Beetlejuice: Season 04 (1991)

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Even as Season Three of the animated series Beetlejuice was spooling every Saturday morning on ABC, a separate fourth season, consisting of 65 episodes, was merrily humming away from Monday through Friday on the Fox network. Though the principal characters are still the grotesquely hilarious and presumably dead practical joker Beetlejuice (aka BJ) and his wide-eyed mortal friend Lydia, and while the main locale for the series remains the surrealistic Neitherworld, the Fox version differs slightly from the ABC edition by specializing in literary and pop-culture parodies, beginning with BJ enthusiastically booking several dead historical figures for Neitherworld's top TV talk show. Later on, BJ assumes the guise of Grimdiana Jones to rescue Lydia from the clutches of giant beetle Thing Thong; a pair of severed ears show up as the main characters in a Maltese Falcon takeoff; BJ and Lydia pay a visit to the yecchiest place in Neitherworld, the ghoulish theme park Grislyland, where the mascot is Bartholomew Bat (try to spell out THAT name in a song!). Also: BJ is trapped in the enchanted village Brinkadoom, which disappears every time the citizens fall asleep, a frozen chicken haunts BJ's roadhouse as "The Poultrygeist"; our hero is given a chance to see what would have happen if he never existed by the spectral Clarence Sale; a trip back to 17th Century London finds BJ and Lydia being kidnapped by various Shakespearean characters who want her to rewrite their plays so they won't get killed; a Caesar salad comes to life and forms a legion of vegetables, then divides all Aroma into three parts (what Gaul!); BJ squares off against notorious outlaw Jesse Germs; thej first production of BJ's "Disasterpiece Theater" is Moby Richard, featuring the most temperamental whale in showbiz history. And you can't imagine the instigated in the episode "The Wizard of Ooze." Plus: exercise fitness guru Jacques LaLean finds a formidable foe in King of Fitness Armhold Musclehugger; BJ and Lydia compete in the fast-food business with Scuzoo the Clown; BJ defends his title of World's Great Prankster against his great rival, Germs Pondscum; an attempt to exterminate some ants results in BJ creating a whole new colony of annoying relatives (all "Aunts" of course); and finally, BJ takes advantage of a new TV cartoon trend by transforming himself into UltraBeetleMan. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi