THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS Director Henry Selick Regrets Cutting Out a Morbid Tim Burton Gag

The Nightmare Before Christmas is such a wonderfully morbid holiday film that families have been enjoying for the past 25 years. Yes, this year marks the 25th anniversary of the movie and today I learned a new little bit of trivia about the film’s ending that I never knew before!

There was one ghastly gag in the film that director Henry Selick ended up cutting out of the movie, and he now regrets that he ended up cutting it out.

While talking to THR, the filmmaker talked about the scene and the joke, which was made at the expense of Tim Button:

“There’s a shot — and I really regret replacing it — at the very end of the film when Jack comes back and then Sandy Claws flies overhead and there’s snow and Christmas comes to Halloween Town. We show a lot of Halloween Towners enjoying winter sports and snow and you see the vampires playing hockey and they hit the puck right at the camera — and originally it was Tim Burton’s head.”

That seems like something that Burton would have loved! But Selick never asked him if it was ok and a producer on the film told the director that Burton wouldn’t have liked it:

“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. But that’s one of the shots that we reshot and we put in a pumpkin instead. I don’t know if that shot still exists, but I’d love to replace the one in there and I’m sure Tim would love it.”

If that scenes exists somewhere, it need to be included on the special features of a new Blu-ray release or leaked onto the interview, because I’d love to see it! I’m sure a lot of other fans of the film would want to see it as well!

The pumpkin works just fine, but what do you think about the Tim Burton decapitated head being cut out of the movie?