“The Nightmare Before Christmas” is, today, a proud Disney property. You can find its spindly hero Jack Skellington across Disneyland during Halloween and Christmastime, and his skeletal smile adorns everything from pillowcases to backpacks to Build-a-Bear stuffed creatures. It’s one of the company’s most unique artistic achievements and a proven moneymaker, even 30 years on.


In 1993, though, a Halloween-Christmas film hybrid starring a slightly demented but well-meaning skeleton in a bat bowtie who nearly gets Santa killed was no easy sell. Worried the film would frighten young viewers used to “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin,” Disney released the film under its Touchstone Pictures banner, reserved for titles with more mature themes than standard Disney fare (a few years earlier, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” got the same treatment).


The film made a modest box office dent upon release. But many viewers who found the film over the years, usually on home video, appreciated its impressive puppets, offbeat rhythm and many seasonal earworms. Audience support led to multiple rereleases, elevating the film from a cult classic to a must-watch movie during both Halloween and Christmas.


Thirty years later, Disney has wholeheartedly embraced “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” The company has incorporated the film’s characters into its Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland in California. It’s re-released the film several times. And no longer are Jack Skellington and his motley crew of undead dreamers relegated to Hot Topics and novelty shops — now, “Nightmare” characters are sold as stuffed animals and figurines alongside Ariel and Mickey Mouse.


Disney is commemorating the deliciously bizarre film’s 30th anniversary with a theatrical rerelease. Here’s how a small film about a bunch of undead dreamers enchanted viewers — and became an essential offering among Disney’s holiday entertainment.


‘Nightmare’ wasn’t an immediate hit


“Nightmare” was masterminded by Henry Selick and Tim Burton, who got their start as animators at Disney in the 1980s. They found it hard to nail Mickey and other Disney stalwarts, preferring to sketch off-kilter characters: “We weren’t the typical Disney people,” Selick told A.frame, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ digital magazine, earlier this month.


Burton’s first iteration of “Nightmare” was a poem, populated by ghoulish characters who tried their hand at Christmas. Disney didn’t bite at the time. But after the “Beetlejuice” filmmaker departed the studio and proved his success in helming his first “Batman” film, Disney returned to the project. With Burton directing a “Batman” sequel, Selick was brought on to lead the meticulous stop-motion film, whose production would stretch to over three years, he said.


The beefed-up story saw Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King and beloved resident of Halloween Town, yearn for a chance to do something other than scare trick-or-treaters. He finds his chance when he stumbles upon Christmas Town, the cheery center of Santa’s operation. He decides to give the man in red the year off, with disastrous results — the evil Oogie Boogie gets his hands on “Sandy Claws” and puts Christmas in peril. Meanwhile, the living rag-doll Sally, who pines for Jack from afar, helps save Christmas — and Jack’s undead life.


Even though Disney execs tapped Selick to bring Burton’s dark-but-big-hearted vision to life, they didn’t expect the film to be a huge hit, Selick told IGN in 2006, ahead of the film’s 13th anniversary rerelease. They feared its cast of murderous child sidekicks, warty witches and a “clown with a tearaway face” would prove too scary for young audiences.