Oogie Boogie is the villain of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. He appears in the seasonal overlay of Haunted Mansion and Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare.
Boogie is also a Disney Villain who has appeared in Haunted Mansion related media due to this association.
Description[]
Background[]
The bogeyman is a a folkloric monster typically affiliated with inflicting fear (and sometimes even kidnapping) small children for misbehaving at night, often hiding in their closets or under their beds.
In the Nightmare Before Christmas, Oogie Boogie is a burlap sack monster who lives in a subterranean lair located outside of Halloween Town. Boogie is implied to have his three henchman Lock, Shock and Barrel kidnap mortals from the living world in order to bring them to Boogie so that he can torture and eat them in his gambling themed torture chamber.
In the movie itself the henchmen bring Boogie Santa Claus to torture and kill, Boogie however is stopped from doing this by Jack Skellington who defeats Boogie by pulling out his stitches resulting in Boogie's insides (which are revealed to be thousands of bugs) to fall into a pit of boiling acid.
History[]
Coincidentally, a character known as Monsieur Bogyman was in an unused Ken Anderson draft of the Haunted Mansion. He appeared in a marriage with one Mlle Vampire only for her to abandon the celebration, resulting in their guests of Count Dracula, the Headless Horseman, Frankenstein's monster and Great Caesar's Ghost to terrorize the mortal guests of the mansion.
Boogie didn't appear in Haunted Mansion Holiday until 2003, when he made his debut at the Disneyland Mansion with great promotional fanfare. An "Oogie Boogie's Holiday Tricks and Treats" scavenger hunt held during Oogie's inaugural year tasked guests with finding all of Oogie's cameos in the Mansion. Oogie Boogie's animatronic was recycled from the defunct Country Bears Jamboree attraction where it was used for the character of Big Al.
Appearances[]
Ad from 2003 promoting Oogie's arrival
Haunted Mansion Holiday[]
Oogie Boogie's presence is all over the mansion during the seasonal overlay. He appears in one of the stretching portraits. The stained glass painting of the children sleeping is broken, to reveal Boogie eating candy - presumably theirs. Boogie has appeared in two of the annual gingerbread houses in the ballroom. In 2003, with a gingerbread roulette wheel and in 2017, with a mausoleum infested with spiders
Boogie appears in the exit crypt in the area where the Hitchhiking Ghosts typically are found. He is dressed up as "Boogie Claws" where he appears alongside a kind of buzzsaw wheel of fortune labelled, "Oogie's Holiday Tricks and Treats". Boogie's gifts from Halloween Town appear in the guest's doom-buggy's reflections, while Lock, Shock, and Barrel jump up to surprise them.
At one point, Boogie chimed into Sally's "hurry back", repeating it mockingly and saying phrases such as, "Don't let the tombstone hit you on the way out". This has since been removed, and restored to the original version.
Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare[]
Boogie appears once in Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare - Tokyo Disneyland's version of Haunted Mansion Holiday. He appears as the shadow on the moon at night with the man-eating spiders, as bugs in cages shake in fear. He does not appear within the exit crypt in this version of the attraction, rather being replaced by his henchmen Lock, Shock and Barrel.
Other Appearances[]
Halloween Celebrations[]
Oogie Boogie became the star of the Disneyland Halloween celebration in 2017 and 2019, and he is a fairly popular meet and greet character during the Halloween and Christmas season.
Happy HalloWishes[]
Boogie had a supporting role in the fireworks show, Happy HalloWishes. After Jafar releases his sorcery in the sky, he laughs. He tells him to move aside, as he kicks it up a notch. He sings his song from the film, addressing the 'trick or treaters' - being the other Disney Villains - instead of Santa Claus. At the end of the show, he mockingly repeats the Ghostess' "hurry back".
Oogie Boogie Bash[]
This event at Disney's California Adventure follows the backstory of Oogie Boogie assembling a multitude of villains on Halloween to assist him in taking over the California setting of the park.
Trivia[]
- Tim Burton doesn't consider Oogie Boogie to be a villain - more of a "nasty neighbor", as he described in his biography. This characterization was carried into commercials for the 2003 takeover depicting Oogie as an obnoxious holiday house guest.
- A cymbal toy of Boogie could be found in the attic in earlier versions of Haunted Mansion Holiday. An homage to it is seasonally integrated to the Pet Cemetery.
- While Disney Villains such as the Headless Horseman and Captain Hook were proposed for the Haunted Mansion; Oogie Boogie is the only one to have successfully been integrated into the attraction.