Put a Face to the Name

Danny Elfman is pretty much a hidden celebrity, that guy you may have seen as the credits rolled past but dismissed as about as important as the key grip or the caterer. (Here you may refer back to the 'heathen' part of the introduction.) These days, he's a film composer, writing for such films as 'Batman', 'Edward Scissorhands', 'Dead Presidents', 'Men in Black', the upcoming Spiderman movie, pretty much every other movie that comes on the market... his trademark weird sound is much in demand in Hollywood. In the olden days of lore (i.e., 1975 to the early 90s) he was the frontman of the rock band Oingo Boingo, a band known for its unique and bouncy sound covering the incredibly dark and morbid lyrics (written by Daniel himself. Because he's cool like that.) In his extremely limited off time, he is also the Supreme Lord of Darkness.

And yes, he is the one who wrote the Simpsons theme. And Weird Science. I firmly believe that he flinches every time someone says that, though, so shh.

The reason why such a nondescript fellow gets his own webpage, though, is because he's a dark, twisted fuck. He's listed as an honorary member of the Church of Satan; he left high school early to shave his head and wander around West Africa for a year, catching malaria three times and pretending to be a "good religious boy" to get food from the missionaries; he once jerked his own knee back into joint onstage after he dislocated it during a show; he fills his house with maimed baby dolls and evil puppets. He's not okay in the head. God love 'im.

(That and he's really kinda hot.)

Tim Burton, morbidly inclined director extraordinare. He and Danny started in the film business on the same movie, Pee Wee's Big Adventure; Danny has scored all of Tim's movies, save Ed Wood, ever since. It's a perfect match, Danny's dark musical weirdness to Tim's dark visual weirdness. They have the same sort of manic energy when they're in their element; you only have to watch Tim's hand gestures and stop-start-stop-new subject mode of speaking during interviews a few times to get the impression of a mind that works way too fast for the body it's attached to.
Unlike Danny, though, Tim is notoriously antisocial. Early in his career he would actually hide under his desk to avoid having to deal with people. His policy of avoiding conflict has led repeatedly to him just not telling people when he doesn't want to use them in his movie, ignoring any attempt to contact him about it. This trait apparently resulted in a professional, possibly personal rift between he and Danny after Nightmare Before Christmas, a rift Danny won't explain and Tim just refuses to talk about, which resulted in Tim hiring another composer for Ed Wood. They eventually reunited for Mars Attacks, something Danny compared to reuniting with family after a fight and (just for a change of pace) Tim didn't comment on. As of late he's getting somewhat better about the need to hide, possibly a result of his relationship with kindred spirit Lisa-Marie, but he still occasionally bemoans the fact that he can't get by without talking to people. His complicated system of hand gestures and stammering seems to work well, though.
He, like Danny, is also kinda hot.

Lisa-Marie, Tim's current fiance, seems to be a sweet, unique woman. She's acted in several movies (and died a horrible death in two of Tim's thus far) on top of a past career as a model in New York. She also holds conversations with Poppy, she and Tim's pet chihuahua. But she does seem very nice, and in reality she and Tim are cuddly and in smit with each other. It's cute as the dickens.
And on the purely aesthetic note: yes, she's hot.

The weirdly hot trait seems to be a gene that runs in the Elfman family. Richard Elfman, Danny's older brother, has had many eclectic jobs throughout his lifetime (such as restaraunt critic, columnist, boxer and property manager) but is best known as the director of several bizarre and subversive films such as Modern Vampires, Shrunken Heads or (in both his directoral and Danny's composing debut) Forbidden Zone. He also founded the Mystical Knights of Oingo Boingo, a strange theatrical group which later became Oingo Boingo under Danny's leadership. A quick read-through of his (admittedly edited and butchered) columns at charged.com will do nicely to confirm that he is not okay in the head. And we deeply respect that.
And... yeah. He is also sorta hot, in that deeply wrong way.

Another reoccuring victim... er, character is Boingo bassist John Avila, because he's so gosh darn cute. He's a little thing, a few inches shorter than the admittedly short Danny, but the lack of height only seems to have served to concentrate the raw energy that runs through him. He can, and has, spent three hour performances bouncing constantly, poinging and running around the stage with no sign of fatigue. He has apparently always been in one band or another since he was 15, and has entangled himself further in the music business by becoming a producer for strange little indy bands while he isn't off playing club-gigs himself. Offstage, he seems to be a quieter, self-contained man, with a soft, soothing voice and a sweet smile. He's cute. And he can hit notes higher than Danny can. This gets anybody points.
Oh, yes. And lest we forget and break the pattern: he's hot.
Also included in the Boingo crew are Steve Bartek, the guitarist with the poofy hair and the sweet grin who was masochistic enough to keep working as Danny's orchestrator even after Boingo split up; Johnny Vatos, drummer, who is still working with Avila in various club bands; and Sam "Sluggo" Phipps, who played saxophone and basically looked unimpressed and sleepless for 17 years. There are a multitude of others, but those are the ones you'll probably see here. 'Cause I'm biased like that.

Johnny Depp is more Tim's victim than anything else. Though Tim saved him from being typecast as a prettyboy heart-throb by casting him as Edward Scissorhands, he also worked Johnny so hard during that shoot that he reportedly went and threw up in the bushes (twice, even). And then, in Teresa's words, Tim "threw enough blood at him to float the Titanic" in Sleepy Hollow. In some perverse way, Johnny seems to enjoy it. Johnny's kinda weird like that.
And yeah, he's hot too. Don't act surprised.