Sally is the deuteragonist of Disney's The Nightmare Before Christmas. She is a humanoid ragdoll created by Dr. Finkelstein, made out of various pieces stitched together, with dead leaves used as stuffing. She is the love interest of Jack Skellington.
Sally is voiced by Catherine O'Hara.
Background[]
Not much is known about Sally's early life, except that she was created by Doctor Finkelstein. Early on she became restless, as she was cooped up in the Doctor's lab for long periods of time.
Personality[]
Sally is kind, sensible, honest, and incredibly clever. She is restless due to being constantly kept under lock and key by Doctor Finklestein, whom she shares a tense relationship with and is intrigued by 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.
Physical Appearance[]
Sally is a living doll with faded blue fabric for skin, 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 shown 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 red nail polish on her nails and black high-heeled boots with black and white striped socks.
Powers and abilities[]
Due to being made of stitched-together body parts, Sally is largely invulnerable to bodily harm, surviving a 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[]
Sally first appears brushing her hair during "This is Halloween" and watches the Halloween festivities from behind a Hanging Tree, witnessing Jack Skellington make his grand entrance. Once the festivities come to an end, Sally's creator and guardian, Dr. Finkelstein catches up to her and tries to drag her back to his lab, forcing Sally to dismember her arm by pulling its thread and leave it with her creator as she runs off to the graveyard. Hearing the graveyard's gate open, Sally quickly hides where she witnesses Jack arrive. While she hides, she overhears Jack's sorrowful song, expressing the weariness of his life, she comes to understand a deeper connection between them and falls deeply in love with him.
Upon returning to the lab, Sally has her arm reattached by Dr. Finkelstein where 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. Though the doctor assures her to be patient with seeing the world, Sally resorts she doesn't want to wait due to her newfound love for Jack.
Before Jack returns from Christmas Town, Sally 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 a 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 incorrect about getting involved in another holiday. The very next day, Dr. Finkelstein imprisons Sally upon her return to the laboratory, due to finally becoming fed up with her drugging him so many times. After hearing Jack visit the laboratory to borrow some equipment to conduct experiments, Sally creates a gift basket for him, despite being locked up in her room. 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.
Sitting 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 a Santa suit for Jack to wear 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, causing her to worry for his safety and the disaster she envisioned in her premonition.
Long Live the Pumpkin Queen[]
Video Games[]
The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King[]
In his attempts to turn Halloween into Bug Day, Oogie Boogie tries to kidnap Jack, but Sally is kidnapped by mistake. Oogie Boogie decides to hold her hostage until Jack comes to save her and the town from his terror. It is from this experience that Sally falls in love with Jack.
The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge[]
After Jack returns to Halloween Town from his travels, Sally is one of the few citizens of Halloween Town who has not been deceived by Oogie Boogie and remain loyal to Jack. Unfortunately, she is captured by Oogie's minions and Jack has to save her from a giant spider. Later on, Sally helps provide Jack with news on events and even aids in giving Santa Halloween town's other sleigh so he can help Jack get the presents back. At the end, she fears Jack might leave again, but he assures her that he will be staying home with her and once again they share a kiss on Spiral Hill.
Kingdom Hearts series[]
In Chain of Memories, she was "created" from Sora's memories of Halloween Town. Sally is in possession of a potion Dr. Finkelstein made that can bring "true memories". She hesitates to give the potion to Jack, as Heartless appeared when Finkelstein did so much as sniff the potion. However, Oogie Boogie pops up and steals the potion from her. When Oogie drinks the whole potion, he is overwhelmed with fear, and she concludes that this means the potion was a failure, though whether she is right or not never becomes clear.
Gallery[]
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."
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
