Tim Burton is not exactly a face you’d associate with Christmas. And neither, frankly, is Jack Skellington. To be perfectly honest, if you were ever in need of a replacement for Santa Claus, the gangly, spindly, seven-foot-tall scarecrow / zombie hybrid is not someone you’d be looking to. At least, not ordinarily. And in Nightmare Before Christmas, you can see firsthand why there are far worse choices out there…and conversely, far better.

Proving The Critics Wrong: Jack Skellington Now, I could go into all sorts of yadda-yadda detail about the hundreds of detachable heads required to film Jack Skellington’s movements and dialogue, but by now you’ve already heard about that. Part Ed Wood horror extravaganza, part Dickensian Christmas fable-with-a-message, Nightmare Before Christmas tries to teach us the rather surprising moral that it’s generally better to stick with your strengths. Sure, most of us have been in Jack’s shoes a time or two—our greatest talents become sources of malaise and predictability. Even when we go all-out to blow the doors off our previous successes, there’s still something missing. Sometimes, all we want out of life is a little novelty.

And Then You’re Getting Shot At In A Flying Sleigh Driven by Undead Reindeer.

I think I can just “nuff said” on that point. How can you put it any better? Step out of your box and get blasted by surface-to-air missiles while ruining Christmas. The only way Burton could’ve made his point much clearer is to have Santa Jack’s sleigh crash into a bus full of nuns delivering food to an orphanage.

But Then, Maybe…Just Maybe….

Okay, so I’m being uncharitable. Maybe there’s a lesson in here about restraint, and taking the advice of well-meaning naysayers seriously. For every putz who said that it’s a scientific impossibility for a train to exceed thirty-two miles an hour there’s a surprise visionary who said “hair in a spray can is the stupidest idea ever.” And that’s the true genius behind Nightmare Before Christmas. You have an array of messages to choose from, all easily supported. That and it’s all sorts of fun. You can’t beat a combination like that. Nor can you beat the amazing array of Nightmare Before Christmas movie trivia we have for you.

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