Jack Skellington
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jack Skellington is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the motion picture Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Voiced by Chris Sarandon (speaking voice) and Danny Elfman (singing voice), the character has become increasingly popular after the release of the film and has appeared in several video games.
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[edit] The Nightmare Before Christmas
Jack Skellington is a skeleton known as the "Pumpkin King" of Halloween Town, a fictional world oriented solely on the holiday of Halloween. In the beginning of the movie, he wears a costume based on a scarecrow with a pumpkin for a head. Normally, he is dressed in a black pin-striped suit and a bowtie that in the form of a bat. He was based on the legend of "Jack the Pumpkin King."
He has a pet ghost dog named Zero. Sally, a rag doll created by Dr. Finklestein, is Jack's love interest. In the film, Jack longs for something more after the big finale that ends this year's Halloween. While wandering through the hinterlands, he inadvertently finds his way into Christmas Town and becomes infatuated with the holiday, bringing it back to Halloween Town for its denizens to partake in. However, not really understanding the "point" of Christmas, they twist it into a celebration of the macabre rather than a season to be jolly, effectively ruining Christmas. In the process, Santa Claus is even captured by the evil Oogie Boogie. Determined to save Christmas, Jack journeys to Oogie Boogie's lair and destroys the villain, saving Sally, Santa Claus and also Christmas.
[edit] Video games
[edit] The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King
Jack Skellington had a rivalry with Oogie Boogie. When Oogie plans to turn Halloween Town into a new Bug Day, Jack must stop him and his army of insects from taking over his town.
[edit] The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge
Tired of doing the same thing at Halloween, Jack goes to Doctor Finklestein, who gives him the Soul Robber, an invention that changes shape. Jack decided to leave Halloween Town to get new Halloween frights. When Jack came 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.
It should be noted that Chris Sarandon did both the speaking and singing voice of Jack in the 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.
Sarandon reprises his role for the English version, and Masachika Ichimura does his 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 nuts, 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 the dark orbs as his source of life, which Oogie combines himself with his manor to become a giant boss. Oogie is defeated, once again, and his manor crumbles, revealing Halloween Town's keyhole.
[edit] Chain of Memories
"Created" from Sora's memories of Halloween Town, when Jack Skellington wanted to ask Finklestein 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 Finklestein'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' 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 lets Jack ride with him in his sleigh for a while. After Santa drops Jack off at Halloween Town, Jack learns the meaning of Christmas by understanding the act of giving. He dances with Sally in the end, prompting Sora to think about his relationship with his friend Kairi.
[edit] Disneyland
Once a year at Disneyland during the Holidays, the Haunted Mansion is taken over by the cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas and is turned into a mix of 'Halloween and Christmas'. Jack and other characters appear throughout the ride wearing Christmas attire.
[edit] Cameos
- Jack Skellington had a cameo as a pirate in the stop-motion animated movie James and the Giant Peach (although his neck looks different compared to how it did in The Nightmare Before Christmas). He is the captain of the sunken ship that Centipede boards in search of a compass. Perhaps in testament to his Shakespearean tribute, his head comes off during the movie.
- A parody of Jack also has appeared in Tiny Toons called, "The Pumpkin Guy".
- In Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, there's a scarecrow that looks very much like Jack in his scarecrow disguise, as shown at the beginning of Nightmare Before Christmas.
- In The Simpsons comic "Homer's Christmas Adventure", where Homer dreamed about meeting Santa, Jack is seen at the end waving him goodbye.
- In the television series, The Critic, Jack appears in a parody called "The Nightmare Before Hanukkah", and just recently, "The Nightmare Before Hanukkah" was used for part of a skit on Robot Chicken.
- In The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, Jack Frost is seen wearing a black and white outfit with a pale and white look, possibly referring to Jack Skellington.
- Jack makes a brief appearance in an episode of Robot Chicken where instead of going through a door that looks like a Christmas tree, he goes through one that looks like a menorah and begins singing "What's this? What's this? There's magic in the air" while looking at people celebrate Hanukkah. Jack then disappointedly remarks: "Oh wow, this sucks."
- In 2004, Sluggy Freelance ran a storyline called "The Holiday Wars," wherein the character Bunbun aims to take control of multiple holidays to increase his power by killing their leaders. The leader of Halloween is a thinly-vieled parody of Jack Skellington called The Pumpkin-Headed King of Halloween [1], whose head is (as his name implies) a large pumpkin that can change expressions as if it were a normal face. He wears a maroon-and-black-striped suit similar to Jack's and is immune to any attacks that puncture or slice (making Bunbun's weapons of choice, a glock and a switchblade ineffective against him), but he's particularly vulnerable to bludgeoning instruments. Bunbun kills him with a large mallet and takes control of Halloween, but he is later revived (alongside several other holiday figureheads, including Santa Claus) when Bunbun breaks the last remaining Deus Ex Ovum, restoring the holidays to their proper order and stripping him of his power.
- In the 1988 Tim Burton film Beetlejuice near to the end of the film Beetlejuice is seen with a tiny model of Jack on his hat.
