Beetlejuice (AKA The Lydia to Delia Goth Pipeline) with Robin Kaplan

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What is Progressively Horrified?

A podcast that holds horror to standards horror never agreed to. Hosts Jeremy Whitley, Ben Kahn, Emily Martin and guests watch, read, listen to, and check out movies, tv shows, comics, books, art and anything else from the horror genre and discuss it through a progressive lens. We'll talk feminism in horror, LGBTQ+ issues and representation in horror, racial and social justice in horror, disability and mental health/illness in horror, and the work of female and POC directors, writers, and creators in horror.
We're the podcast horror never agreed to take part in.

Robin: I think it's like a significant,
interesting discussion how they

completely pulled off taking an
extremely not intended for children

to ever watch movie and they made a
perfectly acceptable, like, totally

appropriate animated series out of it.

And I, I think that that
is, that's not easy.

And I'm actually kind
of impressed with them

Ben: I really wish we'd gotten
more attempts at that, both well

executed and poorly executed,

Robin: don't know, I feel like
we have a lot of attempts at it

Emily: do!

We have

Ben: we get, did we get Friday
the 13th the animated series?

Robin: That one's a harder sell
though, because I feel like

what you remove from it, what is
left, is it interesting at all?

No.

Emily: get Friday the
13th animated series, but

Ben: No, here you do.

It's Jason, it's Jason as the defender
of Camp Crystal Lake, which is now

a source of Gravity Falls esque
source of just, like, mystery and

Robin: because we didn't get
it, we got Gravity Falls.

On some level, I think that
they were able to eat the lunch

of that because it was left.

I'm sorry,

Ben: This is how you, this is how you
would do CW's Friday the 13th, where

Jason has to wear, like, the hockey mask
because he's just so hideous, but he's

really just another Abercrombie model
who has, like, a scar on his cheek.

Jeremy: All right, let's jump into this.

You guys ready?

Emily: Yes.

Jeremy: Good evening and welcome to
Progressively Horrified, the podcast

where we hold horror to progressive
standards it never agreed to.

Tonight, we're talking about
the OG, the classic, the Tim

Burton iest of the Tim Burton.

We are talking about Beetlejuice.

I am your host Jeremy Whitley and
with me tonight I have a panel

of cinephiles and cenobites.

First, they're here to challenge
the sexy werewolf sexy vampire

binary by co host Ben Kahn.

Ben, how are you tonight?

Ben: I'm just gonna go
right ahead and say it.

The best child marriage movie
we've ever covered on this podcast.

Jeremy: Oof a doof a.

And

Emily: mean.

Robin: Attempted child marriage.

Attempted child

Ben: Yes, an important distinction.

Jeremy: All child marriages in this day
and age are attempted child marriages.

That's at least in the U S it's not legal.

So it's only attempted really, but you
know what, let's not split that hair.

Uh, and the cinnamon roll of Cena
bites our cohost, Emily Martin.

How are you doing tonight, Emily?

Emily: I'm feeling strange and unusual.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Ben: you can't do this inductive voice
after we just watched the Mossman

try to marry child Winona Ryder.

Emily: I'm my own Winona Ryder.

Jeremy: I am Wayne the Writer.

Emily: I am Winona Ryder.

Jeremy: And our guest tonight, children's
book illustrator and comics artist,

who just illustrated the goth parenting
book, which is available for pre order

now, the Gorgonist, Robin Kaplan.

Robin, welcome!

Robin: Thank you for having me.

Jeremy: Oh, it is our pleasure.

Emily: have you.

Ben: Yes, oh my god, thank you
so much for coming on to discuss.

Jeremy: I just want to, like, get it
out of the way, because it feels like

a thing and I feel like we do have to
acknowledge, this movie, there's a part

of it that doesn't age well, which is the
ha ha sexual harassment that's hilarious

part of it, which is a large chunk of it

Emily: I'm talking about

Ben: I mean,

Emily: talking about it in my recap.

Don't worry.

Ben: Oh, we have to talk about it.

Robin: the only thing I want to say
about it is, like, In the movie, they

don't think he's good for doing it.

Like, there are other 80s movies where
people just sexually harass women all

the time and they're good and cool.

This is like the grossest guy you've ever
met doing this and everyone hates him for

Ben: That's

Robin: So I want to give, I just
feel like I should point out, at

least this movie does not condone
this as a cool thing to do.

It thinks that he's disgusting and
he's a gross guy and he would trespass

that

Jeremy: they also don't really
talk about it, nobody is like,

Ew, the sexual harassment, or like
Please stop sexually harassing my

wife who is standing next to me.

Robin: They

Jeremy: like, uh, whatever, like,

Emily: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Robin: but they don't react well to it

either.

Ben: nobody's laughing.

It does not endear him to anybody.

Robin: Yeah.

Emily: absolutely

Ben: This is not that episode of DS9
where it opens up on like, a waitress

being like, please make quark stop
sexually harassing me, and they're like,

ask for quark on a quark, nyet nyet.

Emily: Yeah.

Ben: Like, this is a gross dude, and this
is how they show him being gross, which,

by the standards of Horror movies, I
guess we should just be happy everybody's

clothes stay on the whole time?

Compared to a lot of the heinous ass
shit we've seen in this fuckin podcast.

Like, it's bad, I hate seeing
sexual harassment, I'm just saying

by the standards of what we watch
in an average one of these movies,

Robin: well, just like an average 80s
movie is going to sexually harass women

and it'll be the cool guy doing it.

Right?

Like, I'm just saying, like, do you need
to point out that in context, this is at

least the grossest guy and no one, they
don't think it's funny, like, at all.

Ben: this is our second Geena Davis
movie, and she's been, like, sexually

harassed by a gross man monster

in

Robin: can super understand all the salt
she has about Hollywood because she's like

the most beautiful creature on the planet.

Emily: Oh my god.

Robin: gorgeous.

And you're like, why aren't there 20, 000
more movies with her just being amazing?

You're like, oh, because instead
of that, they always put her

in a movie to be harassed.

Jeremy: The one thing where like,
I feel like the Beetlejuice stuff

isn't maybe as explicit is that most
of the guys in this movie are gross.

The only guy that we're supposed
to like, I guess, is Alec Baldwin,

Robin: the most dad core
Alec Baldwin that he's ever

Emily: is, he is the best version of Alec

Robin: Yeah.

There is never a more like acceptable,

like,

Jeremy: the first time he

takes off his glasses and
he's still fuckin Alec Baldwin

underneath, you're like,

Ben: Here's the trick they pull
to make Not just Alec Baldwin.

A's Alec Baldwin into normal guy.

Here's the

trick.

Well, the plaid does like,
but more that brown hair.

He does not have like, jet
black hair like he always has in

Emily: Oh yeah.

Jeremy: waist of

his pants is so fuckin high.

Ben: yeah, highway scenes, they give
him this kinda, Uncombed brown hair.

Robin: Like, it's 88, and the
height of your pants is, has no

indication of whether you are
supposed to be a leading man or not.

Like, pants were high.

Ben: Another question to the panel.

If you're walking out of that
theater, it's 1988 and someone says,

Hey, did you hear the actor in that
movie is gonna be Batman next year?

Are you guessing Michael Keaton?

Jeremy: Frankly, I'd just rather
see Geena Davis be Batman.

I think

Ben: Oh, that would be a
Catherine O'Hara as Batman.

Robin: excuse me, she's
definitely a Batman villain.

Jeremy: No, no, no, yeah,
Geena Davis is Batman,

Robin: she is a

Jeremy: O'Hara is the Joker.

Robin: yeah,

Emily: Oh my God.

Oh my God.

Ben: Oh, I want it.

I want it so much.

Emily: When?

Okay.

So, you had a really good
comment, Robin, about frumpiness.

And like, imagine if these guys
are supposed to be like everyday

normal people, Adam and Barbara.

And I'm like, and he said,

Robin: Yeah, like, Imagine how
different would this movie be if

the homebody couple were actually
frumpy, not Hollywood frumpy?

Because like, here's the thing, they
are two incredibly beautiful Hollywood

people, and this may be, I'm gonna say
something weird, because like, this might

just be sort of like rose tinted nostalgia
glasses, but like, They do actually pull

off these characters in a way that I'm
not sure I would expect someone to do now.

That if you picked two hot Hollywood
people right now, would they be able

to convince you they were people?

Because I'm generally unconvinced
that Hollywood actors are people when

they're playing characters like this,
like, But these two, it's like, when

I was a child watching this movie,
and I guess we should probably wrap

back around to our experiences with
this movie, because like, Oh boy.

I didn't understand how incredibly
attractive these two people were because

they weren't some kind of monster
or goth, so I could barely see them.

Like, my child brain could not contain
non monsters so like, I definitely did

not think they were that interesting.

And the older I get, I'm like, oh my
god, Geena Davis, like, good lord.

she just just has like a big pile of her
beautiful hair, but it's like, you know,

it's not blown into a specific 80s style,
and she's just wearing like a flowery

dress that's not very shapely, and that is
supposed to tell you that they're frumpy

homebodies, and it's just, it's so funny.

Jeremy: And the, the real, like, the

Ben: Very mild

Jeremy: about this movie to me is
that, like, these people that we're

supposed to really love and identify
with, the former owners of this

house who died at the beginning, seem
like insufferable hipsters to me.

And then, like, they're like, what
if What if we introduced like really

insufferable like art hipsters?

Like, what if they were insufferable
hipsters from Oregon and we introduced

insufferable hipsters from New York City?

Ben: I'm gonna go ahead and
say that I'd rather live in the

Deetz's version of the house.

It looks more fun.

more room to breathe, like, more

Emily: there is more room to breathe.

Ben: more of an open floor plan.

They got that fun little framed
balcony you can go outside on.

I'm

Jeremy: kind of predict the
property brothersing of houses.

Emily: Oh my god.

Ben: So I have a theory about
the Maitlands disappearance

from the franchise.

In addition to, you know, focusing
on Beetlejuice and Lydia, all that,

I think it's because the They don't
fit what became, like, the aesthetic

and the brand of Beetlejuice.

Their normalness is part of their
character, but when Beetlejuice

stops being a movie with a tightly
constructed plot and themes, and

instead is a brand sold at Hot Topic,

Robin: absolutely.

They have nothing to do with that.

The story is about them,
but the brand is not.

Ben: Yeah.

Emily: The only thing that is carried
over, over from the, Maitlands

in the, uh, cartoon, I believe,
is the Harry Belafonte thing.

And that's, that's it.

I, I will take a little bit of an issue
with Jeremy's suggestion that they

are insufferable hipsters, because.

You know, a couple of weirdos in
a house, childless and working on

art I mean, I'm not Gina Davis.

I'll say that right

Ben: very endearing about that first

Emily: are, they are endearing.

Ben: want to see that
car go over the bridge.

I always want to see them just have
a nice vacat a nice staycation.

Emily: Yeah,

Robin: like, you can definitely play them,
especially because of the actors, you

could play them as inseparable, but if you
think about what they're actually doing,

they're in love with each other, they're
nice to each other, which is amazing for

an 80s movie, like, they legitimately seem
to like and appreciate each other and go

out of their way to do nice things for
each other, like, very, I guess, like,

that might be trying to tell you that
they're dorky, but it just comes across as

like, Aspirational, and then like the big

thing

Ben: okay.

We found the only okay straights.

Robin: they are definitely acceptable
heteros but the other part of it is like,

he's making a model, like he's working
on this like, I would say that they are

genuinely interested in what they're
doing, which is why they're not hipsters.

Insufferable hipsters don't really
care about what they're doing,

they just want to be seen doing it.

You're not an insufferable
hipster if you genuinely give

a shit about what you're doing.

even if it's homebrew.

Jeremy: I think, I think where it
kind of breaks down a little bit

for me is that like, we're seeing
them in their house alone together.

but they've got this weird sort
of like, normcore aesthetic, where

like, despite being alone at home
with their, their significant other,

Geena Davis is constantly dressed
in like, floor length, full sleeve,

like, flower dresses, and it's like,

Emily: made those,

Jeremy: It's like, like they wake up
full in khakis in the morning, like,

just roll out of bed fully

Robin: they're just boring,

Ben: so

Robin: just boring.

Ben: that it comes all the way back
around to feeling unspeakably kinky.

Robin: I can't say no to that.

I think that

might be true.

I love it.

Jeremy: that I was gonna suggest that
earlier when we were talking about,

like, how weirdly attractive they are.

It was like, for them to be this weirdly
attractive and this, like, boring,

It has to be, like, the boring has
to be like a weird sex thing, right?

Robin: I love

it.

I love

it.

Jeremy: Like this is
their version of edging.

They're just like,

Ben: off screen.

They've done everything else.

This is what they've circled back to

Emily: yeah, and good for them.

I just wanted to say to underscore what
Robin said, Robin would know, every

time I've seen Robin in person, it's
either been in Seattle or Portland.

So, I just want you guys to know that
they know what they're talking about.

Robin: But when it comes to
insufferable hipsters and the different,

and the different gradations of
insufferability in hipsters, yes,

I,

Emily: absolutely.

Jeremy: know insufferable

Ben: one thing I very much appreciate
about this movie is just the low key

pervasive Anticonnecticut attitude
and that knee and as somebody from

Connecticut Who still works in Connecticut
It needs to be encouraged and spread?

Emily: I get you.

I get you.

Connecticut real.

Ben: Is it though?

Is Connecticut actually real?

Being from there, I'm not sure it is.

Or if it should be.

Emily: you also don't think
birds are real, so like,

Ben: Prove to me they are Not

Emily: uh, wait,

Ben: They're in the sky!

They're in the sky!

Where you can't reach them conveniently!

I've decided I'm a, I've
decided I'm a bird truther.

I get one.

I get one.

Free conspiracy.

I've decided it's birds burn reel.

Robin: man.

Jeremy: So Emily, why don't we get into,
uh, actually your, your recap and actually

talking about who, who made this movie.

Who's in this movie.

I feel like we have a, like a lot
of people that we've already had

in another thing that we've talked
about, including the world's most

boring looking dude, Jeffrey Jones.

Ben: Oh yeah.

We got, see

Jeremy: you'd never want to meet, but
you'd definitely punch him if you did.

Ben: it's very weird seeing
him without a mustache.

Jeremy: he's not as insufferable in
this as he is in Devil's Advocate.

Emily: or everything else that he's in.

Ben: It, it is a case.

Look, if his character isn't
meant to be incredibly hateable,

you have to do a little bit of
separating art from the artist.

Jeremy: This, this character feels like

' Ben: cause he's

Jeremy: Grodin was sick this week.

Like,

this is just a lost Beethoven
movie, and they just sub ghosts

in for the Beethoven part.

Emily: So, uh, real quick,
who's responsible this though?

That would be Tim Burton,
we've got writers as well.

We've got Michael McDowell, Oren
Skeren, And, uh, Larry Wilson.

And Robin, you did some, you, you actually
did research on these individuals.

Robin: Did.

They're all really
interesting people, actually.

And, like, specifically, Michael McDowell
and William Scarron are both, like,

They're, they're actually horror royalty?

Emily: yes.

Robin: Michael McDowell, and I'd
also say that, like, the script we're

getting is definitely not the one
that he originally wrote, and, uh, I

don't know when you want to talk about
that, but I think that's probably a,

I think that's probably a good thing.

It's also not necessarily exactly the
one William, Warren Skaran wrote either

like, things got doctored by the end.

Again, I think for the better,
which is not always what I say

with talking about, screenwriting.

Emily: Mm hmm.

Robin: um, but guys, like, Michael
McDowell is for real a gay goth.

he, he died of AIDS in 1999,
but he wrote his dissertation on

American attitudes towards death.

He wrote, like, maybe a hundred
southern gothic horror novels.

Stephen King, like, had bad respect for
his, like, all of his, like, dime store

novels that he wrote that apparently
are a cut above what you would expect

stuff like that to be because he was
just like, he's a southern gothic guy.

He did some writing for
Nightmare Before Christmas also.

So he is like, he is, he is
very integrated into stuff.

but yeah, he unfortunately died in 1999.

William,

Jeremy: jawline like a model.

Ben: Oh my God.

Right.

Robin: Interesting, interesting guy.

And is it like, I think that he's
actually caring about like funereal

practices and being interested in
death and like an actual goth way,

not just a hot topic goth way.

I think that actually comes
through in the script.

Like, I think that comes through in
just like not just the script itself,

but like the story being told that
there's a little extra something there

that I think really is because of him.

But like, if you want a guy with a
lot of 80s cred and 70s cred, Warren

Skarid was the executive director
for the Texas Film Commission and

helped get the Texas Chainsaw Massacre
distributed to the world, and he's

probably the guy that titled it.

Emily: Okay.

Ben: Wow.

Okay, that's some horror royalty.

Emily: Yeah.

that's some really interesting goth
history, horror history for this

film, which was made into a children's
adapted into a children's cartoon.

Our stars, we have, we've talked
about Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis.

We have Winona Ryder,
very little Winona Ryder.

Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice.

And, uh,

Ben: okay, as little as in Winona
Ryder is tiny, not that there's

little of her in the movie,

Emily: yeah, no, she is a
small, she is a young person

Jeremy: Yeah, this is her third
credit and the first one that

anybody's ever actually watched

like she did two movies
before this that I don't know

Ben: I mean, she's iconic in this.

Everyone's iconic.

This cast is crazy fucking stacked.

I will say, being a goth kid, the
lifestyle of a goth is being a kid

watching this and relating to Lydia
and being an adult as growing up

and wanting to look like Delia.

Robin: Yes.

Emily: Yeah.

Ben: The Winona Ryder to
Catherine O'Hara pipeline is real.

Robin: Yes.

Although I would say always mitigated
by, and yet I know I look more

like Beetlejuice, unfortunately.

So I have to, I have to live with that.

I'm a little more of a, I'm really
more in the, the Beetlejuice to

Otho zone, but that's, that's fine.

Ben: Well,

Robin: also iconic.

Ben: I shared

this with

Jeremy: I mean, he's

Ben: Emily earlier this week, but a couple
years ago, my partner and I went, uh,

as Beetlejuice and Lydia for Halloween.

Robin: Beautiful.

Ben: My partner went as
Beetlejuice and I went as Lydia.

Robin: Perfect.

Jeremy: So this came out in 88.

She was born in 1971, so she's probably 16
or 17 when this is actually being filmed.

Emily: Yeah.

Jeremy: Feel like she's playing a little
younger than that, but they don't ever

Robin: they do keep acting like she's
younger than that, and that's fine.

Like, it's kind of nice for an 80s movie
to treat a 17 year old like they're

not, Ready for conquest or whatever.

Yeah,

Ben: across as like 14, 15 in this movie.

Emily: Yeah.

The way, yeah, especially
with like her diction, but

we'll, we'll, we'll get to that as well.

Ben: For me, this is one of
those, like, foundational films.

I watched it so young, I do not remember
a time when I hadn't seen Beetlejuice.

It legitimately feels like a movie
that's been with me my entire life.

It's definitely, you know, top ten
movies I've re watched the most.

Robin: I could say exactly those lines.

It is delightful to hear you
say that because I'm like, oh,

yeah, that is literally I think
I wrote almost exactly that.

When I was trying to talk about
like, yeah, I cannot underestimate

the amount of influence this movie
had on me as a very small child.

I have like foundational
memories associated with this

movie.

Jeremy: I mean, I feel like there's a,
our whole generation has a very strong,

like I am Lydia Diets energy , like
they, Everybody imprinted on Lydia,

I think, very early, and I, it's so
interesting to me, like, where this

comes in Winona Ryder's career, because,
, like, literally, later this same year

that this came out, Heather's is out.

And then we're talking one year
later, Edward Scissorhands and Mermaids

and, by 1992, she's in Dracula.

She's in Bram Stoker's Dracula,
like, you know, she was, I mean,

only 16 or 17 at this point.

By the time she's 20, she's in,
like, four or five huge films.

Emily: yeah.

one more cast member that I want to
mention, and that's Sylvia Sidney.

Um, yeah, Grand Hollywood
Dame Sylvia Sidney.

Ben: Sylvia Sydney's incredible, as Juno.

She has like, two scenes and she just
fucking steals the whole film with them.

Emily: yeah, like, I, when I was
little, I didn't know anything

about anything when I, but when I
saw her, I automatically assumed I

was like, that person's important.

Robin: Yeah, she has so much gravitas.

Emily: Yeah, Like, she's basically
playing Selma from the Simpsons.

Robin: Also iconic.

Emily: yeah, but she has, like, this,
like, power about her that you're, you

automatically go, okay, who is that?

I know that's supposed to,
that's somebody important.

Let me, let me storm through this.

So, we got Beetlejuice, it's Tim
Burton, we talked about that stuff.

Yeah, so once upon a time, small
town USA, it's not Springfield,

despite the soundtrack, we got Danny
Elfman, very, very iconic soundtrack.

We have the, charming couple of nerds,
or hipsters, as you might interpret that.

Played by Alec Baldwin and Gina Davis.

They are Barbara and Adam Maitland.

They make art, listen to Harry Belafonte.

They own incredible property that
the locals keep pressuring to sell.

They might want kids, but otherwise
their life is incredibly ideal.

They're in love and on vacation
and super cute, and they were

immediately killed by a dog indirectly.

Technically they

Ben: Indirectly, that dog was,
that was intentional homicide

on the part of that dog.

You will never tell me that dog
did not go out onto that bridge

with m m murder in his heart.

Emily: mean, sure.

I can't be mad at the dog, though.

Robin: that scene, like, it is a weird,
weird tone where it is like visually

played for comedy a little bit, but
it was the only part of this movie

that really scared me as a child.

Because, and I, and I think I was afraid
of driving over bridges for a really

long time because it's so horrifying
and they don't pretend it isn't.

Emily: Yeah, it's a car accident.

Robin: It

Emily: acci yeah, it sucks.

I mean, I'm glad the dog

Jeremy: There's a weirdly
comedy based car accident death.

It's like, I don't know if
it's just a plucky Danny Elfman

soundtrack or what, but I'm

just

Ben: think it's the

Jeremy: that's horrible, ha ha.

Ben: spin.

It just kind of turns on its top and
then goes like, bloop, into the water.

now do you think this was intentionally
trying to evoke this overly Rockwell

sense of normal that rebounds into camp
and it's artifice, or is this just what

Tim Burton thinks normal people are?

Robin: Both.

Because I think he has no interest
in normal outside of camp.

especially in this era,
that was definitely what he

was cultivating on purpose.

Emily: Yes.

the surreal normalcy and, you
know, he did that Profoundly with

other Edward Scissorhands with
this, at least we have, like.

real place.

Jeremy: Like we said, it's debatable
whether Connecticut is real or not.

As.

Robin: gonna use this as a chance to
say that, um, production designer is

Bo Welch, who also worked on Edward
Scissorhands, and Batman Returns.

He also married Catherine O'Hara after
they met on set for this film, and

they're still married, and good for him!

Ben: good for him,

Emily: for him and good for her.

Robin: Yeah, I know, it's great,

Ben: go off, you Prince Consort.

Robin: think about how much of this movie
works because of the production design.

Like, we really do chalk that up to Tim
Burton as though he just is like, you

know, like the fallacy that we always
run into talking about directors, as

though they just like single handedly
birth a movie and you're like, no,

no, no, the production designer is
definitely the star of this movie.

Because Tibberton was overtly, like,
he was very on record saying that he

was going for kind of b movie camp
with the effects which is funny because

I think they hold up better than a
lot of things do so almost like if

you, if you go for something really
stylized, it might look good forever,

almost like.

Emily: almost like.

It's funny how that works.

okay, So Adam and Barbara, they
return home from their death and,

they don't know they're really dead
until they try to leave the house

and get attacked by sandworms.

Okay, something something thumper.

So Adam and Barbara try to adjust with
the meager help of the handbook for

the recently deceased, a confusing
little volume that manifested in their

home once they began haunting it.

Little do they know, their death has
attracted the attention of the mysterious.

Beetlejuice, or sometimes
known as Betelgeuse.

Robin: So the star is Betelgeuse, spelled
B E T E L G E U S E, and um, I've always

wondered what that star was named after.

Because that's a really cool word
that's interesting, and of course

I learned it from this movie.

And he spells it in universe.

He does spell it like the star.

Like, he does not write it
the way that the title is.

Like, he writes it like the star.

So, by the way, the star, it's a, it's
a red giant in the constellation Orion.

Beetlejuice is not a real
word in any language.

It is a complete, it is
a weird composite word.

It is a really old misreading of its
Arabic name, because of course, like,

like, Arabic astronomers, iconic,
did so much good work, guys, amazing.

Um,

It was Yad al Jawza, but Yad got
mistranslated as Bad, and I don't know,

a game of telephone before telephones
existed happened here, and somehow,

Yadal Jazza became Badal Jazza, which
was Beetlejuice, so there we go.

Emily: Well, that's, I mean,
it's interesting because the same

thing happened with Baphomet.

The name, the word Baphomet comes
from Baphomet, which is a another

one of those telephone games from
someone, someone talking about Mohammed

How Mohammed became

Ben: it was a modification of bathmat.

Emily: Sometimes.

It depends on where you are.

I don't know a lot of Satanists,
but, you know, usually their

interior decorating is pretty good.

Ben: I would get a bathamet bathmat.

Emily: Yeah,

Ben: I feel like I could make
a killing on bathamet bathmats.

Emily: I'm sure a lot of people have.

Ben: that ten times fast, Batman, Batman.

A

Robin: even gonna try.

Emily: I, who knows what I'll summon.

So, yeah.

Ben: good towel?

Emily: So anyway, the death of the
Maitlands has also attracted the

attention of the greedy neighbors
who have now finally sold the fully

furnished house to and property.

Ben: oh, the worst fucking neighbor?

Emily: Yeah, Jane, who's like,
Hey, you should sell this house.

You should leave.

You should leave because
you don't have kids.

I didn't mean anything, but you
really should sell the house.

Yeah.

Ben: no, Jane, who is actively
fielding offers on a house she has

no permission to put on the market.

Emily: real.

For real.

Ben: They should be suing Jane.

Robin: She's the true villain of

Emily: she is the true villain.

Yeah.

Ben: Like, what a crazy thing to say.

Leave your house, your family isn't
big enough to deserve this house.

Emily: I would kick her.

That's how nice, you know,
these people are, is that they

haven't, like, kicked her.

They're just like, eh,
here comes Jane again.

Jeremy: Pick her downstairs
like the end of Audition.

Ben: Kick Jane

Robin: like, shut

windows on her, though, which
is pretty rude by my standards.

Emily: Yeah, I mean,

Jeremy: do

do

Ben: got off

Jeremy: do

Emily: I haven't slammed a door
in the face of someone trying

to sell me solar panels yet.

Okay, so, but Jane has already
sold the house at this point to

good old boy Charles Dietz and
his postmodern artist wife Delia.

She and her

incorrigible cousin

Ben: that Jane Did they have next of kin?

How did

Jane weasel her way into that

Robin: No, no, she's related to them.

Like they say, she says that she's
family, so she was next of kin.

That's why she got to do this.

Emily: Okay, I forgot about that.

I was so busy being

Ben: I honestly assume just like there
were just off screen crimes happening.

Real estate fraud.

Emily: probably as

Robin: Yeah, not saying she didn't, but
she might have actually been next of kin.

Jeremy: mean, Charles is definitely
doing real estate crimes.

Robin: Yes.

Emily: Charles

is 100%.

Ben: it's the 80s and he's
a New York real estate guy.

He's doing crimes and cocaine.

The two big C's.

You

Emily: he's the same, he's
playing the same character that

he did in Devil's Advocate.

this is

Ben: they say that he lost his
nerve, I assume that that means he

just like, stopped doing cocaine.

Emily: Yeah, I mean, that's
what it meant, like, in the 80s.

That's what that meant.

Like, he just stops.

Anyway, so, yeah, the Dietzes,
have bought the house.

They're moving in.

Delia Dietz and her incorrigible
cousin Otho immediately vandalize the

perfectly kitsch interior, planning
to vomit their Neo Geo nightmare all

over Adam and Barbara's sanctuary.

Jeremy: is ortho related?

I never

Emily: I I think, I thought Otho was,

was cousin.

Robin: I don't know that he is,
he is her interior designer.

Ben: Yeah,

Emily: they seem

Robin: not sure they're related,

but they might be.

Ben: in that way that rich New
York people form like, Beharah

So form like, codependent
relationships with like, their staff.

It makes sense in a rich
New York lady kind of way.

For her to be, you know, for her interior
designer to be almost her life coach.

Emily: Yeah, well, her agent
doesn't give a shit about her at

Ben: no.

no.

Emily: but we'll get to that.

Okay, so, Charles does have a goth
daughter, Lydia, and at least she is the

right kind of strange and unusual to A,
appreciate the antique quality of the

house, and B, notice the presence of the
ghost couple mourning their own loss.

Uh, she house's skeleton key, which
is the only safe access to the

last bastion of Adam and Barbara's
privacy, which is the attic.

That's where Adam has
been building his model.

And that is the only place that they
managed to lock everyone else out.

Helplessness, their house
is surrealized around them.

Our protagonists are further advertised
this scrungly cartoon character

of a demon or ghost or zombie.

Either way!

Beetlejuice is here to eat anything
you want him to eat, swallow anything

you want him to swallow, so come
on down and he'll chew on the dog.

Woo!

I really

really

Ben: well done.

Emily: thank you, I hope that that
was all ad libbed by Michael Keaton.

Jeremy: feels ad libbed.

Like, most of Michael Keaton's lines feel

Ben: His performance is singular
and incredible in this movie.

Like I'm, every

time I watch this movie, I mean, he's
actually on screen for so little.

And yet, He's so memorable.

He steals the spotlight.

He looks gross.

He sounds gross.

He acts gross.

And yet he is in his own way, Michael
Keaton just makes him so goddamn magnetic.

Emily: Yeah,

Robin: Yeah, he masterfully blends
used car salesman with, like, the

sleaziest con man with game show host
in a way that is, frankly, like, it is

disgusting and, as you said, magnetic.

You're like, oh, that is three
bad tastes and boy, is it, are

they together in this one man.

Emily: yeah, a lot of things have tried
to replicate that, and they can't.

Jeremy: Yeah, dead and possibly demonic
is like the fourth worst thing about him.

Emily: yes, yeah, I mean,
we've known nicer demons.

So, uh, yeah, the Maitlands decide,
instead of this Beetlejuice character,

they're gonna try Ghost Civil Services.

The, uh, the handbook for the
recently deceased leads them to

the DMV, or DRD, of the dead,

Ben: Honestly, the, the underworld has
a better customer service department

than most things that we have to
deal with in late stage capitalism

Emily: And, yeah, and they still do
have to wait, like, three months,

but they do await an appointment
amongst the hilariously mangled

corpses, they find out that A, death
is very personal for everyone, and

B, exorcism is the death of the dead.

This

Jeremy: this I, I did want to ask,
has anybody ever seen anything else

or read anything else that has this,
like, gimmick that people who commit

suicide are forced to become like
like civil servants in the afterlife?

Like,

Ben: That was a new one.

Jeremy: It's like an interesting is a
very non christian take on punishment

for suicide in the afterlife.

Emily: Yeah, there's a lot of hot I don't
know if I want to say hot, there's a lot

of, let's just say takes, in this movie
about suicide from various characters.

And we'll talk about that.

Uh, but the civil, yeah, the
civil servant thing is, is an

interesting, at least, idea.

But yeah, so most of the people
that we see working for the, the

DRD is, are there, there, You know,
they might have died by suicide.

We're not sure.

But Adam and Gina are waiting a
long time and their long wait brings

them back to their drastically
remodeled house months later.

And they meet their caseworker, Juno.

Despite being played by Sylvia
Sidney, Juno is about as

helpful as most bureaucrats,
and tells them to just get good.

Um, and don't call the Beetle guy, he was
once her assistant and now a freelancer.

Probably doesn't even have a perf permit.

So does that mean that
Beetlejuice also died by suicide?

If he was an assistant to Juno?

Ben: he apparently

Robin: something about the Black Death

Ben: He says he survived the

Robin: Oh, he did.

He did.

Yes.

Emily: Okay.

Ben: They're always vague on that.

Robin: Maybe that's why
you can't trust him.

Emily: Yeah, well, I think that he is,
uh, more than meets the eye, So, Adam

and Gina try the whole Charlie Brown
ghost bit, and but they only seem to

alert Lydia, who mistakes their discordant
death cries for sexcapades of her parents.

Like any child, she reacts by tracking
down her parents and taking surprise

Polaroids of their kinky ghost play.

Didn't you when you were young?

It's perfectly normal.

Jeremy: She says that her mom,
her stepmom will never notice

because she is Sleeping with Prince

Emily: with Prince Valium.

that's a really good one.

Robin: It's so beautiful!

Emily: That's almost
as good as a vitamin V.

But actually, no, it's
better than vitamin V.

Robin: It's, It's,

too beautiful.

Emily: is, is perfect.

So, as in many hauntings, Polaroids
are the key to the real truth and

Beli Adam and Gina's incorporeality.

Thanks for watching!

But Lydia's cool about it.

She might be Gen X, but she
isn't that desensitized just yet.

Lydia and the couple commiserate
over the objectionable

qualities of Charles and Delia.

Sheets won't work, obviously.

So how do we get them out?

Well, Delia would henpeck
anything in her way to death.

Charles never walks away from equity.

In fact, Charles wants to buy the
whole damn town and sell it to city

folks so they can, I don't know,
turn it into a casino or something.

We'll find out what specifically later.

Now, Lydia tries using these photos
to convince her parents that ghosts

are real, and this predictably fails.

At their wit's end, Adam and Barbara
decide to try demonic Pepe Le

Pew, who makes them literally dig
him out of their model cemetery.

Like, they quote unquote summon
him, and then He thanks them by

making them dig him up out of
cardboard, which I think is perfect.

Robin: Yeah, it makes
you, you're more invested.

They have to be more invested then
because like they've really, it's really

sunk cost fallacy right going on here.

Emily: yeah.

Jeremy: I love the gimmick
of them standing in, like,

pieces of broken cardboard that
they've been digging through,

Emily: and like,

Jeremy: like, rather than being dirt.

I, oh

man,

Ben: a great touch.

I love that they still, like, the model.

That they're not, like, the
model doesn't become real.

Like, the close up on the, that fake grass

Robin: It's so wild, like what
an incredible, like, thing

for somebody to have designed.

Ben: You're so right.

Like, the production design
of this movie is everything.

Like, visually, this movie is so iconic.

Like, later, when Beetlejuice shows
up with the big, like, long, curled

up sleeves and, uh, carousel on his
head, like, What other movie is just

fucking giving us imagery like that?

Emily: I mean Batman
Returns, but that's later.

Ben: Yeah,

Emily: Yeah, like that Batman

Ben: this is what gets in Batman Returns

Emily: yeah.

So, Beetlejuice makes
his official entrance.

He introduces himself with some
good ol sexual assault, and Geena

Davis is like, absolutely not.

Goodbye.

So the Maitlands come
up with their own plan.

They're gonna possess the Godawful
Teets parents and their dreadful

dinner guests and make them
act out the Banana Boat song.

Ben: Oh, do we want to talk
about these dinner guests?

Do we want do we want to talk about
the one person of color in this whole

movie whose only line is desperately
wanting to call Otho the F word?

Emily: I, this scene, like, there's
something, it's so whimsical that it's

hard to remember how a, like, horrible,

Ben: Her and Otho, I need a whole other
movie just about like This Asian woman,

again, the only non white person in the
whole movie, and Otho, who, We, they

only had like, they only had like three
lines of exchange, But Otho has the line,

Another of your dreary suicide attempts.

Emily: yeah,

Ben: responds to his claims of
being a paranormal expert with,

Paranormal, is that what they're
calling your kind these days?

Robin: Yeah, like, This scene, this scene
is like the worst yuppies, because like,

these are not hipsters, these are yuppies,
like, you, you really need to like, this

is the 80s, these are the worst yuppies
being so awful to each other, like,

they're just such absolute pieces of shit.

And I think that that's, that's the
point, it's like, man, they do a beautiful

job of each character feeling like an
incredible, like, you're like, oh, I

know too, you've had three lines and I
know too much about how awful you are.

Emily: yeah, yeah, I'll be very happy
when Beetlejuice launches you into orbit,

Jeremy: yeah, this, this
character you're talking about,

the character's name is Beryl.

I don't remember if they
ever say it on screen.

She's played by Adele Lutz, who, again,
yeah, like, like Ben said, is the only,

like, person of color in this movie, and I
feel like it's Maybe a reasonable time to

talk about Tim Burton's race problem, um,

Ben: What race problem?

There's no races in this movie!

Jeremy: Tim

Burton, Tim Burton is,

Ben: Just the race singular!

Jeremy: Tim Burton has said,

Ben: Oh right, Tim.

Oh right, Planet of the Apes.

Jeremy: the, the one that sticks with me
with Tim Burton is the quote that he said

in an interview when asked about it, which
is like, that black people just don't fit

into his aesthetic, like, which is like,

Robin: Brody.

Jeremy: that's, that's a terrible,
like, I know what you're saying

and that doesn't make it better.

Like,

Robin: No, it's not good.

And,

and super wrong.

Like, honestly, absolutely,
ridiculously untrue.

It tells me something about how he really
did just stop interacting with the world

in, like, 1992, maybe, where, like, he
just never saw a human being ever again.

that wasn't

Jeremy: still feels like a goth teenager

in his brain.

Ben: conspicuous as the
longer his career goes on.

Jeremy: Yeah.

And I mean, honestly, I, I will
say seeing the way that Tim Burton

has treated Asian characters in
his career, it's almost like.

Uh, maybe it's a good thing he doesn't
have black people in his movies, because

like, I don't know how many of you all
have seen the animated Frank and Weenie,

in which the Asian kids are basically,
like, yellow faced villains that, with

really offensive accents, um, yeah,
but it's, it's like, that was the movie

where I, I watched it and I was like,
okay, like, I can't actually just shake

my head at it at this point, like,
I gotta, you know, That's not okay.

Emily: I don't think I actually
ever saw Frankenweenie.

Jeremy: Don't recommend it.

Emily: yeah, I saw the, the, like, short

Ben: Watch Paranorman instead!

Emily: Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um,

Ben: watch Paranorman, that

Emily: yeah, well, here's the thing.

And I'm going to talk about this
later is that Tim Burton did once

direct fucking James Earl Jones, yes.

James Earl Jones was blue at the
time, but anyway yeah, there are black

char, well there are black NPCs in
this movie, one of whom is a witch

doctor that trigs people's heads.

So

Jeremy: Yeah, and then
there's the moving guy.

Emily: yeah, there's a moving
guy and a football player.

Ben: Right,

Jeremy: football player.

Yes.

Emily: dead football player.

Robin: Yeah, there's some,
there's some, uh, 80s, uh,

roles for you there, good lord.

Emily: yeah.

Yeah.

So,

Ben: football

Jeremy: that witch doctor scene, which
is basically like a post credits scene

almost thrown in there, like, it's
pre credits because it's pre post

credits really being a thing, but
it would be like post credits now.

That scene is, oof, it's so hard to

Ben: we, he does a little more sexual
harassment, some racism oof, yeah, it's

a, it's a, It's a better name to go
out on the dancing and the floating.

Emily: Yeah.

Robin: that scene is so directly from,
like, Charles Adams cartoons, also.

And it's a really, it's like, these
are, like, good, painful reminders

for us goths, that, like, there
is a bad Like colonialist, white

supremacy history even to like my ap,
because like I love Charles Adams.

He's a delight, right?

But like can't, doesn't mean that
he didn't ever fuck up real bad.

Just like it just tells you the attitude
of people at that time period to like

just like what they thought was a kind
of guy that was out there that you could

just say whatever you wanted about, right?

Like who do you just villainize?

Well, surely there are
these tribes, people in.

In, you know, the Southern Hemisphere
somewhere, that are really, that are

like, the butt of all these jokes, and
I mean, to be fair, sometimes they're

winning, in fact, they're usually
winning, but like, they're not real

people, it's not based on anything,
this is a 100 percent like, white

image of, of villainizing other people.

Emily: You ever read Tintin?

Robin: I have also read Tintin,

yes, and it is full of that shit, like,

Jeremy: The knife guy from the crow?

Ben: Yeah!

Jeremy: Sorry.

Ben: Yeah, you know, you wanna talk about

Emily: oof, Tintin,

Ben: unfortunate depictions
of race, uh, yeah, boy, does

Tintin have that in abundance.

Emily: the comic,

as

Jeremy: I mean, also the

black guy from the crow.

Emily: the girl, yes, um,

Jeremy: the one black gangster in the crow
whose name is, for some reason, Tintin.

Ben: well, no, there was also,
uh, Tony Todd as, like, a high

class as the Stringer Bell.

Emily: Tony Todd was fucking cool,
okay, Tintin was unfortunate,

Ben: Tony Todd as Avery
Brooks as the Stringer Bell.

Robin: I was going to say Too Many
Taught As April Books, yes, yeah, God,

Emily: say this, the Tony Todd character
did not exist in the comics, Tintin

did, he didn't have dreadlocks, T Bird
had dreadlocks in the comics, Tintin

had, like, a fro and, like, a bandana.

He looked like he was out
of Escape from New York,

Jeremy: alright, I know it's my
fault, but we can't talk about

the crow for a whole week again.

We just did

that

Emily: man!

Okay, so, uh, let's talk
about another goth thing.

Jeremy: That should be
the name of this podcast.

Emily: another goth thing,
and another goth thing!

The banana boat song!

Let's talk about it!

That's what

Ben: like the exact moment where you
can tell the shrimp props have been

replaced with the shrimp gloves.

Emily: yeah, yeah the, the
shrimp cocktail attacks them

after they all do the calypso.

Ben: They really upped their ghost powers.

Like, they, they are, like, hiding
under sheets, And now suddenly

they're possessing whole rooms
full of people that dance and throw

their voices like They went through
a whole off screen ghost training

Jeremy: Yeah, I want to see
the training montage for this.

I really feel like we missed that.

Emily: I think they just were
like waiting to do that because

they thought it was stupid.

It's like advertising.

You don't give them the
best idea first, right?

So they were trying, they
were like getting there.

But then they're like, okay,
we know Banana Boat Song.

So we're going to apply Banana Boat Song.

And what do we do with that?

Uh, shrimp.

Okay.

And then we do the shrimp.

But yeah, so what can
go wrong with this plan?

Well, damn these postmodernists.

They have no fear.

They have no appreciation for the unknown.

Delia's agent, who won amongst the
guests, is consistently unimpressed

and super professional about it.

He is basically like, fuck you, Delia
I don't know, like, I don't know if

Ben: I'm gonna go ahead and say
if this is your relationship with

your agent, uh, it's a bad fit.

Bad fit.

Emily: Yeah, Otho says a lot of shit, I
think we've, we've, we've talked about

Ben: Of course Otho says a lot of shit.

Otho's always talking shit.

Emily: his shit about suicide,
there's a lot of, yeah.

Robin: Yeah, it's interesting
because he ends up being, like, I

wouldn't say that this character is,
like, an authorial voice character.

Like, he generally isn't.

Like, he is, he is neither the
worst or best person in the movie,

although he is definitely a heel.

But, like, he's right when he
says, like, oh, suicide victims are

civil servants in the afterlife.

And, like, it turns out
he's totally correct.

They all are.

Emily: Well, I don't know
if they all are, though.

Like, some

Robin: Like, that's true.

They may not all be, but we,
but we are shown specifically

and told by the secretary.

Like, she says that that is the case.

Um,

Emily: Yeah.

Ben: own throat.

Emily: Yeah.

Robin: I mean, she's hardcore.

Emily: She is hardcore,

Ben: Like, fuck it, hey, Juno.

Emily: not that we're saying that
there's, you know, not to, not to

engage in Olympics in that particular
way, but that's pretty hardcore.

Ben: Yeah, I mean, I mean,

Emily: yeah.

Yeah.

Robin: Look, honestly, as gross as
what he says there is, I think may

all your buildings go condo as a toast
is actually even more disgusting.

I

Emily: Yes.

Um,

there's a, all of the, all of the dialogue
in the scene is delightfully deplorable

because of what happens to them.

And because of just like.

There's no, there's, there's,
there's no gray area to these people.

Even, even though Charles wants
this house, he wants to preserve

this house for the Kichinas, he
wants to preserve it for himself.

And because, I mean, yeah, he
appreciates the aesthetic, but

he's like, you know, exploiting it.

But we'll get to that.

Because Otho has a plan, and so does he.

Ben: This movie focuses on property
rights in a way that I'm not

sure I agree with politically.

Emily: yeah.

Ben: This isn't just me making wild
connections, but I'm like, you know what?

It's a It's a house.

Delia lives here.

Let her do whatever she wants.

Your

Robin: you say that, but think
about how the movie ends.

I think it actually handles it, like,
way better politically than you would

expect from a movie from the 80s.

Ben: That's true.

Emily: Yeah.

So,

Ben: do get a very, we, I, I always
did like the coexistence ending,

Emily: yeah.

So the Elder Dietzes are forcing
Lydia to show them the attic.

There's no ghost there at the moment, but
Otho discovers and pockets the handbook.

As they leave the attic, Beetlejuice
decides to intervene, easily becoming

the most terrifying element of the movie,
other than the casual assault, of course.

When he

possesses

Ben: he also provides.

Emily: Yeah, and almost kills
Charles and Otho as a giant snake.

Quick as ever, Geno dispels the demon
with the tri repetition of his name.

So, business relations have broken down,
and now with between, well, all over

the place, really, but mainly between
Beetlejuice and the, uh, Maitlands,

and Juno now intervenes by distracting
the hordy Beetlejuice with, like, a

fake brothel that Gina Davis is like,
and he's like, no, it doesn't fit.

I can't make little living demon women.

Ben: I would have loved if
instead he'd been like, look,

it's, look, it opened in town.

Blame the town.

What am I, I have to
keep the model accurate.

Robin: Tiny Gay Bee was so excited
about this part of the movie because

there were just pretty girls and
I was so excited to see them.

Like, I had, I was just
so excited about them.

I loved every, like, every hot
lady in this movie was like my

entire bag when I was like five.

loved

Emily: Less bless so, yeah, Juno
is, is upset despite being buried

in paperwork and a whole team
of newly dead football players.

She, um, goes out of her way to explain
to Adam and Gina their mistakes.

Beetlejuice is one thing, but they
need to get rid of the Dietzes, so they

don't, so that the Dietzes don't provide
reliable evidence of the afterlife.

Well, you see, if the, if people
knew that there was a for sure

afterlife, then things might get
complicated, such as Exhibit A.

Lydia thinks that the Maitlands are so
cool, and she wants to become a ghost too.

And she's also depressed as
hell and got a lot of things.

Going on, so it's not so much about
trends for her, but options, you know,

if people know that they have this
option of the afterlife, you know,

if then therefore so Lydia goes after
writing her very, very, deliberate

note about plummeting off of a bridge.

She goes to find the Maitlands.

Now, one thing I want to point out about
this scene is Lydia is listening to music.

She is goth.

We know she is goth.

What is she listening to?

She is listening to funeral dirges.

She is no, there's no
brand that owns Lydia.

There's no Peter Murphy or Ian Curtis

Robin: No, she's a real one.

She's a real one.

She's going to the source.

Ben: Lydia's built differently.

Emily: yeah, she is strange and unusual.

She doesn't have band stickers.

She is about the lifestyle.

Anyway, so

Jeremy: She just has
stickers for that actor.

Skeleton, you know.

Emily: yeah, she is, she's
a big fan of Skeleton.

Well, because Skeleton is with all of us.

Skeleton is inside us all.

Robin: Skeleton

Jeremy: We're all a little
skeleton on the inside.

Emily: a little bit of Skeleton, I hope.

So, Lydia goes looking for the
Maitland couple, trying to talk to

them about her plan, but instead finds
Beetlejuice, who tries manipulating

her into freeing him again.

By the way, this movie is
sponsored by Minute Maid.

Adam and Barbara, having transformed
themselves into weird chicken

monsters, decide they don't want to
get rid of the whole Dease family

because it means getting rid of Lydia.

So, they return, even though they are
still chicken monsters, from the DMV.

Meanwhile, Charles is selling his idea for
a supernatural theme park to his business

associate, Maxie Pat or something.

As rad as that sounds, debolishing
this quaint Connecticut town, which

is probably already harboring all
sorts of supernatural horrors.

Jeremy: I gotta, I'm gonna call a timeout.

That is Maxie Dean, played by
the incomparable Robert Goulet.

Uh, who,

yeah, who, you know, Robert Goulet
is the, among other things, the

original Lancelot from, uh, the musical

Robin: Camelot.

Jeremy: musical.

And a,

Ben: Look up his Wikipedia
page photo sometime.

It's phenomenal.

Jeremy: professionally handsome man.

Um,

Emily: I just, he was, he's a yuppie
in this movie, so it's hard for me

to like, appreciate that about him.

It's hard for me to appreciate most
things about him, but he is like, he is

playing Michael Douglas in Wall Street.

So, and they're, you know, they're
trying to, to sell this town

and, and demolish it, turning
it into a, a, like, spooky park.

You know, these days takes cheap
parlor trick to force regular

folk to see a real unicorn.

Robin: Yeah.

Ben: I, I feel like you could, honestly,
David Zaslav is probably giving this

PowerPoint presentation as we speak.

Emily: There's a few of
them going on, I'm sure.

But anyway, unaware of this
happening, Adam and Gina

have decided on cohabitation.

But Otho decides to ruin everything
with a seance to manifest the

ghosts and prove their existence.

And it actually works at first.

Adam and Barbara are surrounded, or
summoned by their old, let me start

over, Adam and Barbara are summoned
into their old wedding clothes.

At first it's just disorienting,
but when they start to rapidly

age and disintegrate, Lydia
goes for plan BEETLEJUICE.

She makes a deal with him.

He'll restore Adam and
Barbara if Lydia marries him?

Because he needs a ghost
green card or something?

Ben: That is pretty much how it works,
is that if he gets married, he can

then stay on this world, regardless of
if you say his name three times, and

he can just do all his chaos chaos.

Robin: Like, we understand
how curses work, right?

Like, this is, it's a curse.

They work like this.

It's fine.

Emily: yeah,

Jeremy: whole, this whole movie,
especially this part of the movie, has

a lot of things that feel like something
that you would set up in the first act.

And then you would like, now, now that
thing is happening and you're like, Oh,

I know how we deal with that because
of this other thing, but they didn't

set any of that up in the first act.

Like they don't give enough detail on
Beetlejuice or how he works or other

than the saying his name three times.

Ben: rules work however the
movie needs them to work.

His ghosts aren't real, and that's fine.

Emily: He says that he has no
rules, which is like, I mean,

I

Jeremy: for the one very big,
important rule that is his

main defining characteristic.

Emily: Yeah alright, so, yeah, if, if
Lydia marries him, he'll bring them back.

Well, whatever, just bring
back those hot white nerds.

Now it's showtime!

Beetlejuice makes quick work of the Maxes
by presumably launching them into orbit,

and he fully understands the assignment
by making Otho look objectively tacky.

Or subjectively tacky, not sure.

How do I, now here's a question,
how do I summon Beetlejuice?

into Elon Musk's house.

Robin: as long as you're
recording it, that would be

Emily: I, apparently I can't
because that's a no no with

a, with a Bureau of Paranormal

Ben: well, given the Wall

Street Journal expose that dropped today,
I'm worried they would just compare notes.

Robin: what's the worst
they could do to you?

What's the worst that the
afterlife bureaucracy, they're

just gonna be really bored.

And you were gonna be bored anyway.

Emily: They could, they could turn me into
a civil servant for the rest of eternity,

Robin: It is pretty bad.

Like, I'm not saying that's, but
like, it's, but it's a job, right?

Like, what could they threaten us
with now that feels as bad as, yeah.

Emily: Yeah, I mean,

Ben: What can death possibly
do to our souls that capitalism

hasn't already broken?

Emily: that's a good question.

But yeah, so, despite offering these
just desserts, uh, Beetlejuice is

still a huge creep and commences with
the matrimony, but hey, the Maitlands

are slowly like his hammer hands.

Reinflating.

Charles and Delia are conveniently
inconvenienced by Delia's hell sculpture,

and Beetlejuice summons a hell priest.

He displaces Adam into the model, and
Gina into Arrakis, but Gina is apparently

the Kwisatz Haderach, and she rides
as the leader of men back into the

house, interrupting the ceremony, and
Beetlejuice is once again worm food.

I wanna know where the worms came from.

Robin: Like,

Emily: sandworms?

Jeremy: Don't they say Saturn at one

Robin: they do.

They say, they say, but I, I
actually, I sort of, I know,

like, one thing about this.

But it is a mystery.

I don't know why sandworms.

I love sandworms.

I love this.

I definitely was convinced as
a child sandworms were going to

be a real problem, like between
this and, and the, the Lynch Dune

and everything else I watched

with sandworms

in it.

I just like super believed in sandworms.

Tremors.

Oh God,

Ben: We were just raised
to believe sand was death.

Robin: Yeah, we were, I was certain,
certain that sandworms would be a problem.

They, there was a production note
for this that like there was.

By Saturn, because Saturn is a gas
giant, they actually mean Saturn's

moon Titan, and it was going to
be one of several limbos, but

this is the only one that we got.

So that was stuff that, um, and I, and
I'm just gonna, I'm gonna like interject

now that that whole section of the
plot of the plot, like, Was from the

rewrite of the script by Warren Skaren,
who was going to have the musical

leitmotif be R& B, not Harry Belafonte.

And Beetlejuice's dialogue was, like,
in the Warren Skaren version, was

written in, like, 80s white guy AAVE.

So that was gonna be bad.

That was gonna be a whole thing, man.

Ben: Yikes.

Emily: yai yai.

It was a different time, wasn't

Ben: Was it

Emily: slightly.

But,

Jeremy: That just gives a whole
different, like, perspective to Robin

Thicke dressing in that Beetlejuice
costume for that thing with Miley Cyrus.

Sorry

Ben: That takes me back.

Well,

Emily: Okay, so, epilogue time.

The Deedsus and the Maitlands
have now struck a deal.

The Deedsus can stay as long as they
return the house to its former glory

and don't disrupt this town or the
delicate balance of life's mysteries.

In exchange, the Baitlins raise
their daughter, and they treat her

to Harry Belafonte possession powers.

I guess there is a sudden and
rapid revolution of the whole

living and dead system, maybe?

Or they managed to file an
exemption due to their rapid

pest removal of Beetlejuice.

Either way, we see Beetlejuice
back in bureaucracy.

Hell, he's rolling with it.

But there is some racism.

The end!

Ben: last we see of the Dead,
he's reading a, a new book A Guide

on Liv, A Guide on Cohabitation
Between The Living and the Dead,

Robin: yeah, it's living with
the dead magazine, in fact.

Emily: Yeah,

Ben: though they have

Emily: from the same wri

Ben: has, yes, has, has
made an exception for them.

I mean, it's a real best for everyone.

He gets to relax, Delia has
her art and a magazine that she

presumably paid to feature her art.

Um, and the Maitlands get to be the ones
who actually parent Delia, uh, Lydia.

Robin: But also, like, Delia
has Beetlejuice as her new muse.

Emily: Yes.

Robin: she has found something
more horrifying than, than those

incred I love her sculptures.

I love

them.

Ben: them.

They're great.

When they come to

Robin: is credited with the sculptures,
and I've never seen anything else

about who, like, I, I think he was just
somebody working on the production staff.

I don't think that he was an artist they
contracted otherwise, but super wonderful

Emily: Yeah, I mean, the
sculptures were unique.

I will say that they do look a
little bit, I mean, I'm going to.

Yeah, the coming to life
really brings them to life.

Ben: it's that old school Burton feel
where there is this like, this old school

movie making, you know, it's claymation,
it's practical effects, it's this guy with

like a weird imagination who wasn't making
anything at the time and it was this

combination of off kilter vision and just
the plain old hard work of movie making.

Emily: Yeah, I mean, and there was the,
like, certain things, certain challenges

that needed to be faced that people had
to face without like, the artifice of CGI,

you know, that they they had to figure it

Ben: things can come from needing to.

Like, overcome, can come from
needing to overcome those challenges.

Like again,

how much better those sandworms
look because they're in

claymation instead of early CGI.

Robin: Yeah, they'll, they'll
last forever this way.

Also,

Emily: yeah,

Robin: like, the characters
have chemistry with each other.

Because they're actually
acting with each other.

They're not having to just stand
in front of a green screen with a,

with a, you know, ball on a stick.

Like, they're actually interacting.

So even if you don't like what they're
doing to each other, it still feels like

people are doing things to each other.

Like, it actually feels
like there's people around.

Ben: and Geena Davis legitimately
have chemistry with one another.

This movie would not work if Alec Baldwin
and Geena Davis were not believable

as this really lovey dovey couple.

Emily: Were they together at the time, or
was Gina Davis still with Jeff Goldblum?

Ben: Were they ever together?

Emily: I don't know.

Ben: thing?

Emily: I don't

Jeremy: I have no idea.

Emily: I mean, Gina
Davis can she can get it.

Ben: No, she was still with
Jeff Goldblum at the time.

Emily: Okay.

I mean, yeah, personality wise.

Also, this is also the second movie
where Gina Davis is harassed by a monster

and they do the fly because there's
a bit where Beetlejuice eats the fly

from his that lands on the model and

Robin: Oh, he does.

Yeah.

Emily: legit goes,

Ben: Oh Yeah.

Emily: um, which is

Ben: they should've
got Goldbloom for that.

Emily: I don't know if Goblin would
have done the original fly thing.

He'd be like help

Ben: No.

Yeah.

Jeremy: Oh, me.

Emily: help me something like
that, which is hilarious.

Not as recognizable.

So let's talk about some stuff.

Is this movie feminist?

Robin: Like, is anything feminist?

Like, this movie does not set out to be

Ben: No,

Robin: No, I mean, like literally, I am, I
am definitely a person who looks at things

as, as like, Movies aren't feminist.

It's whether, it's like, what
do you see in the movie, right?

Like, movies are movies and they
might be overtly attempting to

engage with feminist themes.

This movie is definitely not attempting
to engage with feminist themes, but

it super passes the Bechdel test.

There's tons of women talking
about tons of interesting stuff.

Every female character makes the plot go.

Their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

Like, the only authority figure, the
highest authority figure, who is like,

Literally just a lady at the DMV, but
like, that is the highest authority

figure we see and she's an old lady.

I would say that there are so many
more, like, I hadn't even realized

that like, oh yeah, there was one
positive male character in this movie.

Every other dude is just like sleazy
or ineffectual or like the worst.

And I was like, yeah, they're all
interesting characters, but the women

are also allowed to be the worst.

Like they are weird, interesting
characters that have their own deal.

Like Delia is a mess.

She is a high strung artist.

She's sort of the worst
person on the planet.

But she's also an incredibly
believable, flaky artist, right?

You're like, Oh no, I believe that this
horrible woman exists and I love her.

Um, like Lydia is both a
joke and taken seriously.

Like she's the heart of the movie.

Is that the, is that the main
couple really love her because

she's actually pretty lovable?

Like she's great.

She's not a horrible, she's
not just cynical and awful.

She, like, really is very
sincerely into what she's into.

As you said, she's
listening to funeral dirges.

Like, she actually, like, is really
sitting with these feelings and

probably processing a mother's
death because that is her stepmom,

Emily: Yeah.

Yeah.

That

Ben: I'll get into that more
in recommendations into that,

some of that whole angle.

But I, ah, you know what, I, I
want to defend Delia, but she is

truly just this awful, like, social
climber trying to get that clout.

You know, more conservative like
dinner parties and just this

idea she has of being artists.

And I wonder how much am I actually
liking her as a character, or do

I just love Catherine O'Hara with

Robin: Yeah, she's, Catherine
O'Hara is so amazing in this movie.

She, but that's the point is, like,
she's able to take a character who just

sucks, she's a total heel, and makes her
somebody who, like, you'll never forget.

Yeah.

And that's amazing.

It's just exciting to me whenever I
watch a movie and a female character

I remember afterwards instead of them
just being there as set dressing.

And like, on that

level, this movie

Ben: a force of nature in this

Emily: Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's a good point.

It's a lot of good points,
Robin, because I think that

this movie don't, like, one thing that
I observed about this movie in its It's

one of those things that a few of these
horror movies that we talk about really

don't have like a message, especially
from like these fun kind of cartoony

movies with their very problematic
elements like the crow, you know, it's

not about this like progressive message.

They're, the broad strokes aren't
really like terribly progressive.

It's

Ben: Well, definitely not in the crow,

that's for

Emily: in the crow, the
crow's, the crow's message is.

Don't be a gangster or do re I, ACAB?

Question mark?

There's definitely a question mark

on ACAB.

It's

Robin: a cap question mark.

No, the crow's message is
that love transcends death.

That's a message that is like overtly

Jeremy: Love is so

Robin: even hammer that home by overtly

Jeremy: Well, they say it.

They say that's the message.

But love trans transcends death so
you can come back and kill the people

who raped and murdered your wife is

Robin: Yeah, yeah.

Jeremy: the the end of that

Robin: from that is as much as the
author could imagine being able to

play out his love after because like
he really went through that shit

I mean you always talked about we
don't need to talk about the crowd.

Emily: yeah, we,

Ben: We talked a,

Emily: there is gravity to the

Ben: we, oh boy.

If we did, we talk about the crow.

Emily: we sure did, now, but this
movie, I mean, like, again, with it's,

it's broad strokes in this movie, it's
like, it's cool to be yourself, and you

can be yourself with, you know, with
conflicting personalities and outlooks,

you know, you just have to figure out
where you can align and also the, whole

thing with Delia, like, her, her arc
feels like she doesn't really care about

her work, you know, she's the, exactly
what you talk about, like, she is the

hipster, but at the end she actually
does, like, she's, she is, she has a muse

Robin: She's inspired.

Emily: Yeah, she doesn't, like,
they're not selling photos of ghosts.

She is making work about demons,
and because she has experienced

that, then it is genuine, as opposed
to being, like, the, you know, or

whatever you imagine that she says
things are about, other than just,

like, this, you know, these are trendy
colors, and these are trendy shapes.

And we're just gonna put them together
like the, the interesting thing about her

work to me is it feels very like the kind
of weird Neo Geo shit that was really

big in like the late 80s, early 90s that
but it's like creepy version, right?

Robin: she's like Memphis,
but not corporate Memphis.

Emily: Yeah,

Robin: Yeah, like, she's very, it's
postmodern, but it's awful postmodern.

She says that she, her art is to express
herself, and if she can't express

herself, like, I am, I'm, this is
paraphrasing, but she says that, like,

if I can't express myself, I'll go
crazy and I'll take you with me, right?

And it's like, On some level, she, she
may not care about her art, but she

does care about expressing herself.

And they're definitely making
fun of that level of artists.

Well, again, giving her at the end that
little bit of like, oh, maybe this has

inspired her and she is, like, maybe
this is bringing her back to that.

Emily: Yeah.

Jeremy: Yeah, I feel like
in some, to some extent.

This movie succeeds despite
questionable writing.

Like, a lot of the, a lot
of the writing is not good.

Like, I was saying, I think when we
first started talking about this,

probably before we started recording,
is that it feels like there's a

lot of if thens there fors where
the then is missing in this movie.

Where it's like, when you die, if you
leave the house that you're hunting, you

end up in a sandworm wasteland on Saturn.

Ben: Makes

sense,

Jeremy: say, they don't say that
it's Saturn until Beetlejuice

says it at some point.

Nobody ever says why.

Or like, why Saturn is a
wasteland with sandworms in it.

Uh, like, that doesn't,
it doesn't make sense.

Uh, it, like, there's
nothing leading to it.

But also, like, that third act then has
a lot of moments where it feels like It

feels like Chekhov forgot to plant the
guns around the house, like, they just

Robin: it's, it's interesting because some
things are planted really well, right?

Like, there are moments, like,
there are some emotional beats

that are really thoughtful.

Like, um, Emily, you did a, I, I
really liked that you, you connected

two things really well where you
were like, Juno has a big open, well,

we can't let people know about the
afterlife and then we find out why.

It's because they don't
want kids to commit suicide.

Damnit, that's fucking terrible.

Especially 'cause the
afterlife kind of sucks.

Like, and I think like, I have like
a whole, I have a whole dissertation

about this movie that I'm gonna
treat you guys to after we've talked

about its incredible failings.

in the social justice sphere.

Um, but like, I do think there
is something to be said for like,

some of those moments are subtle
and it really, really works.

Even sort of like, oh,
Beelzeus is demonic.

They kind of say he's a
demon, maybe not a ghost.

They kind of say both, um, at some
point, but like, oh, his name has power.

And if you repeat it, it summons him
and that, and it can also banish him.

And you're like, cool.

There's like folkloric moments
where you don't need an explanation.

And I think visually, the visual
storytelling and the acting, as you

said, like, it kind of succeeds despite
moments where they honestly missed a

couple lines that just needed to be there.

On the other hand, by not hammering some
of those home, there's a weirdly organic

experience watching this movie where
the two main characters, the Maitland's

like, do not, they didn't read the book.

They fucking did not read.

They didn't read it.

There's a handbook that if they
could have gone through and

Ben: a stereo

Robin: sheet, yeah, like those scenes,
if they had gone through any of

that book would have been the scenes
that would teach the audience what

the rules are that we would know.

I think they probably should have been
there, but the fact they're not there.

And they're overtly not there because the
main characters didn't read them means

that you have their caseworker tearing
her hair out about how they didn't read.

And she's like, well, of course
you should already know this.

I think that is why the movie
works even though it shouldn't.

It's because there's a sense
that there's a bigger mythology

that you just don't know about.

Not that there is no mythology
and the movie is just making

it up as it goes along.

Like, I think that they managed to,
like, tonally, like, those moments

work to kind of make you not be mad.

that they didn't really set up.

As you said, Chekhov didn't
really put the gun in.

There's a few scenes that are gunless that
they should have, that should be there.

But I think that in this case we have Juno
telling you, God damn it, you guys need to

invite Chekhov in to put the gun down or
you're not going to get to use it later.

Emily: Yeah.

And, but I, I, I also think
that that is effective as.

Kind of making the characters feel
relatable and not and not like have

the story bogged down with explanation.

Because there is a
mythological aspect to it.

And this is the 1st time watching this
movie as many times as I have that I

ever had any idea that it was supposed
to be Saturn that the sandworms were.

Like,

Jeremy: because, like,
Beetlejuice says it.

He just says, Oh yeah, you
guys have been to Saturn, huh?

Like, oh, the sandworms.

And it's like, wait, what?

Emily: yeah, I didn't

Ben: that was like another
layer of the underworld.

I thought it was like
Hueco Mundo from Bleach.

Robin: like it, it is though, right?

Like, as I said, like, man, originally
they would have had a whole thing

about the different, different
limbos and these different areas.

And like, this was definitely left.

Like, that is a thing that was definitely
something that was in one version

of the script and honestly probably
bogged the script down like crazy.

It probably was unnecessary.

I wish we had it.

I would love that to be there,
but I'm like, man, it probably,

like, this movie's pretty tight.

It's tight.

Like,

yes, there's sloppiness at the end, but
there's no wasted moment where you're

bored or wondering why this scene is here.

Ben: For sure.

And it keeps it all like, it's a
bit of an ensemble movie, but aside

from these, again, brief sojourns
to, uh, Jupiter or Saturn, it is

very focused around the house.

Like, it's a bit of an ensemble
movie, like, we get scenes of Delia

and the dad just kinda talking, and
talking about their lives, where it's

not really advancing the plot, but
it's just, it's all just all these

people centered around this house.

Robin: no, those scenes totally
advance the plot, because they're

telling you that they're real estate
developers and they suck ass, like,

Ben: Bear,

Robin: hugely important to the story.

No, but also, like, they built that
house, like, this house does not exist.

The house, um, and it doesn't exist
anymore, but, like, the town is real, but

the house is a set that they built, and
of course they had to, like, build two

Ben: Oh, I love that the town is
real, because they do spend so much

time just shitting on this town.

Emily: yeah,

Robin: It's in Vermont, not
Connecticut, though, I'm sorry to say.

So maybe Connecticut isn't real.

Jeremy: mean, Connecticut's
really just Vermont.

Ben: Man, if you told me I got on a
train at Grand Central and then just

fuckin had some sort of severance
experience and false memories,

I'd be like, Yeah, yeah, I buy it.

Jeremy: yeah, I feel like I mean,
we've established that, you know, Tim

Burton, I think it's well established
that Tim Burton is a vibes guy.

He's not a plot guy.

He's a vibes guy.

And like, this movie, I, you know,
there's a lot to love about it.

It's weird that it's, it's
almost weird that it's called

Beetlejuice because Beetlejuice
is so not central to this movie.

He is not in a lot of the movie.

Um, but like, I feel like what's missing
in this movie is, This is Halloween.

Like, if, if the Nightmare Before
Christmas just started with him

going to Christmasland, you'd be
like, What the fuck is any of this?

Like, he, what, he lives in a world
that's just Halloween all the time?

I don't understand, like, But, but,
you get that introduction at the

beginning of Nightmare Before Christmas,
it's like, hey, This is a world

where it's Halloween all the time.

Oh, he found a world where
it's Christmas all the time.

Got it?

Good, let's go.

Ben: well since you brought that up, I'm
gonna skip ahead to my recommendation,

which is Beetlejuice the Musical.

If you ever get a chance, I believe it
is currently touring last I checked.

If you ever get the chance to see this
musical, It is legitimately fantastic.

The songs are wonderful.

The set is great.

It's the, it's all focused on the house,
which completely morphs and shifts and

the lighting changes depending on who,
who's kind of in control of the house.

But really all the characters just
have a little more depth and backstory.

Like the musical really dives into.

Lydia's grief for her mother it
really explores that the dad is

dealing with his grief in his own way.

Delia is a character much more full
of insecurities and wanting to be a

part of this family, legitimately.

They give Beetlejuice a whole,
like, some more backstory.

And Flesh Out, like, it's strange to
say, but I might actually, because

I do, I truly love this movie, it's
one of my all time favorites, I

might actually enjoy the musicals
version of the story a little more.

Emily: I haven't seen the musical, so I'm
gonna have to figure that out, because

I've, you know, when Jeremy's saying,
like, this is Halloween, like, this sounds

like the perfect thing for Beetlejuice,

Ben: I mean, the opening song
is called, The Whole Being Dead

Thing, is the opening number.

Emily: Um,

Robin: not a musical guy, so it's really
hard for me to get excited about this.

Emily: yeah, I'm also, I'm
also not really a musical guy.

My favorite musical
is, uh, The Wicker Man.

Ben: I'm not much of, like, a
music girlie, musical girlie

myself, but I love BLJs.

Look, if I go to, like, one of these
shows, I just want to be overwhelmed

with lights and sounds, and just be,
like, a toddler being like, YAY SHINY!

And this achieved that in
just overwhelming my senses

for a solid two hours.

Emily: I, yeah, like, that is the thing
that I think I would enjoy out of this.

Like, I've, I've, I've seen pieces of,
like, I've seen stuff about it and I'm

like, this is probably one of those
musicals that I would be into just

because of, like, just the craft involved.

Ben: It was very cool.

When I went to see it in New York,
like, outside the theater was just

a giant wall Of the musical fan art.

Robin: That's really sweet.

Emily: yeah.

Now,

Jeremy: I will say I am the one
currently wearing a Wicked tour t shirt.

Uh, so I

Ben: Which I still wanna see!

I, I wanna defy gravity!

Jeremy: yeah, I am a musical person,
but before we get too much into more

recommendations, I think that that
fits with what we were talking about,

but we do, I didn't want to say, like,
we've talked about the racial social

justice part of this, and it's bad.

It's

very bad.

Robin: Yeah,

Emily: it's, you

Robin: it's bad partially
through a mission, which is

definitely what he usually does.

Like, the bright spot is, like,
Harry, Harry Belafonte is amazing.

Incredibly

important, important activist, wonderful
musician, and his music being in the

movie, to me, like, this is my one
bright spot, I would say, about any

of that, because there are no others
in this, like, it is that, like,

that music being in here has brought
Harry Belafonte into the goth canon.

And that is honestly opening an incredibly
important Black artist's work to a

group of people who might have not paid
attention, and he was a huge activist,

like, he was a super important person, and
I think that that, whether that was super

intentional, like, yeah, he maybe threw
that in because he thought it was kitschy,

but it doesn't matter what his intention
was, it's there now, and it's now

something that, like, immediately a whole
bunch of Goths who might never interact

with things made by people of color, God,
I hope that's not true anymore, like,

that's not true anymore, that's like,

Emily: it's not true anymore,

Robin: That's old shit from the, from
the 80s, but like, this is definitely

something that fights that narrative.

Emily: yeah, I mean, growing up,
growing up in the, in, like, the 90s,

there was certainly, like, this weird
thing with music, where, with goth

music, well, some, sort of with goth
music, but then we had Screamin J.

Hawkins and Lead

Belly, and so, like, at that
point, like, I didn't, you know,

I already had, like, Screamin J.

Hawkins and Lead Belly, and I'm like,
there's no way that that's gonna be goth.

Fuck you guys.

Um.

Yeah, yeah, like, come on.

And that's just among the many
incredible artists and musicians that

were, you know, that were, the goth,
whole goth situation owes itself to.

But, Ben, you were gonna say something?

Ben: Well just, uh, in terms of,
you know, how this movie approaches

its queer characters and queer
representation, Look, maybe there's

somebody out there who is like, Otho
showed me that I could be a queer goth,

like, that there was space for me.

Otho was my personal inspiration.

Maybe that person's out there.

I haven't met them.

But I will say, Glenn Shattuck's put Glenn
Shattuck's put in a fantastic performance.

Robin: He is incredible in this movie.

I love him.

I love him in this and in Heather's
so much like these are those are

two of my favorite movies that
he's incredible in both of them.

He does transcend stereotype where you're
like, no, no, he's an awful yuppie.

The fact that he's gay does not matter.

It is like maybe the slightest throwaway
line that some other bitch is like, it

is such a shitty moment where it's just
two people being awful to each other.

What matters is that he's awful.

What matters is that he

Ben: influence to him, I think.

Jeremy: Oh, yeah.

He's he's got a bit of
Truman Capote to him.

Robin: Yes, Definitely

Jeremy: I think like he feels like a
character from a John Waters movie But

this movie doesn't love him the way a
John Waters movie would It doesn't it

doesn't seem to like care about him
the way that the John Waters would And

yeah, I love Glenn Shattuck's in this
And I mean, I generally love Glenn

Shattuck's and other stuff as well.

You know, speaking of
Nightmare Before Christmas,

Ben: the movie can't bring itself to hate
Otho because he's too, he's too camp.

He's too in line with the movie's energy
for the movie to not kind of love him.

Robin: is the movie and
he's right all the time.

Like, as I said, I, I mentioned
that, like, I'm not sure he is

necessarily authorial voice.

But knowing who wrote the original
script, that character, I mean, I don't

know if he was in the original version
of the script, but it sure feels like

maybe there was a touch of soul, like
he maybe imbued this character with a

little bit of soul just because, like,
this is the gay goth that wrote it, right?

Like, there is a bit of that
that I do think shines through.

Another 80s movie might not have
been as good to the character.

Like, I'm not saying this movie's
good to this character, but he is

a, like, a scene chewing character.

He's not a butt of the joke character.

Like, the joke they make at his
expense at the end is that he's

wearing a powder blue disco suit.

Emily: yeah.

Robin: that's the joke at his expense,
is that they, is that they impinge,

they infringe on his personal taste?

That is way, way tamer than what something
else might have done in this exact period.

Emily: yeah.

And, like, the fact that, and, and, and it
also highlights, like, that whole sequence

highlights what the, what Beetlejuice,
the difference between Beetlejuice and

the, the Maitlands was, in terms of
haunting, is that Beetlejuice was very

specific about what he would do, and
he was very specific about, like, what

he knew would be the most Terrifying
for that person where the Maitlands

are like, I don't know, banana boat.

But, also like, Otho
isn't launched into space.

He's just, he just

Robin: Yeah, he gets out.

He gets away.

Jeremy: I feel like, just generally, it's
a little confusing that Tim Burton wants

to exist in such a camp space and does not
seem to know what to do with queer people.

Like, just, like, just, somebody
just needs to sit him down.

And, I mean, I feel like
people have, but like,

Robin: he owes so much to queer people.

And it's not that he is overtly hostile
like his work is rarely I would not say

never, but rarely overtly hostile to queer
people or queerness, but boy is just he

just not seem to know that he could be.

directly interfacing with any of that.

Emily: Oh, yeah, well, he's, he's

Jeremy: Tim, Tim Burton just, it's
frustrating to me as a, as a creative

person, as a person that makes stuff,
that Tim Burton seems to be a guy, despite

making movies like this that are largely
about artists that are up their own

ass, that Tim Burton is up his own ass,

Robin: Yeah, he has no flashlight

Jeremy: does not, he does not

give a shit about his audience,
he doesn't care who it is that's

watching the thing, as long as like,
They're there and paying, I guess.

He's sort of convinced of his own
genius and it's, it's irritating.

Robin: I suspect he cared more in the 80s.

I think that there is the, there is a hint
that he cares about the material that he

is covering at this point, even if it's
not the the way we'd want him to care

about it, he's clearly interested in the
at least he gives a shit about the craft.

At this point, the craft matters to him,
and the vibe matters to him, and like, he

and there's ever a new idea in his movies.

Like, at some point, that
just stopped happening.

Like, that is just gone.

But at this point,

Ben: it feels like some creators
really are at their best when they're

like, scrappy and hungry for it
and like, are ruined by success.

Emily: And all, well, like, he
was also had his production team.

He had his people that
he was working with.

You know, so, like, it's, you know,
it's kind of similar to the whole the,

the George Lucas discussion about the
original Star Wars, but, like, how, you

know, it, George, it was not a monolith
that George Lucas was not a monolith when

he made the original Star Wars trilogy.

And then, you know, once he started
to be a monolith, that's when things

got problematic for everybody.

Robin: If there's no one to say no,
if he doesn't have other geniuses to

work with, if he's not so directly
pulling from some of the best artists

from his era, then guess what?

He kind of kind of sucks a little bit.

Maybe a lot of it.

Emily: Burton doesn't
work well with others.

Now,

Robin: Yeah, I believe that.

Emily: he's Beetlejuice now.

Robin: Yeah.

You think you're

Jeremy: Mentioning Star Wars

Robin: long enough to become Beetlejuice.

Jeremy: Mentioning Star Wars just
makes me really wish that, like, this

movie had a fucking that had, like,
Carrie Fisher in its corner somewhere.

Like, just fixing this fucking script
and, you know, Harrison Ford to tell

the director that he's full of shit
and, like, That's, you know, that is the

only thing missing from Beetlejuice is
somebody that's like, Tim, this sucks.

Fix it.

Robin: And

I

Jeremy: to fix it before you put it out.

Emily: wasn't as in charge because he
had these production designers and he

had these, all of these, these people
that he was working with and, you know,

like Danny Elfman, him and Danny Elfman,
of course, are like, you know, buddies,

but the, the, I feel like it's more, it
was more about making everything work

together than it being like Tim Burton TM.

Robin: And again, like, I know that Justin
has, like, the most problems with the

script of everybody here, which is fair,
like, that's fine but I can't help but

bring up that this script was way worse,

like, this is, yeah, and like, I
haven't read it, but like, everything

describing the different revisions this
went through, it was originally way more

serious and violent and racist, like,
as I said, There was a version of this

movie that was going to, you know, but
like, oh my god, it was all going to be

like, again, 80s white guy writing AAVE.

They wanted Sammy Davis Jr.

for the role of Beetlejuice, and like,
I would love to see, like, poor, like,

like, rest, rest in peace Sammy Davis Jr.

I would have loved to see him as a slick
devil, like, fuck yeah, but as a, like,

Use car salesman gross out like con man.

No, like don't bring him down.

There was also

Ben: anyone but Michael Keaton in the role

Robin: it's

Emily: yeah, we'll need to find it.

Robin: But, but also part of why he named
him Beetlejuice with that particular,

like, with that particular spelling,
he, there was a version of the script

where he was going to be like a slick
Middle Eastern kind of guy, and I'm

just like, boy, 80s movie, cannot
believe that would have been acceptable.

I cannot believe that would not have been.

So it's just like, sometimes it's
a blessing that Tim Burton does not

put people of color in his movie
because he would have treated them so

badly, it would have been real gross.

And this is one of those where just
like, Boy, it would be cool if he

was not the voice of this movie, but
he is, and this is probably the less

disgusting version, and that sucks to say.

Like, that is such a sucky
thing to contend with, but

I, boy is it a thing though.

Ben: No, I We've talked many a time
how it's be We think it's better, For a

movie to not address a topic at all, then

address it terribly.

Emily: Oh yeah.

Borateljuice?

They are married.

Ben: Who?

Emily: Beetlejuice and Lydia.

So, you know, Beetlejuice could
technically be like my wife.

Ben: No.

No, I refuse to go with you on that one.

Jeremy: On that note, would you
guys recommend this movie to people?

Emily: Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Robin: do you guys want to hear the short
version of my, like, my huge, because

I have like, I, I have to step back and
say like, I actually think this movie

has something really special about it.

It is not just the production.

And I am.

Again, I'm very biased.

I've been obsessed with this
movie since I was a little kid.

It's really influenced me, which is weird
to say because we're talking about the

problems with the script and I'm like,
mm, those problems did not matter to me

Ben: We have fun we have fun nitpicking.

It's

Robin: no,

Ben: It's not a good episode if
we just say everybody did amazing.

Robin: like, oh god, but also, like,
Jeremy, like, could, you absolutely

could do a better version of this movie.

Like, there's no, there's no question.

Um,

Ben: I'm saying, like, why, like, There
was room to improve, which is why I

think I like the musical more, like, The
problematic elements are less problematic,

and all the characters are just a little
more fleshed out and three dimensional.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Robin: is really fun to say for a musical,

Ben: Yeah.

Emily: Right.

Robin: but like, okay, okay.

Emily: Yes.

Robin: I think that there is a really
interesting theme that, for me, is a

really important ghost and horror theme.

So like, if you're thinking about what
might Tim Burton ever have to say.

Right?

It's not gonna be about social justice.

He has no idea.

Like, this is not where he comes from.

But I think that there is something
here that, that is worth saying.

There is this whole theme of preserving
the old versus investing in the future.

At the beginning, the Maitlands
are obsessed with their old house.

They just want to keep it preserved
as this cozy, isolated place

for the two of them to nest.

And at first, they wholesale
push back against the invading

force of these New York yuppies.

It's not gentrification, but it is a
big theme in the 80s, right, to have

stuff about development creeping into
formerly rural areas, locals being

pushed out to make way for vacation
homes for rich people who aren't

invested in the place other than for
money, such as when the Dietz's want

to capitalize on the ghosts and turn
the town into a paranormal Disneyland.

That's really pointed.

That's really pointed.

I mean, that's about Florida.

There's so many places that that
is like directly discussing.

Yeah.

And like, sure, Otho is gay and the
stepmom is an artist, but it's class

that's making them monsters, not those
parts of their identities, right?

Like, the dad is trying to escape
his stressful life, but he's too

much of an 80s businessman to ever
do that, so he brings the stressful

life with him May Your Buildings
Go Condo was their toast, right?

Emily: Yeah.

Robin: But the thing is, the Maitlands,
who are really looking backwards,

and, you know, like, they choose
to support Lydia, the child, right?

Rather than just scare them all away
and sit in the past, these ghosts, these

literal relics of the past, are choosing
to invest in a future of tolerance and

cooperation, which means that, like,
you know, some, some of the old is going

to be preserved while allowing change
and new things to flourish, you know,

progress, rather than stomping out all
progress or paving over all of history.

So, I think in a narrative about
ghosts and goths, it really manages

to have some evocative things to say
about coexistence of past, present,

and future, and the dangers of either
looking only back or only forward.

In some ways, believing in ghosts, or
maybe just telling ghost stories, is a

way to hold on to a part of our history
that is sentimental, that values, like,

human emotion, and preserves the ephemeral
truths that would otherwise go away.

Such as Love, right?

The Malins love each other, they
love their house, and they even

tell you that they love Lydia.

They tell her that they love her, right?

The daughter they never got to have.

So instead of seeing ghosts as just
superstitious folly, we see them as

valuing these otherwise ephemeral
things, exactly what developers

and genderifiers seek to destroy.

So like, this That theme is completely
what the movie is actually about.

And if you take a step back and
you look at, oh, Beetlejuice is

just a trickster character, but
he's a dumb trickster character.

Like, he's a, he's like, you have your
wily coyote type, but he's like, Idiot.

He is totally hoist by his own batard.

His plan does not work.

He does not escape the
consequences of his own actions.

He is happily sowing chaos that totally
makes the plot move, but also he fails.

Like, he fails at everything he sets
out to do by the end, and these people

who really have love end up with a,
I mean, like, can we point out that's

a found family trope at the end?

Emily: Oh, absolutely.

I also love that they don't, like,
Barbara and Adam don't make any

comments about Lydia's appearance.

Or her, her attitude other than the
suicidal ideation thing like that

and what they say to her about that.

I love that that is so, like, it's not
beaten over the head and like, and Alec

Baldwin is trying really hard to be
like, well, we know a lot about this,

but he, in the meantime, he's like.

Got a he's got a fucked up chicken
head because he doesn't can't figure

out how to on chicken head himself.

And so, like.

These, these little things are, are
really important, I think, in that

that element of the movie of, of how
these characters interact with the new.

And yeah, like, Charles and Delia
are deplorable in a way, but when

they realize, when, Adam and Barbara
realized, The extent of their ire

when they see Beetlejuice threaten
the lives of Otho and Charles, they're

like, this is not what we want at all.

You know, they, they didn't even, like,
ask Beetlejuice to do that for starters.

Like, you know, Barbara was definitely
not on the Beetlejuice train after

he, like, you know, assaulted her.

So she's like, no, no, no, no, no already.

But, and then she's also the
first one to, to dispel him.

But they have a very, like, reasonable
outlook, and they also don't, like,

even though they're super normcore,
they, they don't go with the flow.

You know, like, the whole DMV thing,
like, Adam is kind of, is like, oh, maybe

civil service, like, the civil services
will do it, and then we'll just wait,

you know, which is a thing you can do.

So, but sometimes the
system, a lot of the times.

Maybe even most of the time.

The system doesn't work, you
know, and you can't rely on that.

You have to rely on, you know, being
adaptable and that's how she decides that

she's like, no, you know, I think we can
make another, we don't have to make this.

We don't have to follow these rules, you
know, there's a, there's a different way.

There's another option here.

Robin: Yeah, they're
really quite rebellious.

They, like, There is just that, that
hint of like, oh, are they going to

be kind of like a trad wifey thing?

And it's like, no, they're not.

They're great.

They're actually like
those two characters.

They, they aren't a jerk to anybody
who wasn't already a jerk to them.

Like, yeah, they love their old
house, but they love their old house.

They love it.

They're not just possessive
because it's theirs.

They love it, they're treating it
with respect, they're restoring it.

That is not just obsession with looking
towards the past, that's preservation,

and that is just like, again, that
sincerity takes it a little bit further.

There is that element, like, this
movie is bad about suicide if

you think of it as, like, there's
no great way to talk about that.

This movie's very flippant about it, but
it is overtly telling you that it's worth

living because death sucks and is boring.

And I think that that is really special.

Like, weirdly special.

Like, there is an element
of, hey, the afterlife is a

bureaucratic nightmare that sucks.

You don't want to get here
any faster than you have to.

So there's the slight comfort
of, well, there's an afterlife.

It's not necessarily
hell, but it does suck.

So like, maybe don't be
in a hurry to get here.

And like, for such an overtly gothy
ass movie, where a main character is

like, is a goth, that's really sweet.

It's like, actually a thoughtful
thing for it to engage with.

Emily: I do, I do appreciate the,
I mean, I feel like the candor with

which they discuss the, because they're
talking about life and death, you

know, these questions have to come up.

They don't shy away from those questions
and they were, you know, the, the

deplorable characters have deplorable
things to say about them, But the

actual, like, fact that they talk
about it, they don't shy away from the

subject, I think is, is also profound.

That they're like, yeah, you know,
like, that is the big, the big

question about unraveling that mystery.

Is it, like, if we know whether or not
for sure there's an afterlife, You know,

that it changes the meaning of everything.

And this is just a small part of
that just, you know, identifying a

small part of that and especially
talking about a, of, of gothic

teenager, you know, and like.

In in it, it's also like, really.

Addressing the kind of
the way that both goths.

I mean, this is, this Venn diagram is a
circle, but, um, goths and artists talk

about the life and death and, like, their
depression and their depressive episodes,

so it becomes like, you know, the weather,
like, you know, this, and, and when we

were in high school and we were ghoulish
children, you know, the, the things,

there were some things that we said to
each other like, content warning here,

there was a, there were comments about
playing the wrist violin, you know, and

those were things that we said as goths
as sort of a joke, but, you know, while

we had friends who did die by suicide.

You know, so, like, I don't think
it needs to be it doesn't need to

avoid the comment and I don't think
it really says, I mean, I think

that it does take suicide seriously.

in a way that doesn't shy away
from these awkward topics.

And, you know, which is a very,
like, it's not just a goth thing,

but it's, it's a genuine thing.

So, yeah, and, and the, the coexistence,
like, that's another thing, is like,

you can coexist with your demons too.

Robin: Yes.

Yeah, like, they don't de
gothify Lydia at the end.

It's not a story about how she
becomes, like, a little mini Barbara,

Emily: yeah, yeah, and, you know,
and the cartoon follows that.

Like, the cartoon, she is fully goth,
and she is no, she is nothing different.

So, we recommend this movie, yes.

What, what else would we recommend, Robin?

Robin: I think, partially, like,
it's really hard to not just be

like, okay, let's talk about some,
some, some gothic or ghostly or

spooky stuff made by, not Tim Burton.

I can't help but think that
Rodin, Montijo Montijo?

God, I can't say anything
tonight, I'm sorry.

I can't help but think that Rode
Montijo is a fantastic person

to go look towards, right?

Like, a wonderful tomes book illustrator,
the Halloween kid is so cute, all of his

work is incredible, and Like so perfect
and really bridges some of the like if

you if you think that goth is a white
thing like have you let me introduce

you to all of the cultures that treat
death in such interesting ways that are

really outside of the white experience
and go ahead and get cozy with those.

But also, I don't know if you
like haunted houses and want to

read a haunted house book that's
not a haunted house book at all.

Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House
is a real good palate cleanser for this.

It's like, it's about a, it's about how
her, like, it's like semi autobiographical

and it's her, her queer bad breakup
haunts her still and totally wrecked

her life and it is messy and beautiful.

Emily: So I have not
heard of that or have I?

Jeremy: Well, what have you heard of,
Emily, that you would want to recommend?

Yeah, yeah.

Emily: like Lydia.

I'm gonna go back to a source.

Somewhere between Adams and Tim Burton.

There is an artist and writer that
we all need to, to tip our hats to.

And his name is Edward
Gory known asexual and.

Fabulous dresser, lover of cats.

Robin: King of our hearts.

King of our, our withered black hearts.

Emily: yes.

If you've ever seen, like, you can find
his books, and you'll probably, you've

probably seen his art, a lot of the
Tim Burton style, like the Bellacolli

Death of the Oyster Boy and stuff like
that, which is by Tim Burton owes a lot

stylistically and, uh, and Jonah Vasquez,
you know, owes a lot stylistically to

Edward Gorey, and his books, look up
Amphigory, the first Amphigory, Is bomb.

Like, the first Amphigory book
has a lot of his illustrated

poems, some of the best ones, The
Doubtful Guests, Gashly Crum Tinies.

There's a lot of, like, fun
little macabre poetry and stuff.

And, uh, if you've ever seen the original
Mystery on PBS, The original animation

at the top of that was done by Evergory.

And speaking of PBS, if you also
want to go back into the old Magic

before the Stone Table was made, you
find Tim Burton's version, his fairy

tale theater that he did for Aladdin.

Now, this is where he
directed James Earl Jones.

Who was the genie in
this version of Aladdin.

Of course, other than him, I
think everybody was pretty white.

Leonard Nimoy is in it.

He is the, He is the, bad guy.

He is like the Jafar guy.

Who's not like, he's a different
situation, but, there's actually a lot

of like, visual similarities, not just
in like, You know, the, the Tim Burton

enos, but, like, the flatness and the,
the, the kind of set dressing of that

with a lot of the stuff in Beetlejuice.

So you can sort of see that he's
already working with his people

that he has this idea of the style.

That when he can really just go off, he
goes off but it's very, it's, I mean,

it's fairytale theater, which was.

kind of an anthology show where a bunch
of actors worked on basic fairy tale

things, kind of like the Storyteller,
but it was hosted by Shelley Duvall.

Robin: I love her in this too.

Yeah, the huge, huge iconic
part of my childhood also, yeah.

Emily: me too, me too.

And it's worth it just for
James Earl Jones, because he's,

he's the genie, he comes out.

And the first thing he does after
he comes out of the, the lamp

is like, how about I take your
eyeballs and crush them in my hand?

And Aladdin's like, actually,
I'd like to make a wish, please.

And he's like, okay, fine.

What do you want?

So, and I think a lot of the, the
Disney's Aladdin knows a lot to that too.

So, yeah, check that out.

If you can find it, it's
probably on YouTube somewhere,

but that's fairytale theater.

From the eighties.

Ben: Are we, are we still
doing the recommendations?

We started that like, we started
recommendations like 20, oh wow, okay.

Started that like 20

Jeremy: You started recommendations
significantly before

Ben: I skipped ahead, I

Emily: Yeah.

Yeah.

Jeremy: you wanted to recommend?

You said Beto Juist,

Ben: Nope, nope, I'm good.

I'm sticking with trying to find
that on tour, any recording going on.

Jeremy: Yeah.

What I want to recommend, a couple of
things I saw that Robin had put this

on, on her list at first as well, uh,
Wendelin Wild, uh, which is, uh, Henry

Selick directed and Jordan Peele.

starring and produced stop motion
animated feature, which does actually

have several characters of color at
the center of it, um, including a, you

know, black, black goth main character.

It's great.

It's a little long, but it's really good.

I would also just recommend, I
feel like a lot of people attribute

stuff to as, as we've talked about,
attribute stuff to Tim Burton that has

a lot to do with the people that has
worked with, including Henry Selleck.

Uh, if you haven't seen the other
Henry Selick movies I would say

a lot of the, the real genius of
Nightmare Before Christmas comes

from Henry Selick and Danny Elfman.

Uh, Tim, yeah, Tim Burton had a, he
wrote a nice kid's book, that had a

gothy feel to it, and those guys made
it what it is that, you know, continues

to exist to these days, to this day.

Emily: Absolutely.

Jeremy: I would say if you're looking for
another movie about, shitty rich people,

moving out to the country and coming to
terms with their, uh, shitty richness.

Uh, Schitt's Creek is

Ben: Catherine O'Hara,

Jeremy: yeah, it's Catherine O'Hara

Robin: it's a vehicle for her
to be unforgettable again.

Jeremy: yeah, doing amazing

Ben: Moira fucking Rose.

Jeremy: that does handle queer
people in a way that this movie

is not interested in doing.

And so, yeah, I mean, watch all of that.

Also, if you're interested in another
thing with a, an interesting and

important take on the afterlife, if
you haven't watched The Good Place,

it is all on Netflix and is one of the
best TV shows that's ever been made.

Incredible writing.

It, it, I feel like is a seminar on
writing, has like a, a first season

that leads to an incredible twist that
like, And so many other shows have just

done that kind of thing and then bombed
afterwards, looking at you heroes.

But this is like, this is a show
that like, after that first season

they're like, Alright, now every
episode just has an incredible twist.

Like, we're just gonna keep going.

There are things that would
normally take a whole season that

are done within two episodes.

in that show and the, the level of
writing and research and everything

in that is just incredible.

So, if you haven't, if you haven't seen
The Good Place check that out as well.

It's all sitting on Netflix right
now for you to watch, so do it.

All right, that about wraps it up.

Robin, can you let people know
where they can find you and, uh,

stuff that you're up to right now?

Robin: excellent.

I am all over social
media as the Gorgonist.

That's a Gorgonist, like, like Medusa.

I am especially active on Instagram
and Tumblr, wherever they steal

your art, I'm there, cause that's

Jeremy: Gorgonist with
an I S T, not E S T.

not the most the most Gorgon,

Robin: Yeah, Gorgonist, not Est.

I'm not claiming I'm the Gorgon est person
in the world, just, just a Gorgon est.

You can find my author illustrator picture
book, this book is my best friend, and

my graphic novel, No One Returns from the
Enchanted Forest, in, I guess, bookstores?

And I just finished illustrating
Goth Parenting by Casey Gilley,

out in September from Chronicle, so
you can pre order that, and it is

definitely the drawing adorable goth
families for, like, a hundred pages

of very, very cute, Very gothy advice.

Um, I'm

Jeremy: Gilley also friend of the show.

Robin: yeah, and, and fabulous

Ben: be, that's gonna
be so cute and so fun.

I'm so excited for that.

Congratulations on it.

Oh, that's so gonna be so cool.

Robin: It is incredibly fun.

Like we, we just got our first
copies to look at and we've been

texting each other today about them.

So yeah, it's, it's, it's a joy.

The book is very, very pretty,
and I'm really excited to hold

it in my hands and everyone else
will get to hold it in September.

I am also half of a very niche
podcast about clamp, the, uh, Japanese

Maka super group with Lucy Softic.

And if you want a painstaking leave
not perfectly research podcast

for two old friends, reread and
recontextualize every published

clamp work in chronological order.

You can listen to us at, uh,
clamp cast and wonderland.com.

Jeremy: Fantastic.

All right.

And, uh, Emily, can you let people know
where they can, uh, find you online?

Emily: Just go to Megamoth.

net.

It's got, it's my card, it's
got the whole, all the, all

the cards in the deck there.

You can look me up on my, as
Megamoth on most social mediums.

Except for Instagram, which
is mega underscore moth.

Now with Nightshade, baby.

Um,

Ben: Hell yeah.

Emily: yeah, so,

Ben: The best shade.

Emily: and stuff.

Nightshade's Promise.

That's Nightshade's
Promise, like, in the spell.

Jeremy: And, uh, Ben, what about you?

Ben: Yeah, hit me up, nkoncomics.

com, and preorder Mr.

Muffins for cosmic corgi comic goodness.

Jeremy: Fantastic.

And, uh, I am at jeremywhitley.

com on I'm on blue sky and Tumblr
at jeremywhitley and those,

other places that are owned by
crazy billionaires as jrome58.

You can go buy the book navigating
with you right now, which, I, I

wrote as fresh out from Maverick
and is a, queer romance, comic.

About two people.

Yeah,

Robin: Yeah.

Jeremy: But, uh, two girls who fall in
love over shared love of, uh, manga.

Emily: I've known many of those.

Robin: Yes.

Those are, those are my people.

Emily: yeah.

Ben: We're all falling in
love over Hikaru no Go.

Jeremy: Yeah.

And of course, the, the podcast is on
Patreon, on a progressively horrified

progressively horrified transistor fm
and on Twitter at Prague Horror Pod.

We'd love to hear from you.

We would love for you to back us.

Uh, help us make more of these podcasts
so we can talk more about horror movies

with our friends yeah, just rate and
review wherever you download this thanks

again to Robin for joining us Robin.

It was a ball

Emily: Thank you

Robin: hey.

Thank you guys so much.

this was in fact a ball.

Thanks for being my host with the most.

Ben: Yeah, uh, thank you
so much for coming on.

We had a blast having you today.

Emily: For real,

Jeremy: and thanks to all of
you for listening and until

next time stay horrified