Community's Beetlejuice Joke Took Three Years to Set Up, and It Was Worth It

Community spent three seasons keeping the spirit of Beetlejuice alive.

By Charlie Ridgely

The Juice is once again, as Tim Burton's long-awaited Beetlejuice sequel is not only playing in theaters, it's dominating the box office. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was a force in its opening weekend, earning nearly $150 million globally and doubling the lifetime haul of its predecessor. Naturally, Michael Keaton's beloved demon is the talk of the town, which makes it a great time to revisit one of the very best — and most elaborate — Beetlejuice jokes to hit TV over the years.

Community, the years-ahead-of-its-time sitcom from Dan Harmon, was known for its deep cut pop culture references and elaborate gags. One such gag centered on Beetlejuice, taking place over the course of three seasons and building to a payoff that most fans probably didn't even notice.

In Beetlejuice, it's established that saying the evil spirit's name three times will summon him into the real world. Technically all three of those mentions have to happen in the same period of time, but Community had fun with the idea and stretched the concept out over multiple years. 

At one point in the first season of Community, Professor Slater (Lauren Stamile) says "Beetlejuice" when talking about Britta (Gillian Jacobs) to Jeff (Joel McHale). In Season 2, Britta runs it back when talking to Jeff about another love interest and referring to a pair of his underwear as "stripey, turquoise Beetlejuice numbers." So that's two mentions of Beetlejuice in two seasons.

In Season 3's Halloween episode, "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps," the joke comes full circle. When Annie (Alison Brie) lists the Beetlejuice soundtrack as one of the only thing in Britta's music library. As soon as the word "Beetlejuice" leaves her mouth, a man dressed as Beetlejuice walks right past the window behind her, fulfilling the promise of showing up after hearing his name three times.

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While the entire Beetlejuice gag seems like something Harmon and his writers had planned out since Season 1, the idea for the payoff didn't actually come until Season 3. During a Reddit AMA, Community writer Megan Ganz revealed that an earlier scene actually saw Chang (Ken Jeong) casually name-drop Beetlejuice. 

When the Harmon and the writers realized it would be the third time the name was said, they changed that scene and saved the final Beetlejuice reference for the Halloween episode, when it would make sense to have a guy in that costume walking around campus.

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