“The Nightmare Before Christmas” is a stop-motion animated film, which means that actual physical characters exist in the real world. They’re brought to life by sculptors and fabricators and posed for each shot. The physical nature of these characters means that they can be stored in something like the Disney Archive. The poor Pumpkin King didn’t make it in, though. In the book, character fabrication supervisor Bonita R. De Carlo, who created the Pumpkin King armature, said:
“My personal favorite puppet was Jack as the Pumpkin King. It is the first time we see Jack in the movie. There was only one created, and I insisted on doing the fabrication myself. Unfortunately, right after the shot was accepted, the puppet was stripped down so we could use the armature for other Jack puppets. This means there isn’t a Pumpkin King puppet in Disney’s archives.”
Not every puppet ended up in the archives, even if they didn’t have to be reused for another shot. Some of them, as well as props and some of the sets, were taken home by the crew as momentos. There was just too much to keep, according to the book. Director Henry Selick even kept a bunch of them, that were later used to create new products for Disney to sell and for me to spend all my money on.
“The Nightmare Before Christmas” is currently streaming along with the sing-a-long version on Disney+. Happy Christmaween!