Oogie Boogie: Halloweentown’s Biggest Monster 

The thought of Oogie being a distortion of what Halloween and its town stand for makes me realize… it’s possible other towns have similar personifications, like Christmas Town having a pastiche of Scrooge.

note: in the dvd , the original ideia of oogie boogie was supposed to be the scientist that kepted sally locked in his casttle, and he would do all this so he just kept sally with him forever.

The thing I love about Oogie Boogie is that he’s actually a good representative of what the Boogeyman is. The Boogeyman is known as a faceless ghoul who abducts kids in the night because like a bully he’s bigger than them and they can’t fight back, and he feeds off of the fear that they have of him. Fear is the Boogeyman’s greatest strength, especially since fear usually keeps us from thinking logically and fully understanding the situation, like how to deal with the Boogeyman. Everyone is scared of Oogie Boogie, and while we don’t see it from the townspeople, we do see it from the few who have interacted with him like Santa, Sally and Lock, Shock & Barrel. The only one who doesn’t fear him is Jack, who not only isn’t afraid of him, but knows how to handle him and is always prepared to fight back and can fight back. It makes sense that Jack is the only one Boogie fears because it is the same thing the Boogeyman fears. Someone who isn’t afraid of him, always stands up to him and learns how to handle him. The Boogeyman represents the fear of the unknown, always in the dark because that’s where the unknown likes to hide. Once you know the Boogeyman, he becomes less scary. The more and more you know him, the less and less you fear him, it is why he is said to be “faceless” because he doesn’t want people to see him and know what he is, even an iota is too much for him. That’s why Jack is his greatest fear, because he knows Oogie and what he’s all about. He knows that he’s a viscous monster but that he isn’t really that scary. He’s just a brute who likes to hurt people for fun. While everyone may fear him, Jack sees him for who he truly is and will never be afraid of him, and that’s why the Pumpkin King scares him the most because in Jack’s eye sockets he’s just another monster of the town, just one he has no respect for at all. Heck, we can even make the argument that Oogie stays where he is because he’s scared of Jack and thinks he’s safe so long as he stays where he is, away from the Pumpkin King and his town. Oogie really is one great character who really took advantage of the time he took. Probably the only gamble he truly won at.

Oogie is up there as one of my top favorite Disney villains. Everything about him from him being made of bugs, gambling, Cab Calloway style dancing, even his blacklight aesthetic.

Channeling Spirits did a fun podcast on the origin of the Boogeyman and it's a lot more vague than you'd expect. There's just always been these vaguely shaped, ominous spectres trotted out to get kids to go to bed on time. Oogie's definitely the best incarnation though, not every spook can channel Cab Calloway the way he can.

The more I see stop motion animated films or shows, the more I grow to appreciate the time and effort that the crew provide to their projects. The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favorite stop motion animated films. I could agree that Oogie Boogie being the character he is is because of his nature; although, I would also say that he would be a monster who loves to cheat and manipulate things to scare his victims for his own benefits. He went from a scary fictional monster to a lovable villainous monster, and it’s all thanks to The Nightmare Before Christmas.

He was a bigger threat in Kingdom Hearts

Oogy boogey is the personification of Halloween mischief and bad decisions, he’s as much Halloween as jack is the personification of scares and thrills.

Heck yeah, I flipping love Nightmare before Christmas too! And Oogie Boogie is my favorite character, he’s not getting overlooked by me! Great video!

Nightmare Before Christmas is my favorite movie! I think the point of Oogie Boogie was to redeem Jack after he had Santa kidnapped and tried to take over Christmas

Jack’s the only one he’s afraid of

One of the reasons I always considered Oogie Boogie to be solidly in the villain department is the way he treats his henchmen. Lock Shock and Barrel do seem to enjoy working for him, but they're also very scared of what he would do to them if they upset him. They talk about him like he's some sort of beast rather than a real boss, I also always found it suspicious that they seem to get rewarded for everything they do for him with food. He basically engages in child labor, and is kind of an abusive boss, and considering halloween is supposed to be a holiday for children to have fun, making them work and treating them badly would logically be another way he goes against the holiday spirit, along with taking things too far.

My boy boogie got the Armstrong treatment. Small show time but plenty of fan love.

This guy's been my favorite Disney villain with the best villain song as far as I'm concerned. On a funny note though, he kinda reminds me of Baron Harkonnen from Dune (regarding the book at least). Physically large, power hungry, greedy, the only major difference I'd say is the Baron doesn't seem to like physically hurting people himself and would rather have Piter or his other soldiers do his dirty work for him, and even then that doesn't make him not sadistic, just makes him intelligent enough to not want his own personal image tarnished as well as so he can truthfully say HE didn't personally kill or hurt people. That's a topic for another day. Another great video guys!

Personally if it wasn’t for kingdom hearts, I never would’ve been as fascinated by this movie as I actually am. It came out in 1993 when there was no new movie from the main Disney animated canon, aka the Disney renaissance. So it easily fits right into the era in a sense too.

Oogie boogie is never forgotten. He scared the fuck outta me as A kid.

Oogie Boogie was under house arrest

“No one in Halloween town wants to actually hurt anyone when they scare” ummm…. Didn’t the vampires get a reward for most blood drained in a single night? The rest of them are harmless sure, but the vampires?

He was my favorite character in nightmare before Christmas

A spooky movie I think you should watch & review is called Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. It’s incredible

Oogie himself, truly Is sitll underrated these days.

To this day, nothing can convince me the bogie name isn’t made from bugs

Keep in mind, since Oogie is considered the “Boogeyman”, you can project your own fears and nightmares onto him. He’s able to take the form of anything you’re afraid of, and use your fears to haunt you.

I remembered my mom not letting me watch nightmare before Christmas because it could Creep me out. When jack ripped the stickers of oggie boogie and a bunch of bugs fall out yeah it did creep me out but not as much as this character from this film I saw where this character kills people with her thighs!

6:30 cute cosplay

After reading long live the pumpkin Queen how did you say the doctor is definitely the worst villain in halloweentown

Oogie Boogie is the best character in the whole movie so of course he's not in it much.

I do like Oogie a lot, but it doesn't change the fact that he does just derail the story. Honestly, for all the respect I have for Nightmare Before Christmas, I am of the opinion that if it was shorter and just focused only on Jack's story, it would have been better. Having the Oogie stuff and maybe a bit of Sally just feels a bit pointless in the grand design of Jack's story of getting bored of Halloween and taking over Christmas. If they really have to have him fall in love in the end, sure, I guess keep Sally, but since that section and Oogie's involvement are just so minor, it makes it feel like they stretched this story to make it into a movie. Both of them barely get any attention from Jack until the end. If I had the decision, I would of have Nightmare Before Christmas as a 40 minute musical special and have all the Oogie Boogie stuff expanded and have it as a sequel special.

It's a spooky month

I don’t really understand why people liked this film I mean it’s not bad it’s quite average