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  1. Entertainment
  2. Movies

The 50 greatest Tim Burton characters of all time

Features
By Kim Sheehan
Published 9 March 2022

A celebration of the weird and wonderful characters from the mind of Tim Burton

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Miss Argentina - Beetlejuice (1988)

The Character: Miss Argentina is a receptionist in the Neitherworld and also an assistant to overworked caseworker for the deceased Juno.

She watches over the Neitherworld waiting room scorning those recently deceased who haven't read their manuals.

Tim Burton Touch: Miss Argentina's curly undo and curvy spiked cape are now trademarks in his character designs.

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She also has a pretty good sense of humour when referring to her own death.

Karl - Big Fish (2003)

The Character: Karl the Giant is one of the first weird and wonderful characters that Ed Bloom encounters in Big Fish .

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Misunderstood and isolated Karl hides out on the outskirts of Ashton, occasionally venturing into town to eat the farmers the stock and annoy the locals.

Tim Burton Touch: Karl is a big man from a small town - a classic Burton outsider, made evil by his surroundings.

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Red Queen - Alice In Wonderland (2010)

The Character: In his version of Alice In Wonderland , Burton merged the characters of the Red Queen and The Queen Of Hearts, creating one highly temperamental, animal-hating monster ruler.

Tim Burton Touch: By digitally enlarging her head to three times it's natural size, Burton gifted the Red Queen a distinguished look more familiar with his own illustrations than the original depictions of the characters in the drawings of John Tenniel.

Carolyn Collins - Dark Shadows (2012)

The Character: Carolyn Collins in Burton's Dark Shadows bears almost no relation to her counterpart in the original 1960s series.

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Burton opted to make Carolyn younger and more rebellious with a witty dark side.

Carolyn is into music and what New York city might possibly have to offer.

She acts fairly unimpressed when her distant ancestor returns as a vampire and moves into the family home.

Tim Burton Touch: Carolyn's sullen wisecracks are reminiscent of Burton's earlier attempt of capturing female adolescence with Beetlejuice 's Lydia.

The Hatter - Alice In Wonderland (2010)

The Character: Judging on visuals alone, Burton's interpretation of The Hatter from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland series is the most wild and bonkers version yet.

However, Burton strove to bring out a human side to the character via his relationship with Alice, developing him to be more than just a one-note madman.

Tim Burton Touch: An unusual use of colour in The Hatter's design, which represents the character's changing feelings like a mood ring.

Joyce - Edward Scissorhands (1990)

The Character: Joyce is the resident bored, lonely housewife in Edward Scissorhands's neighbourhood.

Her hobbies include inviting workman around to fix non existent problems and also leading the social movements of the local women with her alpha female status.

Tim Burton Touch: With her bright, colour-clashing wardrobe, her brazen attitude and fierce methods of seduction, Tim the eternal outsider creates an image of conventional suburbia much scarier than than a boy with scissors for hands.

Lord Finis Everglot - Corpse Bride (2005)

The Character: Short yet very wide, Lord Finis Everglot is united with his wife (his exact physical opposite) over their mutual misery, loathing of one another and mourning over marrying their daughter off to a fish merchant's son. His instant reaction when upset is to call for his musket.

Tim Burton Touch: Everglot is a creation so sullen that it pains him to smile. When he does adjust his mouth tupwards it creaks and trembles with the struggle.

Norther Winslow - Big Fish (2003)

The Character: Norther Winslow, a small town poet from Ashton is thought to have travelled to France to pursue his career but instead he never made it past the idyllic town of Spectre.

Tim Burton Touch: When we get a glimpse of Norther's bad poetry ("The grass so green. Skies so blue. Spectre is really great!") it is scrawled on a note pad in spindly handwriting not unlike Burton's own.

Mrs Lovett - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (2007)

The Character: Burton's Mrs Lovett, the business partner and accomplice of serial killer Sweeney Todd is softer than her stage interpretations, with as much focus on her affection for Todd and adopted Tobias as well as her evil ways.

Tim Burton Touch: Burton fully explores Mrs Lovett's fantasies of being married to Sweeney Todd with a bright humorous montage of the two in pleasant situations yet still in their dark, gloomy attire.

Even their bathing suits are adored with gothic Burton stripes.

Mayor Of Halloween Town - The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

The Character: Resembling a giant candy corn in a large top hat, The Mayor of Halloween Town enjoys celebrating the successes of the town's Halloween exploits and traveling about the place in his hearse-like Mayor-mobile.

He is less a fan of making decisions by himself.

Tim Burton Touch: As the Mayor's main characteristic is his two interchangeable faces: one happy, one anxious, he can be viewed as a complete manifestation of Burton's ongoing exploration of the theme of duality.

And also a cheeky nod to the phrase 'two-faced politician'.

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