Jack Skellington In Nightmare Before Christmas – The 1 And Only.

Jack Skellington in Nightmare Before Christmas is the fictional mascot for Halloween Town. Jack started out as a replacement for Sally’s dead pig and became the main character when he realized he had gotten himself trapped on Christmas Eve. He spends all his time wandering around as he tries to escape from his inevitable demise at the hands of Santa Claus.

Jack Skellington is the main character and protagonist of The Nightmare Before Christmas. He is a skeletal zombie who is the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, a fantasy world based solely on the Halloween holiday. He has been voiced by several actors throughout The Nightmare Before Christmas’s film adaptation, including Chris Sarandon and Danny Elfman with Sarandon providing Jack’s singing voice in the original film and soundtrack album, while Elfman provided his speaking and singing voice in subsequent productions.

General Views About Jack Skellington – Nightmare Before Christmas.

The character is a fashionable design on bags, hats, clothing, umbrellas, belt buckles and other items. The character’s appearance is a skeleton dressed in a black pin-striped suit and a bow tie that strongly resembles a bat. Originally designed to be completely black, it blended with the background too well; consequently it was changed. At the beginning of the film, Jack makes his grand entrance by emerging out of the fountain in Halloween Town’s plaza. His last name is a play on the word “skeleton”. He has a ghost dog named Zero for a pet who has a small jack-o’-lantern for a nose; he is adored by Sally (a feminine creation of Doctor Finklestein).

A fun fact for those who do not know, Jack, a meetable character at several Walt Disney Parks and Resorts including Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Walt Disney World, is located outside The Haunted Mansion in Frontierland. During the holiday season, the ride is taken over by the cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas and is turned into Haunted Mansion Holiday. Jack hosts Halloween Screams and Not So Spooky Spectacular! fireworks show as well as the Frightfully Fun Parade performed by puppets of characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Chris Sarandon provided the voice for Jack in each instance.

Jack Skellington – A Closer Look Into A Fantastic Character.

Jack Skellington, the patron spirit of Halloween and a living skeleton, is often portrayed as being on par with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny within his own holiday. As a living skeleton, he is supernatural and can remove parts of his body without harm. The implication is that their job is to scare people in the real world on Halloween night.

Jack, as the “Pumpkin King” and master of ceremonies, is in charge of Halloween Town’s celebration of Halloween. He is loved, respected, and even idolized by the other residents for his role. But he has grown weary of celebrating the same holiday endlessly and is depressed about it. The only one who understands Jack’s feelings is a lonely ragdoll named Sally. She overhears his singing monologue about how he feels about the holidays and feels she can relate to him.

In a scene after the annual Christmas celebration, Jack enters a forest that contains portals to other worlds themed around holidays. He discovers Christmas Town and decides that this new experience is what his life has been missing. He makes preparations for his own Christmas celebration in Halloween Town and wants to impersonate Santa Claus in the real world. While his intentions are not malicious, Jack does not understand the true spirit of Christmas. Halloween Town plans to give the holidays a macabre makeover. Sally reveals to Jack a bad premonition, but Jack’s basic nature is impulsiveness: he does not seem to register contradictory information or even notice Sally’s determination to help him. By the end of the film, he notices Sally and her determination to help him—and proves that love can be part of his nature by calling Sally “my dearest friend” and telling her that they were meant to be together . . . then embracing his future with her.

Jack is a tragic hero because he begins the story at a lofty position. In spite of all his fame and talent, he yearns for another side of life. While a desire for completeness is not a flaw, his impulsiveness proves to be a problem. He tends to be enthusiastic and inclusive, and his charisma is enough to sway every member of Halloween Town except Sally. His selfish decisions lead to the near destruction of Christmas and himself. The strength of Jack’s character is demonstrated by his will to correct his own mistakes once they are made clear to him.

The film’s official soundtrack CD includes an epilogue not in the film, stating that “many years later” Santa returned to Halloween Town to visit Jack. It also mentions that “Jack had four or five skeleton children at hand” who played together in a xylophone band.

Interesting Facts About The Well-known Character.

1. In Tim Burton’s 1988 film Beetlejuice, the character Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) rises from the ground in a canopied miniature merry-go-round that rests on his head. At the very top of the canopy is a comical white skull that would later become Jack Skellington’s head.
2. His surname is a play on the word “skeleton.”
3. Jack Skellington is the first character in Disney history to be completely colorless despite coming from a technicolor film. All other black-and-white characters before and after him came from black-and-white films as well.
4. Jack Skellington’s puppet used in the film is made out of clay.
5. When Jack removes his head “to recite Shakespearean quotations” due to his corpse status, he is referencing Hamlet, in particular a famous scene where the title character finds the skull belonging to a deceased Court Jester named Yorick with which he was remarkably familiar.

What About His Appearances In Video Games?

Such a famous character like Jack Skellington must be in video games. If you were a fan of “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” you should know these following video games:

The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King.

In Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington has a rivalry with Oogie Boogie. Oogie makes plans to turn Halloween Town into a New Bug Day, kidnaps Sally, Dr. Finklestein’s creation and takes her to his underground lair. Jack learns of Sally’s kidnapping and takes it upon himself to save her (for the first time) and restore Halloween Town. He confronts Oogie and defeats him after which he banishes him to his underground lair where he resides for the rest of the film. Having defeated Oogie, Jack is crowned Pumpkin King—the king of Halloween and all things scary in the town.

The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge.

Jack Skellington, bored of using the same old themes on Halloween, goes to Doctor Finkelstein for new ideas. Finkelstein gives him the Soul Robber, an invention that changes shape. Jack decides to leave Halloween Town in order to get innovative ideas for frightening tricks. When Jack returns to town, he discovers that Oogie Boogie has been resurrected. Now Jack has to set things right again by dancing, fighting, and singing in this game to attack Oogie Boogie’s minions. Jack is portrayed as inept to some degree in this game due to his clumsiness at times.

Chris Sarandon performed both the speaking and singing voice for Jack in the game. Elfman performed only the singing voice in the original film due to his personal request.

Disney Universe.

Jack Skellington appears in the downloadable Nightmare Before Christmas expansion pack, which includes Jack Skellington, Sally, Oogie-Boogie, Dr. Finklestein and the Mayor as in-game costumes. The downloadable content can be bought from console stores (e.g. the PlayStation Store). The package included some costumes that could be found in the downloaded level; unlike characters’ original appearances in the game which had three chapters each, this world only had one chapter called Halloween Graveyard.

Kingdom Hearts Series.

Jack Skellington is a character who appears in four installments of the Kingdom Hearts video game series. He inhabits the world of Halloween Town and fights alongside Sora, Donald Duck and Goofy against the Heartless and Oogie Boogie. In combat, Jack uses some of his scary powers with demonstrations of some magic, making him a formidable sorcerer.

Chris Sarandon reprises his role for the English version, while Masachika Ichimura provides Jack’s voice in Japanese.

Kingdom Hearts.

In the game Kingdom Hearts, Jack Skellington introduces himself to Sora, Goofy and Donald Duck as the ruler of Halloween Town. He plans to use the heart that Finklestein created to control the seemingly docile Heartless to make a festival called “Heartless Halloween” so that Halloween can be frightening. The idea fails when not only does not work out, but Oogie Boogie steals the finished heart, and plans to use it to take over Halloween Town. At Oogie’s manor, Sora and friends confront him. After Oogie is defeated, Jack finds out that Oogie uses dark orbs as his source of life which he combines himself with his manor to become a giant boss. Once they defeat Oogie once again, his manor crumbles revealing Halloween Town’s keyhole. He is considerably shorter in this game than he was in the movie though he is still rather tall when compared to Sora and his friends.’

Chain Of Memories.

“Created” from Sora’s memories of Halloween Town, when Jack Skellington wanted to ask Doctor Finkelstein what happened when he sniffs an antidote to the potion that brought back the Heartless, Heartless appeared. When Jack had found out that Oogie Boogie had stolen Doc’s antidote, he must stop him before Oogie drinks the whole antidote. They fail to reach him before he does but defeat him as a side effect of the potion overwhelmed Oogie with fear. Sora became worried about what will happen when he discovers his true memories but was reassured by Jack that fear is a sign of a strong heart.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.

In this game, Roxas arrives at Halloween Town while Jack is in the middle of a brainstorming session. Jack is having trouble coming up with ideas for Halloween and looks over to see Roxas leaving through a Dark Corridor. Time after time, Roxas’ adventures inspire Jack to create such things as balloons filled with spiders, exploding frost pumpkins, and Halloween lanterns. When Roxas is sent to find the source of a terrible drop in heartless population, he finds the town overrun with monsters called Tentaclaws. After seeing Roxas defeating these monsters himself, Jack invents a terrifying scarecrow version of Roxas as his centerpiece for that Halloween event.

Kingdom Hearts II.

Following the film loosely, Jack attempts to take Santa’s place as he tries to deliver Christmas presents. He asks Sora and the gang to help him be Santa’s bodyguards, but after fighting the Heartless and Oogie Boogie, who has been resurrected by Maleficent, Santa explains that each of them has their own mission for the holidays. Despite this, Jack begins to wear a Santa suit Sally sewed together for him. In the second trip to Halloween Town, Jack still wears the suit as he still longs for Christmas and feels it would be rude not to wear it because Sally worked so hard on it. Along with Sora and his friends, he helps defeat Doctor Finkelstein’s experiment who stole Christmas presents from Santa in search of a heart. When Santa drops off Jack in Halloween Town, he learns the true meaning of Christmas by understanding the act of giving. He dances with Sally in the end and realizes that all the gifts she gave him were given with love. In a cut scene near the end credits, he is shown wearing his original costume, suggesting that he has taken Santa’s previous advice to heart completely and will present innovative ideas for next Halloween.