Beavis and Butt-Head Lashing out at reality; are you glad they're back?

The duo made a splash with their anticipated debut on Thursday night and had critics and viewers buzzing. Reviews were mixed for critics. While one reviewer praised the return, saying, "It turns out that their brand of blunt but unexpectedly wise snark translates just as well to trashy reality shows as it did to trashy hair metal videos back in the day."


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Another another wasn't as nice, noting, "Visually the show hasn’t been updated at all, which is as it should be: teenage lethargy is perennial. But by the old measurements, the premiere episode is tepid and distant."
Many of the viewers who tuned into the episode had positive things to say, with several reminiscing about when the show aired in the 1990s. "Beavis and Butthead returning to television may just be the greatest thing to happen in all of 2011," wrote Jake Weber on Twitter on Thursday evening. "Beavis and Butthead haven't lost a step," said Alan Moyer.




"Watching beavis and butthead season premiere!! Glad to finally have this awesome show back with new episodes," another wrote, while, Ken Goyette said "it feels like Beavis and Butt-head never ended." "Laughing just as hard at Beavis and Butthead as I did when I was a teenager," said another TV watcher. Stephen Hopkins believed the time off may have been a good thing, tweeting, "I think Beavis and Butthead actually got funnier than it was before."
"Beavis and Butthead critiquing MGMT and Skrillex videos is the best thing ever," a viewer praised. Gary Yoshimitsu brought up past shows, saying, "I'm so glad Beavis And Butthead is back. If they bring back Daria, Celebrity Deathmatch, & more videos, I might off myself. lol." Another couch potato said, "Got to see a few moments of Beavis and Butthead, nearly choked on my cognac."

Now in 2011, they’ve returned in Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head to succinctly dismiss the brain-draining stupidity of Jersey Shore (imagining JWoww’s future with her grandchildren: “Grandma JWoww, where did you get syphilis?”) and the poignant idiots on 16 and Pregnant (“So she’s not a bad actor, she’s a bad person”). Creator Judge brought his boys back on Thursday night with a new half-hour packed with both one-liners and sustained plots.
Exposed to the Twilight movies, B&B tried to get themselves bitten by a werewolf so they can score some hot chicks, but they mistook a disease-ridden street person for a werewolf. The poor guy happily bit them multiple times, but all they ended up with were scars and various strains of hepatitis. Even more intriguing was a beautifully drawn-out scene in which Butt-Head incessantly teased Beavis for crying (well, they were tears induced by an onion, but Butt-Head didn’t know that) — the taunting lasted for years, until we saw them as old men, still ragging on each other (“I was not moved!”. In both of these scenes, Mike Judge and company get at the root of B&B’s appeal — their shaky grasp on masculinity, which compels them to lash out at the world, including each other.


The neat trick Judge pulls off in the new Beavis and Butt-Head is in convincing us that there’s a substantive difference between the the slack-jawed mouth-breathers of 16 and Pregnant and the slack-jawed sniggering Beavis and Butt-head do: The latter are blessed and cursed with self-awareness. (“How come we were born as us?” Beavis asked while watching a LMFAO video.) They know they’re wasting their time watching stupid TV and dreaming up stupid schemes. Yet Judge has them do these things with a lack of irony (also a hallmark of his frequently superb King of the Hill) that makes the boys active participants in their own humiliation — they get hurt, physically and emotionally.
It is, in short, great to have these genius cretins back among us, judging and being judged.


All about: The Simpsons,  Beavis and Butt-head,  Mike Judge