Trivia and Quotes
Quotes
 Otho: [seeing an office and not seeing Barbara decapitating Adam] Ugh. Deliver me from L.L. Bean. Charles: Delia Deetz, welcome home.
Delia: [being kissed] Charles...
Charles: It`s okay, there`s no damage. See? It`s okay. A good sturdy comfy craftsmanship. And look at that kitchen. You`re finally gonna be able to cook a decent meal.
[Evaluating her new home]
Delia: A little gasoline... blowtorch... no problem.
Barbara: [after Jane did not hear Adam call her] She didn`t see you, right?
Adam: Uh-uh.
Barbara: [reading the handbook] In the book: "Rule Number Two: the living usually won`t see the dead".
Adam: `Won`t` or `can`t`?
Barbara: It just says `won`t`. God, this book is so stupid. I can`t understand anything in it.
[Adam takes the book and closes it]
Adam: Barb, honey... we`re dead. I don`t think we have very much to worry about anymore.
Juno: What`s wrong?
Barbara: We`re very unhappy.
Juno: What did you expect? You`re dead.
Barbara: [after the Deetzes moved in] Is this a punishment or something? What are we gonna do?
Adam: We`re not completely helpless, Barbara. I`ve been reading that book and there`s a word for people in our situation: ghosts.
Juno: Okay, have you been studying the manual?
Adam: Well, we tried.
Juno: The intermediate interface chapter on haunting says it all. Get them out yourselves. It`s your house. Haunted houses aren`t easy to come by.
Barbara: Well, we don`t quite get it.
Juno: [knowingly] I heard. Tore your faces right off. It obviously doesn`t do any good to pull your heads off in front of people if they can`t see you.
Adam: We should start more simply then?
Juno: Start simply, do what you know, use your talents, practice. You should`ve been studying those lessons since day one.
[On the new house]
Lydia: Delia hates it.
[sees a HUGE spider on a web]
Lydia: I could live here.
Betelgeuse: Go ahead... make my millenium.
Betelgeuse: Let`s turn on the juice and see what shakes loose.
Adam: What are your qualifications?
Betelgeuse: Ah. Well... I attended Juilliard... I`m a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I`ve seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT... NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU`RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY... NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I`m qualified?
[why he can`t tell Lydia his name]
Betelgeuse: Because if I tell you, you`ll tell your friends, your friends are callin` me on the horn all the time, I gotta show up at shopping centers for openings and sign autographs and shit like that and it makes my life a *hell*. Okay? A living hell.
[In the afterlife waiting room]
Receptionist: Number fifty-four million six hundred and one... Ferndoch.
Charles: Pumpkin, sweetheart...
[kisses her and forces her out his study room]
Charles: Go help your mother.
Lydia: Maybe YOU can relax in a haunted house, but I can`t.
Juno: [as Adam and Barbara come back to the afterlife] You two have really screwed up! I received word that you allowed yourselves to be photographed, and you let Betelgeuse out and didn`t put him back, and you let Otho get hold of the handbook!
Adam: Handbook? When?
Juno: [rolls her eyes] Never trust the living! We cannot have a routine haunting like yours provide proof that there is existence beyond death.
Otho: [while Lydia shows them the attic] Fabulous. `Otho Fenlock`s Locked Door Ghosts` Probably committed suicide up there. I`m totally enchanted.
Delia: They`re in there? They must live like animals.
Charles: It`s locked. How`d they get in?
Delia: [bangs on the door] Open this door, you dead people, or we`ll bust it down and we`ll drag you out by the ropes you hang yourselves with!
Lydia: Shh! They didn`t commit suicide.
Delia: It doesn`t matter. Lydia, I have a chance to teach you something here: you have got to take the upper hand in all situations or people, whether they`re dead or alive, will walk all over you.
[about the house]
Otho: There`s absolutely no organic flowthrough.
Delia: I noticed that too; it`s like a giant... ant farm.
Delia: Charles, I will not stop living and breathing art just because you need to relax.
Charles: Ha.
Delia: I`m here with you. I will live with you in this hellhole, but I must express myself. If you don`t let me gut out this house and make it my own, I will go insane, and I will take you with me!
Charles: [after a long pause] Yeah, well you know, maybe the house could use a little remodeling. Uh... But, why don`t you just leave this room alone, okay?
Delia: [smiles] Okay.
[Delia and Otho leave as Charles goes furious]
Barbara: [furiously] I`m gonna get her.
Lydia: [Lydia is writing a suicide note] I am alone.
[throws paper away and starts over]
Lydia: I am *utterly* alone.
Lydia: They don`t wanna come down.
Delia: Charles...
Otho: Why not?
Lydia: I think the reason is, is that they were trying to scare you away, and you didn`t get scared.
Delia: Please, they`re dead. It`s a little late to be neurotic.
Charles: As soon as we get settled, we`ll build you a dark room in the basement, okay?
Lydia: My whole life is a dark room. One big dark room.
Delia: So you were miserable in New York City, and now you`re going to be miserable out here in the sticks. At least someone`s life hasn`t been upheaved.
Adam: You can see us without the sheets?
Lydia: Of course I can see you.
Adam: Well, how is it you see us and nobody else can?
Lydia: Well, I`ve read through that handbook for the recently deceased. It says: `live people ignore the strange and unusual. I, myself, am strange and unusual.
Barbara: You look like a regular girl to me.
Lydia: Mr. and Mrs. Maitland? Hello? Where are you?
Betelgeuse: Dead. Dead, dead, deadski.
Lydia: Of course they`re dead. They`re ghosts.
Betelgeuse: No, I mean they`re gone, split, out of here, afterlife kids, deceased-ahh.
Lydia: Are you a ghost too?
Betelgeuse: I`m a ghost with the most, babe.
Otho: What happened to these people?
Delia: They died. Oh, look, an indoor outhouse.
Adam: Cabin fever, hon?
Barbara: Well, I can`t clean anything properly. The vacuum`s out in the garage and we can`t leave the house. Why don`t they tell us something? I mean, where are all the other dead people in the world? Why is it just you and me?
Adam: Maybe this is heaven.
Barbara: In heaven there wouldn`t be dust on everything.
Delia: [talking to a workman] If you tell me what you do I`ll tell you why my husband will fire you.
Betelgeuse: [as a snake] We`ve come for your daughter Chuck.
Betelgeuse: [after Lydia says his name three times] It`s showtime.
[Head spins wildly and begins shrieking]
Betelgeuse: Don`t you hate it when that happens?
Adam: You`ve read our book?
Lydia: Yeah.
Adam: You can follow it?
Lydia: Yeah. Why were you guys creeping around in Delia`s bedroom?
Adam: We were trying to scare your mother.
Lydia: Stepmother. Anyway, you can`t scare her. She`s sleeping with Prince Valium tonight.
Delia: [as Bernard, Grace, and Beryl leaves not convinced of the ghost] This was not a hallucination. This was real. We all just experienced a super-powerful, paranormal experience, and it was real.
Bernard: Delia, you are a flake. You have always been a flake. If you insist on frightening people, do it with your sculpture.
[Bernard slams the door as he leaves]
Charles: Drive carefully!
Delia: [aghast] I`m dead.
Bernard: Otho, I didn`t realize you were into the supernatural.
Otho: Well, of course! You remember, after my stint with the Living Theatre. I was one of New York City`s leading paranormal researchers, until the bottom dropped out in `72.
Beryl: [cynically] Paranormal - is that what they`re calling your kind these days?
Otho: Don`t mind her. She`s still upset, because somebody dropped a house on her sister.
[Delia laughs]
Preacher: Do you Betel...
Betelgeuse: Ah! Oo, oo, oo, oo, ah, ah, ah! Nobody says the "B" word!
[last lines]
[in the waiting room, Betelgeuse is sitting next to a witch doctor, who is next in line]
Betelgeuse: Pardon me. Did you do that?
[points to explorer with shrunken head]
Betelgeuse: That`s very nice work. Let me ask you something. How do you get them so sma... Hey, there goes Elvis! Yo, King!
[as the doctor looks away, Betelgeuse switches numbers]
Betelgeuse: Well, looks like I`m next. Good thing, too. I gotta do a photo shoot for GQ in about an hour and a half. Yeah, they`ve been after me for months. Doin` some underwear deal. I don`t know what...
[the witch doctor sprinkles some powder on Betelgeuse`s head; it starts shrinking]
Betelgeuse: [voice getting higher as head gets smaller] Whoa, hey! What are you doing? Hey, stop it! Hey, you`re messing up my hair! C`mon! Whoa! Whoa! Stop it! *Whoa!*... Hey, this might be a good look for me.
Dumb Football Player: Coach. Coach, where`s the men`s room?
Juno: I`m not your coach! He survived.
Dumb Football Player #2: Wait, coach, let me get something straight. What`s our curfew around here?
Juno: Will you get out of here! Go on, get downstairs! `Men`s room`! Are you kidding? Can`t you read signs?
Betelgeuse: Let`s see, business section...
[he flips to the obituary page of a newspaper]
Betelgeuse: Ooh, la la! What do we got here? The Maitlands, uh? Cute couple. Look nice and stupid, too.
Betelgeuse: These aren`t my rules. Come to think of it, I don`t have any rules.
Betelgeuse: Not so fast, round boy. We`re gonna have some laughs.
[he plants a kiss on Otho]
Very Dumb Football Player: [the football players have re-entered Juno`s office] Coach?
Juno: What?
Very Dumb Football Player: [looking disturbed] I don`t think we survived that crash.
Juno: [sarcastically] How did you guess?
[first lines]
Adam: [about a spider on his hand] Now that`s a big fella! Whoa!
[reading The Handbook for the Living and the Dead]
Charles: This thing reads like stereo instructions.
[Harry Belafonte`s "Shake Shake Senora" plays in the background]
Charles: Oh, sounds like Lydia got an "A" on the math test.
[a head sculpt of the Betelgeuse snake appears next to him]
Charles: Jeez!
[Charles falls out of his chair. Delia pulls the sculpt up and smiles]
Delia: He likes it.
Lydia: Are you the guys hiding out in the attic?
Adam: We`re ghosts!
Lydia: What do you look like under there?
Adam: Aren`t you scared?
Lydia: I`m not scared of sheets. Are you gross under there? Are you Night of the Living Dead under there? Like all bloody veins and pus?
Adam: Night of the what?
Lydia: Living Dead. It`s a movie.
Barbara: You know, if I had seen a ghost at your age I would have been scared out of my wits.
Charles: Nice building... bad roof... goooood parking.
Delia: This is my art, and it is dangerous! Do you think I want to die like this?
Preacher: Do you take this woman do be your wedded wife?
Betelgeuse: [Runs off to the side mumbling to himself] Oh geez, I don`t know. I mean, it`s kind of a big decision isn`t it? I mean, I always said if I ever did it, I was gonna do it once and that was it.
[Runs back to the altar and stands next to Lydia]
Betelgeuse: Sure, yeah. Go ahead.
Betelgeuse: [finishing his used-car style commercial] And remember...
[sings and hops back and forth]
Betelgeuse: I`ll eat anything you want me to eat. I`ll swallow anything you want me to swallow. But, come on down and I`ll... chew on a dog! Arroooo!
Betelgeuse: [to Lydia, about the owner of the finger he pulled out of a wedding ring] I`m tellin` ya, honey, she meant nothin` to me. Nothin` at all!
Betelgeuse: [finds a brothel in the model] Hey, Adam, nice move!
Barbara: Adam, why did you build that?
Adam: I didn`t!
Adam: [In a decomposed state and trying to say Beetlejuice`s name three times] BEH...
[his mouth falls out]
Betelgeuse: [after kicking down a model tree] Nice fucking model!
Betelgeuse: I gotta card around here, somewhere. Here, here. Who do I have to kill? Here hold that for me, would ya?
[hands Barbara a rat]
Barbara: Whoa! AHH!
Betelgeuse: There. There ya go.
Adam: You don`t have to kill anybody!
Betelgeuse: Ah, Possession! Good.
Barbara: [Betelgeuse`s voice] Learn to throw your voice! Fool your friends! Fun at parties!
Otho: Oh, you family types, you got other things to worry about. Maxie Dean`s coming up here tonight. You got to figure out a way to sell these ghosts. I can only do so much.
Charles: What are you gonna do, Otho, viciously rearrange their enviroment?
Otho: I know just as much about the supernatural as I do about interior design.
Adam: [reading] `Handbook of the Recently Diseased`.
Barbara: ...*deceased*.
Adam: Deceased?
Barbara: I don`t know where it came from. Look at the publisher.
Adam: [does so] `Handbook for the Recently Deceased Press`.
Barbara: You know what? I don`t think we survived the crash!
[Adam and Barbara make it back home as the sandworm is about to eat them]
Barbara: [crying, hugs Adam] Oh, Adam! We`re trapped in this house with those people!
[Adam and Barbara see a dark room with decomposed souls]
Barbara: Oh, Adam... What is this?
Janitor: That`s the lost souls room; a room for ghosts that have been exorcised. The poor devils. That`s death for the dead. It`s all in the handbook.
[he closes the shade of the room]
Janitor: Keep moving.
Messenger: How do I look. There are no mirrors on this side.
Adam: Fine, you look fine.
Messenger: Yeah?
Barbara: Fine.
Messenger: Thanks, I`ve been feeling a little flat.
[he laughs and goes through the crevice in the filing room]
Betelgeuse: I`m feeling a little, ooh, anxious if you know what I mean. It`s been about six hundred years after all. I wonder where a guy, an everyday Joe like myself, can find a little *action*.
[Adam and Barbara struggle to understand the "Handbook for the Recently Deceased"]
Barbara: I hate this. Just- can you give me the basics?
Adam: Well, this book isn`t arranged that way. What do you wanna know?
Barbara: Well, why did you disappear when you stepped off the porch? Are we halfway to heaven? Are we halfway to hell? And... how long is this gonna last?
Adam: I don`t see anything about heaven OR hell. This book reads like stereo instructions. Listen to this: "Geographical and temporal perimeters. Functional perimeters vary from manifestation to manifestation.
[Snaps book shut]
Adam: Oh, this is gonna take some time, honey.
[in the waiting room of the afterlife]
Barbara: Adam, is this what happens when you die?
Receptionist: This is what happens when you die.
[points at a gaunt man smoking]
Receptionist: That is what happens when he dies.
[points at a woman cut in half on the sofa reading]
Receptionist: And that is what happens when they die. It`s all very personal. And I`ll tell you something: if I knew then what I know now...
[shows her slit wrists]
Receptionist: ...I would`ve had my little accident.
[the dead people laugh]
Betelgeuse: [to Charles and Delia] Mom, Dad. I just want you two to know, you`re welcome at our house anytime you want to come over. In the meantime, the dowry`s on me, dad.
[Hands Charles a load of snakes]
Trivia
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The receptionist in the waiting room is Miss Argentina.
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# Tim Burton originally wanted Sammy Davis Jr., a favorite star of his since childhood, to play the role of Betelgeuse but studio executives didn`t like that idea at all.
Director Trademark: [Tim Burton] [music] music by Danny Elfman
In the wedding scene, Lydia`s dress is a bright red. According to the old rhyme about wedding dress colors, it`s "Married in red, better off dead."
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# During the sequence where Adam and Barbara enter Juno`s office and see her speaking to a recently deceased football team, a movie theater full of ghosts can be seen through Juno`s office window. When the film was first released in theaters, the scene created the illusion that the audience were themselves being watched by the ghosts. Among the ghosts in the audience are a red skeleton and a green skeleton (identical to the ones seen in Tim Burton`s later movie, Mars Attacks! (1996)), a woman with red hair, and two men in suits and Ray-Ban style sunglasses.
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# Over the door in the waiting room, the sign reads "No Exit" in the same lettering as the standard "Exit" signs over most doorways, a reference to a play with that title by Jean-Paul Sartre. The play deals with three people who find themselves trapped with one another in a room shortly after they die.
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# The studio disliked the title Beetle Juice (1988) and wanted to call the film "House Ghosts". As a joke, Tim Burton suggested the name "Scared Sheetless" and was horrified when the studio actually considered using it.
Director Trademark: [Tim Burton] [dogs] The Maitland`s deaths are caused by a stray dog wandering around the bridge their car topples over.
Michael Keaton spent only two weeks filming his part in the film.
Michael Keaton only appears in 17.5 minutes of the film`s entire 92-minute running time.
Director Trademark: [Tim Burton] [TV commercials] Betelgeuse`s TV commercial.
Director Trademark: [Tim Burton] [stop-motion animation] The sculptures, sandworms, and various effects.
Juliette Lewis auditioned for the role of Lydia.
The original script was a horror film, and featured Beetlejuice as a winged, reptilian demon who transformed into a small Middle Eastern man to interact with the Maitlands and the Deetzes. Lydia was a minor character, with her six year old sister Cathy being the Deetz child able to see the Maitlands. Beetlejuice`s goal was to kill the Maitlands, rather than frighten them away, and included sequences where he mauled Cathy in the form of a rabid squirrel and tried to rape Lydia. Subsequent script rewrites turned the film into a comedy and toned down Beetlejuice`s character into the ghost of an Ebonics-speaking con-artist rather than a demon.
This is Michael Keaton`s favorite film of his own.
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# As the Geffen logo rolls during the intro, soundtrack composer Danny Elfman is heard singing "Day-o, he say day-ay-ay-o." This was added during post-production and is heard on the released soundtrack.
The title character Beetle Juice is named for a bright red star in the constellation of Orion, Betelgeuse.
The only cast member who would initially commit to the project was Geena Davis. Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O`Hara, and Sylvia Sidney all said no at least once. Producer David Geffen convinced Michael Keaton`s manager to convince Michael to meet with director Tim Burton. Once Michael said yes, Tim Burton personally called Sylvia Sidney and begged her to do the movie, and he flew out to meet with Catherine O`Hara to convince her as well.
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# Catherine O`Hara was a replacement for an ill Anjelica Huston as Delia. On the set she met her future husband, production designer Bo Welch.
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# The original plan for the dinner party was to have the guests dance to "a song by The Ink Spots," but Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O`Hara suggested the music be calypso.
When Adam and Barbra are in the office, a voice on the PA systems announces the arrival of Flight 409 ("Flight 409 is arriving at Gate 3"). On October 6, 1955 United Airlines Flight 409 crashed into a mountain over Wyoming killing all passengers and crew aboard. It was the worst crash in history to that point. To this day, no one knows why it crashed.
Director Trademark: [Tim Burton] [Claymation] The Priest, Fireplace and decomposing versions of Adam and Barbra are all Claymation.
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# A toy line was released in conjunction with the film, featuring action figures of most of Beetlejuice`s incarnations, Otho, Adam (whose figure featured him wearing a red baseball cap), and the Shrunken Head Man from the waiting room, whose figure was named "Harry the Haunted Hunter" and came with a detachable head showing what he looked like before death.
SPOILER: Betelgeuse`s name is said only 15 times. Barbara said it 8 times, Juno said it 2 times, and Lydia said it 5 times.
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Geena Davis
(as Barbara)
with Alec Baldwin
(as Adam)
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