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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Flags from Beetlejuice - 1988

Betelgeuse or Beetlejuice
the unscrouplulous bio-exercist played by Michael Keaton

In 1988 Tim Burton created a timeless horror-comedy with a smallest of heart warming messages. You may not have caught it. Mr. Burton's message of choosing to life over suicide is almost imperceptible - introduced as a running joke. Burton covers up the moral message with magic, love, humor, art, silliness, and a bit of absurdity. In the end the emo/goth daughter Lydia chooses to live.
Although the movie title and star of the movie was officially spelled Beetlejuice - in the movie the outcast professional bio-exorcist was spelled Betelgeuse.

Is that Jack from the Nightmare before X-mas?

Is this Jack? Jack from the Nightmare Before Christmas? Five years before it was released in 1993? It seems this image has been haunting the imagination of Burton for some time. The 'Jack' finial appears as a finial on Beetlguese's merry-go-round hat.




Can possession can be fun? With good Ghosts?

Here Lydia (played by Winona Ryder) shows that possession by friendly and respectable ghosts can be fun! After she does well on her exams Lydia is allowed to levitate and be possessed by songs and dances from the those that live no more?

Notice the badge of her school features a yellow wreath with royal crown at the crest.



US flag in Beetlejuice - 1990

The US flag makes a brief cameo at the end when we see Lydia's new school - Miss Shannon's School for Girls. This became the focal point of the animated Beetlejuice cartoon series 1989-1991.



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