Trivia for
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) More at IMDbPro »

• In the German version, Sally was dubbed by Nina Hagen.
  
  
• In the Italian version, Jack is voiced over by Renato Zero.
  
  
• In the song, "This is Halloween," the lyrics "... tender lumplings everywhere...” refers to "Tender Lumplings," a song done by composer Danny Elfman when he was with Oingo Boingo.
  
  
• Behemoth is based on B-movie actor/Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson.
  
  
• Jack makes his first lengthy appearance in Beetle Juice (1988) on top of Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton)'s carousel hat towards the end, after summoned by Lydia (Winona Ryder). Although this was Jack's longer appearance, he actually first appeared in Tim Burton's Vincent (1982), in minute 4:45, even if it is a very brief appearance.
  
  
• Patrick Stewart did the original introduction for the movie, which can be heard on the film's soundtrack.
  
  
• Tim Burton has said the original poem was inspired after seeing Halloween merchandise display in a store being taken down and replaced by a Christmas display. The juxtaposition of ghouls and goblins with Santa and his reindeer sparked his imagination.
  
  
• Two items were invented to facilitate the filming of the movie: One was a "light alarm" which would warn the animators if any of the stage lights failed to come on. The other was a system that enabled a puppeteer to seamlessly switch to a replacement puppet if a puppet broke during a shot. Prior to this, either situation, a light failing to come on or a puppet breaking would destroy a shot.
  
  
• The teaser trailer tells us that the film was originally intended to by released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner, playing the movie heavily as the next generation of filmmaking following in the proud tradition of Walt Disney. By the time the theatrical trailer was released, the release label had changed to Touchstone Pictures, an alternate designation of the Walt Disney Studios. Michael Eisner, the then CEO and Chairman of The Walt Disney Company, found the film to be 'too dark for kids' and had it moved to their Touchstone Picture banner. In October 2006, the film was re-released in 3-D under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.
  
  
• This was the first movie to ever be fully animated using the stop-motion technique that was favored by Tim Burton for special effects in some of his other movies for its surreal quality. The animators received Oscar nominations for Best Visual Effects as a result, but lost to ILM who created the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park (1993)
  
  
• Tim Burton had hoped to direct, but placed Henry Selick in the director's chair instead as Burton was busy working on Batman Returns (1992).
  
  
• In the original Poem Written by Tim Burton the only characters that existed were Jack, Zero and Santa. All the other characters were made up for the movies, although he describes some of the presents which were given out including in some cases the names of the children.
  
  
• Oogie Boogie is inspired by Cab Calloway, who provided character voices and musical numbers for several Fleischer Bros. cartoons; he and Santas Claus quote dialog from the Betty Boop short "The Old Man of the Mountain", when Santa asks,(quoting Betty's line) "What are you going to do now?", and Oogie returns Calloway's(as the Old Man) "Goin' do the best I can...”
  
  
• Danny Elfman did the singing voice for Jack because Chris Sarandon said he did not have a good singing voice.
  
  
• It took a group of around 100 people three years to complete this movie. For one second of film, up to 12 stop-motion moves had to be made.
  
  
• In the scenes with the street band, especially inside the town hall, there is a small man inside the bass that is based on Danny Elfman.
  
  
• There are only two shots in the entire film that were filmed at normal speed (24fps), one is the opening overhead shot of the trees in the forest and the other is the bugs falling into the molten pit in Oogie Boogie's lair.
  
  
• According to Henry Selick, Vincent Price was originally cast as Santa Claus. However, after the death of Price's wife, his own health began to fail and his voice performance was very frail and weak. The tracks were deemed unusable which led to, much to Selick's regret, the role being recast.
  
  
• For the 2008 Special Edition Blu-ray/DVD release, Christopher Lee narrated an animated version of the original poem written by Tim Burton.
  
  
• It is stated in "The Making of..." book that the most difficult shot to film in the entire movie is the shot in which Jack is reaching for the doorknob to Christmasland. Viewers can see the perfect surround reflection of the forest around Jack in the background.
  
  
• At the end of the movie, when the vampires are playing hockey, the jack-o-lantern was originally Tim Burton's head. this deleted scene can be seen it the special edition dvd.
  
  
• Catherine O'Hara and Glenn Shadix reunites with Tim Burton after Beetle Juice (1988).
  
  
• Burton wrote a three-page poem titled The Nightmare Before Christmas when he was a Disney animator in the early-1980s. Burton took inspiration from television specials of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas.
  
  
• Elfman found writing Nightmare's 10 songs as "one of the easiest jobs I've ever had. I had a lot in common with Jack Skellington."
  
  
• In 2001, Walt Disney Pictures began to consider producing a sequel, but rather than using stop motion, Disney wanted to use computer animation. Burton convinced Disney to drop the idea. "I was always very protective of [Nightmare] not to do sequels or things of that kind," Burton explained. "You know, 'Jack visits Thanksgiving world' or other kinds of things just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people that like it," Burton said.
  
  
• Tim Burton and Danny Elfman experienced "creative differences" during filming. For this reason, Burton chose Howard Shore to write the film score of Ed Wood (1994).
  
  
• Paul Reubens had previously worked with Tim Burton in Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) and Batman Returns (1992).
  
  

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