History WMG / TheNightmareBeforeChristmas

[[WMG: Jack, despite being a skeleton, does have some internal organs]]

[[WMG: Each Holiday Tree is a [[Series/DoctorWho TARDIS]] and Jack is a JustForFun/TimeLord.]]

* [[NamesTheSame Jack]] [[AgeWithoutYouth is]] [[Series/{{Torchwood}} Jack Harkness]], [[Series/DoctorWho Tardis Hitchhiker]]. [[BlatantLies Proven wrong]].

[[WMG: Doctor Finkelstein was physically disabled by Sally, [[EmptyShell before she was completed]].]]
[[FridgeHorror He shouldn't have given her]] [[RapeAsBackstory such strong thigh muscles.]]

[[WMG: Jack is an undead [[ThoseWackyNazis Hitler]]]]

[[WMG: Dr. Finklestein created Sally mainly for conversations and basically love on an intellectual and emotional level -- but won't have minded sex as a perk]]
Just [[Tropers/PumpkinLore me]] [[TakeAThirdOption taking a third option]] on the whole MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter vs. SexSlave arguments for the motivation behind Dr. Finklestein's creation of Sally. Can't it be both? [[ParentalIncest No, wait a minute . . .]]

[[WMG: Jack is an undead alien from outer space]]

[[WMG: Everyone in the Holiday Worlds are artificial androids.]]

[[WMG: Spiral Hill is a giant, touch-sensitive plant]]

[[WMG: [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos Slender Man]] is either Jack's father or uncle]]

[[WMG: Jack IS the Slender Man.]]

* As for his faceless appearance, maybe somebody saw Jack once when his head accidentally got knocked backwards, and thanks to the nature of urban legend, he now [[NeverLiveItDown has a constant reminder of]] [[NoodleIncident that embarrassing incident]], much to his annoyance.

[[WMG: Sally was literally created using Finkelstein's hands]]

[[WMG: Jack's not the only one tired of the same holiday over and over again.]]

** Kids during the French Revolution would have toy guillotines that could be used to behead live mice. Perhaps Jack was somewhat careless and [[AdultFear accidentally beheaded himself...]]

There's really nothing that supports this outright, but considering the wide variety of famous Christmas songs out there, wouldn't it be possible if one of them pehraps acted as an "opening" of sorts to the holiday, kinda in the same vein TIH is for the Hlloween Town members? Maybe in that case, the other holiday's also have a song to open the day with.

As in Tim Burton's later movie ''WesternAnimation/CorpseBride'', nearly all of the monsters are [[DarkIsNotEvil fun-loving and genial despite their scary looks]], while the humans are more selfish and dull, if not outright evil. Although Lock, Shock, and Barrel are AmbiguouslyHuman, they are perhaps the most humanlike residents of Halloween Town, and some of the cruelest. The humans in the "real world" are more justified examples, as they feel legitimately threatened by Jack's attempt at making Christmas, but perhaps they were too quick to panic. Most of the toys seemed like they genuinely wanted to play, but the humans didn't consider this at all, instead panicking, shooting down Jack's sleigh, and declaring Christmas to be DarthWiki/RuinedForever.

* [[spoiler: Confirmed]] in the [[Manga/TheNightmareBeforeChristmasZerosJourney sequel comic]].

[[Lock, Shock and Barrel are siblings (but possibly only half).]]
They

In "This is Halloween" several monsters sing "I am the..." lines. Each one has two lines ecept, apparently, the "Who" and the Wind. What if they're the same character singing two lines? Also the "Who" seems to be invisible, just like the wind.

* Original troper here, to bring in another point. On the YesVirginia page, somebody pointed out that if the Real World knows about Santa, why didn't they know about Jack? Thinking about that, this troper had a FridgeBrilliance -- Jack is only refered as the Pumpkin King in HalloweenTown. Nowhere is it indicated that the Real World knows about the Pumpkin King. Also, unlike the other holidays, Halloween has no "offical" mascot. This could be explained by the "Pumpkin King" title being held by different people throughout the years.

* When he talks and sings, there are times where you see he has teeth ''under the ones in the outside.'' Which is either really strange biology, or what we think are his real teeth are just white lips with black stripes on them.

I know this sounds crazy, but bare with me. Let's consider, for a moment, that some of the citizens of Halloween Town would, in fact, meet our definitions for being undead. Consider that there are citizens that look rather like corpses, such as the skeletons on the Hanging Tree and the family, along with Sally. I think that Halloween Town almost serves as a sort of Land of the Dead, even though there are living citizens. And dead bodies decompose. Now, let's take into account that some of the citizens, despite obviously being dead, can do things that we can do. Jack can sing, eat, and move around, and yet we are informed that he is a skeleton, who shouldn't be able to do any of these things. This troper's guess? Jack is not fully decomposed. Underneath that suit, he retains the bare necessities for a digestive system and still has his lungs.
* This is very clever, but sadly pretty much {{Jossed}} by the fact that during ''Jack's Lament'', Jack can "take of [his] head to recite shakespearian quotations".[[note]]If you're not getting it, the way it josses this guess is that the "still has lungs and whatever" idea is to explain how a skeleton can sing; but the fact that he can still sing even if his head is disconnected from the rest of his body means that it's magic anyway.[[/note]] Also, the (clearly organs-less) skeletons in Oogie Boogie's lair can still sing, too.

** Another point: In addition to the flexibility of bus mouth, you can also see teeth under there during many closeups. It seems Jack does, in fact, have lips, but they have teeth-like markings on them.
* Yes, but cartoons didn't exist before 1910, so Toontown didn't exist either (oh, that's different if you go by the original ''Who censored Roger Rabbit'' book, but all the rest of the toon mythology as developed more recently shows that Toons are created by animators using magic pain — see the opening of ''The Animaniacs''). Now, where am I going with this date problem ? Jack O'Lantern is a far more ancient figure than 1910, so except if you argue that there have been many Jack O'Lanterns that replace each other regularly, which I don't (for me, Jack is THE Jack O'Lantern, the one that existed as long as Halloween ever existed), it's not possible. It's a nice theory, though.

And it might just be true, it makes more sense than you'd think. The idea is that the holiday characters need to be believed in, and to fulfill their Holiday's goal, to exist. [[note]]So far, this is supported by the video game ''The Pumpkin King'' which explains how the Bogeyman's own holiday world, Bugday, vanished because humans did not like it and stopped celebrating it, forcing the Bogeyman (who we know better as Oogie Boogie now) to take refuge in Halloweentown.[[/note]] Santa Claus couldn't teleport outside of Oogie's lair during the song, ''because Oogie Boogie wouldn't take him seriously'' and refused to believe he ''was'' Santa: "You're joking ! ''This'' can't be the right guy !?!" Santa, however, can later magically transport outside of Halloweentown in a split second because Jack was beginning to talk to him seriously as the only Santa Claus who could save Christmas in time.
It might also have happened many times in Halloweentown's history to various characters who stopped being scary to mortals, were forgotten, and withered away into nothingness. Today they fill the graveyard Jack visited during ''Jack's Lament''; notice how at least two busts represent two famous historica- painting scary-looking fellows: Füssli's demonic horse and Munsch's Screamer. They were scary at first, but when people got used to seeing them everyday on television, in museums, in the newspapers, in parodies, they stopped giving goosebumps, and consequently they ''died''. This is supported by this very simple question: why would anyone be ''buried'' in Halloweentown in the first place, since half of the citizens are members of TheUndead ?

Specifically, Oogie is decay. All the creepy crawlies in him, yeah. He is the stuff that comes after death. Jack himself, however, '''is''' death, which is why Oogie wants to supplant him, but it's also why Oogie cannot succeed. Decay and crawling creatures comes after death, but death comes for them too.

* Oogie's the former leader of an old holiday called Bug Day. Even if the theory's true he's not part of it.

*** just because he was the leader of a different town does not mean that he is not a anthropomorphic personification of a concept

** Christmas was a holiday during the Victorian era. Victor (Jack Skellington) would know of several holidays in fact.

*** Also, to quote the first lines of TNBC:"Twas a long time ago longer now than it seems." If Victor died just when Halloween was started (which was around 2000 BC) then the whole thing falls apart.

Dr. Facilier has his friends from the other side take the form of shadows. Oogie seems to be able to control his shadow to sing in the beginning song in Nighmare, so this troper's idea is that Dr. Facilier's "friends" decided to give him AFateWorseThanDeath - being trapped in a gigiantic burlap sack with living bugs as guts. This drives Facilier mad, making him less GenreSavvy, more sadistic, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking lowered the quality of his grammar]]. So now Dr. Facilier is [[DeaderThanDead double dead]] first killed when the tailsman was broken, then when he was torn apart.

** Funnily enough, this troper's sister gave a pretty good argument that Jack is an undead Adolph Hitler. [[HitlerAteSugar Seriously]].

With all the residents of Halloweentown being based around scaring people in mostly harmless ways, Oogie's overt violence seems to stand out. But what if Oogie never planned to kill Santa? What if he only intended to THREATEN to kill them? [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Oogie doesn't really go about killing anybody particularly efficiently, drawing things out with style and musical numbers...]] Which makes perfect sense if he doesn't WANT to kill anybody. Instead, he's scaring people with The Threat of Death. If he's representing one of the most primal, ubiquitous fears his pride is understandable; and it would explain why he's a member of Halloweentown and why Tim Burton didn't consider him evil. Even his appearance makes sense for an AnthropomorphicPersonification of the fear of death, mystery... gambling... and an empty shell with bugs as the only life inside.

{WMG: The True Meaning of Bug Day]]

[[WMG: Oogie Boogie is the reincarnation of [[Disney/ThePrincessAndTheFrog Dr. Facilier]]]]

** Maybe they just have to pick one holiday town to live in, and their new form takes on qualities of both holidays? For example, someone who loves Halloween and Christmas may go to Christmas Town and become, say, a scary polar bear, or go to Halloween Town and become, say, a BadSanta-esque monster.

* [[spoiler: Confirmed]] in the [[Manga/TheNightmareBeforeChristmasZerosJourney sequel comic]]

** Kids during the French Revolution would have toy guillotines that could be used to behead live mice.