The Ghosts of Halloween Town are characters featured in Tim Burton's 1993 animated feature film, The Nightmare Before Christmas. They are a group of ghosts living in a world representing Halloween hence their name.
Background
The ghosts, as their names imply, are a group of animated ghosts which are seen floating in groups. Like typical ghosts in media, they are portrayed having the common colors of what ghosts usually have (in this case, white).
Appearances
The Nightmare Before Christmas
During the musical number "This is Halloween", three ghosts appear singing "This is Halloween, this is Halloween" to which after singing the line, four pumpkins land on the spears just as they briefly leave the screen. They appear again onscreen singing again, encouraging anyone living there to make a scream in Halloween Town. Just as they continue floating around on the screen, the ghosts leave the screen just as the camera zooms into an area where a monster living under the bed sings his part. Various other ghosts also appear in the Pumpkin Patch where they are seen emerging from pumpkins during the musical number "Jack's Lament" where Jack Skellington sings about his lament of growing tired of celebrating Halloween over and over again.
They later appear again during the musical number "Making Christmas" where three of them are seen carrying supplies to help build a sleigh for Jack in his plans to take over Christmas and later during the end of the song where five ghosts appear holding packages to deliver the gifts to Jack's sleigh. They make no further appearances after that, even after Jack defeated Oogie Boogie, helped Santa save Christmas from the disaster Jack caused, and later when Jack returns to Halloween Town where the citizens find out that he is alive all along.
Video game appearances
Kingdom Hearts/Kingdom Hearts Final Mix
In the first Kingdom Hearts game and its Final Mix edition, ghosts are briefly seen during the intro of the Halloween Town world just before the logo for Halloween Town appears.
The Nightmare Before Christmas Oogie's revenge
in Game when Oogie's back and after brainwash Dr. Finkelstein Oogie rising armies of Skeletons and Ghosts attack everyone in Halloween Town Lock, Shock and Barrel get help of Skeletons and Ghost to order to defeat Jack
Disney Parks
Haunted Mansion Holiday
In both the California and Tokyo versions at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland respectively, the ghosts are seen depicted on a card during the scene with Madame Leota where they are depicted on a card reading "Eleven candles floating" part of Leota reciting the Thirteen Days of Christmas. The card depicts them rising from Halloween-themed Christmas presents with candles floating in the card itself.
Trivia
- The ghosts seen in The Nightmare Before Christmas are unique, as they are 2D-animated characters seen in the stop-motion animated film, unlike most other characters who were animated through the use of stop-motion technology.
- During the "Making Christmas" sequence, the objects the ghosts are holding were animated through the use of rotoscope at first before placing the 2D-animated ghosts (who were animated in cel animation) to blend in with the scene during the scene where the ghosts interact with the stop-motion objects[1].
References
- ↑ "The Making of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas Bonus Feature (The Nightmare Before Christmas Special Edition, 2000, DVD).
External links
