Huh, Huh, Huh, Huh, Huh, Huh, That Was Cool

In a story I broke yesterday, MTV turns twenty-five today, not that you would learn that from watching the channel as they are too busy showing a mini-marathon of Real World:… um, actually I have no clue where they are this time around. Shouldn’t you be on the wrong side of thirty before being ashamed of your age? But anyways. Yeah, it’s been decades since the channel has shown videos on a regular occasion, and you may not remember due to all the trash on now, but MTV has had a few great shows like the Unplugged series, Remote Control, Rich Girls, and even the Real World didn’t suck in it’s pre-Chicago days. But for my money, the best show was the one the featured the only two high school students even more dumb than the cast of Laguna Beach, Beavis and Butt-head. So in honor of MTV’s birthday, someone’s got to celebrate, the boys will be the first television show inducted into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

As the legend goes, the show started after the Mike Judge cartoon appeared on the weird collection of animated shorts, Liquid Animation. This particular short introduced America to the greatest inventions to sports since fantasy sports, frog baseball. Shortly there after the duo got their own television show. When Beavis and Butt-head first aired, I was definitely smack dab right in the middle of their target demographic. I, like most f my male classmates, watched obsessively and discussed at length the next day in the lunchroom, quoted every line, did the laughs, but were drew the line at burning down our mobile homes (thanks dude who did that which forced MTV to push the just to 11:00 just because you are a moron and your mother was too lazy to be a parent).

There were many classic episodes in the cartoon’s run, my favorites being the time they weren’t allowed to laugh, anytime Cornholio made an appearance, the time Butt-head choked on his chicken (huh, huh, I wrote choked on his chicken) then Beavis had to perform the Heimlich (he, he, I wrote Heimlich), the time the boys had to buy jockstraps but all that fit were eye patches, when Bill Clinton came to speak at Highland High, and many, many more. But the highlight of every episode was when the boys would sit down and watch, mostly obscure, music videos. I doubt Rob Zombie would have had a career had Beavis and Butt-head not made fun of a White Zombie video.

Another great part of the show was when the boys would dream about being other people, most notably when Big Daddy Butt-head stood in for David Letterman with Beaver as his Paul Shaffer. And the secondary characters always added to the show, my favorite being Major Buzzcut, but you were sure to get a laugh whenever Principal McVicker, Mr. Van Driessen, or the dude with the Winger t-shirt.

Unfortunately Mike Judge eventually got bored with his imbecilic creation and pulled the plug on Beavis and Butt-head after their movie was released so he could focus more on the less funny King of the Hill, although we did get the brilliant Office Space in the post-Beavis and Butt-head era. Another unfortunate postscript to the show is it looks like we will never get season sets from the boys with all videos included. Instead it looks like the three set Mike Judge collections (the third and final one being released today) will be as close as a definite set that we will get, well until in about five years when MTV and Judge want to suck even more money out of fans. I’m sure I will break down and buy this collection in the near future (hey Christmas is only five months away, hint, hint.) So happy birthday MTV even though the only music shown on you channel nowadays is the soundtrack to crappy reality shows, and congratulations to Beavis and Butt-head for being inducted to the SHoF.




In honor of Beavis and Butt-head's induction, I compiled a bunch of my favorite clips over at my sister site, Scooter McGavin Takes Pictures.