Beetlejuice – Hotel Hello – review

Director: Various

Release date: 1991

Contains spoilers

The cartoon series of Beetlejuice was, very much, a different beast to the movie that spawned it. The Maitlands do not appear in the series at all, Beetlejuice (Stephen Ouimette) and Lydia (Alyson Court) are best friends and the afterlife setting is replaced by the neitherworld .

Delia and Beetlejuice

In this episode Charles (Roger Dunn) is electrocuted by Beetlejuice when trying to change a lightbulb in the cellar. To help him recuperate Bettlejuice takes Charles, his wife Delia (Elizabeth Hanna) and Lydia on a vacation to the Hotel Hello. The hotel is, of course, in the neitherworld and filled with monstrous entities that somehow Charles and Delia are able to rationalise.

Fleago

Delia loves Charles, not because he is heroic but because he is a gentleman. Charles wishes he was heroic, however, and thus Beetlejuice hatches a plot to make him seem heroic. Unfortunately a vampire, Count Mein (Don Francks) is staying at the hotel with his henchman Fleagor (Michael Stark) – who is infested with fleas – he spots Delia and takes a liking to her neck.

nocturnal visit

After a nocturnal visitation during which he tries to bite her neck, misses and punctures the waterbed, he decides to kidnap Delia away to his castle in order that he might have his toothsome way with her. This leads to Charles showing his bravery as he rescues his wife, although the Count is forced to back down by Beetlejuice, who turns into a stake – the inevitable sight gag of turning into a steak first fell flat as you knew it was going to make an appearance at some point during the episode.

Count Mein

Strangely, the neitherworld has day and night cycles and the vampire avoids the sunlight (wearing sun-block at one point). The vampire can turn into a bat and his carriage is bat drawn. The neitherworld also has blood banks with an atm/dispenser accessible in order to make withdrawals. The Count’s bed is an earth filled coffin and he appears to have eye mojo also.

The movement away from the structure and tenure of the film was a problem for me with regards the show, however this wasn’t bad for a wacky cartoon. 5.5 out of 10.

The episode’s IMDb page is here.

;)Q