The reported Beetlejuice sequel better nab those rights down quickly. The scene is amazing with OHara and Jones mimic singing and dancing to the song, while Belafontes booming baritone magically comes out of their mouths. Burton, of course, left a calling card for his unique vision, which couldn't have worked without a little calypso music snuck in on the side. While there are a ton of iconic scenes in. Watch on YouTube Watch on Before calling on Beetlejuice’s services, the Maitlands try to scare out the Deetzes on their own by possessing them at a dinner party and forcing them to dance along to. Beetlejuice - Day-o (Banana Boat Song) It also includes Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora), which Belafonte had previously released in 1961, soundtracking an especially-impressive final scene featuring Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz, also playing over the end credits. And its popularity continues to this day. And like all of Belafonte's work, they're full of life: a quiet irony when they show up in a movie about ghosts.Įveryone's career got a boost from Beetlejuice's success - it made stars out of Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Winona Ryder and gave Michal Keaton's profile a shot in the arm - but Belafonte himself gained a new generation of fans. If you remember this movie, you know it was a huge hit after being released. They had also been off the cultural radar for at least a few years when Beetlejuice came along, lending them a freshness for younger viewers. The songs are all upbeat and pleasant - emphasizing the film's status as more comedy than horror - and work with surreal perfection alongside more outlandish notions such as sandworms and living art sculptures. Besides the visual contrast of the pale, shallow Delia singing in Belafonte's famous voice, it gives the audience some grounding for the film's bizarre universe. But he was quite happy with his hilarious exit line (the one that begins “Delia, you are a flake”), which he can still recite it from memory.Whatever the reason, the scene perfectly embodies Beetlejuice's unique sense of absurdity. Since he’s a magician, he wished that he’d gotten a chance to do some sleight of hand with his table napkin to make it seem haunted. There’s only one thing Cavett regrets about his Beetlejuice scene. Cavett was never 100 percent sure that the reverse shot made it into the final film, so fans watching the scene will have to decide for themselves. Cavett recalled making the suggestion: “Why don’t you shoot it in reverse?”īurton liked the idea (“I was hailed as a genius, though I’m sure several others would have thought of it,” Cavett said), so the director set up the shot with the arms grabbing the actors, then had them retreat back into the table. Burton, said Cavett, was having difficulty making the shot work, because the special effects team hidden under the table couldn’t see the actors, and kept missing their faces. At the end of “Day-O,” the grotesque shrimp on the guests’ plates become the fingers of hands, which reach out and grab their faces. He also revealed that he believes he “made a contribution to the film” in terms of a difficult special effect. Adam works on the cemetery portion of his model as Barbara complains about their lack of knowledge of the. “It was delightful and every day was interesting,” Cavett said of his three-day shoot. The next time you watch Beetlejuice and you get to the Day-O scene, keep in mind that when the shrimp hands come up to push the dinner guests’ faces, they are really pulling away from. Watch the ‘Day-O’ scene from Beetlejuice : But Burton was a fan and asked Cavett to play Bernard, the weary art agent to O’Hara’s terrible sculptor Delia. In fact, when Cavett has guest-starred on movie and television shows - including The Simpsons, Cheers, and Forrest Gump - he’s usually playing himself. Though the television personality was in just a single scene of Tim Burton’s 1988 supernatural comedy, it turned out to be the most memorable one in the film: the dinner party at which Delia (Catherine O’Hara) and her guests are possessed by ghosts and perform a song-and-dance routine to Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song).” In honor of Beetlejuice‘s 30th anniversary on March 30, Cavett spoke with Yahoo Entertainment about shooting the “Day-O” scene, his surprising special-effects contribution, and the one thing he wishes he’d done differently.Ĭavett told Yahoo that he was surprised when Tim Burton offered him a role in Beetlejuice, seeing as he wasn’t an actor (though he did have experience as both a magician and stand-up comic). The most well-known scene is when Adam and Barbara decide to scare away their home invaders by possessing them and then forcing them to sing and. Dick Cavett is best known for the witty, penetrative interviews he conducted for three decades on The Dick Cavett Show - but to Beetlejuice fans, he’ll always be Delia Deetz’s agent. Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) Warner Bros.
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