The show centers on two socially awkward, rock/metal-loving teenage delinquents, Beavis and Butt-head (both voiced by Judge), who live in the fictional town of Highland, Texas. They have no apparent adult supervision at home, are woefully undereducated, dim-witted, barely literate and lack any empathy or moral scruples. Their most common shared activity is watching music videos, which they tend to judge by deeming them "cool", or by claiming, "This sucks!" They also apply these judgments to other things that they encounter, and will usually deem something "cool" if it is associated with violence, sex or the macabre. Despite having no experience with women, their other signature trait is their obsession with sex, and their tendency to chuckle and giggle whenever they hear words or phrases that can even remotely be construed as sexual. Each episode features a few interstitial scenes in which they view videos in this manner, their commentary improvised by Judge, with the rest of the episode depicting them embarking on some scheme or adventure.
They attend Highland High School, where their teachers are often at a loss as to how to deal with them; in many episodes they skip school altogether. They have little remorse for their actions, as in one episode when Butt-head fires a rifle into the air, hitting a Boeing 747 and causing it to crash. Later, upon observing the wreckage and being asked for help by the trapped cabin crew, they merely make crude jokes and walk away. This is typical of their shenanigans, which they tend to survive unwittingly without serious consequences, in contrast to those around them.
Holiday specials
Four holiday specials were produced—one for Halloween, two for Christmas and one for Thanksgiving.
The Halloween special, entitled "Bungholio: Lord of the Harvest (Butt-O-Ween)", involved them attempting to trick-or-treat in ridiculous costumes--i.e. Beavis dressed up as a giant nad by wearing underpants on his head and Butt-head becoming nachos by pouring hot cheese-sauce over his head, although at one point he said he was dressed up as a dumbass. When Beavis eats all of Tom Anderson's candy, his Cornholio persona emerges and embarks on a rampage to acquire more from other trick-or-treaters, while Butt-head is taken on a "ride" to the countryside in Todd's trunk, where he encounters a strangely pale old farmer. When Beavis finally comes down from his sugar high, he is hanging on a meathook in the farmer's barn, where the old man and a similarly pale Butt-head seemingly attack him with chainsaws as the episode fades to blood red. (The duo, of course, both re-appear unharmed in future episodes.)
The first Christmas special featured the pair sitting in front of the television providing crude commentary on various aspects of Christmas, and commenting on Christmas-themed music videos from various artists.
The second Christmas special was simply entitled "Beavis and Butt-head Christmas Special", or alternately "Beavis and Butt-head Do Christmas". It consisted of two segments that parodied A Christmas Carol directed by Tony Kluck and It's a Wonderful Life directed by former DreamWorks Animation director Mike deSeve, as well as Christmas-themed music videos (taken from the first Christmas special) and several segments in which Butt-head answered fan mail dressed as Santa Claus while whipping a reindeer-costumed Beavis.
The MTV Thanksgiving Special "Beavis and Butt-head Do Thanksgiving" aired on November 27, 1997, the day before the series finale Beavis and Butt-head Are Dead written by Andy Rheingold and Scott Sonneborn The bit featured Kurt Loder as the show's host, half-reluctantly and half-resigned, trying to teach the two characters the meaning of Thanksgiving as they report live from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, where they take more interest in people's butts and porn-shops than anything else. Among others, the special featured appearances by Adam Sandler, LL Cool J, Jay-Z, R.E.M., Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Tori Amos, and the Beastie Boys. Also featured were two music videos ("Long Hard Road Out of Hell" by Marilyn Manson and "Criminal" by Fiona Apple) not included in any of the show's regular episodes. The Thanksgiving special only aired once, and its inclusion in the Mike Judge Collection DVD set shows it in a heavily edited format without the music videos or the celebrity appearances.
Critical assessments and controversy
Over its run, Beavis and Butt-head drew a notable amount of both positive and negative reactions from the public with its combination of lewd humor and implied criticism of society. It became the focus of criticism from social conservatives, such as Michael Medved, while others, such as David Letterman, and the conservative magazine National Review, defended it as a cleverly subversive vehicle for social criticism and a particularly creative and intelligent comedy. Either way, the show captured the imaginations of many young television viewers in the United States and abroad and is often considered a classic piece of 1990s youth culture and the MTV generation. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park, cite the show as an influence and compared it to the blues, and met Mike Judge before the show aired.
In 1997, Dan Tobin of The Boston Phoenix commented on the series' humor, stating that it transformed "stupidity into a crusade, forcing us to acknowledge how little it really takes to make us laugh." In 1997 Ted Drozdowski of The Boston Phoenix described the 1997 Beavis and Butt-head state as "reduced to self-parody of their self-parody." In December 2006, TV Guide ranked the duo's distinct laughing at #66 on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Quotes and Catchphrases.
Mike Judge himself is highly critical of the animation and quality of earlier episodes, in particular the first two—"Blood Drive"/"Give Blood" and "Door to Door"—which he described as "awful, I don't know why anybody liked it... I was burying my head in the sand".
Allegations of promoting dangerous behavior
Early instalments gave them a juvenile obsession with fire and dangerous behavior (summed up with Beavis' chant of "Fire! Fire!"). The show was blamed for a two-year-old's death which occurred in Moraine, Ohio in October 1993 in which a five-year-old boy set fire to his mother's mobile home, killing his two year old sister.[16] The mother later claimed that her son had watched one of the fire-related segments shortly before he burned down the home,[16] although, according to an article in the March 24, 1994 issue of Rolling Stone, neighbors claimed that the family did not have cable television.
As a result, the references were excised from further airings. The creators found a censorship loophole and took delight in sometimes making Beavis scream things that sounded very similar to his previous "Fire! Fire!" (such as "Fryer! Fryer!" when he and Butt-head are working the late shift at Burger World) and also having him almost say the forbidden word (such as one time when he sang "Liar, liar, pants on..." and pausing before "fire" (in the "Liar! Liar!" episode). There was also a music video where a man runs on fire in slow motion ("California" by Wax). Beavis is hypnotized by it and can barely say "Fire." References to fire were cut from earlier episodes — even the original tapes were altered permanently. Other episodes MTV opted not to rerun included "Stewart's House" and "Way Down Mexico Way". Early episodes with the controversial content intact are rare, and are traded on homemade video recordings made from the original broadcasts. In an interview included with the recent Mike Judge Collection DVD set, Judge denied being certain if some of the earlier episodes still existed in their uncensored form.
In February 1994, watchdog group Morality in Media claimed that the death of 8-month-old Natalia Rivera, struck by a bowling ball thrown from an overpass onto a Jersey City, New Jersey highway near the Holland Tunnel by 18-year-old Calvin J. Settle, was partially inspired by Beavis and Butt-head. The group said that Settle was influenced by the episode entitled "Ball Breakers", in which Beavis and Butt-head loaded a bowling ball with explosives and dropped it from a rooftop.[18] While Morality in Media claimed that the show inspired Settle's actions, the case's prosecutors did not. Later it was revealed by both prosecutors and the defendant as well, that Settle did not have cable TV and did not watch the show.
Responses by writers and MTV
In one episode entitled "Lightning Strikes", the show parodied blaming actions on youth culture. When asked by a reporter why they were flying a kite in a rainstorm, the duo explained that they were inspired by a documentary about Benjamin Franklin. Not satisfied, the reporter continued asking them leading questions until they mentioned that they had watched some rock music videos earlier in the day. The reporter then expresses the conclusion to his audience that the music videos are to blame for the duo's actions.
MTV also responded by broadcasting the program after 11:00 P.M., and included a disclaimer, reminding viewers that:
Beavis and Butt-head are not real. They are stupid cartoon people completely made up by this Texas guy whom we hardly even know. Beavis and Butt-head are dumb, crude, thoughtless, ugly, sexist, self destructive fools. But for some reason, the little weinerheads make us laugh.
This was later changed to:
Beavis and Butt-head are not role models. They're not even human, they're cartoons. Some of the things they do could cause a person to get hurt, expelled, arrested, possibly deported. To put it another way: Don't try this at home.
This disclaimer also appears before the opening of their Sega Genesis and Super NES game as well as their Windows game Beavis and Butt-head in Virtual Stupidity.
They were famously lambasted by Democratic senator Fritz Hollings as "Buffcoat and Beaver."[citation needed] This would subsequently become a running gag on the show where adults mispronounced their names (Tom Anderson originally calling them "Butthole and Joe", and believing the two to be of Asian ethnicity. In later episodes, Tom Anderson uses the Hollings mispronunciation once, and on at least one occasion refers to them as "Penis and Butt-Munch". President Clinton called them "Beamis and Bum-head" in one episode, as well as in the movie, where an old lady consistently calls them "Travis" and "Bob-head").
Beavis and Butt-head have been compared to idiot savants because of their creative and subversively intelligent observations of music videos. This part of the show was mostly improvised by Mike Judge. With regard to criticisms of the two as "idiots," Judge responded that a show about straight-A students would not be funny.
Beavis and Butt-head Do America
In 1996, a full-length movie featuring the duo entitled Beavis and Butt-head Do America was released in theaters. The movie features the voices of Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Cloris Leachman, Robert Stack, Eric Bogosian, Richard Linklater, Greg Kinnear (in an uncredited role), and David Letterman (credited as Earl Hofert). It gained mostly positive reviews from film critics and a "two thumbs up" from Siskel and Ebert. The film earned over $60 million at the domestic box office, a strong return for a film that cost only $5 million to produce.
Also, in recent interviews, Judge claims that he is interested in producing a live-action movie. He said that previously he despised the idea, but now he thinks "maybe there's something there." During an interview for Collider on August 25, 2009, Judge told them, "I like to keep the door open on Beavis and Butt-Head, because it's my favorite thing that I've ever done. It's the thing I'm most proud of." However, he also added, "Another movie... the problem is it takes a year and half, two years, two and a half years—maybe—to do that right. And that's a pretty strong level of commitment. I'm going to look at that again. That comes up every three years." One of his ideas is bringing back the characters as old men, instead of teenagers. "I kind of think of them as being either 15 or in their 60s," he said. "I wouldn't mind doing something with them as these two dirty old men sitting on the couch." Judge added that he wouldn't completely ignore the time that has passed in between. "At one point I thought Butt-Head might do okay on some really low-level sales job". While the TV show went into reruns, Mike Judge went on to make movies: he directed such films as Extract, Idiocracy, and Office Space, which found favor with moviegoers and later became cult classics.
All about: The Simpsons, Mike Judge
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