Jack Skellington
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Jack Skellington is the Pumpkin King who lives in Halloween Town, a fictional world based solely on the holiday of Halloween. He is the main male protagonist of The Nightmare Before Christmas film and games. Normally, he is dressed in a black pin-striped suit and a bow tie resembling a bat. He has a pet ghost dog named Zero, who has a small glowing nose that looks like a Jack-o'-lantern. His love interest is Sally, a rag doll created by Dr. Finklestein. He is voiced by Chris Sarandon, and his singing voice is provided by Danny Elfman.[1]
Jack Skellington is a well-loved character and is a popular design on bags, hats, clothing, umbrellas, belt buckles, and other items. According to Ultimate Disney.com's Top 25 Heroes, Jack is #25.
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[edit] Personality
Jack is generally a tall, vivacious, charismatic gentleman — a stark contrast to his undead status — and is fond of grand theatrics, which is likely a significant part of what makes him the best at his trade. He is quick and eager to make new friends, but on that note seems to assume (often incorrectly) that others are the same. Although kind-hearted, Jack has a tendency to be self-absorbed, slightly narcissistic, and more than a little oblivious and naive, failing to notice both Sally's affections and Santa Claus's apparent dislike of him. He has a tendency to become fascinated with an idea to the exclusion of all others. Jack also appears prone to mood swings, wherein he becomes depressed at a failure only to become enthusiastic when a novel idea inspires him. Jack is also self indulgent at times when thinking of himself, and can be seen as slightly narcissistic, in that images of his face appear around various parts of Halloween Town. Jack also has a scientific and somewhat logical side, shown in his many attempts of "dissecting" and understanding Christmas using scientific means.
Jack appears to believe in using violence only as a last resort. When angered or forced to fight, Jack is stern and solemn and uses his great flexibility and ingenuity to gain an advantage over his opponent.
It is possible that Jack Skellington and his rival Oogie Boogie are foils, in that Jack is slender, good natured, kindhearted, artistic, and thoughtful whereas Oogie is fat, sadistic, gross, and loudmouthed. It is also revealed that Jack holds Oogie Boogie in great contempt.
[edit] Abilities
It appears that Jack, being undead, may be immortal; but he may or may not be able to feel pain. At the climax of "This Is Halloween" he sets himself on fire without serious injury because, as told in Oogie's Revenge(video game), in Pumpkin King mode he has the ability to do so, but he reacts negatively when Sally accidentally pricks his finger with a needle. He also has the ability to take off his own head, to either throw at adversaries or simply to "recite Shakespearean quotations." At the beginning of the movie after the song "Jack's Lament" Jack takes out one of his ribs an plays fetch with Zero, his dog. Jack also is very flexible for being a skeleton. Occasionally hints are made to further powers, particularly during an episode in one of the original film's video-game spin-offs, in which he fights Oogie Boogie and his army of bugs; he also can use dark magic, as seen in Kingdom Hearts series. This appears to be unfaithful to the original story, as Tim Burton has stated on the audio commentary for The Nightmare Before Christmas, that Halloween Town does not possess any "magic". In the movie, however, Jack can rip his head off because (according to his singing in the song "Jack's Lament") he's already dead.
[edit] Jack in The Nightmare Before Christmas
The film commences with the grand finale of Halloween Town's Halloween Celebrations, which are hailed by the populace as "the most horrible yet". Jack, however, is tired of the same old Halloween, and he wanders off into the woods. Accidentally sleepwalking through the Hinterlands, he stumbles upon a grove of trees that have doors leading to different holiday towns. He thence finds his way into Christmas Town and becomes infatuated with the holiday. After obsessively researching it, he decides that this year the citizens of Halloween Town will manage Christmas, in the hopes of "improving" it. Sally, an animated rag doll who secretly loves Jack, has a premonition of disaster and attempts to warn him, but he dismisses her fear as trivial. Sally's premonition proves to be right. Not really understanding the "spirit" of Christmas, the citizens of Halloween Town create a celebration of the macabre rather than a "season to be jolly"; Jack, dressed as Santa Claus, brings terror rather than joy to the children of the world. Wanting the kidnapped Santa Claus to rest, Jack had ordered the local trick-or-treaters Lock, Shock, and Barrel to bring Santa to Halloween Town and make him comfortable; however, the three kids took him to Oogie Boogie instead, who decided that he will tease, kill, and eat Santa. Sally attempts to rescue Santa Claus, but is herself captured.Upon realizing the error of his ways, Jack overcomes his identity crisis and reaffirms himself as the Pumpkin King. With determination to set things right, Jack promptly returns to Halloween Town, where he discovers that Santa has been taken to Oogie's Lair. He manages to rescue Santa and Sally, and defeats Oogie Boogie. Santa Claus returns to the real world to save Christmas and, as a sign of no hard feelings, gives Halloween Town a taste of true Christmas spirit, fulfilling his former desire to a limited extent. Jack finds Sally atop a hill blanketed in snow and reveals his own affection for her, ending the film.The official film soundtrack CD contains an epilogue not in the film, stating that "many years later" Santa returned to Halloweentown to visit Jack, where he discovered that Jack had "four or five skeleton children at hand" who play together in a xylophone band. Given the ending of the movie, it can be assumed that the children are Jack and Sally's offspring.
[edit] In Video games
[edit] The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King
Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, is shown to have had a rivalry with Oogie Boogie. Oogie makes plans to turn Halloween Town into a New Bug Day. Jack confronts his plan and thwart him from taking over the town. Few of the Townsfolk actually saw Oogie himself, and so assume terrifying ideas about him. When Jack defeated and subsequently scared off such a menacing figure, he was made the Pumpkin King, the one in charge of making Halloween scary every year.
[edit] The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge
Tired of using the same old themes over and over on Halloween, Jack Skellington goes to Doctor Finkelstein, who gives him the Soul Robber, an invention that changes shape. Jack decided to leave Halloween Town to get new ideas for Halloween frights. When Jack comes back to town, he finds that Oogie Boogie has been resurrected. Now Jack has to set things right again. Jack dances, fights, and sings in this game to attack Oogie Boogie's minions. Jack is portrayed as inept to some degree in this game.
It should be noted that Chris Sarandon did both the speaking and singing voice of Jack in this game.
[edit] Kingdom Hearts series
Jack Skellington appears in all three installments of the Kingdom Hearts video game series. He inhabits the world of Halloween Town, where the evil Heartless threatens its denizens. The games' main protagonists, Sora, Donald Duck and Goofy, befriend Jack and together they battle the Heartless and also 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, and Masachika Ichimura provides Jack's Japanese voice.
[edit] Kingdom Hearts
Jack Skellington introduces himself to Sora, Goofy, and Donald Duck as the ruler of Halloween Town. Jack 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, but the idea fails when not only the first experiment cause the Heartless to go berserk, but Oogie Boogie steals the finished heart, and plans to use it to take over Halloween Town. At Oogie's manor, Jack, Sora, and the gang confront him. After Oogie is defeated, Jack finds out that Oogie uses dark orbs as his source of life, which Oogie combines himself with his manor to become a giant boss. Once the gang defeats Oogie once again, and his manor crumbles, revealing Halloween Town's keyhole. Jack is considerably shorter in this game than as he appeared in the movie.
[edit] Chain of Memories
"Created" from Sora's memories of Halloween Town, when Jack Skellington wanted to ask Doctor Finkelstein what happened when he sniffs the potion that can bring "true memories", Heartless appeared. When Jack Skellington had found out that Oogie Boogie had stolen the Doc's potion, he must stop him before Oogie drinks the whole potion. They fail to reach him before he does, but they defeat him, as Oogie becomes overwhelmed with fear as a side effect of the potion. Sora becomes worried about what will happen when he discovers his true memories, but Jack reassures him that fear is a sign of a strong heart.
[edit] Kingdom Hearts II
Following the film loosely to some degree, out of reference, Jack tries to take Santa Claus's place again. To that end, Jack asks Sora and gang to help him be Santa's bodyguards. But after fighting the Heartless and Oogie Boogie, who has been resurrected by Maleficent, Santa explains to Jack that they each have a job to do with their respective holidays. Despite this, he begins to wear a Santa suit Sally sewed together for him. In the second trip to Halloween Town, Jack still wears the Santa suit, as he still longs to deliver Christmas presents and feels that it would be rude not to wear the suit Sally worked so hard on. Along with Sora and the gang, he helps defeat Doctor Finkelstein's experiment, who stole Christmas presents from Santa in search of a heart. As a reward for all his hard work and assistance, Santa brings Jack on a ride-along with him in his sleigh for a while. After Santa drops Jack off at Halloween Town, Jack learns the true meaning of Christmas by understanding the act of giving. He dances with Sally in the end, finally realizing all of the gifts she had given to him where all from the heart and wishes to give her something in return. She tells him that the nicest present she could ever ask for is just to be with Jack. Jack responds telling her that she doesn't even have to ask for that, meaning Jack feels the same way for her. During a cutscene in the end credits, he is shown to be wearing his original suit, suggesting he has taken Santa's previous advice to heart completely, and apparently begins presenting new ideas for next Halloween.
[edit] Disneyland
Once a year at Disneyland during the Holidays, Haunted Mansion is taken over by the cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas and is turned into Haunted Mansion Holiday. Jack and other characters appear throughout the ride wearing Christmas attire.
He also appears at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as a meetable character.
[edit] Cameos
- Jack Skellington shows up in James and the Giant Peach during the pirate scene, as the captain.
- Jack, in his scarecrow costume from the opening number, can be found in Sleepy Hollow.
- Jack's head can be seen on top of Beetlejuice's Carousel Hat in the film Beetlejuice, also made by Tim Burton.
- Jack also makes a fleeting appearance as one of many phantasmic imaginings of Vincent, in Burton's short film of the same name.
- In Blink 182's "I Miss You" on their self-titled album, a clear reference is made to Jack Skellington and his rag-doll girlfriend Sally in the opening verse. "We can live like Jack and Sally if we want. Where you can always find me, and we'll have Halloween on Christmas, and in the night we'll wish this never ends."
Jack Skellington's face made a cameo appearance on a doormat in the first volume of the graphic novel series Lenore created by Roman Dirge .
- Jack appears in an episode of The Critic in a short parody called "The Nightmare before Chanukka", done in the same puppet style as the original movie. In this parody, Jack wears a red suit rather than his usal black and striped one.
[edit] Toys
Jack Skellington has been made into a Bendies figure.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide: The Experts Guide to the Best Recordings (Backbeat Books, 2001), 997.
- ^ Frederick J. Augustyn, Dictionary of Toys and Games in American Popular Culture (Haworth Press, 2004), 18.
