The Nightmare Before Christmas
The film initially received positive reviews from critics; it has since gone on to receive widespread critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 95%, based on 88 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's consensus reads, ""The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a stunningly original and visually delightful work of stop-motion animation." On Metacritic the film has a score of 82 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Clay animation
Clay-animated films were produced in the United States as early as 1908, when Edison Manufacturing released a trick film entitled "The Sculptor's Welsh Rarebit Dream" (possibly referencing the comic strip "Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend"). In 1916, clay animation became something of a fad, as an East Coast artist named Helena Smith Dayton and a West Coast animator named Willie Hopkins produced clay-animated films on a wide range of subjects. Hopkins in particular was quite prolific, producing over fifty clay-animated segments for the weekly "Universal Screen Magazine". By the 1920s, cartoon animation using either cels or the slash system was firmly established as the dominant mode of animation production. Increasingly, three-dimensional forms such as clay were driven into relative obscurity as the cel method became the preferred method for the studio cartoon.