#tnbc analysis

My sister getting really into TNBC and so myself by proxy was a turning point in my childhood. As a wee child I never actually finished watching the movies I liked, so the fact that Jack and Sally were an item always escaped me except for the merchandise which made it clear. As a budding 8-12 year old, finally watching it all the way through it was overwhelmingly sweet to have the movie end as it did. As (I think) mentioned by me and definitely others before, Jack is Sally’s ‘reward’ of sorts. Sally and Jack are not a couple in the movie they just hook up at the end, Sally just so happens to also be pining for Jack while also trying to stop him. Her song ends on the note that she has no expectation that Jack can or would be able to notice her; which is what makes it so gosh darn sweet that dummy problematic hero-antagonist Jack DOES notice Sally at last and realizes how important she is. It's the most adorable thing in the world. To be honest it still kinda is.

I was just starting puberty and it was the most romantic, most wonderful way in the world to end the movie. They were my original OTP. Sally stayed true to herself and was not only validated but got herself that himbone she wanted, and Jack learned he was being a jerk to his town, Santa and to Sally and the latter realization made him fall in love with her! Yeah it’s a rushed ending and not the height of writing, but it was such a good send off to the story. 

After that, it didn’t take long for me to develop other OTPs. Especially as I hit puberty I realized that some of my favorite couples were more sensual and intimate than others. I liked that sexual aspect and overflow of everything romantic in them as I still do today. I express what sexual interest I have through my -adult character- pairings. And by that I mean I really don’t/can’t see myself being sexual with another person or even a character. Even my OCxCanon ships aren’t made with the vibe of “mmmgod I want 1 from 9 soooo badly!” as much as I wanted someone to ship 1 with.

Shipping, to me, feels like I’m some cruel god of love and death; making up a billion scenarios for my shaps. That or a god of love and death who likes creeping on my shaps while they’re being intimate. I don’t know if this is the way other asexual/aroace people go about exploring their own sexuality, but it is mine. I’m sexual, not sex repulsed, but only in a way that’s comfortable for me and me alone and that I don’t want to be sharing that with other people. I don’t want people to see my smexual art made for just myself, not just because it’d probably bore some of you (I kin Speckle from Tuca and Bertie so hard with his 'boring wholesome porn'), but because I don’t want another person waning in on that intimacy. That’s my intimacy. For me. Just for me. I don’t think I’ll ever want a sexual partner.  Writing about the ships is enough for me sexual-interest wise…for most of my ships, anyway....

As I got back into TNBC through this blog, I tried doing the “okey now they get intimate”-card with Jack and Sally and it just feels…wrong to me? I can blush and be all flustered and talkative about any of my couples and favorite character -even the ones who don’t canonically have junk I don’t think- being all smexy and lovey-dovey. I can go on forever about the jokes to be made about ALL my other favorite character ships…but not JackxSally. For a while I just thought it was me just not being uncomfortable with characters from my early childhood being in a sexual context…but that doesn’t make sense cause my earliest favorite character in my memory has always been Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast and we ALL KNOW how sexual he is. I don’t find Jack and Sally physically unappealing, at least anymore than my -again- other fav characters who I picture getting intimate with each other.

Not to accidentally tease and/or show off that boring only-for-my-own-pleasure artwork and writing, but I unironically, um, made art of Frankenberry and Count Chocula. I like monsters and no not just the ones that look human mostly. My metric for what is and isn’t “attractive” is all over the place so long as all parties are consenting non-related adults. A character is attractive and 'sexual' to me if I happen to find the character appealing in that sense. You can talk all day about any other Burton/Selick/Stop-Motion pair and the antics they get up to or how hot they are as people. Whether or not I’m into it I go “yeah that tracks for Beetlejuice. Why would I expect any different from him?” 

Jack and Sally’s love is not -supposed to be- “pure” or “childish”, but it is 100% not sexual to me. After years of trying to make them sexual but somehow also never stopping in shipping them, I find them the two most actively sexless characters I can imagine. 

And, not gonna lie, something that spurns that on A LOT is the way some of ya’ll have tried to fight me on this over the years about how they can’t be ace: 

-“But Sally is designed to be sexy and Jack is an OG tumblr sexyman.” 

“Attractive”people do not have to be sexual people. I headcanon Roger and Jessica Rabbit to be ace too, btw. We all know that their form of intimacy is hijinx and pattycake, so WHY NOT Jally?

Sally is fixated on Jack but never in a leering way (which is good!) and while she may use her leg to entice Oogie, she just doesn’t seem like a very sexual person to me. Also, what’s that implying? Because she was made to be Dr. Fink’s sexylamp/girlfriend that she HAS TO BE sexual herself?

Jack, beyond his manchild himbo-isms, never strikes me as someone who gets around despite knowing that ladies in Halloween Town are into him. If anything he acts throughout the movie like someone averted to romance until the very end when he falls in love in the most Jack Skellington way imaginable.

-“If you think they aren’t sexual then why do they share a bed in your work?”

What is this Haze-code nonsense? Are queen and king-sized beds inherently places for banging and nothing else? You DO KNOW there are asexual people in real life who share beds, right? You know; because regardless of whatever you guys do for intimacy it’s just a good feeling to be close and with the person you love even when you’re sleeping? Because non-sexual cuddling exists and aroace people don’t like sex but they can love spooning, right? I hope you know that, especially for cases of platonic and familial love, where young children sleep in their parents/siblings beds for comfort. I hope, for everyone’s sake, that you aren’t Lily Orchard-ing all platonic love and asexual love into things they shouldn’t be… 

To be clear I don’t think you are, but the way some of you talk about this issue…it just makes me peeved. 

-“But they have kids according to the original/uncut ending of the soundtrack.” 

DOES THE CONCEPT OF ‘STORKS THAT DELIVER BABIES’ SERIOUSLY NOT EXIST IN A FANTASY SETTING?

Especially since we’re talking about one where abstract childhood thoughts are living beings with their own worlds like in Nightmare? How uncreative that is, sns. I like sensual fandom and sensual shipping stuff all the time but Sally and Jack are not Simba and Nala or Morticia and Gomez, i.e. children’s media characters who we know get up to non-children friendly stuff. Also, especially since one of them is a confirmed science-creation (discounting the book that shall not be named in God’s House), can ya’ not even concede the idea of literally ‘creating’ children? 

TL;DR: I don’t like to think of Jack and Sally’s nonexistent junk and yeah I am a little squicked out at the idea of you mentioning it. Stick to Sans from Undertale or Francesca from Mad Monster Party when we’re talking horny skeletons or Frankenstein-dolls, please. It’s what our lord and savior Onceler intended. 

Like myself, Jack and Sally have their own love, companionship and non-sexual intimacy. If I had to assign a sexuality to them in my work, it would be demi-asexuals. They are two dorks in love with and married to their best friend who’s also their closest confidant. They are a scarecrow bone-man and human-sized leaf doll.

This is easily the worst cover for the film and what I hate is that it's the most current cover. I already hate when they try to make the clipart we're used to all shaded and three dimensional-like, but just...LOOK AT THIS?!?!

Who thought THIS looked good? Honestly?!? The characters are all way too colorful and smooth and it's plastered on top of the film cel like it fits together...it DOESN'T!!!

Next we have the 2008 DVD cover.

I'll try not too be too harsh on this one in case anyone here grew up with it...but I'm sorry I am sooooo not a fan. It tells you nothing about the film. It's more of that '3D-ish take on the og lineart that looks ugly to me.

The 2023 30th anniversary art is...fine?

Like there's nothing WRONG with it, but it feels incredibly lackluster compared to some of the screen-capped and colored up artwork I've seen on things like T-Shirts and even fan made posters.

Also, and I hope this ISN'T true, it's so basic I worry that it at some point was made by or with AI or at least with an artist who wasn't paid that much in a short amount of time. Like, the composition is all there: Sally and Jack in the foreground, Lock, Shock and Barrel under them and above the title, Oogie in the moon behind them all...but I don't know why they didn't do something really cool like make all the intricate purple and blue-shapes into silhouettes of the other characters and other iconic imagery or scenes?

Look at how...ALONE Zero feels off the side there!!

This next one is another older image I remember on the back of my VHS growing up, though I never knew it was used for an actual cover of the movie. It does INFINITELY look better than the first shaded-lineart image (this was done in the 90s...how...) but while I love the composition of Jack and Sally and them walking around in Christmas Town, I never liked the colors of the image at all.

I also never got why Lock, Shock and Barrel are there, chillin and watching them like they're Belle and Beast and they're Beasts' servants trying to wingman for him...Where's Zero? Everyone knows HE'S jack's wingman.

This is an image I found on IMDB that took my by surprise. To be honest I have no clue if it's an actual film poster or a fan poster, but I like the composition of it all as a Universal Horror film poster. Doesn't work as well as Frankenweenie, but still...

And now, the classic. The one you most certainly grew up seeing everywhere or around the place regarding this movie in the 90s or 2000s. It's the cover to the soundtrack and VHS I had. This is obviously the most famous version.

But there's also this slightly different version with Jack's arms in a different pose 'to receipt Shakespearean quotation'. This is the same version of the cover used on our "The Film, the Art and the Vision" book as well.

But, for my own PERSONAL favorite cover of the film (even if it's just a simple photoshop), I have to go with the original 'special edition' DVD my sister and I still have.

Somehow Sally just being on the spiral hill next to Jack and holding his hand is so sweet and doesn't feel like the cheap and quick edit it is. I think it's because, despite being a reference to the scene I never saw this cover as directly portraying "Jack's Lament", that this was Jack having a nice moment of peace after the events of the films somehow and waxing his poetics in reference to the film...so somehow the idea of Sally coming up to join him in that with his other arm let out to her is ADORABLE.

Here it is on a different version on a French DVD.

Lastly, since it does technically count as a poster for the movie itself, I'd be remissed not to mention Nightmare Before Christmas 3D's poster. This this was great back in the day and it's still great now. I'm fairly certain they just photoshopped stills and photos of puppets themselves but y'see kids- THIS vvvv

This is how you photoshop. Everyone has a unique face and pose. Everyone's doing something you think that character would be doing if they were going to MT3K their own film (Sally that's rude!) and they're all drenched in theater accurate lighting. That's more like it!! Besides Oogie being smol, this is the perfect poster to catch the eye of a rerelease!

Hope you enjoyed!

---First thing's first, My take on Sally is highly influenced by The Nightmare Before Christmas : The Film, the Art, and the Vision which my sister bought years ago. In that book, Carolyn Thompson said this -

While TNBC is the story of the time Jack did a thing and ruined it for everyone, it's Sally who embodies everything the filmmakers want the audience to feel about Jack.

Set up and seen before Jack is even on screen, Sally is a part of the world of Halloween, but also an outsider in it. This gives her the position to see Jack the way the audience does; Just like Sally, we are awed and enamored with Jack when he first pops up, then saddened and sympathetic for him once we realize his plight. Though she's absent from Jack's finding of Christmas Town, she IS there for the town meeting when we the audience (and her) are gushing over his gushing over Christmas. We sense along with Sally Jack's frustration with the town citizens, are saddened to see him pander to them, and can tell he’s not well when committing to his Xmas experiments. Most important of all, Sally recognizes Jack’s Xmas takeover as wrong and wants to stop it, even if she love him. Even without hearing him sing “I bet I could IMPROVE IT TOO” like we do, Sally knows Jack is wrong. Regardless of her care for Jack, visibly, she’s the only one who sees what’s happening with Santa is wrong. Sally tracks him down in order to help Jack, but she’s none the less Santa’s real ally. From everything we know about her, Sally, like the rest of Halloween Town, is not a mean monster and doesn’t like to spread misery ala Oogie Boogie, and she’s not too hopped up on enthusiasm to forget when she’s hurting people like Jack and the town very much are. Sally is the og critical stan. now join me for a tanget-

Interestingly, any other holiday film ((Year without a Santa Claus, Hocus Pocus, Hop)) would make the voice-of-reason audience-surrogate character a peppy human child who's interacting w the holiday characters, but in TNBC, the writers made the surrogate someone who's also a holiday character- Sally. Sally is kind of to TNBC what Nick Calloway is to The Great Gatsby. Yeah, that's a stretch-Nick is of course the narrator and author-stand in for his story where Sally isn't (although, a TNBC narrated by Sally sounds dope as hell, ngl), tho more importantly, while Nick learns along with the reader how cruel and fruitless the American dream Jay believed in actually was,

---Sally is a character who doesn’t have to learn anything. tanget- again

A lot of people have this opinion on Disney heroines like Belle or Ariel, that good characters, female or otherwise, don't necessarily have to learn anything. I could take or leave Belle and Ariel in as far as if they should learn a lesson in their movies. But in my eyes, that character will always be Sally. Sally is a character you wanna aspire to be like and who doesn’t need to learn the lesson of the story. And yes, Sally is also in-love with Jack. You can be extra cynicalsassy and use this to say "TNBC was made to make you feel like you could make out w Jack Skellington" (( I'd like to point out that Nick is all but canonically in love with Jay in GG)) but that's not the point. More importantly...how/why is that a bad thing that Sally is in love? TNBC doesn’t pass any bectal tests. If women always supporting other women is the only mark of feminism ever then I guess, but I mean, what’s wrong if a woman’s inspo and motivation is a man? What’s especially wrong if she’s self aware and tries to battle that man’s influence within the story. How is that "putting up with" or "enabling/excusing/thinking only of Jack". Sally...really doesn't do that...

---Sally has wants, but within the narrative of Nightmare she's just a bit taken back by needs. At the start of the movie what Sally wants, and the reason she says "I know how you feel" to Jack, is to be active.

“I don’t want to BE patient”

“I’m restless, I can’t help it!”

Sally wants to be anything but Finkelstein's cute assistant because SHE knows she's more than that. She wants to be a part of Halloween Town. What's keeping her back is her reluctance to be free, which she finally throws to the wind after seeing Jack's tower from afar, which is why she's so happy throwing herself out the window - that's her 'let it go' moment of actually taking action in her life. The man she loves is evidently doing it -why shouldn't she? Her actual 'need' is to escape from Dr. Finkelste and it’s really not an obstacle, if we're being honest. The balls are all in her court; Fink's at most an irritation to her. She literally came back to his lab just to be sewn up and smile in his face about poisoning him. She can, and does, so often easily escape because she’s NOT perturbed by him. Sally is, at this point in the film, totally in control of her wants and her needs. But then- the plot kicks in and she has her vision. It's then that her real need in the story, the need she recognizes, outweighs her wants, that need being: "omg I gotta stop this undead himbo from hurting himself and other people!" Sally’s #1 goal in the film is NOT to be Jack's gf, it’s just to save him from himself. Jack inspires her, makes her feel good, but she doesn’t let that stop her from seeing things for how they are ABOUT him. Her words in "Sally Song" never read to me as "notice me senpai I wish I was good ENOUGH" self-loathing. If anything her succumbing to “it’s never to become '' about Jack isn’t some “I love you even though you’ll NEVER luff MEEEEE” devotion, but forlorn frustration. “I think it’s not to be '' = Jack’s never gonna change”. It's Sally's lament about how she doesn't believe Jack will ever want her that way because she just knows what kind of person he is*. But that's not the only thing she sings about in this song. Sally has been apart from the crowd and wants to be a part of it, but any joy she’d have in her new independence is kinda sucked up by knowing Jack is gonna get him and possibly the rest of the town killed. She even wonders in her song if she wants to or ever can be really a part of Halloween Town when she clearly can’t do the hype-Jack-up song and dance like the rest of them. Jack evidently treats her like an equal part of the team, but 1) for Jack that's just another citizen he thinks doesn't understand him, and 2) it's participation in a project she knows she doesn't want to be a part of. Real monkey's paw there, Sally!

If there is anything close enough to a lesson for Sally in the film, arguably, it’d be not to underestimate Jack as unable to change. She’s not only validated by the end of the film, she gets to see Jack really bounce back and be the person she loved at the start- and then is taken aback that he not only does this but finally recognizes her affections, her efforts, and her as a person. final tangent:

((I think the make-or-break-you point with Nightmare is a question of whether or not you think Jack learned his lesson. While I think the filmmakers could have really handled that better, especially in “Poor Jack”, I think what they were going for in their own crunch of an ending is Jack falling in love with Sally is his redemption- he finally came around to seeing her and her way. The Film, the Art, and the Vision makes a point of how Sally is far more than Jack’s romantic interest. ))

Being Mr. Cynical again, you could handwave this as just a throw-in from the writers; "actually she IS REALLY important lookit all the things she do!" but I believe in that statement because they believe in that.

--Sally's MO is centered around Jack. Narratively, yes, she exists in compandum to him. But, within the actual story of the film, Jack isn't her soul purpose in life. The fact that she tries to stop him is proof enough of that. 

The argument that Sally is too good and better than the relationship she's in falls apart because Jack and Sally aren't IN a relationship in the film. They hook up at the end -that's not the same as them being together or a couple. The logic of this take is, again, confusing Sally's wants with her needs, and also presuming Jack always loved her and just didn't realize until the end of the story, which is NOT the text of the actual film, that's fan speculation. (( I prefer Jack falling in love with Sally on the spot out of nowhere. It's such a Jack way of doing things...)) I think what convinces people that Sally is “dependent” on Jack or only ever his side-kick is how expanded media treats her as character, as well as her relationship w Jack. In the 2000s, all that mattered for making spin off material of kid’s franchises is keeping the cast recognizable and that means undoing their development if the point of the story is that they change. It happened in every Land Before Time sequel where Cera and Littlefoot have to be the respective team-racist and team-leader, always, ever, all the time; it happened in the Finding Nemo comics set after the movie where writers still made Marlin overprotective of Nemo; it happened to Jack in Kingdom Hearts and Oogie’s Revenge. The writers may want to write an actual story, but it’s easier to just write what the characters are like in the original. SO, Jack HAS to be an oblivious, selfish manchild and can never learn and is also really despondent and prone to abandoning ppl he supposedly cares about. This sucks enough for Jack's character, but I think Sally suffered even worse than him. At that time, media and merch did treat Sally like she was JUST Jack’s love interest. Literally in Oogie’s Revenge's game pamphlet the only disc for her is “she’s sewn her way into Jack’s heart”, like she’s just his side piece and not the woman he ended his movie with who was also a really important character you followed within that movie. We can only repeat what we know from the film so oop!-Jewel’s MIA and Sally has to live with her sexist ex/boss who doesn't even like her.

---While we're here, I'm 100% sure Sally and Dr. Fink’s relationship is not familial. Some fictional mad scientists do love their creations like they were their children (see also: Mad Monster Party, 9, Frankenweenie for animated examples). Not Dr. Fink. While not exactly predatory ((because it's a fricken kids film, ew)) Dr Finkelstein is a sexist old man. He's problematic. Fink made Sally to be his sexy secretary. He's mad because her life doesn’t revolve around him the way he thinks a woman who works for him life should. In the end, he just decided to go and make a copy of himself since he knows now what he wants is to be told how awesome he is. I really don’t vibe some fic authors (and Shea Anshaw's) insistence that they be anything like ‘family’, hence why I made fun of it on this blog.

For all I disagree with between our headcanons, I much prefer Hasani Walker's take on Sally to Long Live the Pumpkin Queen. Hasani went in w good vibes; he made decent takes and criticisms; he made some good art; he did a sweet crossover between stop-motion properties, and MOST importantly, Hasani gave Sally a hat and a cool girl vest. Did Shea Anshaw do that? No!

It feels very at home and on-brand for TNBC that Sally was made from whole cloth as a ragdoll, but is still her own autonomous person by the rest of town and even the leader eventually. Reminds me a lot of the Oz books where the Scarecrow, Jack Pumpkinhead, and Gump are all just possessions but who are seen as people by the heroes, and even made official citizens by the heroes, which they are. What's more Halloweeny than a living-ragdoll-frankenstein woman being co-ruler of everything spoopy, or even just a citizen loved and respected as much as the rest of the town for her own attributes? If that's what you want, and it's what Hasani actually did for her, than give her that. Outside of her purpose within the story that I already mentioned earlier... what about Sally is sexist? So TNBC doesn't pass the bechdel test and Sally's main inspo happens to be her man. Not her soul purpose like in mother!, just her muse, her kin, her dearest friend. Secret of NIMH and Kubo and the Two Strings have female characters whose motives are their men and those characters don't even have first names. I kinda really hate the implication that a woman can't have a male character as a motive ever or else. As a feminist, I agree, women characters should be individuals and not props for the men. The problem to me isn't so much the insistence that a woman be there for support, it's writers crafting a story where certain characters fill more of a role or purpose in cunjunction to another, and when the writer happens to make said character a woman.

Also, since the whole point of LLTPQ was to give Sally her own agency and importance...how is it fair that she HAVE to be a royalty HERSELF in order to be her own person?

Is it because she was made to be a sexy nurse and that's somehow wrong or shameful even though the whole point is it's not her fault? Is it that people would accuse her of “leeching off" Jack just for being in a relationship with him? You know? The thing bad, sexist people do to women and sax workers irl if they have famous boos when they themselves aren't famous? If the only people complaining are those who think Sally is JUST Jack’s sidepiece, why validate those people? Wanting her to have agency within the movie and so giving her different choices as opposed to just INSTANTLY marrying Jack? That's a take I can vibe with because that is true to the nature of what Sally is, which is not just the Mad Scientist's beautiful assistant. By making Sally a "princess all along '', you imply that her even possibly starting from the bottom makes her beneath Jack and she has to rise to be his equal. Sally never had to do this in the original movie. Sally really was the smartest, most in tune person in town.

I talk a big game, of course, but even as my fav character I know I've done Sally wrong too. The "Mothball" comic is one of my biggest regrets from this blog. It's SO badly worded and I think it's a comic that REALLY needed a second opinion. Sally did nothing wrong in that comic, but both it and Jack made her feel like they were both in the wrong. Trying to give Jack and Sally a conflict as a couple was hard and I ended up rehashing some really harmful language, which I didn't want to do for either Sally or Jack. Don't like that comic. My first choice of retype, redraft.

final thoughts?

What people (me, Lindsay, Hasani, Shea, errybody) actually want of Sally is to have her own agency and 'character' apart from Jack. While narratively, yes, Sally functions as being there to endear Jack to the audience, my point is as a character within the narrative-Sally does have her own autonomy apart from him. She is massively independent of him. I know because that's who she is throughout the entire movie. I think it's because we all see she clearly does have her own interests/agency/character beyond that that we're all anxious to get more of that personally from her...which Disney won't do because they're Disney and certain characters can't come as their own especially when they fufilled another character's purpose in the og film.

Anna can't really do anything that isn't tied to Elsa because it's Elsa who's the reason any of Frozen happens at all.

Belle is always only the cheerleader of the Beast because his character arc is what drives the story.

Sally has to always be in toe of Jack because TNBC is Jack's story and she loves Jack.

But, we love Sally.

Give Sally her own limelight. Give her a limelight that isn't compltely making her a different character or demanding she be the same character as Jack.

Let Sally say #$%&

If we're being totally cynical here, Oogie exists in Nightmare souly to make Jack not look as bad because Jack is the real antagonist of the story, not Oogie.

Oogie is the villain, the one who likes enacting harm, Jack is the heroantagonist all in one, he doesn't mean any harm but all of what happens in TNBC is his fault.

Oogie only plays a part in Jack's Xmas specifically cuz of Jack's lack of oversight and carelessness; even without Jack's specific instructions, Santa and Sally being Oogie's victims are his fault, and it's why Jack has to be the one to save them in the end. Whether or not you think Jack learned his lesson or is a bad person and TNBC is 'bad actually'i s it's own deep dive, but personally I really like followup material that show Jack being his best self (Zero's Journey: peppy, monsterboy pumpkin king doing what he can) as opposed to his worst self (Kingdom Hearts/Oogies Revenge Jack: uber selfabsorbed manchild who never cares about others feelings, despite the movie implying he's learned to do better).

All of this is coming up for me because the newest comic book for Nightmare went into the writer's canon backstory and it delved into one the ideas I absolutely hate: Oogie and Jack were once friends.

Making Jack and Oogie friends in the past or even just amicable to each other is a REALLY big misstep on the part writers, because it makes Jack's murdering Oogie in the film so much worse.

Oogie Boogie's death was the one part of Nightmare that truly disturbed me as a child. Having Jack so passively and aggressively skin Oogie alive and do nothing but scowl as his insides fall out in agony already makes Jack look like a Christian Gray level non-comeuppance-sue but ESPECIALLY if you tack on the idea that Oogie and him were friends once!

Jack's not Optimus Prime or Superman who's all about enacting justice and fighting for what's right tm. He's Jack Skellington. He's still a scary monster Halloween king of nightmares you don't want to mess with. In Henry Selick's words on the 2008 commentary track for Nightmare, the citizens of Halloween Town aren't 'monsters' (bad people) and neither is Jack, really. He's scary because that's his job but he and his town never mean actual harm, it's just that what they ENDS UP doing by way of Jack also being a self absorbed manchild which makes him actually dangerous.

Oogie is the exception to that. I always felt even as a kid, that the implication for why he's locked up by the rest of Halloween Town was always pretty clear: Oogie does mean real harm. Oogie wants to hurt people. He has no delusions of grandeur like Jack, yes, but he wants you dead for his own pleasure and that's really not okay and not 'a good scare'.

"It's much more fun I must confess when life is on the line, not mine of course, but yours old boy, now that would be just fine!" - Oogie, kinning the guy who runs McKanney Manor

Even the demo version of the final fight makes clear Oogie's idea of 'fun' is torture:

"No Jack, messing with MY IDEA OF FUN!"

Jack coming to his own and actually doing something about Oogie should be a moment of "Jack really IS back! 8D! And he's actually finally doing something about the incelcryptobro in his basement that he knows everyone dead! Jack's being responsible! 8D 8D!" for the audience, not "wow. Jack is dirtbag who never faces consequences and murders people for problems he caused 8C. And the movie takes his side because Jack's 'cool' and Oogie just so happened to be causing harm. The movie gives Jack an excuse. 8C 8C"

I'm not saying the latter is what you end up taking away as a viewer. I'm saying that's not the vibe you want and it's why for, in Jack's story, which TNBC is, Oogie really should be just a big bully with no nuance of his own. Or at least, no nuance that means anything TO Jack.

Oogie Boogie is kind of basic. I personally love him for that even though I don't know exactly how to write him and I want to make TNBC stuff without him as a villain. But believe me- as a villain lover I totally get the need to try and make more out of our potato-sack daddy.

If you're rightfully mad that the one BIPOC-voiced character in the cast is the bland ebbul dude, that's beyond valid!!! (no- I don't think think the coding or casting was intentional, but the pro-segregation coding in Lion King also wasn't intentional...doesn't mean it isn't problematic).

If you simply want a more interesting villain-big-bad that exists to make the main hero look better, that's all fine and good too.

Me personally, I'm currently stumped on how to flesh out Oogie and not make him a complete, actual monster by Halloween Town's standards. I'm currently trying to think around this...but we'll have to wait and see...

My biggest issue is how, because he's fun while he kills people, some fans go the opposite route Oogie is made into a harmless hammy bafoon stripped of all his teeth and his real personality. I'm sorry to do this but Oogie is NOT in love with Sally. Oogie is not Sally's sassy best friend who's great at calling Jack out on his bad boyfriend-ness.

That's not Oogie Boogie. That's Angel Dust but that's not Oogie Boogie.

I like my Oogie being a bully. Not a puppy dog, not a tragic character, just an actual unbridled monster in the midst of this town of performance scarers.

But...That's just my take, not yours. If you love Oogie being perfect and flawless to counteract Jack's supposed 'perfectflawlessness', if you wanna see him as a real nuanced character because Oogie is definitely a fun one...right on. I'm not your mom.

But yeah, that's why Oogie doesn't appear too much in my comics except for in prequel stuff. Granted, I do want to do more with him but I'm stumped as for now so Oogie stays double dead.

If he does show up and makes friends, expect his friends to not be Jack and Sally because Sally's got better friends and no way would Oogie trust Jack after all Jack's put him through.