List of Beetlejuice characters
The following is a list of characters who have appeared throughout Beetlejuice film series, the animated series, and the Broadway musical.
Main characters
Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice is a mischievous ghost. He is the main antagonist of the movies and the main protagonist of the animated TV series.In the first film, we first see him reading the newspaper when he comes across a page of the Netherland welcoming Adam and Barbara Maitland after their deaths. He comments they look nice and stupid. He uses advertisements to get the Maitlands to hire him as a "bio-exorcist" to rid their house of the Deetz family, who had just moved in.
The Maitlands notice that the business card and flyers contain no address or phone number. They consult Juno, their caseworker, about Beetlejuice, but she warns them to avoid him. After confirming that he is inside the model, they summon him by saying his name three times, as instructed. They immediately regret this decision after encountering him and being repulsed by his behavior. Beetlejuice proceeds to terrorize the Deetz family, manifesting as a giant snake before being stopped by the Maitlands, who criticize him. He responds that he no longer wants to work with the Maitlands and expresses interest in their daughter, Lydia Deetz, which angers Barbara.
Beetlejuice later visits a brothel called The Inferno. He meets Lydia, who reveals that she wishes to cross over to the Netherworld, which he finds perplexing. He attempts to trick her into summoning him by promising to help her reach the Netherworld if she says his name three times and by playing charades to teach her his name, but the Maitlands thwart his plan. When the Maitlands begin to ‘die’ from Otho’s séance and Lydia requests his assistance, Beetlejuice agrees on the condition that she marry him so he can go back to the living world for good, which she accepts. He toys with Lydia’s parents and their friends, attempting to conduct a forced wedding, even producing a ring from a previous wife, whom he claims meant nothing to him. The Maitlands intervene, preventing the marriage, and Beetlejuice is swallowed by a sandworm.
In the conclusion, Beetlejuice is shown in the Neitherworld waiting room, last in a long line. He steals the Witch Doctor’s ticket by tricking him into thinking Elvis has arrived, then makes a boastful remark. The Witch Doctor sprinkles powder on Beetlejuice, causing his head to shrink, which leads him to comment on the change in his appearance with a higher-pitched voice.
In the animated series, Beetlejuice takes on the role of the protagonist and his womanizing nature is toned down for the young audience. He is often referred to as "BJ" for short. The residents of the Netherworld generally consider him to be an unwelcome pest. Unlike his movie counterpart, his powers seem to be limited to wordplay, needing a timely gag or pun to transform or use his power. His relationship with Lydia is different and they consider one another their best friend.
In the Broadway musical, Beetlejuice, unlike previous incarnations of the character, is a self-proclaimed demon from Hell and fully aware he is in a musical, breaking the 4th wall at every opportunity. It also revealed that his first name is Lawrence.
In the second film, set 36 years after the first film, Beetlejuice first appears at Lydia's supernatural show Ghost House between the crowd. He then appears at Astrid's school only to disappear when Astrid and Delia turn around. Lydia thinks these are just hallucinations due to her past trauma but it turns out Beetlejuice has a psychic connection to Lydia and this allows him to actually show up in the land of the living, albeit this seems to be limited. In his office, where he expanded his business of bio-exorcism, he keeps a picture of Lydia as a teenager and stares at it as he spies on her. He is called by the afterlife detective Wolf Jackson that reveals to him that his ex-wife, Delores is back for revenge. Beetlejuice hides in his office and plans to have Bob disguised as himself to be bait for Delores. After finding out the Deetz family is coming back to Winter River for Charles's funeral after the latter's death, Beetlejuice decides to take the occasion to convince Lydia into marrying him again so he can be alive again and escape from Delores forever. Beetlejuice once again uses flyers and promos to gain Lydia's attention. When Lydia's sly boyfriend Rory thinks he is just a figment of Lydia's imagination, he says his name 3 times and it results in them being transported in the model, where Beetlejuice, disguised as a couple therapist, makes Lydia give ‘birth’ to a creepy Baby Beetlejuice and scares Rory into fainting after he said he was just a figment of his imagination. Lydia scolds him for stalking her, but he admits he wants to remarry her because she is the love of his life. However, Lydia says home 3 times bringing her and Rory out of the model but Beetlejuice appears to her, playing a guitar and singing Right Here Waiting for You, declaring his love for her. Later, after Astrid gets manipulated by Jeremy to swap souls, Lydia reluctantly summons Beetlejuice and asks him to help her save her daughter before she gets taken to the Soul Train, which would bring her to the Great Beyond forever. Beetlejuice agrees to help, but in return he wants her marry him. Lydia agrees but Beetlejuice makes sure this time she keeps her word by making her sign a contract and promising to make her happy with him. As they cannot enter the usual way, he draws a bomb with chalk on the wall and lights it up, causing an explosion into his office. Because of the explosion Beetlejuice sets off the Code 699 alarm and security start looking for him and Lydia. Beetlejuice tells Bob to block the entrance but instead he lets the shrunken heads escape into the world of the living. Beetlejuice and Lydia go towards the door leading to the Soul Train station but he senses Delores is nearby so he tells her where to go and they split up. Delia, after realizing she is dead and reluctantly summons Beetlejuice to help her find her husband Charles. He agrees if she will help him find Lydia. As Jeremy is about to get his passport stamped to re-enter the living world, Beetlejuice is revealed to be the immigration officer and rejects his passport, sending Jeremy to Hell thus killing him again and giving Astrid her soul back. Helped by Delia, Beetlejuice crashes the pending wedding of Lydia and Rory. He warns Astrid to refrain from saying his name via his agreement with Lydia and asks Astrid to call him ‘Dad’. He then injects Rory with truth serum to admit he never loved Lydia and is only after her money, angering her and Beetlejuice provides her some of his powers to let her punch him. He kills the social media influencers Rory invited, changes himself and Lydia into their original wedding attire, and begins a musical wedding ceremony. The wedding is interrupted by Wolf whom he freezes to avoid arrest, and then Delores who, along with Rory, is eaten by a Sandworm. Astrid says the contract is null and void due to him illegally bringing Lydia into the afterlife by setting off the 699 alarm and turning the shrunken heads lose in the land of the living. Beetlejuice is left disappointed when Lydia summons him back to the afterlife.
Lydia Deetz
Lydia Deetz is the daughter of Charles Deetz and the stepdaughter of Delia Deetz.In the first film, Deetz is a 15-year-old gothic girl from New York City who has moved with her family to Winter River, Connecticut after her father decided to take a break from his real estate business and Delia needing a new inspiration for her art gallery. She takes a liking to the house and disapproves of Delia changing it into a gothic piece of art. She defines herself as strange and unusual, and quickly notices Adam and Barbara Maitlands in the attic window on moving day. She finds the Handbook for the Recently Deceased in the attic and is able to understand it. When the Maitlands failed to scare Delia and then were leaving her room, Lydia photographed them in the hall, thinking they were her parents playing a kinky game. The photos revealed nothing but the sheets and she realizes they were ghosts, and formally introduced themselves. They tell her of them being trapped in the house and we’re trying to scare the family out of the house. Lydia sympathizes with them and agrees to try to convince her parents the ghosts are real during dinner, helped by the Maitlands possessing the parents and guests into singing and dancing. However, they are excited and want to exploit the ghosts to the public. Beetlejuice manifests into a snake to terrorize the family and scares Lydia before the Maitlands summon him back into the town model. Lydia accuses the Maitlands of deceiving her and becomes more depressed than before. She writes a suicide letter and tries to leave it for the Maitlands when she finds Beetlejuice in the town model. They start talking and he asks her to help him get out, to which she replies she wants him, perplexing him. He offers to help her if she says his name 3 times and plays charades with her to help her learn his name. However the Maitlands stop her and comfort her that being dead does not make things better. When Otho steals the handbook to try and summon the ghosts through a séance, Lydia is not worried at first until they appear and begin decaying, as he had unintentionally performed an exorcism. Lydia goes to the model to ask for Beetlejuice to save them. He agrees if she agrees to marry him because, by marrying a living person, he can escape from the Netherworld for good. She agrees and summons him. He then dons himself and Lydia into wedding attire and tries force the wedding ceremony to go through despite her protests. The Maitlands stop the marriage when a Sandword devours Beetlejuice. In the aftermath, Lydia is adjusting well and is living happily with her parents and the Maitlands, who become secondary parental figures to her.
In the animated series, Lydia is Beetlejuice's best friend. She lives in the fictional New England town of Peaceful Pines with her mother Delia and her dad Charles. She owns a black cat named Percy. Lydia goes to Miss Shannon's School for Girls. Along with her schoolmates, she is friends with two girls named Bertha and Prudence. Lydia's rival is Claire Brewster, a beautiful, rich, pompous blonde who is always mean to her. Lydia's unlike other humans and, despite her beauty, she likes things scary and spooky, or "strange and unusual" in her own words. Possibly for this reason, she is the only human who knows about Beetlejuice and the Neitherworld. She often goes there and back by memorizing a poem and saying his name 3 times, and she can also call him to her world and send him back in the same way. She also says a longer version of the incantation if she wants to enter the Neitherworld to visit BJ or when there is an emergency, sometimes. Because she is calmed and more logical of the duo, Lydia serves as the voice of reason to Beetlejuice, who adores her, and he would do anything to make her happy. Although the series includes a number of small callbacks to the film, the exact backstory of how she and Beetlejuice met, is never clearly revealed. The series begins, in "Critter Sitters," as the pair are about to celebrate their year anniversary, as her mom offers Lydia to babysit Arnlow until then. After she recites the poem, her window opens by itself with thunderclap in the sky, her room turns into a room of a medieval castle and her tablecloth becomes her poncho and turns red.
In the Broadway music, Lydia along with her father, Charles, and her stepmother, Delia, move to Winter River, Connecticut, just after Lydia lost her real mother, who is revealed to be named Emily in this version.
In the second film, set 36 years following the first film, Lydia found a loophole that allowed the Maitlands to leave their house and move on to the Great Beyond. She went on to marry a man named Richard and had a daughter named Astrid. However, the marriage fell apart and she became a widow after he died in a boating accident. This caused Astrid to resent Lydia and they became estranged. At a survivor's resort, she met a man named Rory and they began dating. She started a TV show entitled Ghost House with Lydia Deetz, that made her famous. However, she began seeing visions of Beetlejuice and assumed they were hallucinations due to her past trauma. She was unaware that he was actually appearing to her due to their psychic connection. When she learns her father has died in an accident, she reunites with Delia and Astrid to return to Winter River for the funeral. During Charles’ wake, Rory proposes to a stunned Lydia who declines but is manipulated by Rory into accepting. This further isolates her from Astrid who despises Rory. Lydia and Astrid attempt to bond over memories of Richard until Lydia finds a flyer of Beetlejuice and orders Astrid to never say his name. She starts to worry he is trying to force his way back into her life and grows irritated at Rory’s obsession with making their wedding a celebrity topic. Beetlejuice again tries to get her attention and she tells him to leave her alone, and reveals to Rory when the former tries to force her to marry him. Rory dismisses it as a figment of her imagination and summons Beetlejuice, causing them to end up in a therapist room in the model with Beetlejuice playing the therapist. He pulls pranks on them including having Lydia give ‘birth’ to a baby Beetlejuice. She criticizes him for stalking her and he says he wants to remarry her because she is the love of his life before she summons herself and Rory out of the model. She then sees Beetlejuice playing a guitar and singing a love to her as a declaration of his love for her, confusing her. She is ready to leave as soon as possible but Astrid made plans to visit a boy, Jeremy, on Halloween. Lydia takes her to his house and returns home, as Delia leaves to mourn at Charles’ grave. During a talk with the real estate agent, Little Jane Butterfield, Lydia learns Jeremy is a ghost who murdered his parents 23 years ago and goes to get Astrid but arrives too late as Astrid is tricked into entering the Netherworld. She reluctantly summons Beetlejuice and asks him to help her save her daughter. He agrees if she agrees to finally marry him. She agrees and he has her sign a marriage contract to ensure she cannot back out of the deal. He then breaks them into the Netherworld and they head to the door leading to the Soul Train station but they split up when Beetlejuice senses Delores is nearby. Lydia finds Astrid in time but they end up on one of Saturn’s moons and are attacked by a Sandworm. They are saved by Richard and the three reconcile just as Jeremy is sent to Hell by Beetlejuice, saving Astrid. Lydia and Astrid return to the living world, and the latter apologizes for calling her mother a fraud. They arrive at the church where Rory is waiting for them but Beetlejuice and Delia are also waiting. Beetlejuice reveals Lydia agreed to the marriage in exchange for his help, and injects Rory with truth serum to reveal he never loved Lydia, thinks she is a fraud, and is only after her money. Aided by Beetlejuice, Lydia angrily punches Rory. She and Beetlejuice are then donned in their original wedding attire and what follows is a musical wedding ceremony, with everyone being possessed into singing and dancing. Wolf arrives to arrest Beetlejuice who freezes Wolf. Delores also arrives but she and Rory are swallowed by a Sandworm. Lydia, Delia and Astrid attempt to leave when Beetlejuice reminds her of their agreement. Astrid says the deal is null and void because he illegally brought Lydia into the afterlife. Lydia says she would have given him a chance if he was not 600 years older, and banishes him back to the afterlife. Delia bids farewell to Lydia and Astrid, who embrace once alone. Lydia ends her TV show so she can spend more time with Astrid and they traveled the world together.