Beavis et Butt-Head

Okay, I admit it. I am a closet Beavis & Butthead fan. Well, actually, not all that closeted, but when I tell people I enjoy the show, sometimes they just don't get it. Some of them say, "But it's just stupid! It's just two morons laughing and being crude all the time!"

Well, I thought so too, before I ever watched the show. I had heard of them; I would occasionally see B & B pop up on an MTV awards show and receive lots of laughter and applause - the laughter and applause of recognition. I knew they were popular but I didn't "get it." Then, part of the way through the first episode I watched, I "got it." The reason Beavis & Butthead is so funny is that it does an extremely dead-on accurate job of portraying a very real aspect of teenage males that had been completely overlooked in a lot of previous television.

I can even remember the exact moment I "got it": Beavis and Butthead were watching a video by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and adding their usual commentary, and when the video ended and the name of the band appeared on the screen, Butthead read their name out loud. And when I heard the tone of voice he used, it hit me. It's that sarcastic, detached, "I'm so cool" kind of voice that teenage boys use constantly - even for such a banality as a simple declarative statement about a band's name.

And of course, what makes B & B's sarcastic detached cockiness all the more ironic is that they have extremely passive and uneventful lives: they spend all their time "hanging out" and doing the same stupid stuff, yet they somehow (well, Butthead especially) consider themselves qualified to put on this jaded cynical act. Everything they do is as observers. They see sex and rock music on TV, they think and talk about sex and rock music all the time, and they've never had sex or played rock music. And the irony never hits them. They're somehow this weird combination of innocence and jadedness at the same time, and this, combined with their passive observer nature, makes Beavis and Butthead an extremely dead-on accurate portrayal of adolescent males.

Of course Beavis and Butthead are exaggerations of teenage males, but nevertheless I find them a rather refreshing change from the portrayals of teenagers in shows such as Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson's Creek, who seem as articulate, poised, and self-confident as a bunch of sophisticated 28-year-olds, and who do not ring true to me at all.

You'd think that this show would be so stupid, and it is, but you get your laughs out of it. Sometimes, you need that immature side. And you have to just admit when something is funny. I would watch this show with my sister when we were younger, and I just wanted to be like her. It was the grundge era, *shudder*, so, I thought it was cool. And now I watch it on my own, and I still get my kicks. Beavis and Butt-head rocks.

During the early '90's, my favorite shows were Ren and Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life, and the best of them all, Beavis and Butt-head. This show was like South Park, only it matched the culture of the early '90's. Beavis and Butt-head make me laugh so hard that I could have a heart attack. Everything from the way they laugh to the dirty comments that they make from one to another is part of what makes the show so funny.

The best moments of the show were the moments where they would be watching music videos on their television and making comments in the back ground.

There was a wide variety of unique characters in the show, such as their arrogant and overly strict gym teacher who wants to always get them in trouble, their hippie teacher who always tries to teach them about work, their elderly neighbor Tom Anderson who always has his vacations ruined by Beavis and Butt-head, their younger neighbor Stewart who always tries to hang out with them, and a student in their class named Darrea(huh huh, Diarrea). Darrea also had her own spin off show that was released during the year this show was canceled.

I always loved this show, but unfortunately, it started to go down hill when it had to be edited. After an incident where two trailer park kids were playing with matches and burned down their trailer, the show was blamed for causing this incident and had to be edited a lot. The episodes in the last season weren't as great either.

This is a great show, and it is way better than the cartoons that are released today(with the exception of South Park, I love that show). Fortunately, there are DVD's of Beavis and Butt-head from Time Life. If you ever get a chance to see this show, see it and find out what the hype was once all about.

I liked Beavis and Butthead when I watched it in 1993-1994. The show was much smarter than was advertised. For one thing, it realized that sex and sexuality is at the base for many more human actions than is generally realized and accepted. The format and execution may have been childish but the concepts and ideas were fairly advanced. In that way, Beavis and Butthead was a much more psychological show than a lot of the other garbage that has floated around in TV history. The fire comments, the animal abuse, etc, is the part of the show that is unfortunate. Without such things, however, there would be no Beavis and Butthead. Still, the show does not attempt to hide that these activities are sick and is a much more honest show in that respect than many others. Beavis and Butthead was a necessary show for tackling topics, no matter how stupid, that are rarely touched upon in society. In that way, it provided (GASP!) a service. The characters around Beavis and Butthead were funnier than Beavis and Butthead themselves, such as Anderson and Buzzcut. For anyone who has ever done or wanted to do anything retarded (haven't we all been there?), Beavis and Butthead is for you. Personally, I've been Beavis and Butthead level stupid at times, myself, and I really enjoyed the show.

Beavis and Butt-Head will be remembered for a long time. The gross, sick, and always hilarious show was the best show ever on MTV and probably nothing like it will ever come close. Poeple will always remember it's sick skits (B&B trying to grow beards, B&B playing frog baseball, B&B trying to score) it's dialouge at the couch during music videos, and many other things. This show led other shows like South Park into the promised land (ironically, South Park came out at around the same time when B&B were cancelled). This show will always remain as one of the defining shows of the generation X. So, uhuhuhu-hehehe. A++