The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) dir. Henry Selick | Showgays: A Movie Musical Podcast

0:00 [Music] what's this what's this everyone is dressed in green what's this conversation's most obscene what's this the streets are lined with chubby fat boys puking at bad jokes they keep on laughing what the holy [ __ ] is happening what what what's this actually it wasn't a hit at all um it did one preview before it opened and I think from that preview Disney basically learned there was no audience for this movie and kids hated it and so all merchandising was pulled and uh the marketing suddenly shifted from what was going to be towards a young audience to try to find an adult audience or almost sell it

0:45 like it was wrong they had no idea what to do with it the the preview was a disaster here I'll show you my claymation project okay now I've been working pretty hard on this and I think it's really good so just hang on your hat okay okay here we go [Music] great [Music] [Applause] amazing did you pause it no I hang on oh my God that's the whole thing that's three weeks of work you're gonna be okay no no no no I'm not you see in

1:33 my head I thought that was really really cool in fact I I emailed Leslie two days ago and I compared it to Avatar Chris and how can it not be longer now it's time to go behind the scenes of the making of the latest Dark Fantasy from the strange mind of Tim Burton the filmmaker who gave us Beetlejuice Edward Scissorhands and Batman now he's using animation like you've never seen before so open your mind to what is most definitely a Tim Burton movie Let Yourself Go to a place where every day is Halloween [Music] got a test late last week it was a false negative go to class or a restaurant every Great American loves to work

2:20 enter anywhere probably that's just a mask up for right drink baby blood open the box now where's our wine Our Generation was the best generation a little flu never made us cry look inside of me and see what you will see [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you

3:09 la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la beautiful Harmony stunning this is hello Queen it's hella Queen welcome to um welcome to the most emo episode of this podcast we'll probably ever do the most seen most goth uh the Venn diagram Hot Topic did sponsor our episode for today thank you Hot Topic thank you shout out to Hot Topic and and Happy Thanksgiving everyone

3:56 and most importantly Happy Thanksgiving Happy Belated Thanksgiving it was just a few days ago um great um I have been watching or not watching sorry I have been listening to this music all day so it is fully I'm all in all in on the listen You'll see it but Adam's uh Adam's eye makeup is so dark and mysterious right serious heavy heavy heavy heavy your long Sally Wig is flowing the Sally of it all I mean RJ okay so there so here's the comedy of the challenge for this week

4:41 last last episode Molly was adamant I hadn't yet to do a challenge even though I was confidently wrong as always feels like I recently did this and in fact I had um so we can either do RJ's turn which I think should should probably be what happens um or we can do punishment for Molly getting confidently wrong last time I would say I do love the running bit that it just keeps being avoided I just keep not doing it something always happens where it's like oh yeah I just haven't done one and so it's like a Jimmy Kimmel Matt Damon situation or RJ just never does the summary yes absolutely um but I think I think yeah I think it's fitting that RJ

5:28 I don't know why it's fitting other than it's just a turn it's fair it's egalitarian great RJ you have one minute to tell me the entire plot of The Nightmare Before Christmas Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas starting now okay uh Night Before Christmas is about this like really skinny uh uh skeleton named Jack Skellington who's like the pumpkin Lord king um who is just so tired of Halloween like he's like I've been doing this for years I need something new something fresh he ends up stumbling across uh a different a new Halloween world called a Halloween Holiday World called Christmas

6:14 um and decides to try it and just like any other tall skinny white man he says oh yes I am very highly qualified to do this I know exactly what he's doing just from watching him and uh doing like Googling essentially um with the instruments that I have uh and ends up ruining Christmas but then realizes the error of his ways uh like a true white Savior and Saves Christmas uh and Halloween for his own Halloween Town I guess and that's one minute um I would like to know that you didn't even mention Sally and yep it was inconsequential to whether or not

7:01 the plot anything happened with the plot and that's how I feel about Sally unfortunately I did make the I mean if we're jumping into Sally I did make the note that I was like I you could also sell this as a Sally movie and I think I would have bought it too like I she had such a I felt like she had like a good not maybe not equal weight but she had a really good like she has a firm hold of the movie there is like there is a a sizable portion of the film that is dedicated to Sally's plot yeah and I do think that she has like there was an there was like a thing that I saw where it was like if if Jack is the like is the fun of the film Sally is the heart of the film which I was like that's very kind

7:46 um however there are some issues I have with Sally live firstly she doesn't make a change right she wants to escape from the beginning and then she continues to want to escape her captor and also it's just a story about men not listening to her throughout and they're just like what continues to happen and then one kisses her at the end men never listened to her but one time one kisses her that's what happens in Italian truly like even at the when it got to that point where Jack's like wait a minute something's weird I vaguely remember someone telling me that this was a bad idea where is Santa like it was it was a funny like oh and obviously like he saves the day at the

8:31 end so I was like okay all right I'm I mean technically Santa Saves the Day what's your history with Timber Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas so I remember being I want to say in like middle school and all of the sudden Hot Topic t-shirts appearing with Nightmare Before Christmas on it and it was like this moment it was this moment that has happened to me many times in my lifetime where all of a sudden a pop culture thing appeared where everyone was like we've all been liking this this whole time and I just didn't know about it which is primarily because my parents are just nerds like I always feel like people are gonna think I grew up in some weird conservative religious household when I say like I feel like I missed a lot of Pop Culture media when I was a

9:19 kid that's like primarily because we were just watching Poirot every night instead of like movies and by the way how much did your family contribute yeah we had the canvas tote so I know that we remember we had a sizable donation and you can think Molly matinee for the show Zoom thank you Molly thank you Molly loves him um so anyway the point is I feel like I missed it and then all of a sudden it was like everyone was obsessed with it and it became this part of the like emo slash scene um yeah subculture which I don't know the difference between those two things

10:04 which I'm sure will be clear in this conversation sure yeah I'm sure we will get many a tweet uh yeah yeah people will have opinions but I do think I watched it I think that for the first time in like high school or something just like I think it was on TV one night and I was like oh I can finally know what this is and I liked it but I don't have like a strong emotional connection to it because it kind of hit me when I was older and I I didn't engage with it in the same way so that's my relationship so when was that so when was that first time you watched it it wasn't yes it was high school I think at high school I'm gonna say like 16 probably okay okay mine was uh Adam made me watch it when we moved to Orlando so we moved to Orlando and I don't even remember I I want to say it was because

10:50 like they started doing like I think we were going to not so scary not that we were like gonna meet Jack and Sally but I think it was like in preparation to go to our first ever uh Mickey's Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party you made me watch it and I was like wow this means this music slaps I that was my like big takeaway was that like love this music um I just also knew like before that I think like you I just knew that Jack Skellington existed I didn't remember like how I knew I didn't know when it just came to me but I just knew that a character named Jack Skellington was was something in pop culture can you explain what Mickey's Not So Scary

11:36 Halloween party is absolutely it is a a separate ticketed event where Magic Kingdom transforms into Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party where you can join Mickey and his friends uh as they celebrate Halloween um there are trick or treat stations spread all around Magic Kingdom RJ had never been trick-or-treating in his life before this time wow so you could go to like a station and get you know you could no you could literally just it's just a line and then they give you candy but Adam was like you have to say trick or treat I made RJC trick or treat so we went and was like trick or treat uh so you know that was fun and then there were some like uh special stuff so like there was like

12:22 a villains dance party you could join in or there was a a special like Hocus Pocus themed Stage Show on in front of a castle where they brought out like different Disney villains to help whatever and then there was uh the Halloween parade which probably was I I think it's like the highlight of the event but they had like different they had different um they had different Disney characters like how they celebrated Halloween So like um gotcha and there was a headless horseman that's like the big big drop I'm also sure that this will get into this with the show Fox but just so I understand was this a Disney movie when it came out or has it since been acquired by I saw this note on the

13:08 Google Doc and I had no idea so it's too complicated we can put a pin in it and come back to it but we'll come we'll come back to it okay okay it is not so I saw this movie I had um a babysitter until I was like in first grade um and I she like would go all out for Halloween and Christmas like she was like full every room had decorations for both holidays um and as a kid I know in The Little Shop episode I talked about how I was like very scared of the plant but like I as a little kid really liked spooky spooky was my thing I didn't like scary

13:53 but like fun [Music] um Scooby-Doo Scooby-Doo pumpkins Jack pumpkins um so I saw this movie when I was like very young she had like a VHS copy of it and it I had to be in like I had to be like the year before kindergarten so what would essentially be preschool I think I saw this movie um this is 93. this is the the year the movie comes out is 1993 so that would have been probably like 95 or 90 95. um and I like genuinely like remember it I remember the move I remember the like when the hill unfurls and he like walks

14:41 down the hill I like specifically remember that um and I remember um Dr Finkelstein I think is like the most memorable character in my brain which is like very strange um but but I did not that you would remember the the character actor as such the character the role I was born to play um but I but I didn't own the film so I I only saw it I think that one time and then I didn't see it again until like I rented it in high school or something like that just like re-watch it and then I was like it's good but it's fine were you at all scared of it when you watched it Pre-K no because it I was thinking about this because I was like I would have

15:26 been around the same time that I watched little shop and I was like why was I scared of little shop but I wasn't scared of this and I think it's because it is so not believably our world like it is so removed from anything that's real that I was like oh this is all just fake like there's there's nothing scary about it at all um so because this is like off topic but like my mom called me two nights ago and she was like well and I was like hello and she was like I just finished listening to the cats episode she did proceed to give me some notes which we have to stand

16:11 um but then I was I was like oh did you hear the trailer at the end what the next episode is and she was like yeah it's gonna be little shop and I was like yeah I'm I'm excited I was excited to see it because I'd never seen the movie before and she was like yes you had and I was like I don't think so and she was like I was like I remember that we went to see it at this out because my sister's friend was in it and I got scared of the plant and that's all I remember and she was like I think I I know I rented it I think you were in the room when I watched it and I was like I probably wouldn't have been because like the plant freaked me out too much so I probably wouldn't have wanted to watch the movie version of it she was like maybe so but I think you were there and I was like okay so this is all retconning to say

16:57 um I apparently have barely did see the movie before and that's but fully blocked it out but fully blocked out suffice to say um my mom has an answer but she thought it was great she thought it was should we have our own uh like yeah email rule so Nan and Rita can have a direct line for notes yeah that's true I mean my mom does already have a direct line to me it's my phone number but um yeah does nan have any notes for RJ and I that we should get live on air they were like technical editing notes and I was like cool thanks we're off the hook Molly oh thank God but she did say she was like she's like listened to me and RJ do a bunch of

17:44 stuff but she was like I've only ever heard Molly do the Hello Dolly episode and she's just she's so intelligent and I was like okay [Laughter] stay in a conversation with this woman um so anyway thanks Bob uh love you Happy Thanksgiving Happy Thanksgiving man Thanksgiving my mom's notes are like I can't believe you have friends that are this fun is like the oh neither can we Molly [Laughter] um thank you [Music]

18:34 should we this is so weird that I don't have I don't have like a musical to talk about this is the music predecessor to the movie yeah yeah the origin stories yeah this is our first like movie Musical that was made to be a movie originally and I would I would say probably couldn't be a stage adaptation but maybe we want to discuss that later I I thought about this I yeah I thought about this while I was watching it um but yeah so the movie so the movie is technically based on a poem that Tim Burton wrote when he worked as an animator for the Walt Disney Company um he did not have a long tenure with the company he was fired in or let go I

19:21 guess in 84 I believe um and then it was like after that I don't even know how he jumped from animator to directing Batman and Beetlejuice but like go off Queen I guess it was probably Edward Scissorhands honestly that like really cemented it in in all honesty but um he had written this thing and then technically because he had been an animator at the time Disney had the rights to his idea so he like came back to them um in the late 80s and was like hey I'm still really interested in this thing that I had come up with and he had done like sketches for and like kind of a story treatment for it um and they were like well you know we'd be opening to we'd be open to doing

20:07 something since you are a critical box office success at this point um so uh they he was working on um I think the Batman sequel whichever one that is not not the one with the second one uh Batman here we go again Batman The Squeakquel um and another film so he was like well I don't have time to direct it but I know I know a guy who who can and so like he was just the executive producer of this film even though like it feels so Tim Burton that it's like when you find out that it's not directed

20:53 by him you're like well that's absolutely insane um so that's like only the there is like the poet you can find the poem online Disney's also like sold the poem as like a book too so you can like find little like physical copies of it um but it's it's literally like a poem that was inspired by a obviously the like very classic Old Saint Nick poem um and then also the Grinch and like those like TV um those like uh stop motion motion yeah the like 60s like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Frosty the Snowman watching Nightmare Before Christmas I kept going back to the Rudolph movies because I was like this is like

21:40 the style beat by beat like how they are portraying Halloween in the way that in the style of the Rudolph movies well and also yes and also just technically and we can we're gonna have an entire conversation on like the technical achievements of this film but like going from those like 60s um stop-motion movies where it's like very stilted very wooden to the fluidity that this movie has is like insane yeah there was a point where I was watching this movie and I was like the when you have to truly think about the fact that these are all photos yeah it made me want to throw up like I was like there is nothing I care about enough in my life as passionately as

22:27 these people care about stop potion animation I would kill myself I thought about that I watched the behind the scenes uh coverage of it and it was like there is nothing that I care this much about in this world into a creative project I'm writing a dissertation and I could not make a stop-motion movie right exactly I mean technically you're writing a dissertation started a podcast so you could avoid writing your dissertation but that's also fine I'd love to know what the side projects were that people worked on during Nightmare Before Christmas just to do anything else with no second of their time probably sleep that would be my guess um so anyway so um it all it all has these like very

23:13 obvious Inspirations um when you like watch the film um that are very apparent but like well curated I think um and then the so they like decide to make this movie so it was like originally going to be in the original teaser trailer for this film it is a Walt Disney Pictures it's not a Walt Disney Animation Studios but it's a Walt Disney Pictures film and then Michael Eisner who's CEO at the time was like I think it's too dark for kids so they released it under Touchstone but then in later years they re-released it under the Walt Disney Studios Banner so like that so originally it didn't

24:00 have the Walt Disney like casts Tinkerbell in the castle that okay it did not no um it only had the touch the like the Touchstone and then the like lightning bolt that happens um and um the other film that's similar to that where it's like been adopted by Walt Disney Studios pictures is Who Framed Roger Rabbit that's the only other one that's like been taken out of its original umbrella and moved okay who friend Roger Brad Who Framed Roger Rabbit that one that is the first movie we mentioned so far in our discussion of scary kids movies that did scare me as a child oh my God when he like the dip and he did yeah my God yeah but I think this I I was trying to

24:48 think about this my nephew is six um and is in kindergarten or it's about to turn six and I think I think he could watch Nightmare Before Christmas maybe not you definitely want to have like lights up in an adult in the room and he could he could stop if he wanted to but I think he would enjoy it yeah um because it's also the other thing too like that's that's why I think it's not scary I think the scariest part is probably Oogie Boogie to be honest but like yeah it's really just the like how the people in Halloweentown look but like they're all kind of just like they're all villagers in a town like there's not like anything scary happening they're all just kind of like look crazy yeah and I think Oogie Boogie is as threatening as most Disney villains oh for sure so yeah she's not

25:34 extra weird or anything yeah [Laughter] facts and figures this movie is directed by Henry Selleck the screenplay is by Caroline Thompson who was dating uh uh Danny Elfman at the time uh and the original adaptation was by Michael Mcdowell who ended up not being able to like finish a script for the film which is why the screenplay is by someone different the stories originally by Tim Burton based on the poem by Tim Burton and it's produced by Tim and Denise denovie it's starring Danny Elfman as the singing voice of Jack Skellington as well as Barrel um Chris Sarandon is the speaking voice for Sarandon

26:20 I saw someone say that he pronounces his last name Sarandon Oh weird but Susan Sarandon is his ex-wife I know which is like I don't know if they're that's why they're specifically like not I don't know um so either Chris Sarandon or Chris Sarandon whoever cares who knows not us um he is the speaking voice for Jack Skellington Catherine O'Hara the the great Queen and you'll remember the name herb ear blinger come taste the difference good fruit can make in your wine you'll remember the experience and you'll remember the name herb Earthling Irv herb linger Bing live Hunger live

27:10 link Bert herkern you most notably I guess now known as Moira but like before shit's creek probably Kevin's mom from home alone and Beetlejuice and Beetlejuice Lydia's mom in Beetlejuice um so Catherine O'Hara plays Sally and she also plays shock the witch in the trio um William hick hickey I think is the mayor if I remember that right um Glenn shadix oh no will I'm sorry William hickey is Dr Finkelstein Glenn shaddix is the mayor Paul Rubens AKA PeeWee Herman is the voice of Locke Ken page um is the uh is Oogie Boogie and Ed

27:56 Ivory plays Santa and the narrator at the beginning of the film which if you click Ken Pages IMDb you will see that a past credit of his was old Deuteronomy in the uh recorded version of cats oh in the 1998 Masterpiece classic so there you go we've we've made our first link on a new on our new uh Revival Cast The showgate Cinematic Universe yeah absolutely Marvel has nothing on us Marvel's nothing new cinematography is by Pete kozichick uh edited by Stan Webb music by Danny Elfman animation by Joel Fletcher Owen claddy Angie glacca and Justin Cohn the production company was touched on pictures distributed by Buena

28:43 Vista pictures release date was October 29th 1993 the running time was 76 minutes love it um the budget was 24 million and then its original run the box office was like 50 million and then in subsequent re-releases has gotten all the way up to 91.5 which is like insane insane is that a movie that is like available in a time where not just like streaming but like access to a hard physical copy of something and you can like just purchase it still will make money when they show it in theaters like guy it just it takes you the cultiness of this film I think yeah um I always like finding out who could

29:28 have been in it and the only ones I saw was they wanted originally Vincent Price which would be great which would have been incredible they wanted him for what do they want him for Finkelstein no Santa Santa they wanted him for Santa oh I love I was assuming it would be like Jack Skellington I like the juxtaposition there if he was Santa yeah it's Vincent Price it's the one wholesome character yeah yeah um but I guess I guess it's actually really sad like I said white his wife had just died um and he had like started once his wife passed I guess his health started going bad and they had done like a bunch like audio recordings of him and he like sounded sick and sad and they were like we can't use these at all yeah

30:16 um but it the movie ends up coming out like days after he passes which is like really crazy James Earl Jones was also considered um and Patrick Stewart technically did the narration for the prologue for the soundtrack and there's an epilogue that he does too where you find out Jack has five skeleton children um it's very strange um but that was not used for the film and instead they used the guy who did um Santa's voice who was just like a local voice actor in the Bay Area which is so crazy local work gets you never know what local worker gets you

31:01 um I you did have a note here it's like the opening weekend of of other movies it's kind of is that true is that what this is yeah yeah that's kind of crazy that this came out the same weekend as Cool Runnings and Rudy cool things what a great movie I know I was about to say well yeah so the oh the top five of the weekend that this movie went wide was number one was Beverly Hillbillies which is like I guess they made a movie yes they did okay which is like I can't imagine a world that was like the same time where they were doing there was a Flintstones movie oh yes TV Brady Bunch them Brady The Brady Bunch Movie they were doing that whole thing um Demolition Man was number two nightmare was number three in its second

31:47 week technically and Cool Runnings was number four and Rudy was number five [Music] thank you [Music]

32:40 this movie this movie my initial feeling about this movie is that it is a very good film and I do understand why it has some of the appreciation it has I don't know if I get the full thing um but I also think it's like a movie that is style over substance and I don't mean that as like a as a mark against it or whatever I just mean like the things you remember about this movie are literally the visuals probably maybe the music if you like listen to it a bunch and like not the story at all other than like the general thing of like Christmas and Halloween happen at the same time yeah

33:26 but like yeah the details of the plot are just like who cares it doesn't matter yeah I think it's an intentionally sort of thin plot because it that kind of helps it be this cult classic movie where it is the visuals that we're appreciating because if the plot was too sort of like messy or contrived like that would sort of almost take away from the experience right but we started talking about this before the podcast and I said we have to keep it but I was surprised re-watching this movie how much of it is sung I sort of thought maybe this would be one of our movies where there's like music but there's like only a few songs in it but it's like it's a lot of it is song through but I the only song that I ever remember from this movie is this is Halloween and it's because it's like very repetitive

34:12 and people will play it around Halloween time because there's not a lot of Halloween songs yeah so my question is like why is this music not more memorable because it functions so well in the movie there was never a time where I was like I'm bored of this song or like it's not working well here but I like can't sing any of it for you now yeah I for me it was like the certain songs that are catchy obviously is what's memorable so like you said like the repetitive This Is Halloween um I really think um like what's this is also very memorable like to me and then um my favorite song is the Lock Stock and Barrel song kidnapped the same kidnap that Sandy Club but it's like for me as I was watching it yeah it's like I

34:59 didn't remember how good the music is until I'm watching it I'm like this is really good like for me it was really firing up all of my wordplay like ASMR triggers from Sondheim like the like just the way that it's like rhymed uh like it was just really clever well yes I would say the biggest the biggest problem that it's very hard to remember and like memorize in that same way is like yeah it does not follow the standard Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge chorus yeah like this music is so all over the map the lament like both Jackson and Sally's Song have like a tune that like repeats through it yes but like none of the it's

35:46 just like doesn't come back in any way like if they are actual like almost Soliloquy stuff yes but yeah like our full thoughts gave me full Carousel Soliloquy of just like I am just exclaiming with fervor and music yeah um so I think that's definitely a part of it too and like yeah I would say it's probably this is Halloween what's this kidnap the Santa Claus and then maybe Oogie Boogie song or like the four that like I could pick out and be like oh I remember this moment but like Jax lament Jack like Jack's Lament and then like poor Jack I that's basically the same song yeah [Music]

36:46 I've never known I'm the master of fright and a demon of light and I'll scare you right down it kind of makes me think of like just the not expository but like like even in cats where it's like we're telling the story through like a rhythmic song yeah it's like inverse with like a melody but it's not like you know like a traditional song so I don't know if it's like what is that like music being served more as like a narrative device or like uh it's like taking taking over like you know obviously like dialogue to explain what's happening like yeah it's not memorable it's like

37:33 resuscitive in Opera which is where it's like we're singing the the words but we're just progressing versus an aria where it's like I am now doing a song yeah um that's interesting I also was wondering if it was in part because I feel like in at times the music kind of sways more towards orchestration for a movie soundtrack than like musical theater and I feel like we don't have quite as many like sweeping emotional moments as when I I was thinking about the songs in Disney Renaissance films that are like everyone can sing part of your world or like the opening to Beauty and the Beast right and I feel like part of that is that we have the like the big moments and the bridges in the Middle

38:19 where everyone wants to like belt it out and I don't feel like these well there are there are emotional moments for the characters and we're like getting to know the characters they kind of don't have the same swells in them maybe yeah like re-sing ability like there's no like yeah yeah yeah there's only like they also only do one reprise and it's at the end and it like isn't even so much of a priest as it says like it's the end so here's your Curtain Call number of all the songs we sing in this film earlier um which I think reprises also helped the audience like remember yeah specific motifs but I think Danny Elfman Danny Elfman is so good at the scores he does like I think I was listening to the soundtrack today and I was like just the

39:06 the songs alone that are just score in the background are just so beautiful yeah and they pull in all the themes of the songs and just like like rework them as like it's there's this like harp that happened it's very just it's very enjoyable to listen to because it's like it's so smart and it's so well done and it's like a full like 40 piece Orchestra that's like doing it so pretty that is interesting like what you said Molly that it is songs as score so like that is how it's used and how it yeah like how it's built yeah yeah and I think it's great musical scoring and only maybe okay musical theater composing but it's not it isn't musical theater ultimately so that's not really

39:52 a knock yeah yeah could this be movie musical as its purest form because it's like fully like using music in the movie form you know what I mean like if you were to Define a movie musical like at its core well I also want to say I also want to say that it's so it's also very smart because the other thing it does that is like incredible is what's this specifically which is like my favorite song and probably because I'm more of a Christmas person than a Halloween person it's also kind of like the not maybe not the wishing song but it's the like Jax lamentis is like yeah that's true um what's this is like um the Brilliance is like the song sounds

40:41 like the place in which the story is happening like it sounds like Christmas which is like very easy to do you literally just put Jingle Bells in the background and you're like oh yeah it's Christmas but I think the upbeat nature of it they talked about in that background documentary where they were like trying to get Disney on board with like once they started the project so that they wouldn't like pull the plug once they realized it was gonna be like three years worth of yeah Photoshop over here a literal shop of photos um is they did the first bit they did was they did what's this and then showed them that because they were like It's the Most Disney thing yeah that we do in this film and they're gonna eat it up because it's yeah that's what it is um I'm gonna play a little bit of it

41:29 what's everywhere what's this there's white things in the air what's this I can't believe my eyes I must be dreaming wake up Jack this isn't fair what's this what's this what's this there's something very wrong what's this there's people singing songs what's this the streets are lined with little creatures laughing everybody seem so happy have I possibly gone damn it what is this what's this children throwing snowballs instead of throwing heads the busy building toys and absolutely no one's dead this frosted every window I just really like it I also really like Christmas Town I really like and we can get into like the design aspect of this film too and we definitely have to but the the Christmas Town like being like a basically

42:17 oh yes um town is like so smart and it's like so on the nose but not in like annoying way and like because it's so juxtaposed with the the like German expressionism that's in Halloweentown that it like it it works so well yeah that was a quote that I pulled from that behind the scenes that that Tim Burton's style is German expressionist combined with Dr Seuss and I felt like that was the most apt description I've ever heard from Tim Burton's style yeah it's so specific it's like there's nobody you can't it's hard to like even cop I mean people can like copy it but it's hard to like yeah I would say nail it down I mean

43:03 Edward gorey's illustrations I think are very similar to Timber and I think he's very obviously heavily influenced by that but since gory worked in two Dimension I I can't think of any filmmakers who are on who are doing a similar thing to Tim Burton right and I also feel like this movie to me is like quintessential Tim Burton it is to me the the most Tim Burton thing Tim Burton yes that was the note that I made while watching I was like this is kind of like at his best and like I I wonder if it is like is he better served in an animated world because he can go full-on creative which like I mean like you know Edward Scissorhands and and Beetlejuice are still effective but I feel like the more movies that he make

43:49 I feel like it's like I don't know it's better animated well it's also Tim Burton's thing is like he loves a fish out of water story yeah and he loves like he always comes back to uh there's like a a space that we are placed in in a setting that's like not normal like it looks very different from what is normal but at some point in the movie there's always going to be a moment where you see like what the normal is and it's always very plain like they do it in Edward Scissorhands um he does it in Beetle I like it's every movie he has like a moment where he's like look how boring the normal world is after you've spent an hour in like this crazy universe and now you're

44:35 like going like it happens in this movie when they when Jack is like going throughout the actual world like delivering gifts and everything is like right angles every chair is like in a corner like it's like very boring to look at which I think is like kind of smart and fun yeah well I also read um I read a few essays to prepare for this all in a book called the philosophy of Tim Burton which talked about Aesthetics which made me happy because that was the class in which we all became friends with each other in college um welcome is narrated together in Aesthetics yeah um so Jennifer McMahon who is also like the editor of the whole volume wrote an essay about uncanniness in Tim Burton and her argument is basically that that

45:20 part of it is because of that animated setting and like uh you're talking about like kind of the the funky angles and stuff like that and we also talked about how like you watch it as a child and it's very clearly like in an unreal space and her argument is basically like we're made very uncomfortable by confronting our own death usually but Tim Burton manages to have these very like Macabre images and like make it um acceptable and make people want to watch it because it's so like Fantastical and because it's animated and we associate animation in our culture with like things that are safe for kids and so it like gives us a sense of security just the fact that it is animated in and of itself which is also why I think I mean maybe you could do a stage adaptation but only because we

46:06 would be thinking of the animated version while watching the stage adaptation rate but I feel like the The Whimsy of the way that the characters move and how their world is constructed and like Sally's arms like coming off and stuff I feel like it has to be in that world of animated stop motion like other otherness in order for it to really work on all these levels yeah I mean we could just spend like a full block just talking about how all the characters move I feel like just watching Jack Skellington move is so entertaining so unique like him and his fight with Oogie Boogie with his just legs fully like Daddy Long Legs um but then even like all the other I

46:52 really like the the villagers in Halloweentown they're all so weird and unique and they all move and talk so differently like so goofy I uh I just wanted to watch them it's so interesting too because they are essentially the chorus of the film yes and almost every musical has a chorus that all looks similar like they all like kind of are supposed to like form one unit as chorus and you're not supposed to be able to distinguish any of them but this is like the A Chorus you can specifically point to where it's like they all have specific characteristics and they are all characters they're all visual gags like they're all yeah I mean they're like they're all like different shaped bodies of things like they're not even

47:39 like people in different clothes it's like one of them's just a head you know like it's like 50 different yeah that's that's a great point I mean the the color palette of Halloweentown is very unified and apparently that was part of also the Creative Vision was like it's black white and orange and like those are the only tones you can work in um or not tones colors you can work in and so I feel like that's kind of cool how they used the colors to make them cohesive of like these are all from the same place but they they're they're all incredibly visually distinctive characters uh I love the little vampire quartet that was probably my favorite little like oh the the Trio you mean yeah the like the little Barbershop vampires I think there's like

48:25 a chorus number after Sally has um I think like sent Jack the wine or something where where the villagers start talking and the the vampires start because then the sun comes up as they're singing and then they have little umbrellas like later on there are there are there is like a very classic um classic animation thing that this movie has where like there is not a wasted shot in terms of like there's something always happening and there's probably a gag especially if it's with the villagers in Halloweentown because if it takes you a week to make a second of filming you've got plenty of time to think about what's going on in that shot baby I we I mean if we're talking stop motion like Molly posted the link of of

49:11 parks and rec that's truly all I think about now when I think of stuff about it and he's and he's I gotta drop it in it's so good so good should we I think that song that you're referring to is Jack's Obsession Molly um with the like villagers wondering what is going on with Jack yeah it was giving me very like there's that song in um in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend where there's like who's that new guy like it's like it's just Andy where's Rebecca button yeah where's Rebecca Bunch or they even do it in um my fair lady like all the servants oh yeah yeah before the rain in Spain

49:58 [Music] don't know if we're ever going to get him back he's all alone up there locked away inside [Music] never says a word hope he hasn't died [Music] I do want to talk about Sally because I the the romance aspect of this film that really has blown up in the cultiness of the film um I it it doesn't work for me I like Sally as a character yeah and I I think this

50:46 might be Catherine O'Hara's most understated performance of her entire career because it's so it's so simple and like when she sings her song like she's not a singer but it's so sweet yeah um you it is it is shocking how quickly you can attach to a character who has virtually nothing to do in a movie and yet like I I she was like the she was like the only person I like felt genuine like care for in like a real way that I was like oh I hope she gets whatever she wants even though like you don't want him girl he's awful he doesn't even know you're there Jack doesn't know you exist she kept calling you my dearest friend and I was like he doesn't know who you are uh my dearest

51:32 friend what's your name again vast improvement from her husband daddy character who made her yeah Creator so Dr Finkelstein from what I read is supposed to be like she's like his daughter like he created her she's like a daughter taking care of an elderly father basically yeah so your mind stuff but the other thing too that was weird was like when they were like coming up with like finalizing the story was they came up with this draft where Oogie Boogie was actually Dr Finkelstein and that's why he was like trying to like get Jack out of the way because Sally liked Jack but then Tim Burton was

52:18 so mad at that idea that he kicked a hole in a wall oh my God because I guess in his in his mind they're all just like they're all just like these care they're they're they're there's not like enough there's not there's no twist there's no B plot yeah there's no like nefarious like uh twist yeah I don't know that I follow why would him being Oogie Boogie give him more motivation though to keep her away from Jack uh it just felt like he was like you know just be like a good creature and

53:03 just uh just staying like you're not ready like she kept he kept being like you're not ready you're not fully formed yet Kevin also say Finkelstein stop letting her cook you food I know the commitment to gender roles it's like would you please stop poisoning me because I don't know how to make any food for myself oh also fully you have Igor also working in your payroll yeah who appears like cowboy boots Sally around like she wasn't like you're a sister or anything she was just like uh not fully baked person yet but I

53:51 would like to say here's my one like ooh I had a really smart take on this which is that Finkelstein moves in the direction of only caring more about himself because he ends up making a creature that is just like another version of him in the end to replace Sally whereas Jack is uh well so I guess they're both moving towards themselves Jack is trying something different and then learns to embrace who he is as a result of that not so I do feel like we do see them take sort of diverging paths and so to the extent that Sally's story congrats is about her picking between two men but like um to the extent that maybe there's something interesting happening there we do see Jack grow in a way that Finkelstein is like choosing to go in the opposite direction of growth and so

54:36 like that's kind of cool yeah I mean like it really would intrigued me the most about Sally is just her her character design like the fact that she is a Frankenstein screecher uh that she is built up of different things so yeah when she was trying to escape the tower by just fully flopping face first on the ground and then just like okay well now I can open my eyes and grab my arm and you know grab and then it pays off in the in the climax when she uses her alive untie Santa so I thought that was great yeah it's it's very clever um and I I guess like in the original designs she was more like she was more Buxom she was like a little

55:24 bit more Jessica Rabbit than what she is now and I'm glad they pulled back yeah yeah I was about to say I don't know Caroline Thompson who did the screenplay she wrote most of like the Sally aspect of the film into it because most of that is like not it's mostly script as opposed to like songs because she really only gets obviously Sally's Song um and um she said she was like I'm I feel like when I started writing it more timid than I think what they were originally intending for Sally is when they changed the character design and care she was basically saying like I saw myself in Sally and I don't see myself as like the pretty girl that they were trying to design I see myself as like someone who's in awe because she was like dating

56:10 Danny Elfman so she was like I saw myself as someone who was like in awe of someone who's like very talented and like I mean I'm not sure it's progress for women but um no not at all but at least a woman wrote the story so I I will give them that that the woman actually was like at least it's based on a real woman [Music]

57:01 and where we are not together now I think not true it's never to be [Music] is that get any points it is crazy musical musicals are really bad about with women just in general and yes most people who like watching them and being in them famously too many female actors now this is Raising this question for me

57:47 of like would I rather be portrayed as as Jessica Rabbit or salary and I think I think I'd rather be Jessica Rabbit honestly yeah Jessica Rabbit commands a room maybe not for the most admirable reasons but like she's got some oomph to her it's not bad okay she's just thrown them away um I would like to Adam returning to your initial prompt of the romance being something that like sort of became a focal point of the movie I feel that that is because Jack Skellington is somehow a sex symbol and not yeah okay let's get into that what is what is so sexy about Jack Skellington that is currently making uh emo girls still wet still wet to this

58:33 day um I would say that um I don't know and also why those are my two thoughts on Jack Skellington Beach you know what he kind of gives me like a Jared Leto Vibe which shouldn't be good I genuinely think what it is is like he is a character that is very reflective and contemplative and if you are a person at an adolescent age who doesn't see a lot of men portrayed that way or do that ever it can be very alluring to be like this is a different type of person yeah I don't know I when I when I think people say that like Jack selling into sexy I think it's more that it's like he's he has keywords yeah

59:21 um even though most of it is like he thinks he's the best and should do everything even though that makes no sense his oh my God his moment in the in the graveyard when he's like well I did hurt a lot of people but at least they'll remember who I was is pink white man I can't believe it but that is the lesson that he draws from this entire experience anyway I do think I guess actually not anyway on that same topic there is a bit of an enduring appeal of the skinny white boy right which I feel like Jack Skellington is like the epitome um these are unrealistic expectation of bodies from Hollywood yes Superman the thigh gap on this man I I Linked In the show notes and are I

1:00:06 linked in the in the Google Doc and I'll put it in the show notes the um SNL skit the Mr chicken leg sketch where Pete Davidson plays Jack Skellington as part of it and I feel like the textual part of SNL is that anytime Pete Davidson plays a character he's meant to be sexually appealing because of his like presence in the culture as this like bafflingly appealing man right that like almost married Ariana Grande and so to me that is like a continuation of this idea of like women love Jack Skellington for some reason so I think yeah Adam I think that the reflective thing is there I but I think there's also something to the Aesthetics of this like tall skinny brooding man that is like I don't know it's the Timothy yeah I literally I just

1:00:54 won yesterday maybe but yeah yeah I watched Dune yesterday and uh yeah there is that like appeal I think I would say like his probably closest one was probably like Adrian Brody like that type of yeah tall skinny brooding um I mean like I mean Asia Brody is traditionally handsome he's got a he's got a job I can slice cheese but yeah it's that like dark brooding appeal that we we let him get have so many passes like we let Andrew Brody get away with a lot of stuff just because of how like sexy he was and it's it's the other thing too where it's like it's not it's not the normal

1:01:39 sexy or what is what is like the ideal normal sexy like it's like there's also it's like I don't want to use the word fetishization because I don't think that's what I actually mean but just like the Allure of something of you feeling like well I don't like the normal thing so that's why it's like a little bit more intense because like let's talk about scene kids now okay so I apologize as a person who is never in the subculture I recall as a as a young person thinking it was pretty dumb to be like I am rebelling in the same way as everyone else is rebelling I thought it was a little bit silly um but I think that there is something to also when we talked about how it's like

1:02:25 it's the spooky but not scary category right where it like reveals something to me about the culture that was like I like things that are like dark and twisted but like the epitome of that is Tim Burton like come on guys that's it's hardly like the the most brooding problematic uh like hero that you could pick to like make into your ideal man here like he's he's a he's a I mean he's got some problematic white man issues as I said but like he's hardly like I don't know it's not like everyone's in love with Jigsaw from saw or something you know what I mean like if you're gonna be like oh I truly have unusual tastes and like you gotta lean all the way in or else I'm not understand why you're special yeah yeah

1:03:11 yeah oh I love Michael Myers is so hot uh yeah um I I will make a disclaimer for our audiences that we are three we follow rules very strong that's three rule followers and uh on paper good kids my favorite musical Sound of Music so I don't know what to tell anybody here um I I was home for curfew every single night because what else was I doing yeah so did we I couldn't think of another henchman song and I I think I really like the song a lot I obviously the world the word play and like the creative like yeah whatever

1:03:58 it's a list song they're also like fighting and talking so they're the you know the let's draw straws like it's it's like kind of like servicing two things but yeah as I was watching I was like this is like if lots of magentum had a song or they could be like we're doing the Dirty Work like it I don't know it was just so fun guess you could say Gaston is a henchman song and that looks like who is singing most of it but the topic is Gaston it's not about the food doing the food stuff also I've never seen or listened to a Young Frankenstein but I feel like that's likely to do that but they he doesn't have like a he doesn't have us no he doesn't really yeah but I think I think you're right in terms of like here's a song about why we

1:04:43 love being henchmen so much I think this might be unique well it's just a funny concept the greatest comedy of the entire thing is that they they're like let's Kidnap the Sandy Claws and they're listing the ways that they will go about kidnapping him they'll drug him they'll beat him they'll basically maim him to an inch of his life think we'll send a present to his door upon you'll be a note to read now in the Box we'll wait and hide until his curiosity he entices him to look inside and then we'll have him one two three years [Music]

1:05:40 and then all they do is they like trick or treat them and throw them in a bag she's like she's like any of the things that they said so basically it's like a pointless song but it's it's so the visual of like them in the clawfoot tub walking around yeah that's very fun the tub was great also like just the just the idea that they're these three are like three demented trick-or-treaters as a concept is just so fun because they were just annoying but then also like really unclear like so they are working for Oogie Boogie or they're just like we just go who's the mean this is where this is where the pop plot falls apart you just don't need to worry because I was like why are they why are they supporting Oogie Boogie and Jack but Jacks them enough why is Oogie Boogie

1:06:26 not there why is wrong with I think so I think that's actually I don't think it's a plot hole I think it's interesting that there are layers to evil in Halloween Town and everyone is like evil quotation marks Susan Sontag but like only Oogie Boogie is truly evil and everyone she's performing Frankenstein's Mom right quotation But like everyone is like ooh and Jack's like don't involve Oogie Boogie so I think it's actually really cool that it's like it actually helps you understand how Halloween Town is like spooky but not really scary because um like Oogie Boogie is like real evil um and I love that Blackstock and Barrel are like chaotic children and so they like they just like haven't decided on

1:07:13 their moral alignment yeah so to me it's like they they don't differentiate between Oogie Boogie and everyone else because they're like too young and like I don't know if they're literally young but like that's their energy in the yeah they're like full gen Z they're just going with whatever is like trendy like oh yes clean work like let's just whatever I'm old um that they are dressed as lock as dressed as like um a little devil and stock is um a witch and Barrel is uh skeleton um and they have masks but then when they like take off their masks they're like probably actually dead children like potentially if you if you go into fan theories like Barrel's lips are blue so

1:07:59 he probably drowned and or froze to death um shock probably was electrocuted and that's why her hair is really frizzy um I don't remember what locks was I think he was burned in a fire or something like that they're all very obnoxious and this is where the fandom like also is you can think about other things they don't have they don't have a lot of stuff to go off of to be fair if if that was my thing I had to write fan fiction about I don't know what I would expand on in this world well I think the other thing too is like it is so the world is very well built but it's easily you can like make your own Avenue which I think is why it leads to a fandom that is the way it is because you can you can put yourself in it in a way that like other other movies are a little more

1:08:45 narrow in their scope so it's harder to do yeah um I want to say before we move on from Lock Stock and Barrel that my favorite line around them is that they say to Jack when he asks them to kidnap Santa Claus um oh we thought you didn't like us and he doesn't correct them he just keeps going that's how I am with children know your place kids um I my favorite line in this movie is when the guy in the skeleton band um says nice work bone daddy oh yes the best one in this movie and Jack doesn't react that's great boogers [Music] uh I'll I'll start by saying I think

1:09:32 it's disgusting that he's made up of bugs yeah I think that's where I draw the line that's where I denounce this movie I think that's disgusting and I I don't support uh this movie anymore so so strong stance on bugs it doesn't this is where truly Oogie Boogie the Oogie Boogie of it all is really where this movie kind of falls apart for me just in terms of like did it feel like they needed a a villain yes so in the original poem It's Just Jack goes and does Christmas realizes he's not good at it comes back and Santa's like it's okay you just need to do your thing and I'll do my thing and that's what makes us special is that we're so

1:10:19 good at what we do specifically and then like he helps bring Christmas to Halloweentown as like a treat to Jack basically um but like this whole Oogie Boogie thing kind of was just developed as like we need to make a 72 minute movie and there has to be like an act three and a villain in there it does yeah I do kind of see that it it if it felt like they were like it's too hard to explain to kids like hubris is the villain like the fact that this man thought that he could do something but couldn't like the concept I'm gonna make a defense of it going back to that essay I talked about where it's about how Tim Tim Burton likes to embrace the fact that death is a part of life and to remind us of the fact that you know we'll all die and so if you see

1:11:04 Halloweentown as here is a place of death but that doesn't have to be scary and Oogie Boogie is a different thing from just spooky things it's different from just skeletons and things that remind us of Decay this is actual evil I think then on that level it really works for me that like we don't actually need to be afraid of Jack Skellington but like Oogie Boogie is is the only guy who's like actually evil I love that I'm gonna refute it by saying Tim Burton does not consider Oogie Boogie evil or the villain of this film uh which doesn't make sense cultural cultural appropriation is the villain of the film there I don't I think in his mind there

1:11:50 is not a villain yeah like it's not a hero villain movie like it's um yeah because Jack's not really the hero I mean like he's the protagonist that we're following yeah but he's not like but he's causing all the chaos he's the agent of chaos that's why the movie happens is because he got an idea um Oogie Boogie just feels weird to me because there's no real there's not even like a line as to like why he's different other than like like you just get the sense that they think he's different in some way but there's not like a there's not even like like even in The Little Mermaid Ursula is like the the outcast sea witch and you're like oh cause she's a sea witch and like she's the only one whereas I don't think this

1:12:36 has that and then also like I really don't understand the like casino gambling aspect thing of his set piece I think it's visually really cool yeah and like very fun to look at and it it plays in the like the song yeah but I don't understand I I don't know if they were trying to make some sort of like uh point of like like what you said like embracing death and now this is the like the the actual fear of you know like gambling with your life or like betting with your life like there was there something there

1:13:23 him yeah I was just like also like him him being called Boogeyman too like was he also portraying like the traditional Boogeyman uh fears and and thoughts that we as a culture know I guess I could go down a road of like maybe it's really about chaos that gambling is a symbol of okay or it's a part of chaos it's a way of an acting chaos um but I think it's just that like it's visually cool for them to be on a roulette table and stuff I I I mean it is yeah I've been trying to think about it for since I watched it a couple days ago and like I just can't really come up with anything really cool about like here's what the gambling's all about

1:14:08 um I also love though talking about the visuals of Oogie Boogie that we transitioned to this black light um visual which really disrupts what we've come to expect of the film where we're likely we've got the kind of like drab Halloween Town we've got the colorful Christmas Town and then this is like a totally new I loved I loved the way that the black light totally changed the Aesthetics of what I was seeing it made it very cool psychedelic almost yeah yeah it did make me think also now of the shiny scene in um Moana but obviously yeah much later so yeah yeah yeah for sure I I do think the like him being underground him being in the like quote unquote sewers like there was a little Pennywise about it so like it's almost like they could have made

1:14:53 him like he's the one that everyone in Halloweentown is afraid of because like they're still like if this is still a world obviously these evil people are still scared of something but it's not like he was not it's not like people feared him it was just like don't mess with him he's bad he's on the other side of the tracks he's like you know bad news so I also want to talk about he like Audrey which I think this does follow a similar Trope of A Little Shop of Horrors um he his coded as being black because they use Ken page who's a African-American um singer actor um for the voice of Oogie Boogie and um in research I found out that he Oogie

1:15:41 Boogie's song specifically is based off a Cab Calloway song that is featured in a Betty Boop um max Fleischer cartoon from the 30s I want to say um so I'll I can drop the song in here just so you can hear what it sounds like and then I'll drop in Oogie Boogie song so you can kind of hear other shocking shockingly folks now he's just a rebound Minneapolis she was a red hot glue she was the roughest [Music]

1:16:31 [Applause] he he is [Music] [Applause] [Music] cause this may be the last time

1:17:16 [Applause] oh yeah well if I'm feeling antsy and I've nothing much to do I might just cook a special but I don't know what it means

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