"Beetlejuice" is the stage name of Lester Green, a small-headed black
dwarf in the midst of transforming into a
superstar via his association with the
Howard Stern Show. This tiny cultural
phenom is about to burst through into the consciousness of mainstream America through roles in the movies
Bubble Boy and
Scary Movie II. You've been warned.
Beetlejuice (who gets his name from the "shrunken head" scene in Tim Burton's movie) is one of the most fascinating and humorous characters ever to appear on the Stern show. Among his physical traits are bugged-out eyes and malformed teeth, but these take a back seat in comparison to his remarkable personality. Beet has some kind of learning disorder or mental retardation, and his thinking process is noticeably different from yours and mine. While he is sometimes lucid, mostly he blurts out phrases having only a tenuous link with reality, such as "I weigh 850 pounds!" or "You gotta wake up in the morning and eat coffee, brother." When asked a question, he always responds first with "Who, me?" to give himself a chance to think. Then he usually answers in an absurd way: "Yeah, I've been Italian for two years." He always has an answer, whether he knows the true one or not, and everything he says always seems to make perfect sense to him.
I should point out that Beetlejuice is not necessarily slow or dumb; he just lives in some kind of distorted version of our world. He carries reading glasses around even though he can't read. He spells RED (and just about every other word) as L-T-E-R. He gives multiple answers when asked about his age, weight, or height. He has no concept of state, country, or planet -- to him the universe consists entirely of Jersey City. He claims to have been in Vietnam (where he killed 200 "Chinese" people) and Desert Storm (which took place "up in the mountains"). It is impossible to teach Beetlejuice, or even have him repeat a sentence; he'll come away with something but it won't make any sense.
Beet earns his money at appearances. Sometimes he's hired just to be the life of the party, while other times he is used for dwarf tossing purposes. [In dwarf tossing, a helmeted dwarf is thrown by partygoers onto a large padded mat several feet away.] Beet also fancies himself a pimp and a ladies man, and appears in several freakish pornographic videos. His head is often smaller than the breasts of his co-stars. From these rather disturbing beginnings, he is slowly marching toward legitimacy with his two movies due out this summer, as well as his hilarious collaboration with rap group The Smut Peddlers on their album Porn Again.
He ran for the New York Senate in 2000, despite both having no money and not being a resident of New York. He proposed that everyone go to school for 44 years, opined that abortion "makes me horny with all these whores and bitches", informed drug users that they could come to his office if they needed more drugs, and hinted at a future run for president. "I'm running for president, you motherfuckers! I'm running for president, you motherfuckers!" Another famous Beetlejuice moment occurred when he got very drunk and threw up. The noise Beetlejuice makes while vomiting can only be described as extremely strange. He also claims to have a wife Katiejuice, and cruel listeners sometimes call into the show and pretend to be her (for some reason, he thinks the callers are actually his wife).
Beetlejuice is more than a foul-mouthed, small-headed dwarf. He's a fascinating and unique person, and quite a puzzle. It may seem like he's being exploited, but he genuinely loves the attention he's getting. Otherwise, he'd probably be locked up in some hospital or asylum somewhere, or wasting away at home with his mother and sister. You can see (or if you're especially perverse, hire) Beet at his WWW home at http://www.jollydwarf.com.