Did You Know? - Fun Facts About The Nightmare Before Christmas

Welcome to another edition of a series that I like to call Did You Know?. Inspired a little by the Nostalgia Critic's "What You Never Knew" series, this series will allow me to share with you some interesting tidbits, behind-the-scenes information, and fun facts about an animated movie or TV series. Because I like sharing new information with people.

Question: What's the one movie that qualifies as both a Halloween movie AND a Christmas movie? Answer: The Nightmare Before Christmas.

While it was directed by Henry Selick, not Tim Burton (as the internet will make clear to you), this movie is still very much a Tim Burton creation. Well, it was more of a collaboration between Tim, Henry, and Danny Elfman. But it was Tim who wrote the poem that the movie was based on. It's beloved, not just by goth kids who shop at Hot Topic, but by a whole lotta folks. And there's a good reason for that - it's a good movie! It's got lots of creepy, kooky characters and a great soundtrack, and some real heart to it.

...so how the heck did Henry Selick go from directing this to being responsible for Monkeybone?

Okay, we're not here to talk about Monkeybone (the less said about that movie, the better). We're here to talk about The Nightmare Before Christmas. You probably already know that Jack Skellington makes cameos in many of Tim Burton and Henry Selick's other films (for example, his head is the yolk of an egg in Coraline). And you probably already know that most of the actors in the film do double-duty - Catherine O'Hara is both Sally AND Shock, Danny Elfman is Jack's singing voice, Barrel, AND the Clown With the Tear-Away Face, and so on. But did you know any of THESE things about the movie?

1) Believe it or not, Danny Elfman wrote the songs for the film before a script was written. According to him, "Tim would show me sketches and drawings, and he would tell me the story, describe it in bits of phrases and words and I would say 'Yeah, I got it.' Three days later, I had a song."

In a 1993 interview, Danny said, "The first thing I told Disney is that there weren't going to be any pop songs. That was exactly what we wanted to get away from. The songs are more classical musical. For this film, my influences are Kurt Weill to Rodgers and Hammerstein with a little bit of Gilbert and Sullivan."

Concept art for Jack Skellington's arrival in Christmas Town.

2) Not only were the songs written before the script, but Henry Selick and his crew started filming the movie before the script was completed as well! One minute of the movie took about a week to shoot, and the film as a whole took three years to finish.

3) How did Tim think up the idea? Well, apparently in Burbank it's common for Halloween and Christmas decorations to be put on display in stores at the same time... just like everywhere else. Tim saw this one day and the gears in his head started turning.

4) Tim originally thought up the film as a stop-motion TV special. Why stop-motion? Some of his inspirations included the work of Ray Harryhausen, the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, Czench stop-motion animator Karel Zeman, Russian/French/Polish stop-motion animator Ladislas Starevich, and even the Chuck Jones adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. He pitched the idea to Disney in 1983. They suggested doing it in hand-drawn animation, with the animation done by Nelvana. "But I just said no, it's got to be stop-motion. That's part of what it is: stop-motion," Tim insisted. So the project sat on the shelf for a while and Tim worked on projects like his 1982 short film Vincent (which an early version of Jack makes a cameo appearance in) and the original live action version of Frankenweenie...

5) ...until the film's producers and Paul Reubens, impressed by Tim Burton's work at Disney, offered him the chance to direct Pee-Wee's Big Adventure at Warner Bros. After that film was a success, Tim directed 1988's Beetlejuice, which was also a box office hit and led to Warner Bros. hiring him to direct a new Batman movie. Edward Scissorhands, his next film, was also very successful, cementing Tim's status as a director you could turn to for a guaranteed box office hit. But he still wanted to do The Nightmare Before Christmas, identifying with Jack Skellington a lot: a guy who, despite being very successful and popular, was bored and wanted to try something new. In 1990, Tim Burton's agent reached out to Disney and asked them if they still owned The Nightmare Before Christmas - they did, and they were thrilled by the thought of working with Tim Burton. To make things full circle, Paul Reubens provided the voice of Lock in the finished film - fitting that the guy who's partly responsible for it getting off the ground got to take part in it!

And while we're on the subject... I'm gonna try not to bring up Monkeybone too much in this post, but it was directed by Henry Selick, so I suppose I should mention this... originally, the monkey was going to be voiced by Paul Reubens. According to at least one review, he left production after reading the script (Monkeybone wound up being voiced by John Tuturro trying way too hard instead). Very wise move, Paul.

Here is the original Marquette of Jack Skellington.

6) At the same time that Tim was crafting Nightmare, he was also working on a project called "Trick or Treat" - about a brother and sister stumbling inside a house filled with monsters on Halloween Night. Nothing came out of the idea, apparently because Disney didn't like it, but you can find concept art online that suggests it was a big influence on Nightmare.

7) Henry Selick was the one who added white pinstripes to Jack's suit - he thought it would help Jack stand out in front of the already dark set.

8) If you pause at the right time during "This Is Halloween", when Oogie Boogie's shadow on the moon becomes a flock of bats, you can actually see the strings holding up the bats! (This was the 1990s, they likely didn't have the technology to go in and digitally remove the strings)

9) The first test animation for the film was done in office space rented at Tippett Studio, owned by stop-motion animator Phil Tippett. For those who don't know, Phil worked on such films as the first two Star Wars movies, Jurassic Park, DragonHeart, My Favorite Martian, and The Spiderwick Chronicles.

Tom St. Amand, who created the armatures that gave the characters their range of motion, said, "The main challenge with the puppets on this film was to make them animator friendly. Some of the puppets have really small feet and spindly bodies, not typical at all for stop-motion, and we had to make them move with as few restrictions as possible."

10) Originally, Zero was going to be hand-drawn animation, adding the characters on top of the stop-motion footage at a percent to effect a transparent look. For whatever reason, they eventually decided to just have Zero be stop-motion like everyone else.

Concept art for some of Halloween Town's residents. I think the only one who didn't
make it into the movie is the one-eyed green blob thing.

11) Oogie Boogie was inspired by Betty Boop cartoons - specifically, the ones where Cab Calloway would perform a song and they'd rotoscope his dance moves (remember that one where he was a walrus?). Writer Caroline Thompson felt Oogie was a racist stereotype and tried to get Tim and Henry to overhaul the character, to no avail.

11) The animators had special trapdoors cut into the soundstages where the sets were built so they could more easily reach in and manipulate the puppets.

12) Tim thought it would be great to give life to characters who had no eyes ("I used to torture Disney by saying 'It's great, there's the first character with no eyeballs. Then they'd get all paranoid," he said in an interview with Cartoon Research). Disney didn't agree, and fought very hard to give Jack some eyes. Tim and his crew wouldn't budge - which is good, because honestly, I think Jack would've looked even scarier with eyes...

Tim Burton with some of the film's puppets.

13) Tim's original choice for the voice of Santa Claus was Vincent Price. Yes, THAT Vincent Price.

14) At some point, it was going to be revealed that Oogie Boogie was actually Dr. Finklestein in disguise, much to Jack, Sally, and Santa's confusion. He was mad because Sally had a thing for Jack and wanted revenge. Tim rejected the idea (which I agree would've been pretty stupid), and apparently hated it so much that he punched a hole in a wall.

15) Two of the kids who receive toys from Jack are wearing Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck pajamas.

16) Danny Elfman said in an interview that the hardest song for him to write was Sally's song. "That was a big challenge, because there always is a ballad in a musical and Tim and I both really, really did not want to do the obligatory pop ballad, so I really wanted to find a ballad that would work for Sally, that would not schlock up the score," he explained. "In musicals for a long time, when the ballad starts is when I always go get something to drink. It's like I just want to come back afterwards. I know it's the one part of the score that I have no interest in, that loses me completely. It was my biggest challenge in a way to come up with a ballad that, if I were watching it, I wouldn't want to think because, 'Oh God, here comes the schlock time.' If she suddenly burst into a really gutsy song it wouldn't really fit her character. She is a wispy thing and she's not sure who she is or what she is. She's fresh. She's just recently made, in fact. So it was my desire to find something that felt very ethereal and gentle for her."

Catherine O'Hara was also insecure about doing Sally's singing. "She was insecure going in because, at that point, she had never really done that sort of thing," Danny explained, "But I knew she could do it and I thought she did it perfectly."

17) Speaking of the songs, at one point in production Henry became concerned that maybe there were too many musical numbers in the film. "I was telling Tim, 'People aren't used to this many songs in an animated film*. I'm worried that that's going to lose some of the audience'," he said. "So we finish the film, and they do their trims, and then he comes to me and says, 'You know, Henry, I think you're right, we've got too many songs. We've got to cut one or two.' There weren't many times I could really go to Tim and say 'No, we're not going to,' but that was the time. I said, 'Tim, I'm convinced that every song has to stay because every song is so important to tell the emotional story of the film.' And I convinced him that I hadn't been right and we need to keep the songs. They had become such an integral part of the film - character development, the emotional center and just basic storytelling - that I felt there would be a huge hole that would leave confusion. And also the running time - the movie was a very short feature, like 74 minutes, and I felt it just wasn't going to be long enough."

Concept art of Lock, Shock and Barrel.

18) Behemoth - the big grey-skinned guy with a hatchet in his head - is based on Swedish wrestler and Plan 9 From Outer Space actor Tor Johnson.

19) The sewing machine that Sally uses features a spider spinning a web - the web's string is used as "thread" for the machine. Very reminiscent of a joke you'd see in The Flintstones, isn't it?

20) And while we're on the subject of spiders and webs, you might notice that the stones in the walkway at Jack's house are arranged in a spiderweb pattern.

21) Mr. Hyde has a smaller duplicate of himself under his hat, and that duplicate in turn has an even smaller duplicate under HIS hat. And then, during the "Making Christmas" song, we see the three Mr. Hydes working on a set of nesting dolls. Now THAT'S a clever joke.

22) According to Henry Selick, Oogie Boogie was the toughest character to design because he's "big and pretty shapeless". "He was a bear of a puppet to move," he explained, "He was much bigger, much heavier... Oogie was a wrestling match. It was the most taxing, draining character to give him some sense of fluidity, keep him big, have him be fun, and then, of course, when the threads are pulled from his burlap sack of skin and all the bugs are revealed, that was a pretty nightmarish shot."

23) The Clown With the Tear-Away Face is, in my opinion, one of the creepiest characters in the movie (which likely stems from my being afraid of clowns). But would you believe that he was originally even creepier? Henry said in an interview that in the storyboards, when he tore his face off, it was far more disgusting. "He would tear his face away and it was like flesh and blood underneath," he stated. "We didn't shoot that, but it was in the storyboards and I just knew that that was kind of grotesque. It suddenly became like a horror film, like Halloween or something John Carpenter. We self-edited that and just made it an empty space."

24) Remember Tim Burton's 2012 animated film Frankenweenie? That movie based on the aforementioned live action short film Tim made in 1984, right? Well, look closely at the box of dog biscuits that Dr. Finklestein has:

That's Frankenweenie on the box.

25) Bonita DeCarlo, who'd previously worked with Henry Selick on fifty-two Pillsbury Doughboy commercials, was the film's character fabricator supervisor. Her favorite puppet used in the film was the one of Jack in his scarecrow costume during "This Is Halloween". "It was the first time we see Jack in the movie," she said. "There was only one created, and I insisted on doing the fabrication myself."

26) The hardest shot in the movie to film was the close-up shot of the knob on the door to Christmas Town with Jack's reflection on it. Getting the reflection just right took a lot of time, care, and attention.

27) Disney initially considered setting up a new division called "Touchstone Animation" to make the film. Instead, it was made and released under the regular ol' Touchstone banner. Why not just release it under the Disney banner? Well, they were afraid it was too scary for the typical Disney animation audience (and yet The Black Cauldron, which was considered so scary that Jeffrey Katzenberg started physically editing scenes in an attempt to tone it down, WAS released under the Disney banner. Go figure).

28) You likely already know about Disneyland's annual Haunted Mansion Christmas overlay featuring the characters from the film. But before that, in 1996, an Imagineer named Chris Merritt submitted a proposal for a dark ride based on The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Concept art for the attraction.

His idea was to have guests enter Halloween Town through the tree with the Jack O'Lantern-shaped door featured in the film, then board coffin sleighs for a tour of Halloween Town. Apparently, the reason this didn't get off the ground is because people around Imagineering didn't think The Nightmare Before Christmas was a good enough movie.

In case you're wondering if anything Nightmare Before Christmas ever made it to Walt Disney World... well, we've never gotten a Christmas overlay of the Haunted Mansion for some reason, but if you go on the ride there are several hidden Jack Skellingtons to look for. For example, in the library, one book has a picture of Jack on it, while another is labeled "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and has Jack's face on the spine. And in the attic, you can find another book with Jack on the cover, a Jack snow globe, and a Jack plush doll. Puppets and sets from the film were also displayed at the Backlot Tour featured at Disney's Hollywood Studios (or, as it was called in the 1990s, Disney-MGM Studios) for a while as well.

29) Tim Burton told MTV in 2006 that he's never had any interest in doing a sequel to the film: "I was always very protective of [the film], not to do sequels or things of that kind. You know, 'Jack visits Thanksgiving World' or other kinds of things, just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people that like it. Because it's not a mass-market kind of thing, it was important to kind of keep that purity of it. I try to respect people and keep the purity of it as much as possible."

30) However, at some point Michael Mullin and a bunch of artists met with a business team from Disney's offices in Japan, who told them that since The Nightmare Before Christmas was so popular there, they wanted to expand the property so they could make more merchandise. They asked, "What if Jack Skellington went to the OTHER holiday lands?" Everyone agreed that would be cool, but they knew Tim Burton probably wouldn't approve of a sequel to the movie, one that he would have nothing to do with at that, just to sell more Jack Skellington dolls. And Michael was the only writer in the room, so the chances of them whipping up something good enough for Tim were very, very small.

So Michael thought up two ideas: The Nightmare Before Easter ("I know that's a lazy title, but it was necessary from a branding perspective," he admitted) and A Midsummer Night's Scream. He showed the stories to folks at Disney Publishing, who said that they were great but they couldn't do anything with them. As it turned out, though, Tim Burton still approved all Nightmare products and their packaging, AND Michael knew the woman who sent him these items to approve of. So he printed out both stories and had her send them to Tim with the next batch. About a week later, he got a call from Mr. Burton's agent. Tim loved the stories and wanted to meet Michael.

At the meeting, Tim and Michael discussed the popularity of the characters, recent shifts in licensing and the retail industry, and the stories. Since Tim didn't want to do a sequel MOVIE, he agreed with Michael that the best thing to do would be to publish them as books. Michael's mindset was, since The Nightmare Before Christmas was a year-round merchandising property with a particularly big push in the fall (Halloween) and winter (Christmas) seasons, the books he wrote could extend that push through spring (Valentine's Day and Easter), guaranteeing the company more revenue as a result. He even got Deane Taylor, the film's art director, to whip up the illustrations for The Nightmare Before Easter I've been including here.

But no one at Disney moved forward with the stories in any way. A couple of years later, Michael reconnected with the executive who'd become Disney's President of Feature Animation and told her the whole story. He made it clear that he intended to make these stories into books, but of course she wound up getting Dick Cook (then the chairman of Walt Disney Studios) and Michael Eisner involved, and they essentially ambushed Tim Burton with a pitch for two sequel movies. They also offered Michael the screenwriting gig on both, which he accepted, even though he knew that Tim would never go for the idea. And he didn't.

Michael summed up the whole mess like this: "Disney is an enormous, very complex company. Despite all that happened, I never blamed any one person or department. A colleague at the time put it best when he said: 'Creatively, Disney can't get out of its own way.' I'd argue this is still the case, best exemplified with the trend of live-action remakes of animated films. It's all driven by ROI, and the practice is creatively lazy. The same, tired stance about pleasing stockholders, blah, blah, blah."

You can read the two stories that Michael wrote on his website - here is part one of The Nightmare Before Easter, here is part two, and here is A Midsummer Night's Scream.

30) In 2003, Tim was asked at a Disneyana Fan Club convention if there were plans for a Broadway adaptation of the movie. He said no - "We thought we'd go right to the ice show."

Concept art of Jack filling in for Santa.

31) Near the end, when Santa gives Halloween Town snow, at one point we see the vampires playing hockey. They're using a pumpkin as a puck. Originally, the pumpkin was going to be a severed head - Tim Burton's, to be precise. "And it was really funny. And Denise Di Novi or one of the Hollywood producers told me, 'I don't think Tim's going to like that.' And I feel so stupid for not just asking him," Henry told the Hollywood Reporter in 2018.

Sources:
- https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/influences-before-the-nightmare-began/
- https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-nightmare-before-christmas-puppet-fabrication-part-1/
- https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-nightmare-before-christmas-puppet-fabrication-part-2/
- https://www.insider.com/nightmare-before-christmas-facts-2018
- https://www.mouseplanet.com/12183/The_Making_of_Tim_Burtons_The_Nightmare_Before_Christmas__Part_One
- https://www.mouseplanet.com/12188/The_Making_of_Tim_Burtons_The_Nightmare_Before_Christmas__Part_Two
- https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/7-things-you-didnt-know-about-tim-burtons-the-nightmare-before-christmas/
- https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/60723/21-things-you-didnt-know-about-nightmare-christmas

* Clearly, Henry never heard of Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure, which came out two decades earlier and contained... how many songs? It has to be at least fifteen. Of course, that movie was a flop, so maybe he was right to be concerned about the number of songs...

Let's Watch This: "Babes in Toyland" (1997)

When you hear "Babes in Toyland", there's a pretty good chance you think of the 1961 Disney movie starring Ed Wynn, Ray Bolger, Tommy Sands, and Annette Funicello. Well, you might or might not have already known this, but that movie was actually an adaptation of an operetta composed by Victor Herbert. It wasn't even the first movie adaptation of the operetta, that honor goes to a 1934 film starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Before and after the Disney movie, there's been several different movie adaptations of Babes in Toyland - most of them for television, but there was also an animated adaptation of the story. A direct to video animated adaptation, directed by a Mr. Bluth...

...actually, not THAT Mr. Bluth. I'm actually referring to his brother, Toby Bluth.

Actually, Toby Bluth was a co-director - the other two co-directors were Charles Grosvenor and Paul Sabella. It was produced by MGM Animation, with animation provided by Wang Film Productions, and released on October 14th, 1997. Apparently they were originally going to release it in theaters, but that didn't pan out. That's not a good sign, is it? Like, does that mean the higher-ups at MGM watched the film once it was completed and said "This is bad, if we put it in theaters it's guaranteed to be a flop."?

I suppose I should mention that I've never seen any of the other Babes in Toyland movie adaptations. My knowledge of the operetta basically amounts to that the Disney version is where the wooden soldiers in the Christmas parade at Disney World came from. So don't expect this review to make a lot of comparisons to the other versions of the story. It's an obscure animated movie, that's all the reason I need to do a review of it. Let's head to Toyland!

The movie starts off with the camera panning across a starry night sky until it reaches the moon. Sitting on the moon is a top hat, and what emerges from that top hat is... not a rabbit, as you'd expect, but an egg. Goes by the name of Mr. Dumpty. Did any of what I just said make any sense? Even the moon looks confused...

Mr. Dumpty's been practicing the DreamWorks Face long before he appeared in Puss in Boots.

Suddenly, a shooting star knocks Mr. Dumpty (voiced by Charles Neilson Reily) off the moon, and he has a big fall. With any luck, all the king's horses and all the king's men will be able to put Mr. Dumpty together again. Or maybe they won't have to, he lands safely in a sentient train driving through the clouds... at least one of which is also sentient. Is EVERYTHING sentient in this movie?

I know I already made this joke in my re-review of Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, but... what is this,
Pee-Wee's Universe?

Among the folks on this train to Toyland are the dish and the spoon that ran away after the cow jumped over the moon, the Three Bears, and two children named Jack (Joseph Ashton, also the voice of Otto Rocket) and Jill (Lacey Chabert). Suddenly, the train has to stop because Tom, Tom, the piper's son is standing in the middle of the tracks. Mr. Dumpty spews some exposition about how Tom (Raphael Sbarge) should've been back days ago, somebody named Mary is really worried. Tom explains that he was flying in a hot air balloon over the Goblin Forest, making great time, when an arrow suddenly put a hole in the balloon. The Goblin Forest? Sounds like a very spooky place. I do hope we get to see it at some point during this movie.

Holy Toledo, when did Mighty Max take steroids?!

After Tom climbs aboard, he strikes up a conversation with Jack and Jill. Apparently he's the "chief executive toymaker" of Toyland. "They got a huge factory with big machines and hundreds of workers who report to ME!" he claims. "AND I'm a very close personal friend of Santa Claus!" Ah, so THIS is where Santa gets all those toys he gives out. And here I thought they were made by elves.

The train arrives in Toyland, and as soon as he gets off Tom is greeted by his boss Mary (Cathy Cavadini) and her little lamb. Tom is totally into her.

They have the same haircut, so they must be an item.

Tom has a big toy order from Santa Claus, and there are only three days until Christmas so they'd better get on it pronto. As for Jack and Jill, they came to Toyland because they're going to live with their uncle. And what a place Toyland is - full of sentient toys, nursery rhyme characters, and strange architecture. Here, if you see a big pink elephant, it doesn't mean that you're drunk! It's practically paradise... except for the presence of the creepy clowns.

It's like F.A.O. Schwartz on a limitless budget.

After a musical number, Mr. Dumpty offers to take the kids to their uncle's house. And who is their uncle? To the egg's horror, it's Barnaby - and Barnaby just so happens to be the name of a crooked man who lives in a spooky-looking house guarded by a sentient bear trap.

"I'm not your uncle Barnaby, I'm Ebeneezer Scrooge! Come back after I've been visited by the
three ghosts!"

So why are Jack and Jill stuck with this obviously evil guy? Well, they're orphans, and Barnaby (Christopher Plummer) is the only other family they have. But he refuses to take them in until he discovers Jack has money to pay for their keep. "Scramble, Egghead! Beat it! Egg-xit!" he tells Mr. Dumpty. Get it? Because he's an EGG?

Barnaby makes something very clear to Jack and Jill: he detests fun, he abhors laughter, he despises noise and music, he hates candy, but what he especially loathes is toys... which begs the question of why he lives in a place called TOYland. Maybe housing prices are just really good there. He also makes them sleep in the rat-infested attic and threatens to feed them to the goblins if they make any noise, noise, noise, NOISE. Maybe Jack and Jill would be better off living with the Three Bears or something...

Jack, Jill, Mary, and Tom start singing about dreams. I'm not sure if this song was from the original operetta or if they wrote it for this adaptation specifically, like I said I've never seen any of the other Babes in Toyland adaptations. It's a nice song, though.

I sure hope Barnaby doesn't hear Jack and Jill singing - he did tell them not to make any noise
or else he'd feed them to the goblins.

So what is Barnaby's motivation? He's obviously the villain, so he's gotta have a motivation. Well, he wants to buy the toy factory just so he can destroy it... kind of like how Disney bought Blue Sky Studios just so they could destroy it. Yes, I'm still angry about that. He heads into town, leaving Jack and Jill to deal with his nasty cat Azarel... I mean, Scat (Susan Silo). They manage to outwit the cat pretty easily and head to the toy factory themselves.

At the factory, Mary tells Barnaby that the factory is not for sale, but Barnaby claims that if they don't sell it they'll just have to close it down because there are no toy orders from Santa Claus... are there? You know how Tom said that his hot air balloon was shot down while it was flying over the Goblins' forest? It would seem that Barnaby arranged that so the toy factory wouldn't get Santa's order. But his plan failed, as he promptly finds out. In your face, Barnaby!

Wah wah wah wah waaaaaaaaaaaaaah...

"Take your money and get out," Mary tells Grimsby from The Little Mermaid's evil twin. I wonder, is Santa Claus the only guy this factory gets orders from? Do they also supply toys to stores like Toys R Us and Wal-Mart?

Jack and Jill arrive at the toy factory just as Barnaby is storming out, but fortunately he doesn't see them. It's time for Tom to take them on a tour of the factory - and another song that culminates in Tom building a large wooden soldier, one of a thousand that Santa wants. Mary says it would be impossible to make a thousand of them in two days, but Tom claims it can be done. Unfortunately, Barnaby shows up and drags Jack and Jill back to his house, threatening to feed them to the goblins again if he sees them at the toy factory again.

And now it's time for Barnaby to sing about how much he hates toys and how he shall rid the world of them... and for three beatnik candlesticks to sing about how crooked Barnaby is. Yes, beatnik candlesticks. Because why not?

"Man, I don't dig what that square is cookin' up!"

"Yeah, Daddy-O, he's a zonk on the head!"

"Other beatnik slang!"

After the song, two pirates who up at Barnaby's door. The one with an accent I can't figure out what it is is Rodrigo (Bronson Pinchot), the big fat one is Gonzargo (Jim Belushi). They're answering Barnaby's ad for two dimwitted henchmen to do his bidding. Because you can't be an animated movie villain without two dimwitted henchmen to do your bidding.

Pain and Panic these two are not, though.

Meanwhile, the kids manage to sneak out of the house and, after a close encounter with the sentient bear trap, make a run for the toy factory to help with those wooden soldiers. Nobody knows that Gonzargo and Rodrigo have snuck into the factory, dressed in sheep costumes, so they can sabotage the machinery by throwing a wrench with the head of a monkey... a monkey wrench, in other words... into the gears. I'm not sure if they actually needed the sheep costumes seeing as nobody in Toyland knows who they are, but maybe they're just furries?

Or would somebody who wears a sheep costume actually be considered a woollie?

Jack and Tom manage to get the monkey wrench out of the gears before all the machinery goes ker-blooey. Good guys: one. Barnaby: a big, fat zero. Jill correctly guesses that the strange-looking sheep who are actually just Barnaby's minions in disguise put the wrench in there, so she and Jack chase after them. They try hiding in a flock of sheep, but an angry ram sends them flying right towards the kids, who are standing on a hill with a well nearby. Eventually, they fall into the well and Jack and Jill go tumbling down the hill. Jeez, I almost forgot that these two were meant to be Jack and Jill from the nursery rhyme. I feel silly.

And then guess who shows up?

Are we sure this guy is really their uncle? I don't see a family resemblance...

Barnaby orders Tweedlee and Tweedledum to take the kids to the Goblin Forest. Fortunately, Mr. Dumpty spots them and runs to tell Tom and Mary what's going on. Why he doesn't just attempt to take Rodrigo and Gonzargo on himself? I'm guessing the fact that he's an egg means he's not much of a fighter.

Well, Tom and Mary better hurry up and save the kids - Gonzargo and Rodrigo have already taken them to the Goblin Forest, where they must face off against the eeeeeeevil goblins, led by the terrifying Goblin King.

"You were expecting David Bowie?"

For some reason, Tom and Mary don't bring anyone else with them. I mean, we saw bears and at least one wolf working at the toy factory... why not have them come with you? They might be cutesy anthropomorphic bears and a wolf, but they're still bears and a wolf. Surely THEY have a fighting chance against the goblins. Y'know, with their claws and sharp teeth.

Before the Goblin King can gobble the kids up, Tom shows up and tries to fight him. Wow, Tom's got guts. He doesn't put up much of a fight, but he does allow Jack, Jill, Rodrigo, and Gonzargo to make a run for it. Mary manages to hold off the goblins with a flashlight... because goblins are allergic to light, it would seem. Just like Gremlins. Back in Toyland, Barnaby is trying to wrestle the key to the toy factory away from Mr. Dumpty, eventually managing to trap him on a high wall... oh no, is this going where I think it's going?

Ee-yup. Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall. We don't see his smashed remains, but Barnaby just committed egg-icide. And now the toy factory is his, right? Wrong! The good guys show up just as he's about to head inside.

And Rodrigo and Gonzargo are good guys now, apparently.

Barnaby storms off, and instead of, y'know, having him thrown in Toyland Jail or something, they decide to just let him go. I know you've still got toys to make, but why are you just letting him walk off scott-free? He's probably still gonna try to sabotage the factory again. Ah well, for now they've managed to make all one thousand soldiers. Tom and Mary celebrate by singing a romantic ballad... uh, isn't Humpty still smashed? Aren't they going to call up the king's horses and the king's men to put the poor egg back together? Or at least make a decent omelette?

Tom and Mary's makeout session is interrupted by the arrival of a whole army of goblins. And who's marching alongside them? Barnaby! See, THIS is why you should've thrown him in Toyland Jail.

Why don't the goblins eat Barnaby? They don't seem particularly picky when it comes to eating
humans...

"GOBLINS... GOBLINS... ATTAAAAAAAAAAAACK!" the Goblin King roars, unleashing the goblins onto the streets of Toyland. They run around wreaking havoc for a few minutes before the Goblin King orders them to destroy the factory. It seems as though there's no stopping them... until Mary remembers the wooden soldiers.

I sure hope they're not flammable...

The wooden soldiers and all the toys in the factory march out of the factory and do battle against the goblins. Most of the goblins flee, which makes Barnaby turn on the Goblin King... who promptly shows him why ticking off a rejected Gargoyles character is a bad idea.

He looks like if the genie version of Jafar from Aladdin drank the Grimace Shake.

Long story short, Barnaby and the Goblin King fall off the clock tower but survive because of course they do. Then the kids and the soldiers bathe the Goblin King in beams of light and he explodes, leaving only a puddle of purple goo on the ground. Barnaby is chased off by the goblins. There is much rejoicing.

But wait - what about Mr. Dumpty?

And he's stainless now, too! HOORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Santa Claus shows up to collect the wooden soldiers and throw pixie dust everywhere that conjures up Christmas decorations. I guess Tom and Mary hook up and take in the kids. Humpty Dumpty hops aboard the moon and leads everyone in a triumphant reprise of the Toyland song from the beginning. Oh, and according to the credits, Jeff Bergman did some ADR on this. That's pretty cool.

What's the Verdict?

This is definitely one of those movies that was clearly made because some studio saw how much money Disney's animated movies were making in the 1990s and said "We gotta get in on this!" - the same category as something like Thumbelina or Quest For Camelot, or even other direct-to-video animated movies like The Scarecrow. Similar character designs (Mary, in particular, looks like a fusion of Ariel and Belle), similar whimsical tone, similar songs (villain song, romantic ballad, etc.), they even chose to adapt something that Disney already did an adaptation of. But does that make it a bad movie?

I don't think so. The animation is pretty good (not on par with Disney's work at the time, but better than most of their direct-to-video sequels), most of the characters are likeable, the voice actors all do a great job (with Cathy Cavadini and Charles Neilson Reily, in particular, being standouts), the songs are fine, and there are a couple good jokes in there. It's nothing Oscar-worthy, but I personally thought this Babes in Toyland was pretty good for what it was. If you're looking for something to put you in a good mood - or something to show your kids around the holidays when you've already watched the Charlie Brown specials and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer two or three times - I'd recommend seeking out Babes in Toyland. You can find the full movie on YouTube.

Probably for the best this wasn't released in theaters, though... it would've sucked if this film wound up being a box office bomb like most of the other "trying to be Disney" animated movies at the time were. In fact, I think a lot of 1997's animated movies underperformed. I wonder why that is...

Let's Watch This: "A Hollywood Hounds Christmas" (1994)

Who the heck are the Hollywood Hounds? I have absolutely no idea. When I Googled them, the only things I could find that weren't related to this special were DVD collections of various movies starring dogs. My initial guess was that they were characters created for this one Christmas special, perhaps with the hope of there being a whole line of specials or a TV show based on them, only for that not to happen. Y'know, like the Zoomer Crew or the Soulmates. But I also found these:

Plush toys labeled "Hollywood Hounds"-related, one of which is very clearly supposed to be one of the dogs on the VHS cover! Somehow, I doubt they made plush toys of characters just from a one-off special (unless there were a lot of Zoomer Crew plush toys in stores when that special first aired). So here's my new theory: "Hollywood Hounds" was a toy line, perhaps an attempt to cash in on the success of Pound Puppies, and this special was made in an attempt to promote the toyline and maybe get a Hollywood Hounds cartoon show started up. If I'm wrong about this, somebody please let me know (the Christmas Specials Wiki claims that it was "based on the Hollywood Hounds storyline created by Jacob R. Miles III of Cultural Exchange Corporation". Make of that what you will).

Well, however this special came to be, you might recognize the name of the director, Kent Butterworth. He's also directed episodes of The Simpsons, Tiny Toon Adventures, and Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. A Hollywood Hounds Christmas aired on December 16th, 1994. You can currently find the special on YouTube, Tubi, and Pluto TV. Is it any good? Let's find out, shall we?

The special starts off with an intro like you'd expect a TV series to have, consisting of various clips from the special accompanied by a song about Christmas and these Hollywood Hounds characters they're hyping up so much. After that, we see the cowboy clothes-clad Hollywood Hound, Dude (voiced by Jeff Bennett, I believe?), arriving in Los Angeles on the back of a truck a few days before Christmas. My guess is that he came to LA because he wants to be a famous country singer... but don't most folks who want to be famous country singers go to NASHVILLE?

Then again, if he went to Nashville he wouldn't be a HOLLYWOOD Hound...

As soon as Dude gets off the truck, he is approached by a nasty-looking dog named Vic Vicious (voiced by Jess Harnell), who demands that he pay him for taxes - because this guy is clearly a trustworthy tax collector, right? I don't even know what dogs do with money, or how they get money, but Vic doesn't seem too phased by Dude telling him that he doesn't have any money, instead telling him to hand over the guitar.

Just go all El Kabong on him and smack Vic on the head with your guitar.

Dude refuses to give Vic his guitar, so Vic calls upon his bulldog pal Muttski (Frank Welker, if I'm not mistaken) to take the guitar by force. One chase scene later, Dude is saved by a dog who looks like Carlton Banks - and apparently has his clothes designed by C-Bear. His name is Cuz.

I'm sure this dog was designed to resemble SOME musician who was popular in the 1990s, but
I can't put my finger on who... maybe Prince? Was he popular in the 1990s?

Dude explains to Carlton... I mean, Cuz that he hails from Nashville - and apparently couldn't find any success there? I guess we can't all be Blake Shelton. Cuz says that his owner, Michael, would be happy to take him in, even though he already has at least two pets - in addition to Cuz, he's also the owner of the third, and only female, Hollywood Hound, Rosie (Candi Milo)... who, according to the description on the back of the VHS, is actually a cat, not a dog. Which makes the name of the group being "the Hollywood HOUNDS" kind of weird in hindsight...

This is Michael. I do not think he's meant to be a young Michael Jordan (otherwise this special
would likely be about dogs playing basketball instead of dogs forming a band).

Okay, so obviously Dude's skilled in country western music. What are the other two's talents? Cuz plays the blues, and Rosie likes salsa music. When they combine their talents together, the resulting cover of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" makes One Direction sound like a flock of screeching seagulls. But Dude doesn't want to be part of a trio: "I'm a solo act! A lone wolf," he says.

Suddenly, who should drive up to Michael's house but a... I feel like I should know this already, but what kind of car is that?

I want to say a sedan, but I'm not sure...

I initially thought some big music producer would step out of the car and immediately offer to be the Hollywood Hounds' manager, because that's usually how it goes in cartoons, but instead it's Michael's father. He says that the school where he works had to cut the music program, which means that he's out of a job. That means they won't be able to afford Christmas presents. Maybe they could take Maxine's advice and make the presents themselves - who doesn't love painted rocks?

Michael says it doesn't matter if they can't afford presents so long as they're together. Dude disagrees, saying, "Togetherness is one thing, but whoever heard of a Christmas without presents?" Cuz says that they should just be happy they have food and a roof over their heads, but Dude claims that's not what Christmas is about. SOMEBODY needs to learn the true meaning of Christmas. Could we get Linus Van Pelt in here?

"So, you think Ross and Rachel are ever gonna hook up?"

"Nah, she's got more chemistry with Joey..."

While watching TV, the Hollywood Hounds (plus one... let's call her a "California Cat") see a commercial for a pet food called Mushy Chow. The commercial announcer says that Mushy Chow is looking for dogs and cats who have musical talent to star in their annual Christmas commercial. Auditions will be held Saturday at the Pet TV studio in Hollywood, and the grand prize is a recording contract, a shopping spree in the pet store of your choice, a year's supply of Mushy Chow, and one thousand dollars in cash, hintidy-hint-hint-hint.

"Hey, are you a dog whose owner's father just got fired and desperately needs some money? Hi,
I'm the solution to your problem!"

The next morning, Dude sneaks off to the Pet TV studio, intending to audition by himself... but Cuz and Rosie wind up tagging along anyway. Suddenly, a truck with "CITY POUND" written on it shows up and snatches Cuz and Rosie in a net. This raises the question of how exactly city pounds work in this world. Dude, Cuz and Rosie, even if they're pets, are anthropomorphic - they wear clothes, they talk, they walk on two legs. So why is the dogcatcher allowed to just drive up and capture Cuz and Rosie in a net? Isn't this basically kidnapping? Would the folks running the city pound be willing to put down two animals who talk and wear clothes? Do talking animals just not have legal rights or something?

And why is the dogcatcher also nabbing a CAT? Did he mistake Rosie for a Shiba Inu?

Dude is subjected to WHACKY SHENANIGANS as he chases the truck, complete with another appearance from Vic and Muttski. He offers them a deal - if they help him save Cuz and Rosie, he'll give them his guitar. Vic agrees. Say, how come Dude, Cuz and Rosie wear clothes but Vic and Muttski just walk around naked? Are they nudists?

If they are, I'm not judging them, it's just a headscratcher...

After saving Cuz and Rosie and giving Vic his guitar, Dude and his amigos head for the Pet TV studio, where they find a bunch of other pets - and their owners, all of whom look eerily similar to them - waiting to audition as well. Vic is nice enough to give Dude his guitar back (he and Muttski were originally going to audition as well, but they're not very good singers) and suggest that they call themselves "the Hollywood Hounds", even though Rosie as she points out is not a hound. He even offers to be their manager!

There's just one problem - also auditioning for the commercial is a bratty girl (Jania Foxworth) and her poodles who can yip "The Twelve Days of Christmas", and she's determined to make sure SHE wins the prizes, not those Hollywood Hounds. Uh oh, I smell an antagonist!

An antagonist who looks like she just stepped out of a Dr. Seuss book at that!

So what is her evil plan? She sneaks into the audio room while the Hollywood Hounds are auditioning and somehow replaces their music with the sound you make when you wave your arms over a bunch of glasses filled with water. You know that sound, right? I don't know what black magic she's using to pull this off, but the judges tell the pets that they don't need to hear anything else. Then when the poodles audition, the judges make them the winners, even though their act made them fall asleep. The girl's mission was a success!

But is that enough for her dad (Frank Welker)? Oh, no - he also ambushes the Hollywood Hounds, puts them on leashes, and gives them to his daughter as new pets. Fortunately, Michael and his father show up and are all "I don't think so!" The girl's dad tries to bribe Michael's dad with some of that sweet sweet moolah, but Michael's dad will not be bribed. Especially not by the fathers of Offbrand Veruca Salts.

"By the way, Mr. Snooty Fat Guy?! The Mask called, he wants his suit back!"

The girl throws a tantrum over not getting more pets, and then she, her father, and their poodles are pummeled by bags of Mushy Chow. And then doused with water from a fire hydrant. Dude has now learned the True Meaning of Christmas - it's not about money or presents, it's about being together and being grateful for what you have. Michael's father also invited the dogcatcher over for Christmas dinner, understandably freaking out the pets, but he assures them that he takes Christmas off (plus, I don't think dogcatchers are allowed to capture pets in their own homes). We end with a musical performance from the Hollywood Hounds.

WARNING: if you watch this special yourself, you are going to have this song stuck in
your head for a while.

What's the Verdict?

I'm going to divide this into two sections. What I liked about it, and what I didn't like...

What I liked:
- The animation is good.
- The characters are likeable (if a bit underdeveloped).
- The voice cast consists of talented people like Jess Harnell, Jeff Bennett, Candi Milo, and Frank Welker. That's always a plus.
- I give them credit for not going the obvious route and having the dad get his job back somehow at the end. Although that does make me a bit worried about what he's gonna do to pay the bills.
- I also give them credit for NOT shoehorning in a bunch of pop culture references and "racy" humor like so many other 1990s Christmas specials. This was the time period where the Animaniacs style of comedy was in full swing (the special came out just ONE YEAR before Jingle Bell Rock, for crying out loud). They could've thrown in a bunch of references to famous musicians or had the dogs make jokes about how horny they are or whatever, but they didn't. How refreshing.

What I didn't like:
- The villains were lame. They show up near the end, do nothing particularly interesting, and are generally more of a nuisance than anything else. What did they add to the story other than to make the Hollywood Hounds fail their audition?
- Where did Vic and Muttski go after the villains showed up?
- Much like with Grojband, since this is a special about a trio of musicians, I would've liked some more music. They didn't even have to be original songs, they could've just had the dogs sing covers of iconic Christmas tunes. Ah well...

So all in all, I thought this special was pretty good. Unless you really hate dogs for some reason (maybe you're a Cruella DeVille sympathizer?), I recommend giving it a watch. Like I said, it's pretty easy to find for something so obscure. It also recently aired on MeTV Toons, so maybe that'll help spread more awareness of it.

This review is brought to you by Mushy Chow. Don't let the fact that it has "mushy" in its name fool you, your dog or cat will love it!

DISCLAIMER: Animation and All Things Related does not actually have a sponsor, nor is Mushy Chow an actual brand of pet food. Do not go into your local PetCo expecting to actually find bags of Mushy Chow on the shelves.