Breaking News:The Worst Moment of Tim Burton’s ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Is in the Trailer…See More 👇

Sometimes, it feels like it’s California state law that all Hollywood movies must be sequels or reboots. Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn’t fall into the same traps that a lot of other sequels do, but it still has a terrible musical sequence that feels like it was forced into the movie by the studio. Some jokes only work once.

The ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ trailer reuses a joke from the 1st movie
Perhaps the most famous sequence in the original Beetlejuice is when unseen forces make the main characters dance to Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song).” It’s bizarre, amusing, and unexpected. In other words, it’s Burton at his best — it’s the sort of Gothic joke you didn’t know you wanted to hear.

Many viewers (particularly younger ones) are only familiar with “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” through its appearance in Beetlejuice. It would be obvious to reuse the song in a sequel. Sadly, Burton went the obvious route.

The trailer for ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ was sold on the song
In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a children’s choir sings “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” at the funeral of Charles Deetz, a character from the first film. This is supposed to be funny because people usually don’t sing calypso songs about bananas at funerals, and it’s also supposed to be funny because we remember the song from the first movie.

Except that this isn’t funny at all. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice mostly resists the urge to regurgitate the first film, instead giving us lots of new characters and incorporating songs you wouldn’t expect in a Gothic horror comedy. However, the use of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” is groan-worthy in its laziness. Even worse, the scene goes on a little too long for its own good, and the arrangement of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” is agonizingly slow. This joke should not have been in the trailer.