Lester Green (born June 2, 1968), better known by his stage name Beetlejuice, is an American entertainer, actor, and member of the The Howard Stern Show’s Wack Pack. He was named the greatest Wack Packer of all time by Howard Stern in 2015. He has also appeared in such feature films as Bubble Boy and Scary Movie 2.
Personal life
Lester was born with dwarfism and microcephaly, a condition that caused his small head relative to his small body and his intellectual disability. He is the second youngest of six children by his mother Lillie and was raised in the Marion Section of Jersey City, New Jersey. He was discovered in a neighborhood bar by Sean Rooney who became his manager. Lester would go on to become an entertainer and joined Rooney’s dwarf tossing company where he was given his nickname because of his resemblance to a character in the movie Beetlejuice. Sean died in 2009 and management of Lester’s career would fall to his brother, Bobby Rooney.
On the October 2, 2007, broadcast of The Howard Stern Show, Jerry O’Connell revealed that he knew Beetlejuice while he was growing up. O’Connell’s mother was Beetlejuice’s special education teacher at PS 31 in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Beetlejuice was such a good student that he did special work as her “assistant”.
Career
Beetlejuice made his debut on The Howard Stern Show on July 14, 1999, making an appearance with Frank “Third Degree” Burns, another little person, while Rooney was promoting his dwarf tossing business. Stern immediately took a liking to Beetlejuice and saw his potential for stardom, calling him a “once in a lifetime guest”. Beetlejuice would go on to make numerous appearances on the show and became one of Stern’s most popular guests. Despite his popularity, some have been more critical of Beetlejuice’s appearances on the show due to the belief that Stern exploits developmentally disabled individuals.
In 2000, Stern was invited to the 17th AVN Awards to receive an honorary special achievement award which he sent Beetlejuice to receive for him. Beetlejuice gave the acceptance speech with some direction from his manager that had to be stopped due to his lengthy, “incomprehensible rambling”. That same year he made an appearance on WCW Nitro where, dressed as Superman, he confronted Jeff Jarrett backstage, who then proceeded to hit Beetlejuice over the head with a guitar. Beetlejuice then interrupted Jarrett’s WCW Championship match before being pummeled by the wrestler in the ring.
In 2002, he appeared in rapper N.O.R.E.’s music video for the song “Grimey” and was featured on three songs on the hip-hop group Smut Peddlers’ 2001 debut album, Porn Again, on the tracks “Beetlejuice Intro”, “Pimpology by Beetlejuice”, and “Beetlejuice Outtakes” on Rawkus Records.
Beetlejuice sang “This Is Beetle”, also known as “The Beetlejuice Song”, on The Howard Stern Show in late 2004. Stern Show producer Richard Christy recorded the song, wrote music to accompany Beetlejuice’s raw vocals, and then engineered it into the full song. The key lyrics to the song are, “This is Beetle, he’s bad as can, and he knows he’s the best.” The song, which Beetlejuice created spontaneously in the recording studio, has been covered by the rock group Staind, who included the song on special editions of their album Chapter V. On September 19, 2005, Blues Traveler played their version of “This Is Beetle” on The Howard Stern Show. Initially, Stern was unable to broadcast this recording on his Sirius Satellite Radio program because CBS Radio owned the copyright to all of Stern’s shows from K-Rock. Stern and his production staff recreated many of the more popular segments from his days on K-Rock, but attempts to recreate “This Is Beetle” were unsuccessful. However, in May 2006, Stern, Sirius, and CBS reached an agreement to sell the rights for all his K-Rock broadcasts to Sirius, thus enabling Stern to play the song. There was also a controversy around the share of potential profits from the song, and Beetlejuice’s manager at the time, Sean Rooney, got into an argument with Gary Dell’Abate, the executive producer of The Howard Stern Show, regarding the percentage share of the profits between Beetlejuice and Christy.
Throughout his career Beetlejuice also participated in amateur boxing matches with other little people such as in 2005 when he went up against “The Toad”. During the 2006 United States Senate election in New York, Beetlejuice appeared in a “Beetlejuice for Senate” parody campaign ad created for the Howard Stern show. In the ad, Beetlejuice announced his stances on various subjects such as abortion, taxes, education and drugs.
Beetlejuice’s likeness has also become a popular internet meme called a “reaction image Macro”. The image, uploaded to his official Instagram account in 2016, shows him eating while sitting at a table looking at something out of frame. Additionally, videos and compilations of Beetlejuice are popular on sites such as YouTube, Reddit, and Facebook, with many of these videos receiving millions of views.
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Girls Gone Dead | Himself |
| 2004 | Beetle Uncensored | Himself |
| 2001 | Scary Movie 2 | Shorty’s Brain/Himself |
| Bubble Boy | Lil’ Zip |
Television
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | This is Beetle | Himself |
| 2003 | Doggy Fizzle Televizzle | Himself and Super Juice |
| 2000 | WCW Monday Nitro | Himself |
Video games
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | True Crime: New York City | Voice |