(Good) Beetlejuice

Series in one sentence:
An immensely powerful ghost of dubious age is the voluntary slave of a 12 year old and her unimportant 1st world problems, but no one knows why he even bothers.

Series in more sentences:
Follow the many adventures of Beetlejuice, a mischievous rebellious ghost, and his best friend Lydia, a "normal" goth girl with her heart at the right place. While Beetlejuice is often on a quest for money, power or fame, Lydia is just trying to get through her teenage years and desires nothing more than to explore the world of the dead after finishing homework.

The Beetlejuice series is one I remember watching alot as a child, yet hardly remember anything about. A memory you don't remember is a strange memory to remember. Lewl. After having received the complete DVD set as a gift and watching the whole thing through, I discovered the reason for this confused feeling of nostalgia.

This series is all literal jokes and American sayings, visualized. The characters rarely have normal dialogue. No idea why, the movie this series is based off is nothing like that, but I guess they chose a funny formula for a childrens show and stuck with it. I don't know any cartoon like it, so good job to them.
But it explains how a foreign child, with a basic understanding of English, doesn't know what's going on whenever the main character transforms into something weird every 3 seconds, or how it relates to the plot, because it doesn't. I think it was so distracting to me as a child, the plot and side characters didn't stick with me. The residents from the Netherlands and the real world didn't look familiar to me at all. Even after having watched this series in full I can't say I recognize anything about their looks or behaviour, so I guess Beetlejuice (and Lydia) was the only character I cared to associate with the series for all these years. Mainly because I used to have a crush on that guy.

But I wonder if any child understands the jokes at all; the "that really gets my goat" one is repeated multiple times, and I've never even heard that one in real life. Is that an early 90s thing?
Speaking of jokes that repeat, this happens a little too often for my liking. With the bad ones you just wonder why they're bothering, and the good ones are ruined by the repetition, so there's no winning this. At the end of season 4 Beetlejuice scolds Lydia for almost repeating a joke he already made in that same episode, while that comment could be applied to the entirety of the series. When you don't spend full days watching the episodes back-to-back, it's probably less noticeable, but I heard the same joke 3 times a day; it was disappointing to learn how lazy the writing was in that aspect.
A show like this needs clever writing and you'd think they wouldn't run out of steam this fast with so many writers in the team taking turns. It's nice that they gave these people the chance to make their own Beetlejuice episode, basically, but a camel is a horse designed by a committee and this series grows some very distracting lumps at times. The pacing of some episodes reveals to any outsider that there were multiple captains on the ship.
Even so, there were also multiple episodes about Beetlejuice being disappointed in his living car for being a puss, while the ending of each of those episodes should prevent that from ever happening again. How there could be this much repetition with so many different people throwing their hat in the game, beats me.

Beetlejuice always goes back to zero and has learned nothing as soon the episode is over. For example, he keeps his eagerness to work with people he knows will screw him over, as long he's offered the promise of money at that moment. It sounds like a funny running gag or the kind of stupidity that's simply part of his character, but the way it's portrayed it just looks like bad writing.

Most episodes are your standard childrens show adventures, with the addition of non-stop literal humor of which only 10% of the jokes are actually funny, or at least cute. It really is a product of its time.
There are two episodes I absolutely adore; the one where Beetlejuice has to be Lydia's mother's dog and the "Uncle B.J.'s Roadhouse" episode. But as funny or well-written the good episodes are, the bad ones are a strong opposite of that. I remember the first episode of season 4 fitting that description.
It was about Beetlejuice hosting an educational talkshow and inviting over historical figures to argue with each other. Beetlejuice did nothing funny, said nothing funny, the TV boss-character they inserted is just a dumb and unneccesary character in general, and after 3 minutes I was wondering if I shouldn't just spare myself the torture and skip it. But damnit, that's not how you prepare a review, so I sat through the snorefest, waiting for a funny joke or piece of information I would've liked to know about the main cast, but the episode offered nothing. The irony is that I was enjoying myself more when the characters weren't fighting and stayed humorously civil, but everyone else in the episode argued that the violence was needed for "the ratings". The whole war scene dragged on for so long, I would've preferred a real war happen.

It felt like a response to actual critizism they might've gotten back in the time; about the show not being educational and all that. Some later episodes felt similar. Content creators really need to remember that this kind of petty stuff makes for terrible entertainment. You should never acknowledge your critics, just focus on the story you want to tell. Anyway, this is all I'll say about that, I'll hold my tongue <insert image of me ripping out my tongue and doing the same thing 5 episodes later> and won't scold the creators for something that's just an assumption made by me. I can't say for sure if this happened.
But yes, pretty much all episodes about Beetlejuice having a TV show or acknowledging the series to be a series are the least interesting, with "Uncle B.J.'s Roadhouse" being the only exception. It's an easy rule to remember when you go to watch the series yourself.

I also noticed I enjoyed the show slightly less whenever Lydia doesn't have a proper role or doesn't make an appearance. In my opinion they don't treat her like the co-star the show's intro portrays her to be, though that's something you might not have noticed back when you watched the show on television.
What I like(d) about Lydia is that she thinks Beetlejuice is "funny" and "beautiful", that alone is the funniest shit to me, but as the series progresses, it's like she enjoys Beetlejuice's company less every day and she's usually put in a position where she's nagging or scolding him for his decisions, or just his visual jokes.

I honestly think she takes the guy for granted. Whenever she's in trouble, his name is the first one she shouts, while she on her turn just stands there and gasps whenever Beetlejuice is in danger. There's not much he gets in return for aiding her, or whoever she commands him to aid, it's a bit unfair.
I understand the guy is already dead, so that might not urge her to save him from decapitation, but he obviously experiences pain. I would've liked to see more devotion from her in protecting her friend from violence he doesn't even deserve. There are only a few episodes where she stands up for him. Sort of.
But as we see her less entertained by his comedy nearing the end of the series, I ended up wondering why these two are still even friends.
Beetlejuice stays his upbeat and helpful self, I know why I'd want to be his friend, but what's left of Lydia to like as a gruesome ghost? In a way, she's a Disney princess who wears black; there's not a naughty bone in her body, she only wants the best for everybody and gets angry when Beetlejuice doesn't care for it. He always has to cater to her wishes.

Interestingly enough, though, Beetlejuice isn't always interested in sticking out his neck for her, and sometimes doesn't even get there in time to save her from danger. In any normal reality, Lydia would've been long dead because of his negligence.
I previously thought Beetlejuice never allowed himself to fail if it concerned his only friend, but I suppose when money or fame is involved, he truly doesn't give a shit about anyone. In one episode he sells out Jacques the skeleton, who he personally trained to win a bodybuilding contest, over a medium sized jar of beetles (qualifies as food). If these beetles didn't end up trying to kill his ass, he would've never had a change of heart and Jacques would've never won in the end. There are more examples like that, it's weird thinking about it.
It's better than making him a total slave to his friends' demands, but I could've sworn that at least he and Lydia had lots of hinted at interest in each other and he did anything for her, but now I'm done watching this whole thing, there.. really wasn't.
It kinda messed me up to have assumed this for so long and seen people make fanart of them, while my personal conclusion is a mere friendship. Sure, they have their comments and scenes; the Prince Vince episode is a fair example of that, but it stops being a pattern if there's 10 episodes of nothing inbetween.
When you have Beetlejuice flirt with other women and Lydia making relatively few appearances, or given merely one scene at the end of an episode, there's no build-up to anything, unlike some fans have claimed over the years.

Anyway, despite all the things I've mentioned, I can't dislike the series. The Beetleman himself and his bad humor are cute, I just enjoy watching this guy do his thing. The good jokes are good and the bad jokes tend to get a pass for being uttered by an extremely charming ghost. I just wish the series didn't end so abruptly; the last episode offers the viewer nothing, it's in no way a goodbye to the fans. It's not even a good episode by itself. I'd say it's the only one where Beetlejuice non-stop annoys me. It feels like they suddenly ran out of money and just quit right on the spot.
I think it would be a good decision to continue where they left off and pick up the series again. I hope I'm still alive by the time they do this, otherwise I'll be watching from the Netherworld.

Anyway, encore:

Top 5 best episodes

1. Mom's Best Friend 
2. Uncle B.J.'s Roadhouse
3. Don't Beetlejuice and Drive
4. Scummer Vacation
5. Wizard of Ooze

Top 5 most boring or unbearable episodes

1. You're History
2. Not So Peaceful Pines
3. It's a Big, Big, Big, Big Ape
4. The Neitherworld's Least Wanted
5. Moby Richard

Top 100.000 overused jokes that were horrible since day one

1. Beetlejuice puts on a British accent while snooty music plays in the background.
2. Beetlejuice gets burned and says "woa" in a low pitched voice.
3. Beetlejuice makes a cheese joke and turns into a smelly cheese.
4. Beetlejuice morphs his head into someone else's and talks in their voice. Nightmare fuel. 
5. Beetlejuice utters a saying that includes the word "goat".
6. Beetlejuice makes a pickle joke and he, or Lydia, turns into a pickle. Nightmare fuel.
7. Beetlejuice makes a corn joke and shows off tiny corns between his toes.
   
   (Click the X at the top right corner of your browser's window to read the rest of the list..)