Santa Claus in film Another recent devious mall Santa was played by Billy Bob Thornton in "Bad Santa" (2003), a film which gained normally family-friendly Disney "bad press". Tim Burton's stop-action animated musical film, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993), depicts Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, wanting to become Santa Claus after an accidental visit to Christmas Town. After the mostly well-meaning but clueless Halloween citizens capture Santa, they try to take over Christmas with disastrous results; the real Santa is almost killed by the Oogie Boogie Man. Santa is voiced here by Ed Ivory, and in the video game spin-offs, Corey
Tim Burton After graduating from Burbank High School, Burton attended the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, to study character animation. As a student at CalArts, Burton made the shorts "Stalk of the Celery Monster" and "King and Octopus". "Stalk of the Celery Monster" attracted the attention of Walt Disney Productions' animation division, which offered Burton an animator's apprenticeship at the studio. He worked as an animator, storyboard artist and concept artist on films such as "The Fox and the Hound" (1981), "Tron" (1982) and "The Black Cauldron" (1985). His concept art never made it into the finished films. While