Sally S Skellington

“*... She's the only one who makes sense around this insane asylum!*”―Santa Claus to Jack, referring to Sally
**Sally** (later **Sally Skellington**) is the deuteragonist in Disney's 1993 stop-motion film, *The Nightmare Before Christmas,* and the main protagonist of the upcoming 2022 novel *Long Live the Pumpkin Queen*. She is a rag doll monster from Halloween Town, created by Dr. Finkelstein. An intelligent, yet inconspicuous woman, Sally yearns for independence, but is repeatedly restrained by her overprotective creator. She is also romantically infatuated with Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King.

## Background

### Personality

Sally is kind, sensible, honest, and incredibly clever. Sally was created by Dr. Finkelstein, Halloween Town's resident mad scientist, yet their relationship is rather tense, as Finkelstein insists on keeping Sally under lock and key, under the pretext of protecting her from the excitement of Halloween. However, Sally is restless and is intrigued by the wonders of the outside world.

It is this restlessness, or, more specifically, this desire for something better in her life, that draws her to Jack Skellington. At the beginning of the movie, she idolizes and admires Jack much like any of the other female members of Halloween Town; however, she quickly discovers that they are connected by the desire for something more in their lives, and her feelings for him intensify. The two refer to each other as "friends", though Jack seems unaware of her true feelings for him, as she is too shy to make them known to him other than through her sweet actions.

Sally is an expert at needlework and keeps a needle and thread on her person at all times. Her skills are well appreciated, as evidenced by Jack's request of her to tailor him a Santa suit and his encouraging words to her. She also has skills at brewing potions, which she uses to poison Finkelstein so she can escape; and seems to have psychic-like tendencies.

### Physical appearance

Sally has faded blue fabric for skin, with multiple sewing stitches all over her body, and is quite slender. She has large eyes with small black pupils and red lips. Her hair, where she hides a sewing needle, is a reddish color and is kept at tailbone-length. Sally is also known to be stuffed with fall leaves.

Sally wears a knee-high, ragged dress with a V-cut neckline, and is presumably made by simply stitching together multi-colored pieces of cloth (it has a sewn pocket for her thread). She also wears black heel boots with black and white striped socks.

### Powers and abilities

Being made of stitched-together body parts, Sally is largely invulnerable to bodily harm, surviving an otherwise deadly fall from Finkelstein's tower, albeit in pieces. Her limbs can also move independently from her body, shown when she used one of her legs to distract Oogie Boogie while attempting to save Santa.

Sally has extensive knowledge of potions, having used ingredients such as deadly nightshade to drug her jailor Dr. Finkelstein on more than one occasion, and is an expert seamstress, using a needle and thread to stitch herself back together.

Sally seems to have some precognition powers, however, these powers were only shown once when Sally receives the vision of Jack’s ideas of Christmas ending in disaster. It is unknown if she inherently possesses such powers (or if she is capable of accessing them regularly) or simply received one due to the situation at hand.

## Appearances

### *The Nightmare Before Christmas*

During the beginning, Sally has escaped the Doctor again to see the festivities of Halloween, especially to see Jack. However, once Finkelstein catches up to her, she runs off to hide in the graveyard, leaving one of her arms with her creator. While she hides, she overhears Jack's sorrowful song, expressing the weariness of his life, she comes to understand the deeper connection between them and falls deeply in love with him.

After returning to the lab, it is revealed that Sally has grown resentful of Dr. Finkelstein's over-protectiveness and that in the past has slipped deadly nightshade into his tea (at least three times) as a narcotic and then left the house while he was asleep.

Before Jack returns from Christmas Town, she again slips deadly nightshade into Finkelstein's soup (secretly using a spoon with holes to convince him it's not drugged), and runs off to participate in the town meeting Jack has called when he returns. Though she is intrigued by the things Jack has brought from Christmas Town, she already feels that something about this is incorrect. The very next day, Dr. Finkelstein imprisons her upon her return to the laboratory, fed up with her drugging him so many times already. Despite being trapped in her room, she creates a gift basket for Jack, who is busy conducting several experiments. She escapes her imprisonment by throwing herself from the tower and sewing herself back together after falling apart from the impact. She delivers the basket to Jack but runs away before Jack can thank her.

As she is outside of Jack's house, Sally picks at a flower's petals and has an ominous premonition about Christmas going wrong when she has a vision of a Christmas tree bursting into flames. From this point on, she tries to convince Jack that his Christmas plans are a mistake for his safety. However, all her attempts to stop Jack from making Christmas fail, and she is even persuaded to make the Santa suit Jack wears on Christmas Eve.

After Lock, Shock, and Barrel arrive with Santa Claus and Jack takes his hat from him, Sally realizes that the situation has become far worse than she envisioned. She then attempts to ruin Jack's plan by pouring her whole jar of fog juice into the fountain to create a heavy fog. This works at first until Jack's pet dog Zero reveals his glowing nose which Jack immediately uses to guide his sleigh. Sally watches in horror and sadness as Jack takes off.

In a final attempt to save Jack and Christmas, she goes to rescue Santa from the evil Oogie Boogie, only to get captured as well. At the near-end, once Jack has defeated Oogie Boogie, Santa tells Jack that Sally is "the only one who makes any sense around this insane asylum". After Santa leaves, Jack finally comes to appreciate what Sally has attempted to do for him. Before Jack can say anything, the pair is interrupted by the Mayor, who had been told of Jack's survival by Lock, Shock, and Barrel and brought to their treehouse to rescue Jack and Sally, before being taken back to Halloween Town. Eventually, Jack meets Sally again on the spiral hill (while picking a rose) where they confess their love for each other and kiss.

## Trivia

* Sally's mouth movements "were animated through the replacement method. During the animation process, only Sally's face 'mask' was removed in order to preserve the order of her long reddish-brown hair. Sally had 10 types of faces, each made with a series of 11 expressions (e.g. eyes open and closed, and various facial poses) and synchronized mouth movements."
* In 2008, Evanescence's frontwoman Amy Lee covered "Sally's Song" for the cover album *Nightmare Revisited*.
* Jack and Sally are mentioned in the song, "I Miss You" by Blink-182.
* "Sally's Song" was covered by European Gothic-Neo Classical band, Dark Sanctuary, on the album *Exaudi Vocem Meam Part II*.
* Sally's Song was covered by Californian Gothic band, London After Midnight on the compilation album *Oddities*.
* In the soundtrack, an epilogue poem is included that implies that Jack had "4 or 5 skeleton children" several years after the film. The mother of said children is unknown.
* Sally in the original film is voiced by Catherine O'Hara, who previously worked with director Tim Burton and Glenn Shadix (voice actor of Mayor of Halloween Town) on the 1988 film *Beetlejuice*.
* Sally originally was supposed to have trouble walking; however, the filmmakers changed this because they thought Sally looked drunk while walking. However, it is shown that Sally walks more stiffly than other characters.
* The Japanese version of "Sally's Song" was covered on *Nightmare Revisited* by an American artist known as Scott Murphy, who is popular in Japan.
* Sally is somewhat similar to Frankenstein's monster and the monster made in the Bride of Frankenstein, as she was a sewn-up monster created by a mad scientist.
* Although Sally's hair color in the film is light brown, most merchandise and appearances in the Disney Parks depict her as a redhead.
* According to the *Disneystrology* book, her birthday would be on February 8th.
* Due to receiving a premonition of Jack’s Christmas failure, it is highly debated by fans on whether or not Sally possesses any sort of psychic powers. It was never confirmed if Sally is capable of accessing such powers or if she simply received the premonition in light of the moment.