Beavis and Butt-Head | |
---|---|
Main title screen |
|
Genre | Comedy / Music clips |
Format | Animated series |
Created by | Mike Judge |
Directed by | Mike Judge Yvette Kaplan |
Voices of | Mike Judge Tracy Grandstaff |
Theme music composer | Mike Judge |
Country of origin | United States |
Language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 7 |
No. of episodes | 200 (List of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Mike Judge Abby Terkuhle |
Running time | 3–6 min (without music videos) 5–11 (with music videos) 12–21 min (specials) |
Production company(s) | MTV Animation |
Broadcast | |
Original channel | MTV |
Picture format | 4:3 (NTSC) (1993-1997) |
Audio format | Stereo |
First shown in | September 22, 1992 |
Original airing | March 8, 1993 | - November 28, 1997, 2010-present
Status | In production |
Chronology | |
Followed by | Beavis and Butt-head Do America |
Related shows | Daria |
External links | |
Official website |
Beavis and Butt-head is an American animated television series created by Mike Judge. Judge's short film Frog Baseball was the first appearance of Beavis and Butt-head and cable channel MTV signed Judge to turn the concept into a series. Beavis and Butt-head aired from March 8, 1993, to November 28, 1997. The series has retained a cult following and is rated TV-14 when reruns are aired in the United States.
The show centers on two socially inept rock-loving teenage boys, Beavis and Butt-head (both voiced by Judge), who are roommates and live in the fictional town of Highland. They attend high school where their teachers are often at a loss as to how to deal with them although in many episodes the two skip school. They occasionally work part-time at Burger World and sometimes other side-jobs when people mistake their odd behavior as outgoing and assertive.
The comedic value is supposed to be derived from their utter lack of conventional values: they are highly obnoxious, misogynistic, and rude to almost every other character in the show, and even to each other. They do not seem to realize this however and seem to function on an instinctual level. They survive their often hazardous misadventures without serious consequences though others around them do not fare as well. Mixed within each episode are segments in which Beavis and Butt-head watch asinine music videos and provide humorous and bizarre commentary improvised by Judge.
In 1996, the series was made into the animated feature film Beavis and Butt-head Do America. On July 14, 2010, it was announced that the series would be revived and begin airing on MTV with new episodes.[1]
Contents |
The two characters' lives revolve around watching TV and eating nachos. Beavis typically wears a blue Metallica T-shirt (in an earlier episode "Blood Drive", a Slayer T-shirt), while Butt-head is usually seen wearing a gray AC/DC T-shirt. (On some merchandising items, their shirts were either blank or read "Skull" and "Death Rock" due to copyright issues). They go to school at Highland High School, named after a school in Mike's hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Their family names are never mentioned on the show individually, but in Beavis and Butt-head Do America Butt-head comments that his first name is Butt and his surname is Head. Though the parents of the two are never seen in the series Butt-head regularly uses "your momma jokes" to belittle Beavis and other references to family members, including uncles and grandparents, are made by both. The film features a scene where they meet two middle-aged adult males who bear a strong resemblance to the duo and it is implied they are most likely their fathers when the two men say they scored with "two sluts from Highland". The larger man insists he was the only one to "score" with "both of 'em!" They are also known for the names they insult each other with including: Asswipe, Buttmunch (sometimes Assmunch), Buttdumpling, Dillhole, Bunghole, Chode-smoker, Fart Knocker (sometimes Butt Knocker) and many others. They are also said to be perverted because they frequently point out sexual double entendres. These responses include: you said "nuts", you said "load", you said "ween" (as in Halloween), etc.
Character | Description |
---|---|
|
Voiced by Mike Judge. Has an underbite and a fixated stare on his face, which is almost always shown in profile. Beavis grunts when he laughs, has a more guttural voice and has a penchant for picking his nose. He is the more excitable of the two and though he is oblivious to what should be obvious he is also prone to moments of insight (another source of humor) and is nicer and more optimistic than Butt-head. He often suffers physically in the show, either by Butt-head or various other characters or situations. He usually takes the beating and screams in pain before quickly reverting back to his trademark laugh. Before controversy erupted (see below) he exhibited an obsession with fire and his trademark phrase was "FIRE! FIRE!" which he would render with a maniacal gaze in his eye. One episode showed that he has voices in his head telling him to engage in destructive activities; however, generally he has a passive demeanor in contrast to Butt-head's more dominant personality. |
|
Voiced by Mike Judge. Wears dental braces has squinty eyes and a drooping nose with prominent nostrils. His top gums are often exposed due to a small upper lip and he speaks nasally with a deep voice and a slight lisp. He begins almost every statement with "Uhhhhhh..." and ends with his short trademark laugh "Uh huh huh huh". Calmer, though cockier, and marginally more intelligent than Beavis Butt-head is oblivious to subtlety of any sort and is usually 100% confident in everything he says and does no matter how ridiculous or frivolous it is—unless it has to do with females, in which case he either wavers or comes on too strongly. His trademark phrase when approaching women is "hey baby". As the more dominant personality of the duo it seems he derives pleasure from regularly abusing Beavis.
Creator Mike Judge has stated he got the idea for the name "Butt-head" from two people he knew during his childhood called "Iron Butt" (who would encourage people to kick him in the butt to demonstrate his strength) and "Butt-head".[2] |
|
Voiced by Mike Judge. The nearsighted, elderly neighbor of Beavis and Butt-head. He often hires them to do chores which results in them destroying his yard, home, or personal belongings. Due to his poor eyesight and mild senility he never seems to recognize the two and he never remembers their names (in one episode the two wore horn rimmed glasses in an absurd disguise which Anderson did not notice). He served in the Navy during World War II and the Korean War. His character is a big influence on the look and voice of the character Hank Hill from Judge's following series, King of the Hill as both were based on the same person from Judge's youth. |
|
Voiced by Mike Judge. A teacher at Highland High School and arguably the only person who cares about Beavis and Butt-head. Van Driessen is a devoted hippie with a forgiving nature and gentle demeanor. His repeated attempts to teach the duo useful life lessons typically end in disaster as they almost always deduce the wrong message. He often plays songs on his acoustic guitar which typically end in him being severely hurt and in some cases almost killed. He has been shown teaching classes on biology, art, animation, economics, health, history, and literature, among others. He also owns a substantial 8-track tape collection, which is ruined in one episode by Beavis and Butt-head. His voice and personality are similar to and may serve as a basis of sort for the character of Gerald Goode in Judge's latest animated series The Goode Family. |
|
Voiced by Mike Judge. Another of the duo's high school teachers and the antithesis of Van Driessen. Angry, impatient and short-tempered Buzzcut is a Vietnam War veteran who served in the Marine Corps and, with the possible exception of Principal McVicker, hates the duo more than any other character. He is shown substitute teaching regular classes but usually teaches physical education. It has been implied that he has on occasion committed assault and battery against the duo but he once defended them from an angry guest lecturer (Mr. Candy, previously known as Mr. Manners) by saying "This is my class. I do the ass kicking around here!" |
|
Voiced by Mike Judge. Principal of Highland High; hates the duo. The two have unintentionally ruined his life. Many episodes begin with Beavis and Butt-head in his office. They refer to him as "McDicker." He is constantly stressed out due to having to deal with Beavis and Butt-head: he shakes when he speaks, he is frequently rummaging through his desk for prescription medications and Maalox, and in one early episode he is shown guzzling from a bottle of Old Crow. In one episode, when he believed Beavis and Butt-head were dead, he immediately stopped shaking and became much calmer and more cheerful. |
|
Voiced by Tracy Grandstaff. Daria is a sarcastic, vaguely alt-rockerish, nerdy girl who attends Highland High with Beavis and Butt-head and she is one of the few people who sees the two for what they truly are. While not above taking jabs at them for their lack of intelligence she also offers occasional help and advice. The duo nicknamed her "Diarrhea" but once said she was cool after she asked President Clinton a poignant question during a school assembly. She eventually went on to star in her own spin-off series, Daria. |
|
Voiced by Rottilio Michieli. Todd is a trashy deadbeat and violent criminal. Beavis and Butt-head greatly admire him and aspire to join his "gang". Todd despises the two, frequently beats them up and takes advantage of them when he needs something, such as money, or a place to hide from other gangs or the police. In the episode "Steamroller" it is said that Todd had dropped out of school two years before. All though Todd's last name "Ianuzzi" was never said in the series, it was revealed "Ianuzzi" in "This Book Sucks." |
|
Voiced by Adam Welsh. A nerdy, wimpy, short kid who admires Beavis and Butt-head and mistakenly believes they are his best friends. Beavis and Butt-head relate to him mostly as Todd relates to them. They bully Stewart and regularly take advantage of his attempts to befriend them usually resulting in Stewart getting in trouble with his parents for something actually done by Beavis and Butt-head. Stewart wears a Winger t-shirt as a not-so-subtle reinforcement of his wimpiness (as opposed to the "coolness" of Beavis and Butt-head wearing Metallica and AC/DC t-shirts). |
Four holiday specials were produced—one for Halloween, two for Christmas and one for Thanksgiving.
One of the most well-known aspects of the series was the inclusion of music videos, which occurred between animated segments. The duo would watch and make humorous observations (about the band, a song's lyrics, and/or a video's visuals), or simply engage in nonsensical dialogs. Mike Judge improvised the video comments, and they were never scripted. Almost all the animations of Beavis and Butt-Head during the videos were re-used from earlier episodes.[2]
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.[3] 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.
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."[4]
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."[5]
In December 2006, TV Guide ranked the duo's distinct laughing at #66 on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Quotes and Catchphrases.[6]
Early episodes 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.[7] The mother later claimed that her son had watched one of the fire-related segments shortly before he burned down the home,[7] 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 broadcasts, replaced by idiotic stunts, bad pick-up lines, etc. The creators 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.[8] 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. When the Beavis & Butt-head Movie "Do America" came out, Beavis finally got the chance to yell out "FIRE" in excitement when a biker (voiced by David Letterman) farts towards the campfire resulting in a huge fire explosion. Plus when Beavis & Butt-head made a cameo during The MTV Music Awards around 2005, Beavis & Butt-head are in robes in a fancy living room. Beavis uses an air blower to keep the fire going. He quietly utters out "Fire." This scene was reused when Beavis and Butt-head promoted the film 'Extract.'
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.[9] 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.[9] 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.
In one episode, 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 following scene is the reporter on TV blaming the music videos for the duo's actions.
MTV also responded by broadcasting the program after 11:00 P.M., and made a disclaimer, reminding viewers that:
This was later changed to:
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." 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 a later episode, Tom Anderson used the Hollings mispronunciation once, 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 and is considered by many to be the show's highlight. With regard to criticisms of the two as "idiots," Judge responded that a show about straight-A students would not be funny.
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.
At one point, a film in pre-production called "Beavis and Butt-head: Another Movie" was listed on the Internet Movie Database, but nothing apparently ever came of it.
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."[10] 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. Beavis might be landscaping."
Beavis and Butt-head have appeared on a number of shows besides their own.
In 1997, a spin-off show based on their classmate Daria Morgendorffer, Daria, was created. Mike Judge was not credited as a producer of this series and has said he was not involved with it at all, except to give permission for the use of the character. The Daria character had been created for Beavis and Butt-head by Glenn Eichler, who became a producer for Daria. In the first episode of Daria, she and her family move from Beavis and Butt-head's hometown of Highland to Lawndale. None of the other characters from Beavis and Butt-head ever appear on Daria and the titular duo are only referred to once, as, "two boys" who make life hard for Daria.
The first official home video releases of Beavis and Butt-head were two VHS tapes entitled There Goes The Neighborhood and Work Sucks!, distributed by Sony Music Video and MTV Home Video in 1994. Each tape contained approximately eight episodes, each selected from the first four seasons. Although most of the episodes were presented complete (but without music video segments), a handful of episodes from Seasons 2 and 3 were edited for content similar to their broadcast runs. Nine more VHS compilations were released from 1995 to 1999 (Troubled Youth, The Final Judgment, Law-Abiding Citizens, Hard Cash, Butt-O-Ween, Beavis and Butt-Head Do Christmas, Innocence Lost, Chicks 'n' Stuff, Feel Our Pain) for a total of 11, containing episodes from every season of the show except the first.
The Contents of the Work Sucks! and There Goes The Neighborhood VHS compilations were combined into a single Laserdisc compilation entitled Beavis and Butt-head: The Essential Collection, which was also released by Sony Music Video in 1994. This was the sole release of Beavis and Butt-head in the Laserdisc format (other than the feature-film).
All VHS collections of episodes are out of print. They were compiled into two sets of three multi-episode Time–Life DVD releases called The Best of Beavis and Butt-head, which are also no longer available. A set of three DVDs from Time-Life containing the same content as six of the VHS editions was released in December 2002. The remaining five VHS programs were also released on DVD soon afterwards but were not equally advertised (if at all) and are subsequently rarer.
Several more VHS compilations were also released exclusively in the United Kingdom, between 1997 and 2002, in addition to PAL versions of the 11 American tapes. Some UK-only compilations include a three-part series entitled History of Beavis which contained the all of the Season 1 episodes, as well as a "Too Dumb For TV" compilation dedicated to some of the banned episodes such as "Stewart's House" and "Way Down Mexico Way." A fourth volume of History of Beavis was scheduled, but pulled from release at the last minute. Unlike the American tapes, some of the UK-only tapes contained music videos.
A two-disc DVD set titled The History of Beavis and Butt-head was scheduled for release in September 2002 containing the program content of four of the UK-exclusive VHS tapes. However, its release was cancelled at the last moment at the demand of Judge, who owned approval rights for video releases of the series. Many copies were mistakenly put on store shelves on the scheduled release date, only to be immediately recalled. The set started selling on eBay at very high prices, sometimes over $300 USD. According to Judge, the History set was made up of episodes that he had previously rejected for home video release and had been prepared without his knowledge or consent.[16]
On November 8, 2005, MTV and Paramount Home Entertainment released a three-disc DVD compilation titled Beavis and Butt-head: The Mike Judge Collection, Volume 1. The DVD set includes 40 episodes and 11 music video segments from the original shows. All prior VHS and DVD releases have lacked these segments except for the VHS release of Beavis and Butt-head Do Christmas, and the last disc of the second Time-Life set.
23 of the 40 episodes included on the Mike Judge Collection were advertised to have been director's cuts containing "previously censored material." However, the majority of the "Director's Cut" episodes are actually missing footage from their original broadcast versions, although two episodes ("Home Improvement" and "Lawn and Garden") did indeed have excised footage reinstated. The following (known to date) edits were all made in Vol. 1 to correct "animation mistakes" according to Mike Judge:
The Mike Judge Collection, Volume 2 was released on June 13, 2006. This compilation features 40 additional episodes, 13 music videos, and a Brokeback Mountain parody featuring Beavis and Butt-head, which uses a similar score and format as Brokeback's movie trailer. The parody functions as a commercial for the DVD release of Mike Judge Collection, Volume 3. Also included are segments from the Beavis and Butt-head "Butt Bowl" specials, traditionally aired during halftime of the Super Bowl; parodies of Calvin Klein advertisements are also featured. In Volume 2, edits on previous VHS/DVD releases of the episode "Bungholio - Lord of the Harvest" (then called "Butt-o-Ween") have not been reinstated.
The Mike Judge Collection, Volume 3 was released on August 1, 2006. 42 episodes are featured, as well as 15 music video segments. Bonus features include the original, uncut "Frog Baseball" episode, and many (if not all) of the Christmas-related clips. Despite the criticism received over severe episode censorship in Vol. 1, edits were again made on at least two episodes - a scene where Beavis and Butt-head cut their teacher's chair in half was removed from "Woodshop," and a short line from Beavis from "Impotence."
The Mike Judge Collections have been the subject of heavy criticism among fans. This is mostly due to the DVD sets not being proper season sets and missing many episodes. All of Season 1 is missing and most of Season 2 is not included either. A number of episodes from remaining seasons have been excluded as well. This was explained via a note included in The Mike Judge Collection, Volume 1 in which Mike Judge writes "I've often said there's about a third of Beavis and Butt-head that I think is great and I'm really proud of, another third that is okay, and then another third that's really awful and embarrassing. A while back, I talked with the folks at MTV and we agreed to put out a DVD set that would contain the two thirds that didn't suck and call it The Mike Judge Collection." Despite this, proper season sets with all episodes intact remain highly coveted by fans.
On January 26, 2006, MTV and Apple released Beavis and Butt-head, Vol. 1 on the iTunes Store.
On July 14, 2010, the return of Beavis and Butt-head was confirmed to the New York Post by sources at MTV. Mike Judge will create the new series and once again provide the voices of Beavis and Butt-head. The new series will feature the duo still in high school and will feature current music videos for the duo to comment on and make fun of. The animation will still remain traditionally hand-drawn.[17]
|
|
|