The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas (also known as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas) is a 1993 American stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy Halloween-Christmas film directed by Henry Selick, and produced and conceived by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, the King of "Halloween Town" who stumbles through a portal to "Christmas Town" and decides to celebrate the holiday. Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score, and provided the singing voice of Jack. The principal voice cast also includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page, Paul Reubens, Glenn Shadix, and Ed Ivory.
History of British animation
Though much of the animated work screened by Channel 4 during this time proved too experimental for mainstream tastes, some of it would indeed yield global commercial successes. The television animated special "The Snowman", an adaptation of Raymond Briggs children's graphic novel, again produced by TVC Animation, was a substantial popular and financial success that remains a perennial Christmas favourite. Along similar lines, it is during this time that Aardman would break through to the mainstream as well, thanks in large part to the shorts Creature Comforts (1989) and the "Wallace and Gromit" films, all of which were directed by Nick Park. Stop-motion would likewise continue to have a strong presence in children's TV, with Postman Pat (1981, 1996, 2004) proving a successful franchise with multiple iterations. On a related note, mechanised puppetry mixed with limited stop-motion animation would similarly continue to be used in a few very successful shows created during this time, such as "Thomas the Tank Engine" (1984-).