Oogie Boogie
Oogie Boogie is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the Tim Burton-produced Disney movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. He is voiced by Ken Page.
Oogie Boogie is the Boogie Man, resembling a large burlap sack. His life revolves around gambling, and loves gambling with others' lives.
Ironically, he has no skills for gambling; on two occasions, he rolls snake eyes, and admits he has to resort to cheating. He is also somewhat lecherous, as which is evident when he's easily distracted by Sally's bare (and dismembered) leg. According to Lock, Shock, and Barrel, as well as some of his deleted song material, he is also apparently good at making a concoction known as Snake and Spider Stew, though it would seem he tends to use people as ingredients.
When Oogie Boogie is defeated, it is revealed that he is a collective of bugs, led by a green cockroach-like creature, who share a common desire for revenge against Santa for ruining their holiday "Bug Day".
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Unlike all the other inhabitants of Halloween Town, who are merely innocent monsters who scare people as a profession and for whom "life's no fun without a good scare," Oogie is truly evil. It is suggested that his sadistic nature resulted in his exile from the mainstream Halloween Town. He lives in an underground lair, which is full of torture devices with a casino-like twist. Oogie-Boogie's lair, during his theme song, is lit with blacklights in the style of a cheap funhouse. Under these, Oogie himself glows bright green. After the lights dim, however, the bright color is sapped from his lair, transforming its appearance into that of a dank, cellar-like dungeon. Above his lair is the clubhouse of Lock, Shock, and Barrel, who feed him bugs regularly via a metal chute.
In the movie, Lock, Shock and Barrel kidnap Santa Claus and (against the wishes of Jack Skellington, who held Oogie in great contempt) send him down to Oogie Boogie's lair, where he is bound to a giant roulette wheel. According to deleted song material, he plans to add "Sandy Claws" to his new batch of Snake and Spider Stew, to "add a little Spice". Sally, after finding out Santa's fate, attempts to rescue him but is captured herself. Oogie then tortures and tries to kill Sally and Santa Claus, but dies after Jack pulls a thread loose on him, which causes all but two of his bugs to fall into his own snake and spider stew. One is crushed by Santa Claus; the other, apparently the "brain" of Oogie, is later revealed to have escaped to rebuild its body in video game spin-offs of the movie.
(Oogie-Boogie's shadow takes part in the song "This is Halloween" as "the shadow on the moon at night/Filling your dreams to the brim with fright")
Video Games
In the video game prequel to TNBC, Oogie's origins and the birth of his rivalry with Jack were revealed. As it turns out, he once had his own holiday, Bug Day, that was (most likely) forgotten by the people of the real world and thus vanished. Unfortunately, Oogie escaped, found Halloween Town and decided that it would be the new Bug Day. He and his army of insects invaded the town and nearly took it over. Jack found out and he defeated the bugs and Oogie. Oogie survived the battle, learned to fear the Pumpkin King, and was banished to his underground lair.
In the 2005 video game, Oogie was resurrected by his henchmen, Lock, Shock, and Barrel, who sewed him together. He quickly deceived the residents of Halloween Town and tricked the townfolk into making traps for his arch enemy, Jack Skellington. Oogie attempted to become the Seven Holidays King. He successfully kidnapped the real leaders and tried to murder Santa Claus again, but his plans were foiled by Jack and he gets killed again, but not before putting up a fight by turning into a gigantic, junk-filled version of himself named Mega-Oogie.
One of the Disney villains allied with Maleficent, Oogie wanted the heart that Jack and Doctor Finklestein created to take control of the Heartless and use them to take over Halloween Town. He succeeded in part, swallowing the artificial Heart; because the Heart was faulty he couldn't summon that many Heartless. He tried to destroy Sora, Jack, and the others by trapping them in his giant roulette machine, but was defeated and killed. However, because he had swallowed the Heart, the energies inside of it resurrected him, merging him with his manor. His weak points were orbs of darkness that sustained his life. However, Sora destroyed them all, slaying him yet again and causing Oogie's manor form to crumble into dust.
Created from Sora's memories of Halloween Town, Oogie Boogie steals Doctor Finklestein's special potion that is said to bring "true memories." After he drinks it, he begins to feel intense fear (presumably of what happened to him) and Sora defeats him. He also appeared in Riku's story as the boss of Halloween Town.
Oogie was resurrected by Maleficent as part of her plan to take over Christmas Town while making Santa Claus into "Santa Heartless". However, Oogie Boogie, still weak from being revived and suffering from anterograde amnesia, drove Maleficent away after insulting her. Oogie converted Santa's present machine into a machine that summoned "Heartless" presents, but he was defeated and killed yet again. Donald Duck squashed the final bug to make sure that Oogie would not return (as Santa did in the movie). Oogie Boogie is the only villain besides Pete in the game that Maleficent interacts with directly, instead of sending Pete to enforce her will.
Halloween Events
Haunted Mansion Holiday
Near the end of Haunted Mansion Holiday at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland, Oogie, with a Santa Claus beard and a candy cane, appears operating a crooked wheel of fortune and has a few lines just before the guests see his henchmen: Lock, Shock and Barrel.
Happy Hallowishes
Oogie Boogie makes a voice appearance in the Halloween-themed fireworks show HalloWishes at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World during "Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party" separate-admission ("hard ticket") event. He is joined by Ursula The Sea Witch, Jafar and Maleficent, singing a re-written version of his song, replacing "Santa Claus" in the introduction with "a trick-or-treater".
Powers
Aside from his proportionate strength, Oogie has the ability to survive having his sack removed and most of his bugs destroyed, so long as his "brain bug' survives. He also demonstrates considerable lung power, able to suck in air with as much power as a jet engine. His shadow can also materialize away from his body and move on its own. Other than this and despite his menacing reputation, he is in fact a coward, and relies on fighting dirty and the machines and booby traps in his lair to fight for him. Much of the "power" he supposedly has is mostly fear and ignorance of exactly what is, as he rarely leaves his hiding place, preferring to send his henchmen Lock, Shock, and Barrel to do his bidding (and possibly to over-inflate his menacing image). Those who wind up in his lair are already bound and/or caged and unable to defend themselves so Oogie can torture them at his leisure, and anyone who is sent there presumably never leaves alive, which may lead to wild rumors of the mysterious Boogie Man. Jack, having both faced and beaten Oogie before, knows the truth about the bug-filled windbag, and shows absolutely no fear of him, while on the other hand, Oogie is greatly afraid of Jack, as shown from Jack's sudden and unexpected appearance in Oogie's lair in Nightmare Before Christmas.
Behind the scenes
In the original draft, Oogie Boogie was really Doctor Finklestein. The idea is said to have been scrapped after Tim Burton kicked a hole in the wall, costing them too much to finish the scene.
In his autobiography Burton on Burton, Burton says that Oogie Boogie was loosely inspired by Cab Calloway's appearance in a Betty Boop cartoon, and that he asked Danny Elfman to make Oogie's song in "Nightmare" slightly resemble Calloway's song Minnie the Moocher.