Sally Skellington

"... She's the only one who makes sense around this insane asylum!"

- Santa Claus to Jack; referring to Sally Sally Finklestein is the deuteragonist in Disney's 1993 stop-motion film The Nightmare Before Christmas. She is a rag doll monster created by Dr. Finkelstein. She was voiced by Catherine O'Hara.

Physical Description
Sally has faded blue fabric for skin, with multiple sewing stitches all over her body, and is extremely thin. She has large eyes with small black pupils and red lips. Her hair, where she hides a sewing needle, is a reddish-brown color, and is kept 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 Sally's thread). She also wears black heel boots with black and white striped leg warmers over them (though at times they are simply portrayed as simply socks).

Personality
Sally is a beautiful rag doll-type creature, with detachable limbs stuffed with fall leaves. Kind, sensible, honest, and incredibly clever, she was created by Dr. Finkelstein, Halloween Town's resident mad scientist. Their relationship is rather tense, as Finklestein insists on keeping Sally under lock and key, under the pretext of protecting her from the excitement of the outside world. 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. In 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 Sally's 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 Finklestein so she can escape; and seems to have psychic-like tendencies.

The Nightmare Before Christmas


Sally has grown resentful of Dr. Finklestein's over-protectiveness. It is revealed that in the past Sally has poured deadly nightshade into his tea (at least three times) as a narcotic and then left the house while he was asleep. Nevertheless, she does have some fondness towards her creator, as evidenced by her covering him with a blanket before leaving to the town meeting later. During the beginning, Sally has escaped again; once Finklestein 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 his weariness of his life, she comes to understand the deeper connection between them. She later returns to Dr. Finklestein.

When Jack returns from Christmas Town, she again slips deadly nightshade into Finklestein's soup and runs off to participate in the town meeting Jack has called. Though she is intrigued by the things Jack has brought from Christmas Town, she already feels that something about this is incorrect. Finklestein imprisons her upon her return to the laboratory. Despite being trapped in her room, she creates a gift basket for Jack who is busy conducting several experiments. She eventually escapes her imprisonment by throwing herself out of the tower and sewing herself together after falling apart from impact. She delivers the basket to Jack, but runs away before Jack can thank her.

Sally 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. 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 attempts to ruin Jack's plan by pouring her whole jar of deadly nightshade 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, she goes to rescue Santa from the evil Oogie Boogie, but she is herself captured. 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". Jack finally comes to appreciate what Sally has attempted to do for him and finally realizes how deep his love is for her and how deeply she feels for him. In the end, the two of them realize that they are "simply meant to be", and share a kiss while Zero looks on.

The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King
In his attempts to turn Halloween into Bug Day, Oogie Boogie tries to kidnap Jack AKA the Pumpkin King, 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 boys and Jack has to save her from a giant spider.

Kingdom Hearts series
Sally appears in all 3 installments of the Kingdom Hearts video game series. She is voiced by Kath Soucie in English. Her Japanese voice in these games is done by Yuko Doi.

Kingdom Hearts
Sally's role in the first game is relatively minor. Jack and Sora find her in the graveyard and she gives them one of the ingredients for the heart Doctor Finklestein is making, memory (Forget-Me-Not). She expresses her worries about Jack's plan of adding the Heartless swarming the town to the Halloween festivities, though Jack tells her not to worry. Her gut feeling proves to be right, as Oogie Boogie steals the heart and attempts to use it to summon Heartless to defeat Jack. Oogie's plan fails, and Jack admits his mistake.

Chain of Memories
"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.

Kingdom Hearts II
Sally plays a bigger part in this game, in which the events in Halloween Town are loosely based on the events of the film. Jack is determined to take Santa Claus's place this year, and even convinced Sora and the gang to join him as Santa's bodyguards. Sally has a terrible feeling about this, but Jack and Sora don not adhere to her warnings, too excited by the concept of making Christmas. When Santa goes to Halloween Town to find Jack, Sally comes to him and asks him to avoid speaking with the Pumpkin King. She becomes the only witness to the resurrected Oogie Boogie kidnapping Santa, and runs off to warn Jack and the others. They all return to Christmas Town, where Oogie Boogie is about to throw Santa into one of his own gift-making machines, but Sally distracts Oogie to save Santa. In the end, she gives Jack a Santa suit she sewed on his request. In the second trip to Halloween Town, Jack still wears the Santa suit, feeling that it would be rude not to wear the suit she worked so hard on. By the end of the visit, Jack learns the meaning of Christmas by understanding the act of giving, and understands that he felt so strongly about wearing the suit because it was a gift from Sally. He dances with Sally in the end, finally realizing all of the gifts she had given to him were all from the heart and wishes to give her something in return. She tells him that the nicest present she could ever ask for is just to be with Jack. Jack responds telling her that she does not even have to ask for that, meaning Jack feels the same way for her.

Disney Parks
Sally appears at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as a meetable character with her husband, Jack Skellington.

Songs

 * 1) Sally's Song
 * 2) Finale
 * 3) Sally's Song (Oogie's Revenge)