We Hate Movies - S6: Animation Damnation #21 - Beetlejuice

Episode Date: October 29, 2015

On this episode of Animation Damnation, the gang keeps things spooktacular as they rip into the terribly ill-conceived cartoon adaptation, Beetlejuice! The episode in question is entitled, "Laugh of the Party", which originally aired October 7th, 1989. Why is Beetlejuice flying everywhere? What's with setting up this preteen girl with a monster? And will this be the only time Jeffrey Jones is turned into a cartoon? PLUS: The guys weigh in on the probability of Beetlejuice 2 being terrible. Short answer? Just see Michael Keaton in Spotlight. Unlock Exclusive Content!: http://www.patreon.com/wehatemovies

We all go a little mad sometimes. You know, it's Halloween. I guess everyone's entitled to one good scare. Sometimes that is better. Zombies have entered the building. They're at the door. They're coming in. It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicterland.

they're coming to get you barbara he's sick for fucks he's seen one too many movies now sit don't you blame the movies movies don't create psychos movies make psychos more creative what's the fucking wrong you're in the bag

there's an excellent day for an exorcism uh is this the most obnoxious cartoon adaptation of a movie it's the most ill-conceived who was asking for this apparently you I wasn't asking for it I found out about it after the fact

and yes I watched a shit ton of this cartoon I never did man I was for some reason even as a dumb kid I was like this isn't true to the movie change I saw the cartoon before I saw the movie I did too but I just found Beetlejuice to be so I think actually

this cartoon delayed me watching the movie because I was like, oh, it's just that fucking idiot running around with red fingers for some reason. Welcome to Animation Damnation. I'm Andrew Juppin alongside Eric Siska and Steven Sadek. We're talking about an episode of the, like Steve

said, ill-conceived beetlejuice. The episode in question is called Laugh of the Party. Original Air Day, October 7th, 1989, which I didn't know this cartoon was that old. Oh, I didn't either. Because it was on the Fox Kids After School Block. When I was in

like grade school. So we're talking like early to mid-90s. And it was like, I thought it was new then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But this was like 1989. I didn't know. It went back that far. Because it was, and Burton was a developmental producer or something. He's credited as like helping develop the show, which is crazy. I mean, I guess it's just, I don't like this. And this happens a lot in your cartoons. It's like, hey, let's just pretend the third act never happened. Right. That Aladdin show, the genie was just.

back being a genie and he's like hey everybody i'm the genie played by dan castanilla this time yeah but like it's not like he was he's like yeah i'm just your slave forever now isn't that fun yeah we're just having all sorts of adventures and those gold cufflinks are back on me doesn't make any sense remember when those magically broke off and robin williams gave such a tearful reaction to it in that movie we'll fucking forget it because he's a slave again and that's what we're doing here like you know last time we see beetlese he's in that monster unemployment line his head gets shrunk they all hate his guts but in this cartoon him and lydia are best friends no no no i refuse yeah alec baldwin and juna davis are nowhere to be seen no we're not referred to

i haven't i mean i've seen probably a handful of episodes back in the 90s yeah i just watched this one is geoffrey jones in this cartoon at all yeah he's in this episode oh cool he's but they make him blonde for some reason. Oh, that's, I didn't get it, I guess. Charles Dietz is in this episode. It's the only time Jeffrey Jones will ever be turned into a cartoon. Not the only time he's been turned

into a laughing stock, but the only time he'll be turned into a cartoon is this Beatles' show. And it's like barely trying to draw Jeffer Jones. Do you think that was his line too, by the way? It's like, you know, I've played a cartoon in that Beetleju show. Did he do the voice, too? No, not at all. Nobody's coming back for

anything. This is all a bunch of, mostly, Canadian voice actors. This is the most Canadian Beetlejuice has ever sounded. You know what I actually might make a decent cartoon? I don't know. Ferris Bueller? Yeah. Sure. Why not? Running around. You know, Ed Rooney after him. They made a Ferris Bueller cartoon. It was called Parker Lewis Can't Lose. I never saw it. It's a live action show that was just basically a rip-off of Ferris Bueller. Same

same ish concept. Actually, I think they tried to develop a TV show. It was a Ferris Bueller's show, too. Yeah, it might have been axed pretty early on. Mm-hmm. Just a little trivia there for you, nerds. This voice cast is so Canadian. It's got someone from the animated X-Men show in it. Oh, yeah.

Because it was driving me nuts. Lydia's voice on it. It's so familiar to me. And it was Jubilee. The girl who played Jubilee, or the woman who played Jubilee also did this voice. So, yeah, I mean, it's all nobody voice actor. I mean, not nobody's, but it's just they're voice actors.

There's no celebrities that came on to do any of the voices. But, yeah, the Alec Baldwin, Gina Davis' character's gone. The house looks the same. You get a lot more of, like, Lydia in this all-girls school in the cartoon. And she's got, like, goofy friends, and there's, like, a popular chick. Like, it was amazing to me. I mean, I have not seen this in, you know, a good 20 years. But, like, how fast all of it came back to me.

I mean, I really watched this cartoon a lot, and I don't know why. This is a real nostalgia buster for me, because I, fucking loved it. And I was even saying one of my sisters is going to hate that we're doing this episode because we watched it all the time and loved it. But like, Meg, let me tell you, this is terrible. I don't know what we were thinking. It's all puns. It's all

bad puns. And that's a tough one to swallow. It's the it's a trifecta of things that are wrong with it. The bad puns, Beetlejuice is using way too much magic on this show. He's doing magic tricks like in every scene. He's floating most of the time. He's never got his feet on the ground.

Yeah, he's just floating all over the place and on top of it like the background sound in this like the music not the theme song the theme song it's you know elfman it's you know elfman did it and it's fine but like just the the background like sound effects and stuff there's a lot of just like horn honk gags and like do to do when beetle juice like makes a pun wah wah oh yeah yeah a lot of sad trombone and it's just terrible it's silly stuff and that beetle juice isn't silly Beetlejuice is kind of terrifying. Guess what, gang?

Beetlejuice is trying to rape that chick at the end of the movie. Yep. And now they're best pals. Whoa, whoa. He was waiting for marriage. Yes. Still rape if you're married, Eric.

No, I know, but, you know. At the very least, he was waiting for marriage. But this is the comparison I think you can make between the two is that the movie Beetlejuice is charmingly annoying slash purvey. Yes. The cartoon Beetle juice is just annoying

part of the charm of Beetlejuice throughout the film is the vulgarity and the perverseness of the character and you're like wow this is like a gross paranormal comedy kind of a thing and you lose all that

and he's just got like they do like bugs in his hair gags and it's a lot of like when he lifts up his arms you know like yeah I get it he smells and there's bugs everywhere there's no grabbing the crotch

he's not spitting all these things that you love about the Michael Keaton performance. He's not trying to fuck anybody. Not at all. Just I thought of a nice analogous idea for a TV show. It's, um, let's call it. Silence of the Lambs, the cartoon.

Okay. I'm in. It's Clarice in college in the FBI Training Academy. Sure. She's still in Quantico. She's still in Quantico. And she just so happens to have a very funny professor by the name of Hannibal Lecter. Yep. Sure. They're getting in all sorts of scrapes and they're buddies and like he's always trying to help her out because they're friends.

Yeah. But he's also kind of sort of a, you know, a devious cannibal. And you got things like he goes like, good evening, Clary's. Mm-hmm, wah, wah. Exactly. I mean, it's just this movie, the show is so fucking silly. So this episode, Laugh of the Party. It's Halloween, by the way.

Congratulations, Spooktacular Halloween. Exactly. And so it's, you know, Lydia sort of gets like a backhanded invitation to the popular girls Halloween party. She decides she's going to have a party of her own. Chaos ensues thanks to Beetlejuice. And the problem is it's also just weird. Even if we're going to

like, you know, Disneyify this and make it nice for everybody. Round out the edges, make it a cute cartoon. Yeah. He's still like a 40-year-old ghost hanging around with a 16-year-old girl appearing in her bedroom all the time without any supervision. Yeah. It's creepy. Oh, yeah. So the

perviness is there, but it's more subtle. Yeah. Well, it's subtle because it's like, oh, what are we doing today, babes? Babes, by the way. Fuck that. It's disgusting. Honestly, there's like when the lights are off in this world, I do not want to know what's happening. Best case scenario, he's watching her sleep. Oh, sure. They're like a Bonnie and Clyde here. It's a bad land. Yes, exactly. I would love to see Beetlejuze and Lydia just hanging out under a tree talking about how they just go from town to town killing. people because nobody understands them. There's just oil rigs

in the background. Oh, it's beautiful. All of this cartoon is animated in the golden hour. Beautiful. I would love it. I would have tuned in every week. Yeah, I mean, this was stuck right between X-Men and Eek the cat, dude. Like, that's where it was at.

So, yeah, it's like, I'm going to help you have a great party, babes. Going to invite all sorts of monsters to your house. Is the basic idea. He goes to monster story, picks up monsters in a can. He also gets this really weirdly character designed party animal. It's this hairy beast with like a sex collar on him. Yeah. Beetlejuice is having this dude walk around and he's holding him by a chain. It's a black and leather studded chain. I'm

sorry, but it is. Now, Steve, maybe you remember this from the show because there's a part in this episode where Beetlejuice is watching a commercial for this like neither world party city basically and it's like real shitty computer animation out of nowhere like it's all hand drawn animation in this cartoon and then it turns I don't know if it's necessarily computer but like did they do that more than just on this episode I think they did because it's in the theme song and that's the only reason I don't know that's them telling us by the way you're going to see other kinds of forms of animation just for shits and gigs which like um I'm not interested in that. I'm barely interested in what you're doing with Beetlejuice. With the Beetlemyre, man. And yes, the rich girl shows, she's got two goony friends. They're super excited to be invited to any kind of party. And, of course, the rich girl who she hates is going to come as well.

They rip off entirely Christmas story in this episode. Her mother makes her a pink bunny costume and she hates it. Oh, right. And then Lydia just alters it and makes it a werewolf and it's totally So it's not even a problem. I think this show is popular because it spoke to the gothiness of the Tim Burton sect. Yes. Which is rare in cartoons.

And like especially I imagine if you were like a 14 year old or, you know, an 8 year old girl with like, you know, weird hobbies. You'd be like, that's me. With gothic tendencies. Yes. Yeah. No, absolutely. You're on. It's all.

It hadn't been invented yet. You know where to go. Yeah. You had some Peter Murphy CDs for some reason. Also, I think this was, this was a recurring thing on this show, and it's a really dumb gag of Beetlejuice turning into Betty Juice, much like when Erkel played his cousin Myrtle Urkel. We kind of loved this in the 90s. And it's here. He's Betty Juice.

And this is also another thing that's obnoxious because, like, I guess this does take place after the events of the movie, maybe. but, like, it appears as if Beetlejuice, in the form of, like, Mr. Juice or whatever it is, like, the parents are aware of him. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's one part where he comes to the door and he's pretending to be a caterer. Yeah. And this woman doing a bad Catherine O'Hara impression is just like, oh, Mr. Juice, you're also, or Mr. Beetle, that's what it is.

And it's like, oh, Mr. Beetle, you're also a caterer? It's like, how many times is this guy interacting with them? Because, like, again, that's not what's going on in the movie. Call CPS. This guy always wants to get near my daughter. You know what I mean? Like, he's like, oh, hey, man, I'm the new caterer. Hey, is your daughter home?

Oh, now this week I'm cleaning a pool, babes. Well, you look at that gothic bathing suit you have on. And it's just like, yeah. I'm your substitute teacher, babes. Oh, I'm teaching at this all-girl school. Well, because, yeah, yeah. Yep, yeah. Sure.

And you're just allowing this middle-aged ghost to hang out. Like, they make him kind of balder than Michael Keaton is in the movie. Like, he looks like a real loser. He's also really fat. He's a very chubby Beetlejuice, which I don't appreciate. I mean, maybe that's because he's flying all over the place, so he's not getting his ghost exercise. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, he's just like, you know, it's like in Wally.

Like, they're all just, like, sitting everywhere. So it's like he's just a fat ghost now. But why would a ghost get fat? This is just like Wally. The animation is very, very similar. The death, the detail. So, you know, long story short, Beetleju's at this ghostly party city buys a guests of a party in a can

or whatever the gag is and opens it up and like all these monsters come out and attend this party because he's worried that like people aren't going to attend Lydia's party and he loves her. So he wants to have guests come to her party. He doesn't want it to be a flop. So, like, all these monsters come in. And conveniently, because it's a Halloween party, you know.

Yeah, nobody could tell. No one's the wiser. That children are dancing with monsters. And everything's dressed, like, drawn like shit anyway, so no one can tell one end from the other. That's obnoxious. What are you supposed to be? Oh, another human person, okay.

It's really obnoxious. Like, here's, you're dealing with an already, like, a pre-existing property. We know what that property looks like. Do a better job to animate that shit. We knew what X-Men looked like from comics. They did a good-ish job animating that X-Men show. Why don't we try a little harder with Beetlejuice?

Just a little bit harder. I'm sure people will say like, oh, it's a reinterpretation. We're doing our own thing with the idea of Beal Juice. Don't make it look like shit. Reinterpret it until the California. House come home. Don't make it look like shit. Well, in our vision, we kind of had shit on the brain.

Oh, we wanted it to look like shit. Yeah. It's really saying something. Whenever you find something wrong, it was meant to be like that. It's a stylistic choice. It's animation. It's not lazy. It was intended to look like garbage. The weird part is when the girl,

I forget her name, the rich girl that everybody's supposed to hate because she's money. Well, she's also a big jerk. Yeah, she is. She's mean to everybody. The monster of, Beetleju's like, hey, hey, babes, I'm going to have this monster date your friend. And like, it's really weird because it's this big, gross, like, hairy monster. It looks like a fucking toilet just shitted up. And he's with a bondage collar on.

And he starts dancing with her. She's like, ooh, you're a big handsome man. And I'm like, I don't know what the, this girl's drawn like she's eight years old. Yeah, it's really gross. And she's, and then Beetlejuice. I believe it's Beetlejuice that sets this whole thing up. He's like, well, you know, relationships aren't official to you introduce them to your parents, babes. Yeah, exactly.

So then like uproles this limo to the Dietz compound and like Monty and Muffy stick their heads out of the limo. Like, are you ready to go? And she's like, oh, she said the little girl, the little girl says to this monster, take that gross head off or whatever so you can meet my parents. And, you know, I'm sorry, but she's three foot two. This thing is six foot one. Like, what? Where are the parents? You're letting this happen at your party?

Even if it is a guy in a costume, this guy needs to get the fuck out of my house. Well, you know, Charles and Mrs. Deeds are famously oblivious to almost everything. And they kind of carry that over into the show. Yeah, they can barely, you know, notice a ghost. Ghostly apparitions. They don't even notice. They don't notice an apparition. They don't know.

You know, I mean, Charles Dietz, in. in the show is apathetic to everything, just like Jeffrey Jones is in the movie. When your mother finds out that you cut holes in her $300 sheets. Although funny enough, in this episode of the cartoon, Charles himself is the one cutting holes in sheets because the mother has given him a bad haircut. That's their through line in this episode.

Okay. Sure, why not? Hey, why not, everybody? Great B plot. And so, yeah, so the monster rips his head off and follows this little girl outside. and you know the parents this is my favorite moment of the episode

the parents are like oh no a monster and speed away and leave this girl for dead with this beast and she runs like a cartoon like over the horizon and it's fine it's okay don't worry but she just re-human running because it's a cartoon don't worry she came back next week

and antagonizes Lydia once again the other thing is it's really poorly written because like they introduce a problem towards the end they're like oh my god the monsters turn really big in the moonlight they get to be Right, because there's like a warning label, like, do not use party monsters in a full moon. Right. Yeah.

Whoops. What a flub. What a full moon flub, Beetlejuice. And they terrorize the town. And then Lydia's like, oh, I guess we could use my hair dryer. And that's it. And that's, they really just do it for four minutes. They make them go smaller by blowing on them with a hairdryer.

Yeah. Well, there's something about like they also can't get wet. It's like vague gremlin rules. Right. It's like full moon slash something about if you. you dry them out, they'll shrink. And then what does Beetlegeist do? He flushes them down the toilet at the end.

Oh, that's so stupid. This, this is stupid. And we get, we get, we get the worst ending to anything you could ever have is by saying, here we go again. Lydia actually says, here we go again. Now the monsters are breaking through the ground and they got to run around and I guess just blow on them again. Just blow them out again.

Just dry them off and they'll shrink. This is not the message. to send to kids that you got to go blow monsters out on the streets? No, that's a bad message to send it around. Do not be blowing monsters.

I don't care if they danced with you. You don't go blowing monsters in the street. But like, it's so lazy because one of the whole big problems of the movie is Lydia wants the party to be a success and she's concerned about

the kids at school and how they're going to react to the park. Because eventually other kids do show up. Yes. So she's like, oh, I'm humiliated. This party's, you know, going off the rails. What am I going to do?

We don't find out, like, it needs to end with like, hey, Lydia, killer party on Halloween or whatever. Like, this movie, this episode needs to end in the hallowed halls of this all-girls school. Yes, and everyone was like, yay, you did a great job. Yeah, and it's fine. And Beetlejuice goes, way to go, babes. We pulled off another 22 minutes of adventure. We just skated that one in.

But not here we go again with zero. conclusion to anything? What shit? Where to go, babes. We used enough old animation that the Korean animators are thanking us for that one. Hey, babes, the next episode is just entitled The Recycler. Hey, babes, get it? Babes, you're still there or what? I mean, I'll just get right to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had a question. Yeah, sure. It's on the bubble. because we are revisiting the Beetlejuice world in this cartoon albeit really ineptly

Do we need a Beetlejuice sequel? Oh shit. No. No. No. Right? No. No. No. Because what is it going to be? And I'm sorry. I love Michael Keaton. By the way, he's fantastic in the new movie spotlight. Sure.

Deserves the Inevitable Academy Award nomination he's going to get for it. But how do you justify a ghost aging 20%? 25 years. Almost 30 years. I don't but it's a beautiful little movie you know. It is. It's got everything you want and it ends. It feels like it shouldn't exist. It's got such

a weird vibe to it. And it's like what are you going to try? What could you possibly do to add on to that? First of all, you're going to have to rewrite that script so that Charles Dietz is dead in the cold ground. Yeah. Maybe enough time will have passed. No, dude, you don't get over the troubles.

Maybe he'll be a, yeah, maybe he'll be a ghost or Oh, make him a force ghost. Use his image, but he doesn't actually get to go on screen. Yeah. Just pull Jeffrey Jones footage from various projects. Ed Rooney's walking by, like, that ending shot of Ferris Bueller, he's dragging his feet covered in mud. Just put the blue outline around that. Blue outline, he's a zombie ghost, whatever. That's how you justify it. I like it. I really like that. Yeah. So now I think we got something here. Maybe People Choose 2 might have to happen. I don't think a CGI force ghost Jeffrey Jones is a. reason to do a

beetle juice sequel. But it is enough to get me to buy a ticket. I feel like it's mostly Michael Keaton driving the car. He's like, yeah, Beetleju sequel.

You should do a Beetleju sequel. Tell me to do a Beetleju sequel. Hey, that guy's right. Or is Burton behind it too? I don't know, is he?

I have no. That's what I was going to ask you guys. I don't know. It's just on IMDB as in development, but I know Michael Keaton will talk to anybody

who will listen about a Beetleju sequel. Here's the thing, though, is he talking to those people post Burnton Man nomination and post-spotlight. Is he really? Yeah, he's using it.

Oh, man. And he's like, oh, you know, there was a bunch of bad scripts. There's a really good script now that I really like, et cetera, et cetera. I'd rather see him play Batman again. Yeah, Dark Night Returns, man. Get him to play old Batman. Yep, there it, you know what? There it is. Fuck you, Ben Affleck movie.

Enough time has passed. One was Returns, 92? Yeah. Listen, there you go. It's time. Old Bruce Wayne. Fuck Clint Eastwood. old Bruce Wayne played by Michael Keaton that's where it's at but you don't need another Beetlejuice

it's a one and dumb it's a beautiful one and done that's the thing it is it's a weirdo movie I love it yeah it's just a weirdo movie that happens and you're like oh wow that's done and here's the thing it's a two person commitment because obviously no one gives a flying fuck about Jeffrey Jones

Catherine O'Hara she's a genius at comedy take it to leave it if you can't get Winona Ryder to go along with this it's fucking pointless because then It's just an embarrassing Michael Keaton sequel. Here's another question you're talking about ghosts aging. How does a ghost get as fat as Alec Baldwin is?

How does that work? Yeah, I feel like that's just not going to happen. You know what I mean? That's whatever, you know, honestly. And someone find Gina Davis. Wake her up. I think she still thinks she's in that president show. And may I remind you, I am the president of the United States.

So, all right. I mean, I don't know where we're going to fall on this, but who was embarrassed watching this? I was incredibly embarrassed. I hate punny shit like this. I, like Eric, I avoided the show like the playing as a kid. I would be like, hey, man, when's X-Men coming on? And then I'll be back. I'm going to go play video games and eat Dorita chips. Exactly. I want to play an NBA Live 95. Oh, that was a good year. It was. Yeah, I was embarrassed, too. I think someone might have caught me watching this. And I don't think I can ever come back from that. Oh, wow. Yeah. I watched this alongside my wife, and she was just like, the things you do.

But actually, it was amazing, though. I was embarrassed. But amazingly, she also was like, I never watched the show, but she still recalled the theme song as like a, oh, it's this theme song, time to change the channel, so I don't have to watch Beetlejuice. Best part of this show? Now here's Beetle Juice. Yes, which was every episode.

It was consistent. I like to imagine it was, who was that little old man that was on Letterman a bunch with the big square glasses? He was also like a spokesperson for some sort of fast food chain maybe. He kind of sounded like that. Hey, everybody, now here's Biddle juice. Man, oh, it kills. He's long dead now. He's old on Letterman, he'd have to be.

Vividly. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about that? Exactly, yeah. I think he shares a mausoleum with time to make the donuts. Yeah, and the pallbearer. They're spending eternity together, the three of them. No, I was humiliated, and I also felt terrible for wasting so many hours watching this as a kid.

Humiliated. I mean, dude, I vividly remember turning off the Nintendo because Beetlejuice was on and loving it. And loving it. And the only thing, the only thing I can say about doing this episode tonight and having to watch this episode of the cartoon is that, Now, more than ever, I'm going back and re-watching Beetlejuice, which I have not watched in like half a decade. I haven't seen in ages. And I'm going to watch Beetlejuice, and I don't need a Beetlejuice, too.

Yep. No, I don't need a beetle juice, too. Eek the Cat, Far Superior Cartoon. I agree with that. I didn't like it. Here's the thing, though, like, maybe we'll have to go back to it. This is probably the buster right here, right? We'll be like, Eek, what were we watching?

Yeah, maybe that's next month. We'll see how that goes. There we go. It's that or Fantasia. Fantasia's good. I don't know. I haven't seen it in a while. I watch Fantasia 2000. That's a big snooze fest piece of shit. You can keep it. That sucked.

They recycle that Mickey Wizard number. Yeah. Is that a sequel? Yeah. Oh, Jesus Christ. That's animation damnation for the month of October. Oh, my goodness. Until November, which by the way, it's, we'll have to save that for December possibly. Because as we're doing, November is a big celebratory James Bond. month here at We Hate Movies. We're doing a Bond episode. We're going to do James Bond

Jr. for animation damnation. So maybe we'll do Eke the Cat in December. Ruin your childhoods then, because I was humiliated. So Fantasia will have to wait until like February. So until next month with James Bond Jr. I'm Andrew Juppin. Eric Sisker. Stephen Zedach. Take it easy. You know, it's Halloween. I guess everyone's the title of one good scare. Sometimes, bad is what I? Zombies have entered the building.

They're at the door. They're coming in. It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicterman. They're coming to get you, Barbara. He's sick for fucks. He's seen one too many. Now, Sid! Don't you blame the movies?

Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos for creative. Put the fucking ocean in the back. That's an excellent day for an accident.