Graphistrophic » Cartoons http://catastrophicproductions.com Webcomics. All of them. Fri, 13 May 2011 14:32:51 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 90s Nostalgia – Beetlejuice http://catastrophicproductions.com/2011/02/90s-nostalgia-%e2%80%93-beetlejuice/ http://catastrophicproductions.com/2011/02/90s-nostalgia-%e2%80%93-beetlejuice/#comments Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:30:09 +0000 Adam Goodenough http://catastrophicproductions.com/?p=53 Cartoons in the 90s were a mixed bag. There were some I could watch over and over without getting bored, but there were others I could remember watching the shit out of—mostly because Global TV never stopped showing them—but looking back on them, I couldn’t tell you why I liked them. Beetlejuice falls into the latter category.

The movie it was based on I can still watch—I even own a copy—but seeing a piece of an episode on Teletoon Retro made my skin crawl. Here’s the comparison: in the movie Beetlejuice was the antagonist, and a crass, foul-mouthed, perverted one at that. In the cartoon, as the protagonist he’s not just toned down, he’s neutered. The movie’s colour palette was surreal and moody, while the cartoon made the afterlife look like a circus. And the supporting characters; can someone explain to me how giving Beetlejuice a French skeleton and a dancing spider as neighbours was supposed to make things funnier. And then, in what seemed to be a staple of early 90s humour, there were the puns. So many puns I even remember my 12-year-old self getting annoyed.

I think I kept watching at the time because of the opening credits. Now there was an amazing sequence. Even though I think it was tricking me into thinking the show was better. I mean, look at this:

Luckily for me, fanart exists and I can fool myself into thinking the body of the cartoon doesn’t matter.

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