Oogie Boogie

Oogie Boogie

The Oogie Boogie Man is the main antagonist, who is a large burlap sack full of bugs. Oogie Boogie did not appear in Tim Burton's original poem, but Burton later sketched a portrait of what appeared to be a potato sack man with horrible things inside. The Oogie puppet was two feet high, twice the height of the other puppets. Ken Page claims that he based his performance as Oogie as "somewhere between Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz and the voice of the demon in The Exorcist". In his autobiography Burton on Burton, Burton says that Oogie Boogie was loosely inspired by Cab Calloway's appearances in several Betty Boop cartoons, and that he asked Danny Elfman to make Oogie's song in Nightmare resemble Calloway's 1931 recording of the song "Minnie the Moocher". Elfman ended up referencing the Betty Boop cartoon The Old Man of the Mountain (1933), which also featured Calloway; Santa's line "Well, what are you going to do?" and Oogie Boogie's response of "I'm gonna do the best I can!" are directly taken from it. As seen on the Special Edition DVD, another idea for Oogie's identity was for him to be Dr. Finkelstein in disguise to take revenge on Jack and Sally, but Burton scrapped the idea and it was not pursued past storyboards. Despite the fact that Oogie is mostly separated from the inhabitants of Halloween Town, it appears they allow him to take part in their celebration, as his shadow appears on the moon in the opening song "This Is Halloween". He lives in an underground lair full of torture devices, each of which features a casino-like appearance, which along with his use of dice suggest an addiction to gambling. During "Oogie Boogie's Song", his lair is lit with black lights, which he glows bright green under. After the lights dim, the bright color is sapped from his lair, transforming its appearance into that of a dank, cellar-like dungeon. Above his lair is the clubhouse of Lock, Shock, and Barrel, who feed him bugs through a metal chute. It is initially believed that Oogie cannot be killed or die, but it is later revealed he can if his brain, the lead bug, is destroyed. In the film, Lock, Shock and Barrel kidnap Santa Claus and send him down to Oogie Boogie's lair, where Sally attempts to rescue him after learning of his fate, but is captured. Oogie then tortures and tries to kill Sally and Santa Claus, but is foiled by Jack, who pulls a thread loose from him, ripping off the sack covering him and causing most of his bugs to fall into the lava. The lead bug is then squashed by Santa, and the rest of the bugs scurry off. In The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King, his origins and the birth of his rivalry with Jack were revealed. It reveals that he once had his own holiday called Bug Day, which was forgotten by the people of the real world. Oogie escaped, found Halloween Town, and decided that it would be the new Bug Day. He and his army of insects invaded the town and nearly took it over, but Jack was able to stop them and Oogie. Oogie survived and was imprisoned within his underground lair, and Jack warns that if he ever left his lair, it would be "game over!" for him. Oogie complied, but secretly vowed revenge. In the 2004 video game The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge, Oogie is resurrected by his henchmen Lock, Shock, and Barrel, who sew him back together. He quickly deceives the residents of Halloween Town and tricks the townspeople into making traps for Jack, stating that Jack would not return if they do not make an even scarier Halloween for next year. He then attempts to become the Seven Holidays King by kidnapping the leaders of the holidays and tries to murder Santa Claus again. His plans are foiled by Jack, but he puts up a fight in the Holiday Trash Hill by turning into a gigantic junk-filled version of himself named "Mega-Oogie." He is again destroyed when his bugs come out of him. Oogie also appears with other Disney Villains at Halloween events such as the Haunted Mansion Holiday at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland, the HalloWishes and Halloween Screams fireworks shows at the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland, respectively, World of Color: Villainous at Disney California Adventure, and during the "Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party", "Mickey's Halloween Party", and "Oogie Boogie Bash" separate-admission ("hard ticket") events. Oogie Boogie also appears in the video game Kingdom Hearts as an ally of Maleficent. He reappears in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories as an enemy based on Sora's memories of him, and in Kingdom Hearts II, where he attempts to turn Santa Claus into a Heartless.