The return of Beavis & Butt-Head: still stupid and rude

The guy who defined what was cool or what sucked in 90s pop culture dominated by MTV, there was nothing cool about it, but an adult struggling to make a living and not be bored trying. Prematurely bald, married and living in suburban Dallas, Mike Judge was in his late thirties when Beavis and Butt-Head hit the big time, the network’s most-watched show of the ’90s and now enjoys a excellent third revival.

These horrific teenagers with borderline intelligence, heavy metal lovers, misogynists, obsessed with sex and violence, disconnected from morality and empathy, continue to be part of this present where audiovisual content has become democratized and multiplied like a chain reaction. While watching music videos, Beavis and Butt-Head now comment on Youtube and Tik Tok material.

The key to resisting the passage of time and fashions lies in an initial decision by Mike Judge on the character of the two . They would never be cool, they would never be modern. That’s why they wore AC/DC and Metallica shirts, already veterans at the time, and not the grunge bands of the moment. “I wasn’t even going to try to compete with all that,” the cartoonist said.

30 years later, the couple resurrected in a second film -Beavis and Butt-Head of the Universe (2022)- , and two new seasons available on Paramount+. The changes between the original 90s program, the brief second cycle of 2011, and this stage with a first batch of chapters in August last year and another that began in April, are relatively minor. The animation has improved, but the jokes remain thick. Zero concession to the spirit of the times, faithful to a dark, adolescent, scatological and erotic humor. The new generations, distant and critical of other much more sober 90s classics like friends, they will hardly be able to feel any affection for the caustic and intemperate observations of the friendly couple. Instead, for Gen X and eventually Gen Y, it means reuniting with old acquaintances who haven’t lost their spark.

Just as Coyote never catches the Road Runner, Beavis and Butt-Head go on unusual adventures trying to have sex to no avail. The comments while watching the videos are always caustic and hilarious, and the selection is brilliant: an ex-con learning to tattoo his hand; a couple of guys dropping cow eyes from different heights as if it were a crucial investigation; a teenager who expends too much energy throwing Frisbees, and a sight like Ghost with the case of a guy who is fed up with his sex-addicted girlfriend. Beavis goes crazy . It does not calculate how it is possible to complain about something like that.

The couple discuss the latest pop news, including olivia rodrigue And Ariana Grande latin stars like Carol G. and the kings of K-pop bts . Much to Butt-Head’s disappointment, Korean stars are Beavis’ new favorites.

The novelty of the cycle is certain segments featuring Beavis and Butt-Head in a parallel world where they have grown old, drink beer, smoke and live on government welfare or, in Beavis’ case, sell coffee. blood and semen.

Obese and deteriorated, Butt-Head finally had sex. He did it with Beavis’ mother. “A whore” reiterates, still laughing.

Mike Judge had a math teacher who had been a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys. He was handsome and his figure entertained the class, especially a future nuclear engineer who giggled and excitedly in his presence. The impersonation of the judge – the future laugh of Beavis – became a famous class joke. Everyone tried to copy that stifled laugh, but no one did it like him.

Born in Guayaquil in 1960 while his parents were involved in initiatives to promote agriculture in Ecuador, Mike Judge graduated in physics from the University of California in 1985. He worked two jobs in Silicon Valley but never only lasted three months. Despite his academic knowledge, the neighbor who repaired cars earned more money than him. “For a long time, he says, I wondered how I was going to make a living without being miserable.

In a radical turn, he goes on tour as a bassist with a blues artist. At the same time, he was studying mathematics thinking of working as a professor at a community university to make ends meet, until in 1989 he bought a camera to produce animated shorts. He didn’t draw very well but in 1991 one of his animations went to give Comedy Central. The following year, Beavis and Butt-Head made their MTV debut in the short baseball frog .

The cycle began in 1993 and ended four years later, with Mike Judge outbid by demand for MTV episodes. Between different projects as creator and director, he continues with the animated series king of the hill Aired between 1997 and 2010 (with the announcement of a new cycle for that year), the acclaimed Silicon Valley between 2014 and 2019, black comedy office space (1999) with Ron Livingstone and Jennifer Aniston, and the cult classic idiocracy (2006) co-authored with Ethan Cohen, widely known when Donald Trump was elected President.

Judge revealed the difficulty of writing for such dumb characters. When Beavis and Butt-Head Do Americahe was inspired by the films of Inspector Clouseau, in particular A shot in the dark (1964), the second installment of The Pink Panther, and in the saga of Cheech and Chong, famous characters of the 70s and 80s who had all kinds of adventures under the influence of cannabis.

“They’re very well done,” the filmmaker told Rolling Stone last year. “People may think they’re dumb movies, but they’re very well done, more so than you might think.”

While neither is inherently bad, Mike Judge admits Beavis would be better off without his partner. “He’s even more naive than Butt-Head. Maybe he has brains somewhere, but he’s just crazy. It’s not malicious. He’s probably nicer than Butt-Head.”

Just as the series has returned, Mike Judge isn’t ruling out that Beavis and Butt-Head will ever make it into the flesh-and-blood movies. The possibility of a movie dates back to the 1990s, when Johnny Depp offered to play Beavis while telling Mike Judge that during filming don juan de marco (1995), Marlon Brando impersonated Butt-Head. A few years ago when this cycle was underway with Paramount, the studio expressed interest in making the film. The project envisioned animating Beavis and Butt-Head in the real world. As Judge told The New York Times last year, progress was made on casting but “it didn’t go as well as I had hoped.”

For the filmmaker, the duo is his favorite creation. Responsible for both voices and others on the show, he says his throat hurts especially with Beavis, who has a tendency to scream. Judge knows they are “despicable” guys with “nothing going right for them”.

“But there’s something funny about them putting themselves on top of it all,” he continues. “Sometimes I totally agree with what they have to say, and sometimes the joke is to take it to a place where I completely disagree.”