Beetlejuice (animation)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Beetlejuice is still a ghostly con artist, but he's no longer a lech. Lydia still likes gothic, freaky things, but she's no longer suicidal. Delia is still an oblivious flake, but instead of being a social-climbing urban yuppie on the cutting edge of fashion, she's a blissful, preppy, suburban homemaker who now seems to be Lydia's biological parent. Oddly enough, the only character that was in the movie that didn't change much was Lydia's father.
    • Only because there was nothing to change in him to begin with.
  • Die for Our Ship: Again, Beelejuice/Lydia.
    • Word of God states that Beetlejuice's attachment to Lydia was definitely more than friendly and was deliberately played up by the writers.
    • Wait, who is supposed to die here? ...Oh.
    • In the debut episode of the cartoon, Lydia was going to kiss B.J., until she saw the bugs in his teeth.
    • Depending on your preferred level of Squick, this COULD be either a Jail Bait Wait (low squick) OR Wife Husbandry (high squick). It's only eight or ten years 'til Lydia becomes an adult, and they can be dead together for a long time...
  • In Name Only: Due to the different premise, Lydia and Beetlejuice are friends now, and the Maitlands are nonexistent. Lydia is also considerably younger than the movie version.
  • Reverse Funny Aneurysm: When Claire Brewster loses election as class president in the episode "Running Scared," she immediately demands a recount.
  • Squick: You think Beetlejuice's crush on Lydia was creepy? At least BJ is relatively human -- in one episode of the cartoon, Lydia gets the unwanted attentions of an anthropomorphic bull ghost who wants to marry her. Beetlejuice even sees what Lydia's future will be like if she actually has to go through with it... yikes.