The Story Of How Howard Stern Show Wack Packer Beetlejuice Was Almost In 'Transformers 2'

In June 2008, I noticed someone familiar in the background of a set photo for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Lester Green, better known to the public as Howard Stern Show wack packer Beetlejuice, was seen hanging around the Princeton University set of  the Transformers sequel. At the time we speculated that Green, who had appeared on the big screen before, in 2001's Scary Movie 2 and Bubble Boy, might have a cameo in the film. But when the movie came out, Beetlejuice was no where to be found.

As a Stern fan, I always wondered what the story was behind the above photo. Did Beetlejuice film a small cameo that was cut from the completed film? Today we have an answer.

The story which was told by Beetlejuice and his manager Bobby Rooney on yesterday's Howard Stern Show on Sirius XM Satellite Radio, started with Beetle being contacted by the Transformers 2 casting director who told them that Michael Bay was a big fan of Beetlejuice and was interested to use his voice for one of the transformers and asked that he come to Princeton University where they were filming to meet director Michael Bay.

"We get there, they put us in a room and Michael Bay pulls up in a golf cart and he has a laptop with him," recalls Bobby. "He gets out and says 'Beet, I'm a big fan, great to meet you, I love your voice, I want you to see something.' He opens up the laptop and he has one of the robot characters with Beetlejuice's voice. So he says, 'Come check this out' and Beet was in one of his moods so it wasn't looking good."

For those of you who don't know, Beetlejuice is a 4 ft 3 in dwarf born with microcephaly which gives him a characteristic small head relative to his body. Beetlejuice also has some mental impairments (likely also a result of the microcephaly), and he sometimes gets stuck in an extremely bad mood.

"[Bay] says 'I'm a big fan' and Beet says 'Good for you.' [Bay] says 'I want you to see this, you have a great voice.' Beet says 'Yeah, thats got nothing to do with me pal.'"

Apparently Michael Bay got tired of Beetlejuice's negative attitude pretty fast, realizing it might be impossible to direct him, and left. Beetle had a completely different story to tell, and you can listen to it in the following video clip:

Of course, I would trust Bobby's recount of what happened over Beets. While we don't know which character Bay wanted Beetlejuice to voice, I think a safe bet is one of the "twins" Skids or Mudflap. Watch a small clip of the twins below:

And here is a clip reel of Beetlejuice over the years: