History WesternAnimation / TheNightmareBeforeChristmas

Not a creature was peaceful, not even a mouse.

Halloween Town and Jack also appear in the first three entries in the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series. Every year during the Halloween season, the denizens of Halloween Town also take over the [[Creator/{{Disney}} Disneyland]] and Tokyo Disneyland ''[[Franchise/TheHauntedMansion Haunted Mansion]]'' attractions for the Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay. Since 2017, Oogie Boogie has also served as the mascot of Disneyland’s annual Halloween celebrations.

* HereWeGoAgain: Outside of the movie. While Jack failed to bring a merry Christmas to the world, he tries again with an already-scary location by bringing it to ''Franchise/TheHauntedMansion'' every year.

* AdvertisingByAssociation: [[https://youtu.be/U2BbPck-P3A Early previews]] began by recounting Disney's "tradition of innovation" in animation -- with help from excerpts of ''WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'', ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians'', ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', and ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'' -- before announcing that the studio had collaborated with "Tim Burton, the creative genius behind ''Film/{{Batman|1989}}'', Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'', and ''Film/EdwardScissorhands" to produce a similarly-large achievement for stop-motion.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter: In the "artificial creation" sense of "daughter", with an OverprotectiveDad. Other theories are that he made her as a housemaid, or even with the intention of wooing her.

* TheCameo: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer makes a brief apperance during the ending when Santa gives Christmastown the gift of snow after Santa forgvies Jack. However, Rudolph isn't depicted with a red nose and isn't seen glowing. He is seen with his red nose on the cover of a book (implied to be the original story by Robert L. May) that Jack is studying earlier in the film after discovering Christmastown.

* AffablyEvil: Lock, Shock and Barrel.

* LimitedAnimation: It's subtle, but the animation was all filmed on threes to emulate the "jerky" stop-start quality of the stop-motion Creator/RankinBassProductions which inspired Tim Burton.

* TickleTorture: Oogie becomes distracted by Sally's leg and he proceeds to remove her shoe before tickling it. The foot is shown to be fidgeting, meaning Sally is indeed ticklish. Unfortunately, this causes the the leg to slip out of the doorway, revealing that it is not attached to a body.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Jack is the Pumpkin King not just because he's the scariest creature, but because he's also the toughest.

* TickleTorture: Oogie becomes distracted by Sally's leg that he proceeds to remove her shoe before tickling it. The foot is shown to be fidgeting, meaning Sally is indeed ticklish. Unfortunately, this cause the the leg to slip out of the doorway,revealing that it is not attached to a body.

* InsecureLoveInterest: Sally is extremely shy and insecure towards Jack Skellignton, probably due the physical and emotional abuse she received from Doctor Finkelstein. In her number "Sally's Song," she admits she hasn't much hope to be noticed by him, because "she is not the one".

** After Finkelstein awakens from Sally ''[[TooDumbToLive poisoning him for the fourth time in a little over a month]]'' he reacts to his doorbell the same way any hung over person would react to a loud noise.

* StopMotion: It's even widely believed to be the first full-length three-dimensional stop-motion feature, but [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stop_motion_films according to]] Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Gulliver this is]] [[OlderThanTheyThink not the case]]. The animation is of such quality that a viewer unfamiliar with the film's age could easily mistake it for an AllCGICartoon.

** The title itself is a ShoutOut[=/=]PunnyName to the classic Christmas poem "The Night Before Christmas".

* BookEnds: Jack and Sally on top of the mountain while the other watches and singing is involved. The first is Jack on the mountain singing about how discontent he while Sally silently watches but doesn't intervene. The end has them reversed -- Sally is on the mountain and is joined by Jack who realizes he loves her and they share a BigDamnKiss.

* TortureCellar: Oogie's lair contains several torture devices including an iron maiden as revealed during his VillinSong.

* CuteMonsterGirl: Sally the rag doll, who still looks very pretty despite having blue skin, being covered with stitches and having a SlasherSmile.
* DamselInDistress: Sally briefly becomes one when she's [[spoiler: captured by Oogie-Boogie at the end of the film]].

The whole town groups together to create Christmas, but Sally the rag doll (Creator/CatherineOHara), who is secretly in love with Jack, has a vision that it will be a disaster. But with so many folks pitching in to try something different this time of year, what's the worst that could happen?

Released to cinemas on October 29, 1993, ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'' is a StopMotion animation film produced and conceived by Creator/TimBurton, though actually scripted by Caroline Thompson and directed by Creator/HenrySelick (as Burton himself was very busy at the time, shooting ''Film/BatmanReturns'' and overseeing pre-production for ''Film/EdWood''). It starts with the grisly yet kind-mannered citizens of HalloweenTown celebrating (you guessed it) Halloween in the grandest fashion possible, due to their love of (all right, unnerving obsession with) scaring everyone senseless. However, Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King and the town’s ruler, has grown rather tired of the same old thing, and yearns for something new in his life.

The whole town groups together to create Christmas, but Sally the rag doll, who is secretly in love with Jack, has a vision that it will be a disaster. She's right, of course.

Throw all that in with a boogeyman fashioned from a burlap sack filled with insects, rousing musical numbers so catchy they're scary, scares a-plenty for the young ones, and some truly brilliant imagery and directing, and you get the now widely beloved holiday classic ''The Nightmare Before Christmas''.

* RefrainFromAssuming: "[[IAmSong Jack's]] [[IWantSong Lament]]" is sometimes referred to as "The Pumpkin King" or simply "Jack's Song".[[note]] The latter not making any sense, as most of the songs are sung by Jack.[[/note]]

* BittersweetEnding: Jack finds out that the Pumpkin King is not suited to be "Sandy Claws" and he nearly ruins Christmas for everyone, but the experience restores his vigor for Halloween. Meanwhile, Santa moves like clockwork to save the holiday and fix the damage, later delivering a gift of snow to Halloweentown, showing no hard feelings and Jack is delighted to share this. He also goes to Sally, expressing he wants to be by her side and sit under the stars. The audio epilogue shows that Jack and Santa became great friends, and Santa visits regularly and sees that Jack and Sally have children. Jack admits that, even though it was a chaotic night, he would do it all over again.