The Scorpions are characters featured in Tim Burton's 1993 animated feature film The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Background[]
Physical appearances[]
The scorpions are diminutive-sized arachnids (hence their names) with black exoskeleton around their body with red sinister eyes, and white sharp teeth. Like all true scorpions in real life, they are shown to have a stinger located at the tip of their tails.
Appearances[]
The Nightmare Before Christmas[]
During the "Kidnap the Sandy Claws” sequence, Lock, Shock, and Barrel are planning to capture Santa Claus to bring him to Oogie Boogie's Lair, Shock devises with Lock and Barrel that she has a plan for the two, holding up a small chest containing scorpions inside. She then opens it, causing three of them to jump out and land on Barrel's head, which he finds the strategy to use scorpions ideal. Barrel then jumps on the Bathtub (albeit dislodging the scorpions from the head), followed by Lock and Shock packing up their weapons to capture Santa.
Later, during the "Making Christmas" sequence, one scorpion is seen being hit and placed into three matryoshka dolls by three Mr. Hydes as they place the doll with the scorpion inside to get ready for Jack's sleigh. However, Jack did not deliver the doll containing the scorpion to frighten children in the real world because he was shot down by the military forces, though he manages to survive and save Christmas.
Trivia[]
- The scorpions in The Nightmare Before Christmas appear to resemble real-life Asian forest scorpions or emperor scorpions, due to their black coloration.
- When the scorpions jump on Barrel’s head, they are heard making rattlesnake-like hissing sounds instead of usual scorpion sounds. Additionally, they jump in sync in the lyrics when one of Shock's verses ends with "One, two, three".
- Despite appearing briefly, scorpions occasionally appear in some merchandise inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas, such a PVC collectible figure of Barrel with scorpions on his head or in the Nightmare-themed Operation game.
- In the Nightmare Before Christmas-themed Operation game, one of the objects the player has to remove from Oogie Boogie is a scorpion where it is labeled "Scorpion Sting".
