Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

If you're expecting an entry about the movie, then you've come to the wrong place. I'm focusing on the awesome cartoon series.

This is one of those cartoons that I still appreciate the sheer brilliance of as an adult. The music and animation were incredible, not to mention all of the puns and parodies. Example: Beetlejuice's skeleton friend is named Jaques LaLean, a reference I certainly didn't pick up on as a kid.

Plus, you gotta love Lydia, one of the first whiney Goth cartoon characters.

When I was in second grade, some kid actually claimed that he stopped brushing his teeth because he wanted to be like Beetlejuice. I don't know if he was joking or not, but thinking back, his teeth were pretty disgrossting looking for awhile.

I truly believe that if it wasn't for this show, there would be no Nicktoons today. Beetlejuice was probably one of the first animated series to bring gross-out humor to mainstream kids' cartoons.

Here's the intro, complete with FOX Kids bump (interestingly, the show actually aired simultaneously on two networks, FOX during the week and ABC on Saturday morning):



Lydia summons Beetlejuice:



A short little ditty (let me just say that I don't think that Lydia's voice actress was ever up for any Tony awards):



Beetlejuice certainly doesn't have an Oedipus complex: