Mr. Anderson (Beavis and Butt-head)
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Mr. Tom Anderson (whose full name is revealed to be Thomas T. Anderson in "Credit Card") (born 1926[citation needed]) is a fictional character from the animated television series Beavis and Butt-Head. His voice is provided by Mike Judge, who says Anderson is based on every middle-aged authority figure he knew growing up in New Mexico. Although he appears to be white on the show, Mike Judge intended for Mr. Anderson to be portrayed as a black man, but the idea was scrapped when a cartoonist didn’t get the memo on making his skin black.
Anderson is an older man, presumably of post-retirement age, who lives near Beavis and Butt-Head in Highland. As mentioned in the episode "Screamers," Anderson's address is 4120 Woodrow Court. Anderson is very conservative and frequently makes reference to his days in the military, usually when making a futile attempt to teach Beavis and Butt-Head the ethics of hard work and discipline.
Anderson first appeared in the episode “Home Improvement” as he ordered Beavis and Butt-Head to only paint the trim; but Beavis and Butt-Head, after sniffing paint thinner, paint his cat’s bottom and parts of Anderson’s house, much to his dismay. The episode ends with Beavis and Butt-Head driving Anderson’s lawnmower on the street.
His primary role is that of the subject of pranks, although occasionally Beavis and Butt-Head attempt to do Anderson a favor. In one case in point, when they come up with a get-rich-quick scheme that involves being nice to an old person in order to get into his will in the episode “Washing the Dog.” After concluding that Anderson might die soon — by the rather direct method of knocking on his door and asking “Are you going to die soon?” — Beavis and Butt-Head offer to wash Anderson’s dog as a favor. They take his poodle to the laundrette and stuff it into a washing machine. This scene caused many complaints from parents, especially when at least one child put a dog into a washing machine after apparently being influenced by the show. Ultimately, the episode was banned from TV.
Beavis and Butt-Head’s antics detrimental to Mr. Anderson also include:
- Using Anderson’s credit card to buy pets.
- Putting a dead mouse and flies into his Burger World meal.
- Being hired to paint his house, and end up vandalizing it, then setting one of his bushes on fire and stealing his riding mower.
- Beavis and Butt-Head are recruited to prune Anderson’s tree. They end up cutting the entire tree down, which promptly collapses onto Anderson’s house, demolishing it. The duo were going to charge extra, saying “We pruned the house, too.”
- Later recruited to buy items for him, Beavis and Butt-Head disregard the grocery list Anderson prepares for them and instead use the money he provides to purchase candy bars and magazines.
- When tasked with helping Anderson finish constructing a swimming pool, Beavis and Butt-Head eventually manage to bulldoze Anderson’s tool shed from its foundation and fill the entire pre-dug hole to its capacity with concrete (which they end up getting stuck in).
- While supervising Anderson’s yard sale (while he is away doing a favor for an old war buddy), Beavis and Butt-Head allow people to enter Anderson’s home. The duo eventually sell all his belongings at ridiculously low prices.
- Beavis and Butt-Head sneak onto a golf course and secretly begin stealing golf balls struck by Anderson. They then begin selling the balls cheaply at the clubhouse, even back to Anderson who is skeptical at first, and is then convinced by the duo that he did indeed just simply fail to track down any of his golf shots.
Anderson is also very near-sighted. When he meets Beavis and Butt-Head, he nearly always asks if they were responsible for some sort of ludicrous prank or general vandilazation of his property (i.e, “Are you the boys who painted my cat’s butt?”, "Say, ain't you the kids that have been whacking off in my tool shed?", etc.), to which they reply with a firm “No,” whilst snickering, making it obvious they are indeed the guilty party. Anderson’s terrible vision and senility allow them to continually get away with anything they do to him, as he never recognizes the two. (In one memorable episode, the two disguise themselves by wearing horn rimmed glasses, which fool Anderson so completely that he doesn’t even ask if they are responsible for some misdeed. In another, Anderson gives a completely inaccurate description of the two to the police: “One of them calls himself Butt-Hole. And the other one’s name is Joe, I think...I believe they were Oriental.”)
In the movie Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, the dimwitted duo cause mayhem and chaos involving Anderson right from the start. He mentions that kids have been “whackin’ off in my toolshed,” which the pair giggle at, implying they have been doing it. Other antics by Beavis and Butt-Head during the movie include:
- Ruining the television in his trailer by spitting cola on it.
- Nearly washing Anderson and his trailer away after opening the Hoover Dam.
- Causing Anderson to crash his car and trailer by flying into his windshield after escaping the trunk of the villain's car while driving down the interstate.
- Causing Anderson and his wife to be arrested by the ATF when they are led to believe he was carrying a biological agent found in his camper, where he found Beavis masturbating.
Later on in the series, he comes back to Highland, having been proven innocent.
[edit] Millitary Service
- In the episode "Washing the Dog", he mentions service in World War II, having "taken lead at Anzio", and being "Napalmed in Korea".
- In the episode Yard Sale, it is revealed that Anderson also served in the Korean War, and won a Purple Heart.
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