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 of his popular character Pee-wee Herman. Pee-wee Herman gained mainstream popularity with a successful stage show at The Groundlings and the Roxy which was later turned into an HBO special. The film, "Pee-wee's Big Adventure", was made on a budget of $8 million and grossed more than $40 million at the North American box office. Burton, a fan of the eccentric musical group Oingo Boingo, asked songwriter Danny Elfman to provide the music for the film. Since then, Elfman has scored every film that Tim Burton has directed, except for "Ed Wood" (because of a falling out that they had),