The Nightmare Before Christmas

Hey, Do You Remember...?

Christopher Schrader

Tv & Film, Comedy

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2016

⏱️ 111 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Is it a Halloween movie? Is it a Christmas movie? The easy answer is that The Nightmare Before Christmas is both. So this felt like a great way for HDYR to celebrate All Hallow's Eve and kickoff a run of holiday-themed episodes. Even though it was successful when it was released in the fall of 1993, I'm not sure any of us could have predicted the incredible legacy this film would have two decades later. Ironically, Tim Burton wasn't even at the helm for what feels like the purest translation of his imagination. A lot of our memories are tied into that initial misconception and that's where our conversation begins - with Disney's concerns over how this project was coming together and their 11th hour plans to rebrand it. We then come full circle with them ultimately embracing the property and their attempts to capitalize on its success.

Other topics include: the degree to which Danny Elfman's music informed the overall story, how involved Burton actually was with the production of the film, the painstakingly precise process of stop-motion animation and how many seemingly simple shots were actually incredibly complex, some confusion over the rules of this universe and the doorways to all of these other holidays, a somewhat muddled message and one tiny tweak to the ending that might have made it more cohesive, Easter eggs for other Burton movies that appear throughout, Chris' story about a haunted forest attraction, the triumphant return of Be & F and 2 Truth 1 Lie, and much much more!

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About The Show

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, do you remember the nightmare before Christmas?
0:31.0	Hello and welcome to Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose-tinted glasses to see how it holds up.
0:31.8	I'm Chris.
0:32.5	I'm Donna.
0:33.4	And I'm Carlos.
0:36.4	And today we're revisiting The Nightmare Before Christmas.
0:58.0	The origins of The Nightmare Before Christmas can be traced all the way back to Tim Burton's childhood.
1:02.5	Growing up in Burbank, California, time was not measured by changing seasons.
1:04.7	The weather was always pretty much the same.
1:11.4	And often the only thing that signified an upcoming holiday was the sudden appearance of decorations and other paraphernalia in the windows of storefronts. With Halloween and Christmas in such close proximity to one another, it was not
1:16.5	unusual to see an overlap between the monochromatic ghouls and monsters and the more vibrant elves and reindeer.
1:22.4	Year after year, this contrast fascinated Burton, and the seeds were planted for a tale that would
1:27.3	eventually draw inspiration
1:28.6	from perennial favorites like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and other Rankin' Bass specials,
1:33.4	how the Grinch stole Christmas, and the poem of Visit from St. Nicholas. After the success of his
1:38.6	stop-motion short, Vincent in 1982, Burton considered developing this gestating holiday story
1:43.9	in a similar fashion. The
1:45.6	Nightmare Before Christmas was initially envisioned as either a short film or 30-minute television
1:50.1	special. But Burton was employed at Walt Disney feature animation at the time, and the powers
1:54.6	that be were having trouble reconciling the budding autos more esoteric sensibilities. He was fired in
2:00.1	1984 and all of the concept art
2:02.2	and storyboards he had generated for the project up to that point were still owned by the studio.
	...

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