"Beavis and Butt-Head" (1993) TV series 1993-1997

Creator:

Mike Judge

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Release Date:

8 March 1993 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Comedy | Music

Plot:

Animated MTV series about two teenaged heavy-metal music fans who occasionally do idiotic things because they are bored...

Plot Keywords:

Heavy Metal | MTV | Beavis And Butt Head | Based On Short Film | Insult

Cast

Mike Judge

...

Beavis / ... (195 episodes, 1993-1997)

Runtime:

15 min (199 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Australia:M (some episodes) | Australia:PG (some episodes) | UK:12 (some episodes) | UK:15 (some episodes) | USA:TV-14

Company:

MTV Animation

Trivia:

Beavis's laugh was inspired by that of a "nerdy straight-A student" Mike Judge knew from school. The student would sit in the front of class and laugh with a grunt while biting his lip.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When the music video for the Power Station's cover of Get It On (Bang A Gong) was shown, the album it is from was incorrectly listed as "Electric Warrior." This song is actually from the Power Stations' self-titled album. (“Electric Warrior” is not a Power Station album, but rather a 'T. Rex (I)' album - the band who performed the song originally.)

Quotes:

Butt-head: Some people are dumb.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Even Stevens: Take My Sister... Please (#1.3)" (2000)

Much better in retrospect.

The end of Beavis and Butthead was like the end of a cultural era. Grunge and those early 90 fads were dying out, to make way for the crass commercialism and ultra materialism of the youth generations that would follow, essentially helping to wipe out not only what made music culture great, but also what made MTV great. Beavis and Butthead was part of that cool past of part of a totally idiotic, carefree culture.

Beavis and Butthead, for those who too young to know about it, was an animated series created by Mike Judge, of the now popular FOX television series, King of the Hill, which is actually based on one of the characters from Beavis & Butthead (the neighbor Anderson, who was the primitive form of Hank Hill). The brief episodes, usually two packed in a half-hour, followed the mishaps of two ugly braindead teenagers. Their primary pasttimes were raising hell, making dirty jokes, and just laughing. The main characters usually included Buzz Cut, the anal muscular gym teacher; Van Dreesen, the pansy hippy teacher who's plans to get Beavis & Butthead to do something good usually backfired; their ultra-sheltered neighbor, Stuart; and the depressed, Daria (aka "Diarreha") who later developed into a spin-off series called "Daria".

Beavis & Butthead were so stupid and so clueless as to the disasters that usually went on around them, which is why the situations were so funny. You can't really expect to take a show like this seriously. It was just the stupid antics that made it great. Plus, because it was on MTV, it was a vehicle for music videos which were particularly key because they were often rare videos. And Beavis & Butthead did their MST3K-type of commentary as you watched sometimes full videos that acted as an intermission to their short episodes. All around, despite poor drawings, this show is still a classic and even created it's own subculture of marveled stupidity. But, I still enjoyed it.

And in retrospect, it's probably a lot better, considering a lot of the crap that is on television now to entertain teens--especially MTV. Even if you do get to see the reruns, they usually cut out the videos now to make way for extra commercial time (MTV sucks!). But, they did release episodes on tape. I don't know if they've made it to DVD.