"Beavis and Butt-Head" comeback try begins
Thursday night marked the return of "Beavis and Butt-Head," a big part of the cultural landscape of the 1990s. MTV's animated dimwits are back with their first new episodes in more than a decade. As national correspondent Ben Tracy reports, times have changed -- but the boys have not.
Just as they did in the '90s, Beavis and his buddy Butt-Head provide a dim-witted commentary on pop culture.
Mike Judge, the show's creator, hopes older viewers will tune in for the nostalgia factor, but says it's easy for new viewers to catch on, as well. "The thing about 'Beavis and Butt-head' (is that) there's not a whole lot of back-story," he explained, laughing. "They're not really complicated characters. And that's maybe that's part of the appeal: They're a couple of weirdo's, you know?"
When the show debuted in the early '90s, parents were outraged.
"There was an assumption that animation was something that was for young people. But here came a show that took this genre and made it a very adult property," Variety's Andrew Wallenstein explained.
"I think, now, Beavis and Butt-Head seems kind of innocent relative to, like, you got '16 and Pregnant' on MTV. Beavis and Butt-Head are virgins, you know?" Judge said.
"They're kind of like idiot savants," Wallenstein said. "Idiots because there's no one dumber than these two guys, but savants in the sense that they're watching pop culture from a distance and making fun of what needs to be mocked."
"I always felt like there was this kind of silent majority of people who liked 'Beavis and Butt-Head.' And now it's OK to like it again," Judge said.
Or once again, pretend that you don't.
