Why The Pumpkin King Version Of Jack Skellington Didn't Make It Into Disney's Archives
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It's that time of year again! You know, the one where we all debate whether or not something is a Christmas movie, like "Die Hard" or "Gremlins." The big one, and the one that I must insist belongs to two holidays — Halloween and Christmas — is 1993's "The Nightmare Before Christmas." I don't see why it can't be both. That said, there are certain parts of the film that seem to fall firmly into one category. That includes when Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon and Danny Elfman) appears as the Pumpkin King at the beginning of the film and during the song "This Is Halloween."
Jack is cool no matter what outfit he's in, but there is something so delightfully and creepily sinister about him when he's in that guise (since I mostly want to hug him for the rest of the film). "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a classic, with not one, but two versions on Disney+, the regular film and the sing-a-long. That's why it seems so odd that the Pumpkin King version of Jack Skellington didn't make it into Disney's Archives. There was a good reason for it, according to the 2023 book "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas Visual Companion" by David A. Bossert, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the film. Let's take a look at who created the stop-motion animation armature for the character and why it's lost to history.
'There was only one created'
"The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a stop-motion animated film, which means that actual physical characters exist in the real world. They're brought to life by sculptors and fabricators and posed for each shot. The physical nature of these characters means that they can be stored in something like the Disney Archive. The poor Pumpkin King didn't make it in, though. In the book, character fabrication supervisor Bonita R. De Carlo, who created the Pumpkin King armature, said:
"My personal favorite puppet was Jack as the Pumpkin King. It is the first time we see Jack in the movie. There was only one created, and I insisted on doing the fabrication myself. Unfortunately, right after the shot was accepted, the puppet was stripped down so we could use the armature for other Jack puppets. This means there isn't a Pumpkin King puppet in Disney's archives."
Not every puppet ended up in the archives, even if they didn't have to be reused for another shot. Some of them, as well as props and some of the sets, were taken home by the crew as momentos. There was just too much to keep, according to the book. Director Henry Selick even kept a bunch of them, that were later used to create new products for Disney to sell and for me to spend all my money on.
"The Nightmare Before Christmas" is currently streaming along with the sing-a-long version on Disney+. Happy Christmaween!