Jack is everywhere in New Orleans Square

Last week, I had my doubts about the Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted Evening. My general impression for some time now has been that the merchandise portion of any given event will be bungled, spoiling what could otherwise have been a fun evening. It was a literal nightmare to get tickets to the event and then Tim Burton and Danny Elfman suddenly became no-shows, not exactly confidence boosters when it comes to anticipation of a good time. This is how it always seems to go, problems, always some kind of problem.

There was a glitch with core merchandise on the morning of the event. I was pretty astounded to watch the shark-breed of pin traders who were allowed to scoop up and purchase armfuls of pins, thus depriving all the folks who stood patiently playing by the rules, of the chance to buy Nightmare pins and ornaments. This didn’t affect me much. I lost some time standing in line, no big deal. But, what about the guest from out of town who came from far away, spent tons of money just to get to the event and couldn’t buy a Nightmare pin because the merchandise people did not limit purchases to five per person as they normally do? I had empathy for those folks and was amazed that the merchandise folks seemed to have learned nothing from past events and their experience with mystery pins.

And to watch the greed of some of the dealers as they pushed, shoved, and lied their way to the front of the line just to make a buck or two. What ever happened to class? And civility toward one another? Is there none of that amongst the "sharks"? It was a pathetic display, both on the stupidity of the way the sales were handled by Disney and the merciless greed of the pin sharks. I am happy to say that by the day after the event, problems had been corrected and things seemed to be running smoothly. I do wonder though, did the lady who stood in front of me in line, the poor soul who kept having people butt in front of her because their "friend" was "up there", ever get the pins she wanted? I do hope so, she was pretty upset. I watched her walk away filled with ill will toward Disney and thought, "That’s so sad, so unnecessary. It shouldn’t be like that just for a few crumby pins."

That aside, my experience with the merchandise end of the event went smoothly. Besides, I knew it was going to be a good day when I checked into the hotel and was given room number 3313.

No, it isn't someone shocked at the ticket price, it's Maynard! Our favorite Haunted Mansion cast member

So, was the Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted Evening worth $200? Some may give you a different answer, but I say, yep, every penny. Even though Tim Burton and Danny Elfman pulled out? My answer is still yes. In fact, as I write this, I am of a mind that it was probably better the two gentlemen were no-shows. It allowed other folks participating in the panel discussion, who would no doubt have been overshadowed by Burton and Elfman, to shine.

It was pretty wonderful to hear the voice of the Mayor, Glenn Shadix, tell the story of how he came up with the Mayor’s hysterical voice and to watch Henry Selick be the director he is and virtually take over the moderation of the discussion from Frank Thompson, author of the book Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, who at times seemed flustered and lost.

The show at the Fantasyland Theater began in a very special way. Scenes of Halloween and Christmas flashed on the drawn curtain as a voice posed a question of what would happen when holidays collide. Softly, the reedy sounds of oboes and woodwinds sent forth the strains of This Is Halloween and a mummy crawled from beneath the theater curtain. The audience squealed with pleasure and the curtain rose to reveal Jack Skellington’s curly hill and the craggy spires of the homes of Halloween Town. All at once, the inhabitants of the town took to the stage, Sally, the Behemoth, the Witch, the Werewolf, a Devil, and the Clown with the Tearaway Face. And they began to sing…

It was a big hit when the Clown with the Tearaway Face ripped off his face as they sang,

Not quite as big a hit though as brought by these words,

In a true flourish worthy of the Pumpkin King, Jack Skellington immerged from a swirl of smoke, center stage. I can still hear the cheers and applause as the audience realized who was making such a grand entrance.

Jack greeted the citizens of Halloween Town, "The reason I’ve brought you here tonight is something so amazing, something so spectacular, well, it chills me to my very bones." He continued with a little rhyme explaining that, "Here in this land of magic are eight lands of different in theme,"

"In theme?"

"Are they musical?"

"Do they sing?"

"Are they filled with pianos that crackle and ding?"

The citizens of Halloween Town interrupted Jack’s speech. He tried his best though and taking command again managed to introduce "the ruler of this magic land," Cynthia Harriss, who spoke briefly and then introduced a video of Tim Burton.

"I think you know that two of our very special guests deeply regret that weren’t able to join us this evening." Unfortunately, this statement drew very loud boos from the audience in a statement of their disapproval of Burton and Elfman’s non-appearance. "Hey!" Cynthia chided, "They wanted to be with us in spirit, so I’m going to introduce first... we’re going to hear from the creative force behind one of our favorite nightmare. He’s one of the most distinctive and influential directors of our time and he has continued to be heralded as that most innovative filmmaker."

"You know, ladies and gentlemen, I’m extremely pleased to introduce to you, via video, the creator, that man behind Jack Skellington, Sally, Zero, and all of these other cast of truly enchanting, and kind of scary, characters from Halloween Town, Tim Burton, as he shares with you his personal insights to this re-creation of The Nightmare Before Christmas."

Burton’s image appeared in the moon above Jack’s curly hill and he answered questions from an unseen interviewer. He talked about the rigors of filming stop-motion animation and described how the music for the movie came first," I went through with Danny, sort of points, and he would develop songs and music around that so it kind of expanded somewhat organically."

On his partnership with Danny Elfman, "Before there was a script, I talked to him about the story and we started developing songs based on that and for the script. He was there at the very beginning in terms of helping develop it."

"You’ve worked very well in the past," the interviewer pointed out.

"Yeah," Burton agreed, "He’s like another character, his music is very important."

"It’s a character that means a lot to me," was the answer when asked if Jack was one of his favorites, "I like passionate misunderstood people."

"I always liked Disneyland," was the reply to the question of whether Burton felt he had come full circle, having started his career at the Disney Studios, "the Haunted Mansion is still obviously a favorite of mine so the fact that they did this is quite nice and amazing."

Next up, Ms. Harriss introduced a video of Danny Elfman. He talked about creating the story of Nightmare Before Christmas with Tim Burton. "We just went song by song and tried to tell as much of the story in song as possible until we’d covered the beginning to the end. It was really fun. We went into the studio together. He acted as producer and I acted as the entire ensemble. I sang all the parts to every song, with the exception of Sally’s song."

"So," he continued, "we had demos now of every song, all ten songs. That allowed Henry, who I hadn’t even met when I started, to begin animating."

"How did you end up being the singing voice of Jack Skellington?" The answer was kind of fun, "It wasn’t really decided. I was really writing Jack’s character around myself and there’s a certain point where I just knew that no one else could do that part. I was writing Jack’s songs almost through my own perspective, my own relationship with Jack. I started becoming Jack."

Danny’s reaction to the use of Nightmare in the Haunted Mansion, "Well, it makes perfect sense. Nightmare Before Christmas was such an anomaly for Disney, so much a different thing for Disney than anything they’ve done, that I think even they were shocked when they saw it, it terms of what is this and what do we do with it. Happily, it’s really kind of developed a really solid following. I think it made sense at a certain point that Disney would go, ‘Hey we have this Haunted Mansion, there’s definitely an esthetic here, one thing overlaps the other.’ Finally here’s a place where we can use some of these fun, not really scary characters, but they’re all dead."

With the filmed presentations out of the way, it was time to get on with the live panelists. Ms. Harriss introduced the evening’s moderator, the author of the book about the production of the film, Frank Thompson (shown below). And while it was refreshing to see someone other than Tim O’Day trotted out as moderator of the panel discussion, Frank was a little spotty at times in his skill at steering the show. In several instances, he seemed a bit lost, introducing video clips that had just shown or dropping the ball on following up a comment. Each time, Henry Selick saved the day by taking command and moving the show forward.

Other panelists included, Steve Davison, Disneyland Resort Entertainment Show Development, Glenn Shadix, the speaking voice of the mayor, who delighted the audience by tearing the face off the Clown with the Tearway Face (below), Chris Sarandon, the speaking voice of Jack Skellington, Mike Belzer, animator, who was escorted onstage by the Werewolf who managed a good howl at the moon as he left his charge in his seat, Eric Leighton, Animation Supervisor, Rick Heinrichs, Visual Consultant, and Henry Selick, director of Nightmare Before Christmas.

After going through a long-winded explanation of how he got involved with Nightmare, Henry Selick (below) boiled it down a little more succinctly, "Basically Tim and I are from the same planet, if not the same neighborhood." He also described plunging into the development of the story starting with Elfman’s song, What’s this? "We started very small and grew a studio to do the movie. It’s hard for me to say what my contributions were other than supervising, adding to, growing Tim’s ideas."

Each person had an anecdote or two to tell about the making of the film. Frank Thompson noted that stop-motion animation seems like an impossible feat to him, Chris Sarandon remembered flying to the bay area for one day every three months or so to record Jack’s lines as the animation progressed, Eric Leighton described how helpful a good voice actor is to an animator, and Glenn Shadix told what had to be the best story of the evening.

"Glenn, you told me where you got the inspiration for the sad mayor and I think it’s the most wonderful story I’ve ever heard. How did you get your inspiration for the mayor?" Thompson asked.

"Well," Shadix (shown above) drawled, "Henry frightened me." I got the feeling that Glen is a pretty funny man. "We tried several different kinds of voices, different registers. For the anxiety- ridden mayor, you know, the unhappy face? For some reason, I kept thinking of a scene from a movie called Airport 75. Karen Black is having to fly the plane, and you have to almost see my eyes crossed, but she had a line…" At this point he kind of squished up his face and raised his voice an octave or two whining, " I can’t fly a plane!" Well, Dear Readers, it was hysterical to watch this man become the Mayor of Halloween town before our very eyes and hear Karen Black’s frantic voice whine from his mouth. He drew some of the biggest applause of the evening.

Mike Belzer followed up that performance with the story of animating the scene where the mayor comes to the top of the stairs of Jack’s house in a vain attempt to locate Jack. "I remember Henry came to me and said, ‘We have the scene where the mayor comes to the top of the stairs and Tim’s kind of iffy right now with the whole mayor thing, we really have to sell this.’ I went okay Henry, great."

"Otherwise he’ll be cut from the movie," interjected Thompson.

"Right. There was hundreds and hundreds of frames of Glenn humming. I’m looking at that just going okay… This is going to be entertaining? What do you do here? I’m just getting to the top of the stairs," he imitated the mayor’s hum in the sing-song Nightmare tune, "and I’ll just keep going. Jack? You home? And all the stuff, it went great! It’s without a doubt that having voices like these, pulling off a humming scene. I’m sorry, that’s a tribute to Glenn.

A few more questions were asked of the panel, and then Steve Davison described, in his usual enthusiastic way, how the transformation of the Haunted Mansion took place. Also, Steve was asked about a special Web site, "This is my fault, so you guys can kill me October 31st. Basically, there’s a lot of people that like to play games on the Internet. I said, well, we hid a lot of stuff in this attraction, a lot of stuff."

"So I set down and wrote 27 riddles that begin October 5th. So if you go to www.disneyland.com, you go to the Haunted Mansion Holiday page and starting October 5th, you can get a different riddle every day. You get to get inside my brain and try and figure it out. It’s kind of just a fun little game. I give you clues every day and we just want you to come by and see if you can find what you’re looking for. There is a lot of stuff hidden in that attraction that you’ll never see unless you know what you’re looking for."

Then it was time to go. The fine citizens of Halloween Town escorted the participants from the stage and then got us all in the mood for what we were really there for in the first place.

Launching into Making Christmas, they scurried on stage with just the kind of presents you’d imagine would come from Halloween Town, and then… Sandy Claws showed up in his doom buggy to collect the gang and head over to the Mansion for some fun.

Sue Kruse tells you all about the ride

Sue Kruse offers another look inside!

Adrienne Vincent- Phoenix with the $200 perspective

Adrienne Krock with the $65 perspective

Return to Contents