tiki wasteland

Lydia pulls a good prank on Beetlejuice.

Part 2:

Part 3:

Episode Number: 1 Season Num: 1
First Aired: Saturday September 9, 1989
The show opens with Beetlejuice browsing the Shocking Mall, telling us how he needs to buy a present for Lydia to celebrate their one-year anniversary of the day they met (tomorrow). But he’s broke, and needs to think of a way to make some money. Meanwhile, we see Lydia biking home from Miss Shannon’s School For Girls. She greets her father, Charles, and the cat, Percy (who receives a “greeting” from Beetlejuice as well, though an A/C vent) and heads up to her room. When she opens the door she finds to her horror that it has been redecorated in poofy bows and sunny yellow. Delia stands on a stepstool adjusting a bow, and Lydia protests. Delia laughs her off, proclaiming “You like it,” and leaves. When she’s gone Lydia shuts the door, hastily pulls down the new decor, and performs an incantation above her hurricane lamp, ending with calling Beetlejuice’s name three times.

The room is transformed into a bare-walled chamber, the tablecloth under the hurricane lamp sweeping itself over Lydia and becoming her red, spiderwebbed shroud. Beetlejuice floats in though a door and commences dancing with Lydia to Calypso music while haunted toys spin around; then he reminds her that the anniversary party is tomorrow and she should be getting ready for it. He uses the phrase “get on the ball” which causes one of the toy balls to inflate to giant size with the friends atop it; it explodes, sending them tumbling. Lydia asks Beetlejuice if he’s seen anyone about his “problem” regarding things he says coming true through his magic, and he denies he has a problem. Lydia excuses herself, postponing the party decorating until the following day, as she has a new babysitting job and has to go to it. Beetlejuice lets her go, and decides to land a babysitting gig of his own.

His first customer is a giant pink blob, who drops off his son “Gooey.” Beetlejuice (who after all tends to take things way too literally) is about to sit on Gooey when his second client arrives: an extremely spiny woman with an equally spiny offspring (”Now that’s one sharp kid”). After strapping a pillow to his own posterior, Beetlejuice manages to sit on the new kid successfully. Client number three is a giant several stories high, whose child (aka “Great-Big-Huge-Baby”) is easily the size of a parking garage.

Meanwhile Lydia is feeding her charge, a cute (human) baby boy named Arlo, who spits up a little. Cue a cut back to Beetlejuice getting drenched in spitup from Great-Big-Huge-Baby. Cut back to Lydia, snapping photos of Arlo knocking over stacks of alphabet blocks and commentating “It’s the attack of the 50-foot baby!” Meanwhile Beetlejuice is screaming “It’s the attack of the 50-foot baby!” as Great-Big-Huge-Baby wreaks havoc on the Roadhouse; this drives Jacques and Ginger outside and the skeleton reprimands Beetlejuice for letting the babies do whatever they want. Beetlejuice ponders on the wisdom of his decision, and decides to pay Lydia a little visit in her bedroom mirror. He finds her putting on a puppet show for Arlo, and tells her that’s he’s been babysitting. When she finds out he’s been sitting *on* babies, Lydia scoops up Arlo and juices herself into the Neitherworld to see just what the damage is. She finds the Roadhouse smashed up and the three babies having a tantrum. Great-Big-Huge-Baby stomps his feet, opening up a rift in the ground leading to Sandwormland. A Sandworm pops out and nearly eats a terrified Beetlejuice before the rift closes again. Lydia asks Beetlejuice why he can’t fly when there’s Sandworms around, and he basically explains that they scare him so much he can’t use his powers.

Lydia decides that it’s time to feed the babies, and Beetlejuice opens up a barrel of Gurgle’s Baby Goop that he’d had delivered from the Grossery Store earlier. He and the babies get in a food fight, ending with Great-Big-Huge-Baby dumping the contents of the barrel all over Beetlejuice, who declares that he feels “like a kid again.” The words juice him into a baby. Lydia tries to get him to say something to turn him back but he won’t; and at once Lydia finds herself in charge of not only Little Arlo, but Sharp Kid, Gooey, Great-Big-Huge-Baby, *and* Beetlejuice.

Beetlejuice demands a present, and at the mention of presents all of the babies (Great-Big-Huge-Baby carrying Arlo) take off for the Shocking Mall, Lydia in pursuit. They wreak havoc inside and out, and the cops, as well as the press, arrive. As a newscaster reminisces about “The Great Pudding Wars,” which were started by “a baby named Beetlejuice,” Lydia rounds up the babies. They pass a TV showing the “Scream Puffs” commercial - Beetlejuice demands some. Lydia tells him to grow up, he repeats “Me grow up?” which transforms him back into his normal self. They go outside and the cops arrest Beetlejuice, Lydia promising to find a way to rescue him.

Beetlejuice is thrown into a cage in Judge Mental’s courtroom at the mercy of a prosecutor who’s reputed to have never lost a case (he’s carrying several briefcases). Sharp Kid and Gooey are present, as witnesses. The prosecutor shows photographic evidence of several nasty episodes Beetlejuice has been involved in in the past, and the jury gets worked up. Before Beetlejuice can get thrown to the Sandworms, however, Lydia arrives in a suit (and glasses) carrying Little Arlo. She proceeds to explain to the jury that Beetlejuice is her best friend, that he’s not so bad; and asks that he be allowed to defend himself. Judge Mental allows the cage to be lifted, and Beetlejuice and Lydia perform the song-and-dance routine “Ghost With the Most.” It’s very flashy, but it does no good, and Judge Mental orders the bailiff to open the trapdoor to Sandwormland.

Beetlejuice tries to keep from falling in by holding on to the cage; Lydia summons Great-Big-Huge-Baby, who rips open the ceiling, reaches down, and pulls Beetlejuice to safety. But a Sandworm bursts through the floor, causing Arlo to fall down into Sandwormland. The Sandworm loses interest in Beetlejuice, who’s clinging to its face, and starts to go after the baby. Lydia pleads with him to save Arlo, and he manages to pull himself together, flying down and rescuing Arlo before he gets eaten, and making it back into the Courtroom. When the Sandworm goes after them, Great-Big-Huge-Baby blocks up the hole in the floor with Judge Mental’s podium.

Lydia convinces the jury to let Beetlejuice go on the grounds that while he couldn’t use his powers to save himself, he could use them to save a baby. While they are on their way out the prosecutor demands that they pay the damages to the courtroom; Beetlejuice uses his magic to cause one of the briefcases to fall off of the desk and Gooey eats it - losing the prosecutor his first case.

The next day Beetlejuice and Lydia are celebrating their anniversary at the Roadhouse. Lydia gives Beetlejuice a “pair of pants” (two panting mouths in a box) and he gives her a spider brooch. All’s well that ends well.

From Courage the Cowardly Dog on Cartoon Network