Friday Factoid: Danny Elfman

Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman

Danny Elfman composed the music for The Nightmare Before Christmas and provided the voice for Jack Skellington. Elfman has compiled an impressive list of film scores, including most of Tim Burton’s works, as well as several television themes (The Simpsons, Desperate Housewives). However, Elfman had no formal training in music composition. In his youth, Elfman travelled the world, learning various music styles before joining the ska/new wave/rock group Oingo Boingo, founded by his brother Richard. The group toured as a musical-theatre troupe through the 1970s before focusing solely on the music side in the 1980s and 1990s. Oingo Boingo wrote the song “Weird Science” for the film of the same title, and appeared in the movie Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield. These opportunities led Elfman to score his first non-Oingo Boingo film, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, and the rest is history.