It's October 3rd and it's time for another installment of Film Enigma's Monster Mania! For Day 3 I thought I'd change it up a bit and dig up something that you may have seen if you've ever made your way down to Orlando, Florida. If not, then you're in for quite the surprise. If you've ever gone to Universal Studios you know that the theme park is based around films, and rides or shows based on those films. We all know the classic rides like JAWS, Back to the Future, and King Kong. But what about the stage shows? Well as a child I vaguely remember seeing the Ghostbusters stage show, and it was somewhat entertaining, but I had no idea there was actually other stage shows going on as well. The one I'd like to discuss today is "The Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue" or "The Beetlejuice Mash-up" as it's now known.
The Beetlejuice Revue debuted at the theme park in 1992 and took the place of the CONAN The Barbarian stage show (which I would have loved to have seen). The show used a castle theater as it's backdrop, which was apparently leftover from the Conan set. The show featured a Beetlejuice impersonator coming out and riffing with the crowd. He makes some jokes, does a little bit of stand-up (which changed based on whatever was hip in pop culture at the time) and then he introduces some of his monster friends. Since the show took place at Universal Studios, all of the monsters were the classic Universal creatures. You had the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf-man, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Phantom of the Opera. This is where the show gets weird. For whatever reason, Beetlejuice convinces all of the monsters to form a rock group, and perform music. The remainder of the show is then each monster singing their own song. The songs each creature sings have changed throughout the years, but were usually just random pop songs that had little to do with the character. It's not until the new 2014 version that the songs actually reflect the characters. I was a bit stunned when I watched a 2013 version that featured Dracula singing Van Halen...for whatever reason. The show itself is quite goofy and really has very little to do with the Beetlejuice universe, so don't expect to get any Tim Burton vibes. Beetlejuice is merely the host of what is essentially a monster musical.
The show has undergone a few cast changes throughout the years. The original line-up featured The Phantom of The Opera, but he was swapped out for "The Mummy", who is later swapped out for some undead cheerleaders that sing back-up. The newest version features the Phantom's daughter Fantasia, and bizarrely also features Cleopatra. I must have missed the Universal horror film about that menacing Cleopatra! But regardless of how goofy the show is, it's pretty cool to see the character of Beetlejuice continue to live on. But just remember he won't do two shows a night babe, he just won't do it.
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