save Santa (and with Oogie about to eat Santa, that would have been disastrous) and 2. The writers didn't want to rip off How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.
  • Well, consider this; there's a huge attack of children's presents turning out to be monsters trying to eat them, and a creepy skeleton guy is flying through the sky. Christmas isn't being cancelled because there are no presents, it's being cancelled because it's causing problems. The moral of Grinch is less about Christianity and more about the joy of Christmas, and while Grinch just steals the presents, Jack was giving presents that were harmful. The kids were being traumatized by this version of Christmas, that's why it was being cancelled.
  • In addition, Christianity must exist in this universe. When Jack arrives to the house of the boy who was given a human reduced head as present, we can see through the window of the boy's room that his house has an angel decoration, which nearly fell off from the roof due Jack's landing. And after Jack is shot down by the military, he falls in the arms of an angel statue at the cemetery.
• Why is it Jack is the only one who got bored of Halloween? Has he been doing this longer than anyone else?
  • Since he's basically become synonymous with Halloween in the first place, his whole life is forced to revolve around that one single day. It's understandable that sooner or later he'd get sick of it.
  • I always assumed Jack was simply more curious and adventurous in nature. The other citizens of Halloween Town were happy to just do the same thing day after day, but Jack wanted more than this provincial life.
  • Not to mention I doubt the rest of Halloween Town has the Mayor knocking on their door the day after the damn holiday to start preparations for next year.
  • Everyone has gotten into the habit of following Jack's Halloween plans, so he has to make the plans. For everyone in the town. That's tiring. The other Halloween Town citizens can just do whatever until they're told what to do for Halloween, then they can prepare/rehearse.
• I don't understand it why people say Jack has a lot of moodswings. He always seemed pretty chipper throughout the film kinda like Phineas. The part with the Easter Bunny and the battle with Oogie are the only times I see him angry.
  • I think people are using "Poor Jack" for the moodswing argument, as he does go from being depressed to happy in a relatively short time.
  • I always took it that Jack's mood swinging in "Poor Jack" was him going between lamenting that he's depressed and then arguing with himself that he shouldn't be. It seems like Mood Whiplash because he puts on an air of "Snap out of it, Jack!" during his counter-arguments.
• So they spend an ENTIRE YEAR preparing for Halloween? Don't the residents have anything else better to do?
  • Apparently so. If it's a "go-world-wide-where-Halloween-is-celebrated" similar to Christmas, it can be understandable, but otherwise, yeah, it's really weird. And provides yet another reason why Jack wanting to take over Christmas isn't that surprising.
    • It's more that they use those 364 days planning the year's theme/gimmicks and how they'll go about bringing it to life. It's a bit like how Universal Studios does the "Halloween Haunts" thing, except these people are the key to the holiday itself.
  • As a kid I always assumed that the holiday towns have a different flow of time than the real world. Perhaps, say, 365 days to us is a few months—maybe weeks—to them. Goes a long way towards explaining why Jack got so sick of it.
• In the opening narration, it says, "'Twas a long time ago, longer now than it seems . . ." Yet if the Real World is any indication, the movie takes place fairly recently. Am I the only one confused, or am I just thinking too much into this?
  • It may not seem that long ago, but it's actually longer now than it seems.
    • That does not answer the question.
  • The real world seems to be in the late 50s or early 60s, based on the style of the TVs we see and the low-tech toys that the children are given. Still doesn't answer the question, I know.
  • If you look closely at Jack's chalkboard, he's noted the date as 1993, the date the film came out. So, uh... yeah.
  • At the time of writing, it's 2013, twenty years later. Time is relative. Twenty years ago I still had natural colour in my hair. It's all a matter of personal perspective. Alternatively, Jack may have just been using an alternate dating system. If there were a Hanukkah Town (like in The Critic), they'd be using the Hebrew calendar... Jack might subscribe to a weird variant of the Phantom Time Hypothesis. Maybe it really was the sixties at the time? And come on - Phantom Time? Delicious.
• Why does everyone assume that Jack's an Idiot Hero? I mean, I know that he practically ruined one of the biggest holidays ever, but that doesn't technically mean he's stupid. For all we know, he could actually be pretty smart.
  • I'm sure Jack does have quite a bit of intelligence. What makes Jack an Idiot Hero isn't a lack of intelligence, it's lack of common sense. After all, having the citizens of Halloween Town try out Christmas when they don't understand the holiday is definitely not a smart move. Plus, as the main page detailed, Jack's a more justified example than most, as he never encountered anything like Christmas before.
    • Which brings up an interesting thing, that last bit. He's accused of not having common sense, but he does... he has Halloween Town common sense. Common sense is not an objective thing, it's determined by the society we live and operate in. Now all societies on Earth share certain overlaps of common sense like "if you drop something it will fall to the floor/ground", but on many other things common sense differs. (To use a well-known fictional example, when your superior officer fucks up what's common sense for a Starfleet officer and what's common sense for a Klingon are two very different things.) Jack has loads of common sense... it's just common sense for an entirely different holiday than the one he's trying to put on.
• I just noticed this. The Mayor refers to Lock, Shock and Barrel as "Oogie's boys." Sure, this could just be simplifying things for the script, but "kids" could have worked just as well. This would imply that Shock is a boy and not, as people typically assume, a girl. Depending on their intended ages, this could easily be the case, as it can be difficult to tell a young boy with a high voice and atypical manners from a girl.
  • Shock is clearly in a witch costume. Maybe it could be a really bad wizard costume? Or if she was, as one fan theory states, a human child in a Halloween costume, maybe "he" had really gender-identity-liberal parents?
    • In fact, when I was little, I went to Disney World and I saw a little boy dressed as Tinker Bell. Maybe it was a girl with short hair, but I think he was indeed a boy as he didn't look like a girl. Maybe that is also the case of Shock, maybe...
  • I'm pretty sure "boys" wasn't actually referring to gender. Kind like saying "Hey, you guys!" when one of them is a she.
  • I heard the line as "Boogie's Boys", and thought it was supposed to be an alliterative gang name or something.
  • I thought there was a point when Shock made a comment about boys in general being dumb, which would seem to confirm that she was a girl, but maybe I'm misremembering.
    • She said, "I wish my cohorts weren't so dumb."
  • Shock being a boy doesn't really make sense considering that he would be the only member of the trio to have Cross-Dressing Voices.
  • Its actually quite a common saying. "Alright boys, spread out" and such similar things. Its shorthand, not necessarily based on what specific genders are present.
  • Another possibility is that the Mayor is a bit oblivious and legitimately fails to realize Shock is a girl at all.
• A bit surprised it's not been mentioned yet—why had nobody else stumbled upon those holiday trees? Jack had only been walking for one night and he found it.
  • I like to think that Jack has some unconscious powers that come directly from being synonymous with the holiday of Halloween, or at least it responds to him more than to other residents. He apparently had the ability to unfurl that twisted hill thing, so he was probably led directly to the holiday trees subconsciously while he was asleep through the same force that did the aforementioned unfurling of the thingy.
  • This is directly related to the above question about Jack being the only one to get tired of Halloween; until then, nobody had ever really bothered to walk around in that direction because they were happy where they were. Jack, being the curious type, searches for more and so he finds it. This kind of puts the Halloween Town residents in a sort of lemming position, but again, the movie does show that staying within their comfort zone has resulted in them being very closed-minded.
  • As pointed out above, you get lost very easily in the Hinterlands level in Oogie's Revenge, which implies that maybe the doors can only be found if you're actively looking for them, and Jack was certainly looking for something new...
• So Jack has the three trick-or-treaters kidnap Santa Claus, but they bring the Easter Bunny instead. He sends them back to return the Easter Bunny and get the real Santa Claus. This happens at least 36 days before Christmas. When they actually do kidnap Santa Claus, it’s the day before Christmas. What took them so long?
  • They had some fun with him beforehand?
  • Maybe they let Oogie have him and spent their sweet time enjoying the show before they high-tailed it back to the forest.
  • There is also the fact that they are three candy-loving children with a knack for trouble going into two holiday worlds with a lot of focus around sweets. Who's to say they didn't linger long enough to stock up on goodies while they were there? (Being the tricksters they are, stealing probably isn't out of their league).
    • The sequel comic adds weight to that theory. Lock, Shock, and Barrel go back to Christmas Town under the pretense of getting Zero to make it up to Jack. They start causing trouble as soon as they arrive.
  • This might be more evidence to the idea that time passes differently in the holiday worlds.
  • My headcanon is that, after returning the Easter Bunny, they go to Christmas Town and begin trying all the various and complicated plans they detailed in "Kidnap the Sandy Claws". However, each one fails, and Santa is left none the wiser. Eventually, after over a month of this, they just decide "f*ck it" and knock on his door with a bag. It's also worth noting that I would pay to see a series where Lock, Shock, and Barrel are trying to catch Santa in over-the-top ways and each time he has no idea they were ever there.
• Now really, guys, why the hell are children opening their presents on Christmas Eve night?? Don't they know you're supposed to wait until Christmas morning??
  • Only in some countries. Many, primarily in Europe, traditionally open their gifts on Christmas Eve.
• So can Oogie Boogie actually leave his house...dungeon...casino...place? Or is he trapped in there? And if so, by whom?
  • He can probably leave, but since he's obviously very unpopular, and known to be an evil dick by the Mayor (who is terrified of him) and the King (who hates him), he would probably not spend a lot of time outside of his own area.
  • Another possibility is that he tends to stay hidden because his brand of fear is born of being the unknown. He's the shadow on the moon, the fear in your dreams. Unseen, unknown, and thus scary. Whereas other denizens of Halloween Town are conventionally "spooky" things, they're spooky because you see them. Oogie is the fear born of NOT seeing.
• So, how did Jack know where Santa and Sally were being held again? And for that matter, why does the random gravestone he just happens to land near magically transport him back to Halloween Town?
  • My impression was that he didn't. Remember Lock, Shock, and Barrel's "home" seems to be right above Oogie's lair. He was probably going to them to find out where they took Santa and luckily for Sally and Santa, heard the cries. As for the grave portal, maybe Jack has some magic that allows him to make a portal back to Halloween Town.
• Is this a Christmas Film or a Halloween Film?
  • And don't just say it's both, it's one or the other.
  • Yes.
  • Why does it even matter?
  • It's a Christmas movie. The story begins just as Halloween is ending, whereas a proper Halloween movie would hit its climax on Halloween. Furthermore, the story involves characters learning the true meaning of Christmas, which is the most well-worn of all Christmas movie plots.
    • I'm with you. I watch it every Christmas. But there aren't many Halloween movies out there as popular as this, so I can see why it's popular to watch it then. And really, it's so fun and catchy, you can watch the thing in July and no one will think you strange.
  • Word of God - The director (Henry Selick) has said in interviews that The Nightmare Before Christmas is a Halloween movie
  • Thanksgiving.
• On a more trivial note, is Zero the only dog in Halloween Town? Remember, the vampires identify him from one bark, and dog voices aren't that distinctive. Sure, someone who has multiple dogs in their household can usually at least make a good guess at who's barking, but a stranger would probably only be able to deduce the size of the barker sight unseen.
  • Zero's also Jack's dog, and it's easy enough to conclude that he's been in town/around Jack often enough that most citizens probably CAN recognize his bark, seeing as Jack is well-known. Dogs' voices may not be as distinctive as humans', but they "speak" with just as much personality, and some have their own "verbal tics" (i.e., how frequently they bark, pauses between barks, pitch, etc.). Dog owners (and ones with more than one dog) can often differentiate their different dogs by how they bark. And again, in this case, Zero's owner in the one guy in town that can't walk a block without groupies trailing behind him.
  • All the vampires dress like Dracula, so they may share Dracula's power to control wolves. It'd make sense for them to be able to tell one canine's vocalizations from another's, as that would make their wolf-control powers easier to coordinate.
• What color is Sally's hair? It's listed as red on here, and in most merchandise, but in the movie it's light brown.
  • The lighting is so dim and dull in Halloween Town that Sally's hair never gets to look so vivid.
• How did Lock, Shock, and Barrel manage to lift Santa into the tub? He looks like he weighs a ton and they're just small kids.
  • They are supernatural kids, they probably have Super-Strength or something.
• How does Jack find the Holiday Doors without exiting the Halloween Town door shown in the opening? If someone were to find the Doors from Easter Town, would their own door not appear?
  • He could've just wandered right through it without even noticing. Wouldn't be out of character.
    • Thing is, though, he's shown walking into the circle of trees, not emerging from the Halloween door inside it. The pumpkin sun is also out, so maybe each town has their own circle of trees omitting their own door, but considering there are different ways to access the human world, too, the system doesn't make much sense.
• When those kids shove Santa down the pipe one of them pushes Santa with a pitchfork. How is a pitchfork a good tool for shoving Santa through a small pipe?
  • It's not, they're just sadistic enough to try it.
• How can a skeleton blink?
  • Jack's probably more of an Anthropomorphic Personification of the idea of walking skeletons rather than an actual person's literal bones. When he mentions being dead, that's just him acting like an animate skeleton's supposed to act like.
• If the people of Halloween Town only like scaring people and aren't harmful, why is that as Jack is about to fly away in his sleigh, the Mayor's long speech to him includes "you who have frightened millions into an early grave"? Plus, there's a line in the background near the beginning as Jack is slipping away where the Mayor is giving an award to "the vampire for most blood drained in a single evening". Wouldn't that be exactly the kind of incentive that could get people killed?
  • The "early grave" line could be a hyperbole. As for the vampires, is not establish they drink human blood, could be "for draining something".
  • When someone turns white, from fear or sickness, a common thing people say is its as if the ''blood has drained'' from them. It could be the Vampires caused the most serious scares that Halloween Night, not that they actually feasted upon humans.
• What exactly do the people of Halloween Town do to make Halloween? Santa obviously flies around delivering presents on Christmas and presumably Christmas Town helps prepare presents, but what do Jack and his subjects do to prepare for Halloween on Earth? Or do they just have Halloween in their own town?
  • It’s implied that they go around and scare people in the human world.
  • They add ambiance. They make spooky sounds, fly across the moon and make scary shadows on it, be the half-seen things in the dark or twilight that make folks jumpy, that sort of thing. They may even have ways of giving people ideas for decorations. Like making a movie. ;-)
• I know this makes more sense to create a "Headscratchers" page for the pumpkin king game and put it there, but I wasn't sure anyone one would see it since that page is apparently not active enough for anyone to create a "Headscratchers" sub-page for it already. Where does this common fan idea come from of Oogie once having had his own holiday town? Allegedly it comes from that game, but I never saw it mentioned there when I watched a Let's Play of it on youtube. Yes, there are parts where Oogie says he's going to turn halloween into "crawl-o-ween" or Halloween Town into Bug Town, but I saw no line where he mentioned that such a holiday existed before he came up with it and decided to turn Halloween into it. Is it just Fanon, or is there a line I missed?
  • Was it in the manual? Once upon a time those things used to be very informative.
• Is it me or Lock, Shock and Barrel seem to be normal human kids using a mask? And if they are, how the hell did they end in Halloweentown to begin with?
  • Not to be rude, but if they look like normal kids to you, you should look again. Lock has a real tail, for one, and Barrel and Shock are just creepy, too. It's not clear what they are, but it's unlikely they're real kids who wound up in Halloween.
    • What makes you think the tail is real? They may look creepy but they are all using costumes, they're human children.
    • Watch the scene where the trio discuss taking Santa to Oogie. Lock's tail moves of its own volition, and even compliments his emotional state (excitement when discussing what to do, straightening out when he yells,"NO!", etc.) It's a real tail.
    • Rewatching the movie 99% of the time Lock has the tail inert, dragging it as a piece of clothing, that part is the exception, not rule, and as is stop-motion it might just be that the animation look more stocky but it was not suppose to be moving on its own.
  • To be fair, I always thought they were human kids who just visited Halloween Town every so often. This is because in the Latin Spanish dub of the film, before he asks them to kidnap Sandy Claws, Jack comments that they are the best trick-or-treaters and there's no one who wins at them on Halloween. But now that I'm an adult, it makes me wonder if there are any ways for humans to enter into the Halloween world or any other worlds from the remaining six holidays.
    • Now that I remember, there's a way to access to Halloween Town from the outside world: that mausoleum from the cemetery where Jack and Zero fell after being shot down by the military. Who says that Jack and Zero are the only ones to have used it? Perhaps Lock, Shock and Barrel use it as well to visit Halloween Town and later go back to their houses...
  • Their faces (greenish/bluish skin tones, pointy teeth) are actually creepier than their masks. It took me a couple of freeze-frames to realize it.
  • I leave you this interesting video about it.
• Had Sally's plan worked, would she have been able to retrieve her parts? And if not, what would happen? Would Finkelstein have to make new ones, or would a rescue mission for her leg have to be launched?
  • It seems likely that she was willing to sacrifice some of her parts if it meant saving Santa. She could ask Dr. Finklestein to make new ones for her. Sure, he would be mad that she snuck down to Oogie's lair and lost some of the parts he made for her, but surely she could convince him that it was the right thing to do. After all, the monsters of Halloween Town are scary, but they're not mean - surely they wouldn't have wanted Santa to be killed by Oogie.
  • Barring that, we see her sewing herself back together at one point, and she's tasked with sewing Jack's Santa outfit. Probably not too much of a stretch to assume she could make herself a new leg.
• Is it true that Tim Burton insisted that there be no magic in Halloween Town? Why? And if there's no magic, how do you explain the witches and their flying broomsticks?
  • Pure Wild Mass Guessing here, but maybe it's a difference between Functional Magic and… "Magic"? The Witches have brooms that reliably do one magical thing (fly), the ghosts exist and do ghost things, etc. ; but only in Christmas Town do you find pure 'pixie-dust' magic that makes you fly around, teleport, sparkle, at random, just out of pure wish-fulfillment.
  • Seconded. My understanding was that Halloween Town "magic" still follows its own set of rules and logic, and is basically a science in its own right. Christmas Town magic, on the other hand, is more random and whimsical.
    • That also serves the purposes of the story. With Halloween Town having logical magic and Christmas Town having more untethered whimsy, it's able to feel more alluring and surprising to Jack, thus driving his obsession.
• What did Santa do with Halloween Town's toys after replacing them with his own? Did he give them to the citizens of Halloween Town offscreen? That would be nice.
  • The canonicity of a theme park ride overlay is debatable, of course, but the Haunted Mansion Holiday ride in Disneyland does support your idea, as the Toy Duck, Mean-Eating Wreath, Giant Snake and more are all seen throughout the Mansion, having apparently moved to the Mansion for the season along with the other Halloween Town ghoulies.
• Where did that loose thread hanging off of Oogie in the final battle come from?
  • It seems to first appear when Oogie uses that springpad thing to launch himself away from Jack. Maybe the thread somehow got caught in the springpad? But it's on his arm…
  • There's a lot of frantic activity in that scene; it's entirely possible that one of the big stitches snagged on something.
• How is it that only one of Oogie's bugs managed to avoid falling into the stew?
  • My understanding is that the one escaped bug was Oogie Boogie, his true self. Rather than a classic Worm That Walks scenario, I always imagined that Oogie was this small bug who essentially mind-controlled other bugs around him to make a body for himself. As a result, when they are separated from the 'brain', the other bugs have no will of their own, and simply fall limply without making any attempts at escaping.
• Where does Oogie Boogie's gambling motif come from? I know it's a Visual Pun on how he's so sadistic that he gambles with people's lives, as well as a way of making him Bright Is Not Good to contrast the rest of Halloween Town being Dark Is Not Evil, but it still seems pretty strange for a depiction of the boogeyman. Are there any boogeyman stories that involve gambling, or is it just a cool gimmick to give Oogie more character?
  • According to the creators, a lot of the story was built around Danny Elfman's songs. It's possible that he was the one who came up with the casino motif, after giving Oogie a jazzy song because of the "boogie" pun.
  • Maybe it's not because of him being the boogeyman, but because of his bugs. Looney Tunes had a short about a character called the Gambling Bug. Maybe it's a reference to that.
  • Gambling is also a common stereotype for sinful characters in old cartoons, which Oogie's song is directly styled after. Less to do with his monster type (which is often a generic label, anyway) and more related to the context of the musical aesthetic Elfman chose. Alternatively, taking "boogeyman" to mean "the symbol of a moral panic" rather than "a spooky monster", then a gambler is absolutely a boogeyman!
• Why is Oogie's concoction called "Snake and Spider Stew"? Does he sacrifice some of his own bugs to make it?
  • Maybe it's the other way around, and eating a concoction full of snakes and spiders allows him to replace those of his own gut-bugs that are getting too old to be reliable?
  • Or maybe, if it's true that that last bug really is Oogie himself, he makes the stew to feed the snakes and spiders that he controls. After all, if they go hungry, they just might turn on him... Sure, you could argue that mind-controlling insect-eaters is too risky in the first place, but he is a gambler!
• What happened to the Monster Under the Bed? Why doesn't it appear again after "This is Halloween"? Does it literally just stay under that one bed forever? Granted, maybe it's for the best that it doesn't come out, but still.
  • Keep in mind that Jack's really the only one in Halloween Town ever shown being dissatisfied with his lot in life. The Monster under the Bed probably stays under the bed all the time and is perfectly happy to do so.
    • We can assume, however, that the Monster under the Bed just comes out on Halloween night to scare children, hiding under their beds.
  • Maybe the Monster under the Bed does come out from the bed after scaring people and appears in other scenes, but we possibly didn't recognize him due not seeing his appearance completely.
  • Alternatively, the Monster Under the Bed is nothing without the bed itself, and the bed can't move on its own, so the Monster never leaves its place.
• There's a few things I don't understand about the scene where Sally was attempting to rescue Santa Claus. How did she manage to get her detached leg all the way to the other side of Oogie's torture chamber? And for that matter, where did the door her leg was sticking out of lead to?
  • It’s possible that Sally put her leg in Oogie’s Lair and it hopped itself over to the door, and made itself ready to distract Oogie. Oogie would probably have been too distracted by Santa to notice.
  • I'm more curious about how her leg gets replaced after that scene. Did he just give her a second to sew it back on?
  • He probably threw it at her in annoyance, and she sewed it on while he wasn't looking.
• Everybody in Halloween Town seems afraid of Oogie Boogie. Why did it take this long for anyone to do something about him?
  • Because like you said, they're afraid of him. He's already banished from the town and no one wanted to go through the trouble of dealing with him. Jack took care of Oogie because of what he was planning to do with Santa and Sally.
  • Also there was really no way to deal with him other than to kill him. Jack pretty clearly isn't normally the violent sort, and only takes drastic action against Oogie because he tries to kill two of Jack's friends. Meanwhile Oogie probably realized that Jack both could and would kill him if he went too far (note he doesn't really try crap until he thinks Jack's out of town/dead), so they were sort of at an impasse up until then, leading to Oogie living in self-imposed exile and Jack leaving him alone.
• Why the hell does the spider on the mayor's shirt have SIX LEGS?! Why, in a town comprised only of people who literally live to scare children on Halloween, would they gloss over a spider's defining feature?!
  • I'm assuming this has to do with mutilation and there's-something-not-quite-right being scarier than most on-point detailed beings.
• Why is Zero named that? Is it something to do with how, since he's a ghost, he has zero body? That's kind of a stretch.
• During the town meeting, as Jack tries to explain what a present is, the Lake Monster comes out of nowhere and says that the present could perhaps be the head that she found in the lake. The Lake Monster can breathe out of water and walk on the streets, and she can be seen sitting alongside the Melting Man, but what is unexplained is where she is holding when she says her line during the song, as there was nothing above the Clown and the Stairs Monster and the beams where the Mayor was standing were further back...
• When the African American kids go into their parents' room to escape from the vampire doll and the wooden duck, it appears if the vampire doll is trying to pull the door open while the kids hold onto the doorknob to keep the evil toys out. However, when Santa comes to take them away and replace them with a pink teddy bear and a boat, the vampire doll is shown to be hitting her head against the door, so how is it possible that she was trying to open the door if she was only bumping her head against it?
  • Maybe the toy went from trying to open the door to trying to break the door down.
• When Jack throws presents down three chimneys, how do the people at these houses immediately yell and turn on the lights so fast? How could they could open the presents, be horrified by them and turn the light on in such a short time? And that's taking into account that the presents were still wrapped, so they would have to unwrap them first to see if what they were.
  • It could be possible they were children (or very eager adults) who wanted to open their presents immediately. We also see that the wreath and haunted toys weren't wrapped, but almost immediately started wreaking havoc, it's possible that they similarly weren't wrapped up.
  • It's also not meant to be taken literally. It's a montage compressing the events for effect.
• In the middle of the "Making Christmas" song, the Christmas Town clock shows that there's only 14 days until Christmas. Does that mean the Halloween Town residents missed Halloween because they were working on Christmas all that time? Didn't anyone in the real world notice a surprising lack of... whatever it is that the monsters do to them on Halloween?
  • 14 days until Christmas is still December. Why does that mean Halloween (which would be 55 days prior to that sign) was skipped?
  • The movie takes place across three months at the end of one year. Halloween begins the movie at the end of the holiday, so the residents of Halloween Town spent the month of November and early December on Christmas prep.
• What exactly was Jack's plan? Seems like he wanted to introduce Christmas to Halloweentown, but then somehow that turned into kidnapping Santa Claus and then trying to do his job.
  • In Jack's Obsession he seems to start off by being curious and interested in Christmas, and then that turns into 'I can do Christmas', then 'I can do Christmas better', culminating in his plan to take over the holiday. By this point he was just too far gone to listen to anyone (note how when Sally protests, he pretty much ignores her concerns).
• So, the Mayor has two faces to convey his emotions: a cheerful smile (which also seems to be his "neutral" or "default" face) and a forlorn grimace (which is used for both sadness and fear). Question is, what happens when he experienced anger or some other emotion that cannot easily be conveyed by either of those two faces?
  • Perhaps the Mayor's emotional range really is that limited. He defers to Jack naturally and is meant to be a comedically ineffective politician, so he might only have boisterous and meek modes, and negative situations exclusively cause him to react in fear, sadness, and distress, rather than disgust or anger.
    • Re-viewing the film does show one instance (during the scene where Jack hands out Christmas assignments) that proves the Mayor's negative face is capable of expressing anger or annoyance, though his default negative emotions still tend to be anxious in nature.
• If Oogie did actually go through with murdering Santa Claus, what would've the lasting effects been on Christmas as a whole? Would the holiday have just phased out of existence, or would he have been replaced by a new Christmas icon who fulfilled the same purpose as him?
  • It's possible Santa can't actually be killed, but he can be tortured and Oogie realistically could have prevented him from performing his Christmas magic for that year and any in the future, depending on how long Santa could be imprisoned. Oogie threatening Santa obviously represents a threat to the holiday which Jack must account for, but that might literally be the extent of it in-universe—Oogie's biggest threat could just be keeping Santa out of his domain, while being sadistic about it.
• About the Holiday Doors; why do they exist and can be accessed by practically ANYONE from different Holiday realms!? We all saw Jack wander aimlessly until he reached the hub where all the doors reside and explored X-Mas realm by curios look and possible insight for his upcoming Holiday. Are the other realm residents aware of the doors existence or some stronger magic is keeping them from knowing where they are and avoiding future mistakes that can damage a human's perspective of one of those Holidays?
  • As for why the doors exist, it's pretty much just plot purposes. Obviously in the film it's not really gone into as to whether any of the residents of the other towns have knowledge of the doors, but it's possible that any resident may just not be believed if they talked about it (remember the town hall meeting, where all the other Halloween Town residents don't understand Christmas and are looking at it through a Halloween perspective). Jack is a very unique case in being a) the ruler of a town, therefore him talking about Christmas Town is immediately believed, and b) he's also actively looking for something new since Halloween isn't exciting for him anymore. A different holiday ruler may not have the same fatigue to their holiday, or they may just be more sensible and not insert themselves into a holiday that they don't properly understand.
  • In the extended opening on the soundtrack, it’s implied that the Halloween/Christmas crossover was the first time that anything like that had ever occurred.
• What happens when Jack turns into the pumpkin king? Is he wearing a costume or is it magic?
• When Jack returns to Halloweentown after his trip to Christmas Town, he is riding a snowmobile. How did he get that through the tree door?
• What function, exactly, does Halloween Town serve in relation to the real world? Like, we know what Santa does in relation, but from what we see, their entire "Halloween" consists of... a single musical number within their own world. How does that affect Halloween celebrations in the human world?
  • In Jack’s Lament, the lyrics state that he’s known at least in Kentucky, England and France. He wouldn’t have that reputation unless he went into the real world. Maybe the residents of Halloween Town go into the real world for Halloween to partake in the event and scare people. After they’ve sung This Is Halloween the dialogue between the characters pretty clearly talk about that year’s Halloween and that they had a good one, it’s possible that the song is just how they start their personal post-Halloween celebrations.
• How does the kid with no eyes cry?

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