Stage Fright is the sixth episode of the first season of Beetlejuice.
Cast[]
- Beetlejuice (played by Stephen Ouimette)
- Lydia Deetz (played by Alyson Court)
- Bertha & Claire Brewster (played by Tara Strong; credited as Tara Charendoff)
- Prudence (played by Tabitha St. Germain; as Paulina Gillis)
- Charles Deetz (played by Roger Dunn)
- Delia Deetz & Miss Shannon (played by Elizabeth Hanna)
- Mr. Kane
Plot[]
On a beautiful day outside in Miss Shannon's School for Girls, Miss Shannon has an important announcement to make:as she introduced Mr. Kane, her school's annual Shakespeare festival called "Romeo and Juliet". As Lydia takes a look at the picture, Beetlejuice appeared, disguised as Juliet, only to see Lydia (and not everyone else) in person, though she is upset the school's annual Shakespeare festival isn't doing "Macbeth", she competes for title role in "Romeo and Juliet" against Claire, who later makes fun of Lydia's insect project (as she showed them to her friends and the professor), and Beetlejuice used his spider form to scare Claire straight! At Miss Shannon's playhouse, Mr. Kane is the judge of stage. Claire does the rehearsal of "Romeo and Juliet". To get even and make up for pathetic acting skills at tryouts, Claire framed Lydia by using Lydia's spiders against her and Ernest who played Romeo as sabotage, and the rehearsal act is ruined because Claire used Lydia's beehive to threw onto Mr. Kane, who's having the bee stings.
A short time later, survived from the bee sting accident, Mr. Kane has made the decision to Claire Brewster and not Lydia about the "Romeo and Juliet" rehearsal, but Lydia later recognizes the honey on Claire's sticky fingers from her own beehive while Prudence and Bertha show Claire the honey on the ruler so Lydia decides to start planning vengeance. Although Beetlejuice insists on personal, Renaissance-themed horror for Claire, Lydia takes an artistic approach and signs up for costume designer. Along with other designs (all approved by the corpse of Shakespeare himself) Lydia creates a Juliet costume she knew Claire would hate... even without the insects Beetlejuice wanted to add to the gertle because the next night, the parents, including Lydia's (Charles and Delia), are ready to watch the stage presentation. Beetlejuice overhears that Claire wouldn't wear it... in fact, being from a rich family she got an "original" design made in advance that not only looked better on her, but completely clashed with the Era of the play!
Beetlejuice doesn't get a chance to tell Lydia about it, as she yell him for being nosy-- "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice... oops!"-- accidentally sending him into the Neitherworld, but she decided to leave him there until after the show to keep him from causing trouble. Luckily for Beetlejuice, Claire overheard (sort of) and made fun of Lydia for using words like "Beetlejuice"... thrice. Set free, Beetlejuice possesses Claire and changes the costume to Lydia's design, and in her body preformed his own touch to the payback in ways both personal and artistic, scaring the kid who's playing Romeo and all audiences (including Charles, Delia, Miss Shannon and Mr. Kane) in the playhouse. The next day, Mr. Kane is very angry about this yesternight's play performance, though Miss Shannon read newspapers about what's turning drama to comedy, so the play became a hit, but Claire didn't want to be the star of this play, like this ever again. While the other girls are laughing at Claire, Lydia reads the Shakespeare book, privately admits Beetlejuice shook the Shakespeare.
Trivia[]
- This episode is based on the 1939 Looney Tunes cartoon "Hamateur Night", which has the sequence of "Romeo and Juliet" (which was made by the legendary poet William Shakespeare).
- This is the first appearance of Claire Brewster, Miss Shannon, Prudence and Bertha.
- Claire has no toes on her feet.
- Another cartoon to have the "Romeo and Juliet" performance was Hey Arnold! in the episode "School Play". Comparing the aforementioned to this episode, HA's performance goes successfully as BJ's gets grossified.
Pictures[]
See all image pictures in this episode.
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