I’ve never even seen the Tim Burton and Michael Keaton film that this series was based upon, yet I don’t feel like I’m missing anything that keeps me from enjoying the cartoon. The Beetlejuice animated series is wildly creative and energetic. It ran for just over two years, including three short seasons on ABC and one sixty-five episode season on Fox. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, it was one of the first shows to be getting new episodes on one channel, yet already be in syndication on another channel. As such, the show ran almost everyday of the week and it netted a cult following of viewers who were hooked on the bizarre adventures that Beetlejuice and his friend Lydia Deetz embarked on.
So Beetlejuice is a sort of reluctant hero. He’s powerful; wielding tremendous magic abilities that allow him to change his environment, himself, and create real objects instantly. His weakness is a proximity to sandworms or whenever his body is not completely intact. Otherwise, he’s practically a god of the “Neitherworld.” Yet he’s also dirty, lazy, and conniving. Only by chanting his name three times is he able to cross planes into Lydia’s small town known as Peaceful Pines. Their adventures take place both here and in the “Neitherworld”, and the duo, along with some series regulars like Jacques LaLean and Doomie, solve all sorts of problems in humorous and strange fashion. They encounter a huge variety of monsters, but no matter how dark or evil the characters or circumstances seem, it’s all done with a positive, kid-friendly spin. Sure, there’s violence, skeletons, bug-eating, Beetlejuice holding his own head in his hands, and numerous other potentially TV-14 triggers, but through animation and voice-acting, everything is kept relatively mild and light-hearted.
While that may sound like a knock on the show, it hardly is, and I think the creator’s ability to balance dark themes with goofiness is part of both the appeal and the longevity of the series. Watching Beetlejuice again, for the first time since it originally aired actually (and I only saw probably twenty episodes back then), was a positive nostalgic experience. Experiencing cartoons, movies, even music or videogames from your past isn’t always a pleasant thing. Many times these experiences are disheartening, and you’re left wondering how you ever liked whatever it was in the first place. Fortunately, that’s not the case with Beetlejuice. Thanks to its unique and memorable characters, off-beat humor and stories, and sheer creativity in the stories and animation, the series holds up extremely well. I thought the creators also did a great job balancing Beetlejuice with Lydia too. Too much of either, especially Beetlejuice, would have been grating (Beetlejuice’s screams in particular).
Despite changing from ABC to Fox at roughly a third through the series’ lifetime, the quality of the episodes remained strong overall. As with any series running eighty or ninety episodes, some episodes aren’t that good, while others, or in this case most, are great. Hit the internet for episode summaries, but like other great cartoons of the nineties, the stories in Beetlejuice vary significantly. The pilot for example saw Beetlejuice overwhelmed when trying to babysit monsters to spite Lydia (who took a real babysitting job), and in season four they encounter the father of time after Beetejuice gives Lydia a watch. The storys have about as much variety as the animation, which is to say, quite a lot.
A complete series release for Beetlejuice has been a long time coming. Pop culture experts Shout! Factory answered the call when they acquired the rights for the show. Interestingly, this release is only available on Amazon, but, most people would have probably gotten it from there anyway. Shout! did a great job with the artwork on the box and indivdiual DVD cases and discs. The box contains three standard DVD cases, each with multiple pages holding discs. Seasons one, two, and three are all in a single case, as the number of episodes in those seasons was pretty low. The other two cases are split across season four. Each case lists the season, disc number, and episodes contained on the disc on the back, too. DVD menus are consistent, with the only selectable options being “Play All” and “Episodes.” No subtitles are offered, nor any extra features whatsoever which is a real shame for such a cult favorite. It’s hard to believe that not one original creator would lend their voice for some commentary or a “looking back” featurette, but I suppose that’s the case. Normally that might give you pause that a “double-dip,” i.e., re-release may be in the future, but with this particular series, I highly doubt it. As for image and sound quality, they’re fine, and honestly on par for what you would expect a 20+ year old, over-the-air, animated cartoon to be. Episodes are shown in 1:33:1 full frame.
With that, let’s get to the summary…