[[WMG:Beetlejuice is Satan]]
His name, after all, is very similar to the Biblical slur "Beelzebub." Juno is God (note that she shares her name with the chief female Roman deity), and the slit in her throat is her merely ''pretending'' to be a suicide victim, [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith in order to blend in with the other bureaucrats]]. Lucifer really did voluntarily set on his own; the story about him being cast out of Heaven is just Biblical propaganda written to make him look weak. He wasn't just going to marry Lydia at the climax, but take possession of her soul, or perhaps even impregnate her with the Antichrist.

[[WMG: Beetlejuice's cause of death in the musical]]
While it's fairly clear that Beetlejuice committed suicide in the movie, all of the factors that point to that conclusion are absent in the musical. Both Beetlejuice and Juno have been changed from ghosts to demons. However, the distinction between the two is left vague—demons could easily be damned ghosts, a separate species, or anywhere in between. Beetlejuice has some extra powers and restrictions compared to the Maitlands, but there is some overlap, such as possession. He even says that "any ghost" is capable of it. However, Juno, [[spoiler:who in this version is Beetlejuice's mother]], still retains the gash in her neck, implying that she too was alive once and that she died by having her throat sliced, just like in the movie. [[spoiler:Since Juno is Beetlejuice's mother, this would mean that he must have been alive at some point too.]] In "Say My Name," Beetlejuice brushes back his hair to reveal his ''exposed brain'' while singing the word "assassinate." This is the only physical wound we ever see on him, implying that he died by being [[FlayingAlive scalped.]]

[[WMG:Beetlejuice is the Tuxedo Kamen style Guardian of the [[Franchise/SailorMoon Senshi]] of the star Betelgeuse]]
And Lydia is supposed to be Sailor Betelgeuse. It's kinda in the title this one. Obviously he got corrupted by Metallia for the film, but got better by the series.

[[WMG: Donny Juice was sent to Neither Neither Land at one point.]]
That's the reason he's so saccharine and sweet all the time. My guess is that he used to be a lot like his brother Beetlejuice, but eventually went one step too far with some stunt or another. One trip to the Jack In The Box later, and he's the Mister Rogers clone we all know and loathe. That's why Beetlejuice is so utterly terrified of Neither Neither Land. He's seen first hand what it can do to someone.

[[WMG: As a living child, Beetlejuice was [[ComicStrip/CalvinandHobbes Calvin]]]]
Think about it. They both love mischief, scamming people, have an affinity for striped clothing, they both have blond hair, and don't do well with authority. Beetlejuice loves puns, which he could have picked up as a child from his [[SaturdayMorningCartoon Saturday Morning Cartoon]] addiction.

As for why Beetlejuice's parents don't look like Calvin's parents, my guess is that Calvin died before they did. In their grief, Mrs. Calvin threw herself into her housecleaning, while Mr. Calvin did the same with working out, resulting in the ones we see in the show.

Hobbes (who turned out to be [[RealAfterAll Real After All]]) was eaten by a Sandworm, and that's why Beetlejuice is so frightened of them despite having enough power to defeat them.

[[WMG: Beetlejuice is the ghost of ComicBook/TheJoker.]]
* Then why does he look and act like a dirty, creepy version of Batman? Seriously, he's a vigilante who operates by scaring people, he has a secret signal, and he's played by MichaelKeaton!
** Wait, never mind the last question, The Joker would totally do that just because [[ItAmusedMe it amused him]]
* Conversely the Joker might be him reincarnated as a human.
[[WMG: Cartoon!Beetlejuice is Lydia's [[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents Fairy Godparent]] ]]
He has magic no other ghost seem to have, he's mostly focued on helping lydia and making her happy, he has the abillity to teleport and shapeshift while still having his prime colors own and usually flot. he's either pretending to be a ghost becuase he's afraid that Lydia thinks faries are lame, or he's suffering from some kind of amnesia.
* Or TheFairFolk and TheUndead are not so different.

[[WMG: Cartoon!Beetlejuice is what he was 'rewarded' with after marrying Lydia]]
Beetlejuice DID marry Lydia, which shifted his haunting locus to Lydia Deetz, and he pretty much died a second time when the Sandworm dropped on him. As a mild apology, he's given much more free reign, effectively giving him the freedom he was trying to get by marrying Lydia, but remaining stuck in the Neitherworld.
* They look and act nothing alike, though. And Lydia is stated to be younger than she was during the movie (12 in the cartoon, 15 in the movie).

[[WMG: The show is a Prequel to the movie. Lydia and BJ just suffer from LaserGuidedAmnesia]]
Lydia looks a lot younger in the show then in the movie, and we've already seen that without BJ, Lydia will become very sad and depressed. It's not much of a stretch that without Lydia, BJ would become a bigger Jerkass. Sometime after the show ended, both Lydia and Beetlejuice got LaserGuidedAmnesia somehow and never met until Lydia and her parents moved to the Maitlands' house, where they met again (BJ now calling himself Betelgeuse), but they changed so much in the 4 years they never met, that they could never become friends again.
* An elegant alternative is explored in ''FanFic/SayItThrice'' by Creator/BookwormGal, which posits the opposite - that the movie is a prequel to the show. Beetlejuice is at ''least'' 600 years old, having lived through the Black Death, and thus was so unfamiliar with the living that he didn't ''realize'' that Lydia was a child. Afterwards, he was ''really'' sorry for the attempted "AndNowYouMustMarryMe" and was going to let Lydia out of the deal, but upon seeing his genuine remorse she summoned him back, resulting in the events of the series. HilarityEnsues as the JerkAss turned out to be a JerkWithAHeartOfGold.

[[WMG: The Maitlands' death scene was a false memory. Jane ''really'' wanted their house.]]
In the movie's afterlife, time moves quickly and the world makes a lot less sense. It would be pretty fair to say that reality is slightly off and subject to debate. The recently deceased are probably pretty confused and easily subjected to delusion. The zany slapstick death of Adam and Barbara is a fabrication they created to convince themselves someone they love didn't sabotage their car in order to collect from the sale on their house.

[[WMG: Jane is a [[ShapeShifting shapeshifter]].]]
She is the dog who made them crash, and was the one who delivered the final blow [[TheLastStraw by hopping off the board and sending their car into the water]].
* It doesn't have to, but could even potentially link this universe to that of ''Series/TrueBlood''.

[[WMG: Jane trained the dog to wait at the bridge.]]
She knew the bridge was old and wouldn't take much to give way. She knew that it would be hard to see and brake for an obstruction in the bridge before entering it due to the curvy road and the covering. She knew Barbara and Adam would swerve the car. Most people would; it's a cute little dog.

[[WMG: The Maitlands were infertile before they died.]]
Hence the look on Barbara's face and Jane's reaction of "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it" when she says their house should be for a couple with a family.
* It would also give further significance to Barbara's affinity for Lydia, and wanting to stay with her. "I like that little girl."
* This is heavily implied to be canon.
* Considering Adam's line about trying again, it seems most likely that they've been trying to conceive for a fairly long time, but they haven't received a medical diagnosis that would make it impossible. They're just not having much luck with it.
* A cut subplot from the musical had the Maitlands recovering from a miscarriage, so it could have been that.

[[WMG: Lydia figured out pretty fast that she didn't want to let Beetlejuice out of the model.]]
When she's talking to him and he plays charades to tell her his name, she probably has it figured out quick, but can already tell he could be trouble. She's just playing stupid - even teases him by same his name twice.

[[WMG: Barbara was in the sandworm world for a longer time than passed in the real world as she tamed the sandworm.]]
When Adam steps off the front porch early in the movie, he's only there for a few seconds and Barbara tells him it's been two hours. This is inverted later in the movie when Beetlejuice sends her there and she's back with the sandworm in comparatively no time.

[[WMG: Beetlejuice was a child molester in life.]]
His visual dirtiness is a metaphor for the filth of his soul, not to mention his sexual appetite and his immediate lust for the certainly-not-legal Lydia.

[[WMG: The attempt to forcibly marry Lydia is [[CitizenshipMarriage an elaborate afterlife immigration scam]] ]]
* Which doesn't make Beetlejuice all that much less creepy.
** Confirmed in the musical, where he directly refers to it as a “green-card thing.”

[[WMG: Beetlejuice died of...]]
* Mercury poisoning - explained by his pink fingertips and in keeping with his character in the movies as being a DirtyOldMan - Mercury used to be used to treat syphilis and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Decontamination also involves thoroughly cleaning yourself - no version of Beetlejuice was interested in personal hygiene.
* BuriedAlive - a medieval punishment for unrepentant murderers, it explains why he has no visible injuries, is covered in mould, and has to be dug up by the Maitlands for them to get to him. It would also explain his pink fingers, if you assume that the pink of his fingers is blood from when he would have tried to claw his way out of the ground.
* Suicide - He's implied to have worked as an afterlife civil servant, and depressed/suicidal people sometimes neglect personal hygiene and social graces. Inappropriate humor can also be a coping mechanism, or a manifestation of manic episodes. This would give a CommonalityConnection flavor to his attempt to talk Lydia out of suicide.
* An encounter with a large snake - explains his hatred of sandworms, and could involve suffocation as with the BuriedAlive example above.
* Most certainly NOT the plague - he said he lived through it.
** It's confirmed that he was indeed a suicide; the scene which would have explained as much was cut for time.

[[WMG: Beetlejuice's friendship with Lydia in the cartoon is a form of community service.]]
* BJ had been dead for so long that he forgot how to play nicely with others--living or otherwise--so after the events of the film he was moved to that quirky Neitherworld neighborhood and bound to Lydia Deetz so she can help him learn or remember what it was like to be a good person.

[[WMG: Beetlejuice's friendship with Lydia in the cartoon is a form of Purgatory.]]
* As above, except that BJ was a horrible person in life and will be stuck in the Neitherworld until he learns how to be a good person. Once this happens, he can move on to a proper afterlife.

[[WMG: Near the end of the animated series, Lydia helped Beetlejuice overcome his fear of Sandworms.]]
* Many of the later episodes have BJ calmly eliminate a Sandworm without a problem. And friends can help a person face their fears.

[[WMG: Beetlejuice committed suicide, and has certain abilities as a result]]
In the afterlife of the films, if you kill yourself you become a public servant in the afterlife. Juno claims that BJ used to work with her, so that suggests he was a suicide.

Perhaps in the CelestialBureaucracy that the netherworld runs off of, government employees are granted special abilities above and beyond what most ghosts possess, to aid in their duties; that's why Beetlejuice can travel to other locations and displays RealityWarper powers that allow him to interact directly with mortals when the Maitlands can't. Note that Juno also shows the ability to visit the Maitlands in their house, so she is not bound to a specific haunting location either.

These powers come with certain rules attached, however. Just as you can visit Juno by drawing a door, you can call Beetlejuice by repeating his name; keeps him from using his abilities to go anywhere and do whatever he wants.

BJ hated his job and quit, but used a loophole to keep his abilities; going "freelance", meaning he is still somehow licensed to do this stuff, because he is still technically helping other ghosts. He works as a "bio-exorcist" because it's a job that puts him in contact with mortals, so he can look for one to marry and get out of the fate his suicide doomed him to.

When he fails in this task, he gives in and decides to serve out his sentence normally. That's why he's in the waiting room at the end of the movie; he's interviewing for his old job.

[[WMG: Spelling Beetlejuice's name "Betelgeuse" in advertisements is required as a condition of parole]]
The legal authorities of the afterlife in the movie see Beetlejuice as a potentially dangerous criminal, but they can't execute him (since for a dead person to perform an exorcism would be suicidal), so eventually he would end up paying his debt to society and be let out of whatever passes for prison. They'd still want to limit his ability to get into mischief, but bureaucracy gets in the way. Making it harder for people to summon him by requiring his name to be rendered in a difficult-to-pronounce archaic spelling (which might well have been current when he died) would allow him to advertise his business while limiting his customer base to those desperate enough to go looking for an unlicensed bio-exorcist (and preventing undead kids from calling him up accidentally or as a prank).

[[WMG: The animated series is an AlternateContinuity where afterlife bureaucracy is more lenient]]
As a result, the Neitherworld is less dreary, building codes there are largely irrelevant (NoOSHACompliance isn't an issue for TheUndead) leading to rampant {{Bizarrchitecture}}, TheMasquerade is not as strictly enforced, restrictions on hauntings are less stringent giving the recently deceased more freedom of movement so there's less danger of exorcism, so Beetlejuice never needed to do whatever Masquerade-endangering antics got him in hot water in the first place, which means he doesn't need to advertise as a "bio-exorcist" because that's not a thing. He's still a bit of a jerk and pulls mean pranks, but he's not a dangerous criminal and he's not as antisocial, making him a somewhat more appropriate companion for a young Goth girl. This might also explain Juno's absence, since there'd be less need for civil servants.

[[WMG: Beetlejuice is a human (or rather, ghost) avatar of the star Betelgeuse.]]
In Jean Louis De Esque's poem book, ''Betelgeuse, a Trip Through Hell '', hell is located on the titular star. In ''Beetlejuice'', there doesn't seem to be a hell at first glance. But there is a nasty place that exorcised ghosts end up call the the Lost Souls Room. In most versions of demonology, an exorcism sends spirits or demons back to hell, so it would stand to reason that the Lost Souls Room is hell, or at least the closest thing to it. Suppose, like in De Esque's poem, Betelgeuse is the location of the Lost Souls Room. The exorcised souls provide some sort of fulfillment for Betelgeuse, either because they have nutritional value, or It just enjoys collecting them. With this in mind, Beetlejuice's bio-exorcism business could be a sham to cause haunting disturbances, pin the blame on his summoners, and get more souls exorcised. Though he did thwart the Maitlands' exorcism, it was part of a plan to get permanent license to haunt the living world, which means more deaths and thus more ghosts and more potential souls.

[[WMG: Lydia saw her birth mother die.]]
It would explain her depression and her fascination with the afterlife. It would also explain her fear of hospitals in the cartoon. Her birth mother most likely died of a terminal illness, and hospitals bring back bad memories for her.
* This is confirmed in the musical.

[[WMG: Beetlejuice died in the 1600s]]
Beetlejuice mentioned that he lived through the Great Plague. One of the greatest plagues of history is the 1665 Great Plague of London. Additionally, by then, America had been discovered and people were heading to the New World. Connecticut, where the film takes place, was also one of the early colonies settled.
After he survived the Great Plague, Beetlejuice moved there to escape crimes, and it was there that he met a woman, was abandoned when she found out what a creep he was, and hung himself.

[[WMG: The reason Beetlejuice thinks the Black Plague is funny...]]
Is because it’s actually become a mundane virus in modern times. Maybe it is what we know as the Common Cold!
** Huh? We know exactly what plague is, it’s not some kind of historical mystery. It’s bacterial and still circulates today, although thankfully in significantly lower numbers since it still has a relatively high death rate even with antibiotic treatment.

[[WMG: Beetlejuice is a Pueblo Clown.]]
[[quoteright:236:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sacredclown.jpg]]

Pueblo Clowns are a type of character celebrated by the Kachina religion and the culture that practices them (Pueblo Tribes of North America). These clowns present themselves with black and white horizontal stripes painted on their bodies and faces, paint black circles around the mouth and eyes, and part their hair in the center and bind it in two bunches which stand upright on each side of the head and are trimmed with corn husks. Legends and customs surrounding them differ, but they are commonly seen as spirits of early man, being tricksters that have emerged from within the Earth and have yet to mature into humanity, their iconography meant for satire and fertility rites.

Now take a look at Beetlejuice. Black and white stripes practically define his appearance, and his hair is a platinum blonde rats-nest. In the film and animated series, he is a pervert, a destructive prankster and a {{Manchild}} (bordering on [[PsychopathicManchild psychopathic]]) with a penchant for pulling pranks. As a ghost, he is unique in his reality warping abilities. While ghosts in the film seems to possess some supernatural abilities, none are seen to be as impressive as BJ's. In the cartoon, there are plenty of magic-users, but Beetlejuice's "juice" is outright stated by his disembodied brain (no, really) that with his power he could conquer the Neitherworld, but would rather settle for pranks rather than anything constructive. This implies that while he is a spirit, it is unlikely that he was technically ''human'' at any point.

While Pueblo Clowns are not known for having godlike abilities, it is likely that Beeltejuice may have either some relations to the primordial humans or may have even ''inspired'' the legend to some capacity.

[[WMG: Beetlejuice is Belphegor.]]

Aside from the fact that they have very similar names, [[DemonLordsandArchDevils Belphegor]] is one of the Seven Crown Princes of Hell, representing Sloth. He is known for seducing people with [[DealWithTheDevil seemingly simple solutions]] to their problems that ultimately backfire horrifically and [[PottyHumor being incredibly gross]]. Sound familiar?

[[WMG: Sky, the girl scout from the musical, doesn't actually have a heart condition.]]
Her parents are just extremely overprotective and pulling a less restrictive bubble boy type lie on her. This would be why she hasn't been killed by hiking or excitement up to this point nor by the scare pulled on her in the play. In fact a successful outing selling cookies would have been met with them explaining that her "heart condition" had stabilized.


[[WMG: In the cartoon, the Deetz family cat Percy ran away and found a new home.]]
After the second season, Percy pretty much stopped making appearances. He probably got tired of being scared all the time by Beetlejuice's pranks, ran away, and found a new family where there was no ghost with the most to constantly stress him out. If Percy had died as a result of Beetlejuice's shenanagins, it's likely Lydia would hold a much more serious grudge against Beetlejuice but because that isn't the case, Percy running away and getting adopted by a loving family that Lydia later found out about and decided to just let Percy stay there might be a more likely outcome.

[[WMG: ''WesternAnimation/CorpseBride'' is a prequel to the events of this film. (CROSS POST)]]
The Land of the Dead is what the Netherworld used to be before it became a bureaucracy. Beetlejuice discovered the marriage loophole by discovering the events that allowed Emily to traverse between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead, discovering that it was possible for a ghost like him to "get out" of the Netherworld.


[[WMG:BeetleJuice got his powers from surviving an exorcism ]]
He survived possibly by making a deal with someone like Juno but lost his sanity from the trauma of the experience. He used his new powers for the first time to punish/kill the people who tried to exorcise him. As a result of this, he got a taste of power and started on the path that would lead him to become what he is in the movie