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:

Bumpers: ABC Saturday Morning

The quality and quantity of Saturday morning cartoons has pretty much gone to hell. I wonder if the networks even do those "after these brief messages we'll be right back" bumpers anymore?

Somebody on Youtube managed to capture most of the claymation bumpers that aired on ABC in the late 80s and early 90s. My favorite was always the one in which the three singers switch heads. Enjoy!

New Kids on the Block: The Cartoon

I have a humiliating confession to make.

I was a HUGE New Kids on the Block fan.

Granted, I first got into them when I was in kindergarten and my obsession ended sometime in the second grade, but I'm still haunted by the memories to this day.

How big of a fan was I? Big enough to loyally watch their Saturday morning cartoon every week.

Even back then, I knew this cartoon was absolutely atrocious, but I was determined to be loyal to my beloved New Kids. I mostly watched for the interviews with the group at the beginning and the concert footage they showed at the end of each episode. I was beyond pissed when I learned that the guys didn't provide their own voices for their animated counterparts. And boy did the voice actors play up the Boston accents.

There are so many cheesetastic things about this cartoon that I don't know where to begin:

Of course, they just had to make Jon's dog into a damn animal sidekick. I'm just glad that he didn't talk. He probably would have had an exaggerated Boston accent too: "Lookit the fiah hydrant onnah cawnnah!"

Catch phrases ("Posse up!")

Disguises out the wazoo

Musical montages and more musical montages

Chase scenes

These horribly tacky borders would sporadically pop up and surround the screen. Worst visual effect ever.

The sound effects! They buuuuurn!

Here's a full episode, broken into three parts. Oh, and if you manage to make it to the end, you might notice that the ending credits ("Step by Step") sound uncannily similar to a certain other cartoon's closing theme song (EDIT: the first video I posted had the entire credits, but it was removed and this one only has a couple of seconds of it. If you want a more in-depth comparison, here's the original version of "Step by Step"). Hmm, I wonder which came first?