Though I know I should be wary, Still I venture someplace scary; Ghostly haunting I turn loose… Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!!!
Before we knock around a bit of Beetlejuice cartoon history, let’s rewind our minds back a few years and remember what being a kid was like on a gorgeous Saturday morning.
Unlike my peers, I personally, was always up at a decent hour (around 7:30 a.m.). After crawling out of my Ninja Turtle sheets, I would make my way to the dimly lit kitchen and help myself to a bowl of cereal and whatever readily available juice box (preferably Hawaiian Punch or Ecto Cooler) my fridge held that morning. All placed accordingly on my TMNT (1990) movie tray in front of our mammoth of a television set. I was ready to seize the glorious Saturday with the start of some of the greatest goddamn must-see-TV. And one of many of those amazing Saturday morning animated gems was, of course, Beetlejuice: The Animated Series.
After the massive hit that no one saw coming in 1988, Tim Burton’s BEETLEJUICE left the year as one of the top ten grossing (how appropriate) movies of the year- so naturally Warner Bros wanted to capitalize on the Afterworld film graduate. A sequel WAS planned titled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian, oh yeah that was going to be a thing, but due to the immense smash that Tim Burton brought forth the following year with BJ star Michael Keaton in tow, BATMAN, Warner opted to shelve Beetlejuice in a grass skirt in favor of focusing on a sequel to the Dark Knight that brought in way more marketing profits for the company.
And for those dying of curiosity, here’s a cool fan-made poster by Redditor Coffin_House on what could have been.
Since WB is no fool, they still knew that had a hot commodity with BeetleGuise a less invasive to the studios’ cartoon was green-lit to be developed by the Juice maker, Tim Burton himself with pal Danny Elfman to compose a whole new theme for the toned-down Bio-Exorcist. Catering to a Saturday morning audience, Beetlejuice went from a slithering snake of a horn dog that manipulates his way into an attempted marriage with Lydia, to the pair becoming pals and the Bio-Exorcist harboring an actual moral compass, (sorry, no crotch grabbing anywhere here). I mean, hey it’s Saturday morning and every show needs a PSA and a message right? Like, lying to your parents might mean you’re going to let loose a hoard of ghostly skeletons that are ready to snitch you out.
Instead of Winter River, the Deetz family live in Peaceful Pines but it’s mostly set in Beetle’s home The Netherworld. The series ran around some silly adventure or problem week after week involving the duo pf Lydia and BJ. From roaming aforementioned skeletons in the closet ruining someone’s day with the hard truth or Beetlejuice’s entire skeletal system abandoning him in favor of a vacation. The show was a perfect Saturday morning mash-up of wackiness and just a hint of horror.
Lydia’s parents Charles and the eccentric Delia return in animated form as naive supporting characters that never seem to notice their daughter spends most of her free time in another dimension. Then again, in the film, she seemed to be mostly ignored by her self-absorbed parental units until the shit hit the fan- so the relationship stays a tad faithful in that aspect.
The void felt by the absence of Barbara and Adam was filled with new characters. Beetle’s neighbors in the Netherworld furthered BJ’s awesome sense of sarcasm with most of them being both clumsy and easy to poke fun at. In which case, ole BJ took advantage of on a consistent basis and was the source for a lot of the humor in the series. Jacques, Ginger, The Monster Across the Street, Poopsie, the Mayor, and on Earth, the snooty Claire Brewster, were often the victims of Beetlejuice’s embarrassing pranks. Even Lyds wasn’t immune to Beetle’s reign of practical jokes as his only friend was even the butt-of-the-joke at times. However, unlike Claire and the Netherworld residents, BJ’s pranks on the teenage Deetz were never meant to cause damaging feelings or humility, but rather all in fun. Which asserts the relationship between Lydia and Beetlejuice in the series. Unlike in the film, the pair was as close as friends could get and the unlikely duo’s friendship remained a constant crucial part of the show throughout the series’ short three-season span.
One newly added character, Barry MeNot, stood out as the only CGI character among the classically animated counterparts and was something a lot of us didn’t see too much of in this cartoon era. He was the TV (Neitherworld Television) personality who appears in various “commercials” that sometimes pop up to emphasize a particular plot point in the show. He sold the hell out of those Scream Puffs to me.
BEETLEJUICE: THE ANIMATED SERIES first premiered on ABC Saturday mornings on September 9th, 1989 running right behind SLIMER! AND THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS for a ghostly hour of fun on the weekend and later moved to FOX Kids weekday afternoon lineup as one of the FIRST animated shows to be added. And after 35 years since its debut, this little piece of netherworldly nostalgia has remained in our beloved hearts ever since.
The animated series is almost impossible to be able to find on streaming these days, unless you want to buy episodes from Amazon Prime and that’s just a damn shame. However, if you download the FreeVee app, there’s a channel called Cartoon Rewind that occasionally runs marathons of the show. Unfortunately, it’s not an On Demand thing so you’ll quite literally have to live like it’s 1989 and just wait for it like in the caveman days!
It’s more than worth it.
