The most iconic Halloween-meets-Christmas movie, that can be enjoyed for both holiday seasons, The Nightmare Before Christmas deserves all the praise and fan appreciation it' accumulated over nearly three decades. The film was produced by legendary filmmaker Tim Burton, who is known for implementing his gothic style in most of the projects he works on.

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The Nightmare Before Christmas follows Jack Skellington, the King of Halloween Town, who accidentally finds Christmas Town and becomes obsessed with celebrating that particular holiday. As Jack to make his own horror spin on the Christmas Holiday, the fate of Christmas (and even Santa) is at stake. However, the average viewer might not know any fun facts about the making of the film.

The Movie was Actually Based on a Poem

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That’s right—the one hour and 15-minute movie was based on a poem written by Burton during his time working for Walt Disney Feature Animation in the early '80s. Burton wrote a three-page poem with the same title as the film based on the classic poem “T’was the Night Before Christmas.”

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Originally, Burton was planning on adapting the poem into a television special similar to How the Grinch Stole Christmas! or even a children’s story. After showing concept art and character designs to a fellow Disney animator, they decided to move forward with creating a motion picture after the success of his short film.

The Songs Were Written Before the Movie Script

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Image via MasterClass

The Nightmare Before Christmas is known for its jaunty, ghostly songs with the many characters of Halloween Town. “This is Halloween,” “What’s This?,” “The Oogie Boogie Song,” and “Jack’s Lament” are some of the well-known songs from the film. They have had such an impact on culture that the songs (composed by the iconic Danny Elfman) are a staple of Halloween (and even Christmas) playlists.

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However, what many people don’t know is that Elfman wrote many of the songs before the script was completed. As Burton described different plot points to Elfman, he got to work and wrote the songs while also looking at sketches and drawings of the characters.

The Film Took Over Three Years to Make

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Image via Touchstone Pictures

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a stop-motion, animated film. The actual characters were not animated, but physical sculptures that were repositioned for every single shot until they created a coherent sequence of pictures—thus, stopping the sculptures and putting the shots together to create motion.

The stop-motion animation took a whopping 18 months, and pre-production was long as well, since every shot had to be storyboarded down to a tee. The animators on this project did not mess around—and there were only 12-17 animators on the job at a time. Talk about dedication!

Danny Elfman was the Singing Voice of Jack Skellington

Jack Skellington singing to a snowflake in The Nightmare Before Christmas

Jack Skellington, the mayor of Halloween Town, happened to be partially voiced by Danny Elfman. While Chris Sarandon provided the speaking voice used in the majority of dialogue in the film, Elfman provided the singing voice.

Not many composers get the opportunity to bring their characters to life in their own way, and allowing Elfman to sing the songs he wrote for such an iconic production is one of the most heartwarming facts about the movie.

Secret Passageways for Animators

Sally holding a spider lollipop in the snow.

As previously mentioned, The Nightmare Before Christmas was a stop-motion film. The set consisted of 19 sound stages and hundreds of settings built especially for the movie. Because stop-motion is so hands-on and there were limited animation techniques used in this film, each set piece had hidden spots where animators could access parts of the scene to create a more smooth cut.

There were underground tunnels, secret passageways, and trapdoors to move the puppets/sculpture characters. They also used these secret passageways to quickly change their faces for a wide range of emotions to be showcased.

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