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Shout Out / Beetlejuice

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The film

Though not as many as the media spawned from it, the film has a few:

  • Adam and Barbara becoming ghosts after dying Trapped in a Sinking Car that fell from a bridge could be a nod to Carnival of Souls.
  • As one of his qualifications, Betelgeuse states how many times he's seen The Exorcist, stating that it keeps getting funnier every time he sees it.
  • Lydia asks if the Maitlands are "Night of the Living Dead" under their sheets. They don't get the reference, and she explains that it's a movie.
  • The fly screams "Help me! Help meeeeeeeeee!" when trapped by Betelguese. This is a reference to The Fly (1958). Geena Davis happens to appear in the film's remake.
  • Otho insults Beryl back after her homophobic remark by saying "Don't mid her, she's still upset because somebody dropped a house on her sister..."
  • Betegeuse says, "Go ahead, make my millennium!" This is a reference to the line, "Go ahead, make my day!" in Sudden Impact.
  • The whorehouse is called "Dante's Inferno Room".
  • During the sequence where Adam and Barbara enter Juno's office and see her speaking to the recently deceased football team, a movie theater full of ghosts can be seen through Juno's office window. One of them appears to be Jake Blues from The Blues Brothers, probably in reference to John Belushi's untimely death in 1982.
  • Some of the passages Otho recites during the séance are lifted from Thomas Lovell Beddoes' poem "The Warning".
  • During "showtime", Beetlejuice imitates Johnny Carson's The Late Show introduction when addressing the Maitlands, even doing his opening monologue golf swing.

The animated series

The cartoon relies heavily on Shout Outs, Visual Puns, and puns in general. Among the former:

  • While training for a fitness contest, Jacques - who is himself a shout out to Jack LaLanne - copies a scene out of the Rocky franchise.
  • One of Beetlejuice's other neighbors is a tap-dancing spider named Ginger.
  • The Monster Across the Street resembles Gossamer.
  • In "A Dandy Handy Man" one of the living tools Beetlejuice uses while posing as a handyman is a sentient jackhammer with a face that resembles Jack Nicholson. When the tools retaliate upon Beetlejuice wanting to take all the credit for their hard work, jackhammer opens a crack through the door behind which BJ and Lydia are hiding and taunts "Leeeeet's get him!" referencing the "Here's Johnny!" scene from The Shining.
  • The Prom Scene from the Whole Episode Flashback in "Highs-Ghoul Confidential" is a subtle one to Stephen King's Carrie (1976), minus the bucket of pigs' blood.
  • In "Pest O' the West", Beej makes a speed painting he dubs the Mona Lydia.
  • "Robbin Juice of Sherweird Forest" borrows a lot of elements from The Adventures of Robin Hood, including the archery contest and several backgrounds.
    • Also in the same episode, after BJ robs Prince John's accountant, he crafts a pool full of coins and goes swimming in the money like Uncle Scrooge.
  • From "Super Zeroes":
    Beetlejuice: (as "Super Beetleman") As Jack Kirby is my witness, I'll never go arch-villainless again!
  • A few episodes have BJ facing off with Germs Pondscum, an expy of James Bond, specifically Sean Connery.
  • The television sports announcer seen in a number of episodes, such as during the Pranksgiving competition in "Snugglejuice", is a No Celebrities Were Harmed parody of Howard Cosell.
  • In "Snugglejuice", Neither-Neither-Land is a reference to Never Never Land.
  • Doubling with Genius Bonus, in "Forget-Me-Nuts", the heroes accompany Dr. Zigmund Void (himself a Shout-Out to Sigmund Freud) into BJ's brain. The words "Bukowski Was Here" are scrawled on one of the cranium walls; Charles Bukowski was a writer who was known, among other things, for his newspaper column "Notes of a Dirty Old Man".
  • In the episodes where he appears, Donny Juice (BJ's brother) is voiced to sound like televangelist Jimmy Swaggart.
  • In "To Beetle or Not to Beetle", when Romeo attempts to woo Lydia, Beetlejuice fends him off by donning Hockey Mask and Chainsaw, a la Jason and Leatherface.
  • In "Ship of Ghouls", the ocean liner on which Beetlejuice and Lydia take their cruise is called the X. X. Orcist.
  • In "Ghost to Ghost", BJ and Lydia finally drive away Boris Todeoff by dressing up as a pair of film critics who are very obvious parodies of Siskel & Ebert. This is after BJ attempts to "exercise" several ghosts as a clear parody of Richard Simmons.
  • In "The Birdbrain of Alcatraz", Beetlejuice gets sent to a prison run by a two-headed ghoul. The male half is called the Warden; the female half is called June Cleaver. "Warden June Cleaver!"
  • In "Ghost Writer in the Sky", when Beetlejuice becomes famous for writing his (highly fictitious) memoirs, he's featured on Deathstyles of the Rich and Heinous, hosted by Robin Lunch. Later in the episode, he's shown being given a Pullet Surprise award.
  • In "Rotten Sports", there's a shower montage which is clearly an homage to Psycho, except that Beetlejuice gets scrubbed rather than stabbed.
  • In "Gold Rush Fever", Beetlejuice turns into a fly and buzzes around the chandelier, shrieking "Help me! Help me!"
  • The character of Prince Vince is based on the title character from Tim Burton's stop-motion short Vincent.
  • The title of "How Green Was My Gallery" is a pun on How Green Was My Valley, although it has nothing to do with the plot.
  • In "The Sappiest Place on Earth" there is a ride named "The One, The Only, Banana Boat", which is reference to "Banana Boat Song (Day O)" sung by Harry Belafonte that is sung during the dinner scene in the movie as well as in the first episode of the show.
  • Several episodes are Whole Plot References to other TV shows, books and films:

The comic books

Being based on the cartoons, the comics naturally continue the tradition of offering shout-outs to other forms of media. These include:

  • In "This Is Your Lice", Beetlejuice explains that he's the host, Bob Barfer.
    • The title of the story is a reference to an old show called This Is Your Life, in which the guest of honor would be visited by important people from their past.
  • At the end of the Christmas Episode "Get Me to the Church on Slime", Lydia quotes from A Christmas Carol.
  • The cover of the first Crimebusters issue makes a reference to "Elliot Mess and his Unwashables".

The musical

  • During "Creepy Old Guy", when Lydia announces to Beetlejuice that she really does want to marry him, he slips in a Sondheim reference:
    Beetlejuice: "Someone to ruin my sleep"! I get it now!

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