Shenanigans & Tomfoolery

The New York Post is reporting that new Beavis and Butt-head episodes are headed to MTV in the near future. These news come at an interesting time because, over the last few weeks, I’ve been religiously watching a lot of the original episodes via Netflix. I absolutely love the show but, and this has become more apparent as I revisit the series, I think bringing it back doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Ignoring the fact that the entire reasoning behind resurrecting Beavis and Butt-head can seemingly be summed up with: “hey, this was popular once, right?”, there are other problems behind this decision, chief among them being the fact that these characters just wouldn’t exist outside the 90′s. In keeping true to the original series (should they even attempt to do so) the creators of these new episodes will be faced with some major issues in introducing these characters to a new audience and you needn’t look further than heavy metal to realize this.

Much like myself (and admitting to having anything in common with these two societal rejects is embarassing, I know), Beavis and Butt-head are headbanging metal junkies. Nowhere is this any clearer than when they paint the names of major metal bands all over Mr. Anderson’s house in one of their earlier episodes. So what’s the problem in bringing that back today? Well, metal isn’t anywhere near as prominent as it was when the show started back in 1993. As a matter of fact, heavy metal arguably peaked in the 80′s and was already in decline when the show came along. A lot of that metal flavor inherent to the show and its characters will undoubtedly be lost on new audiences.

An even bigger change lies in the huge impact the internet has had in our every day lives. Suddenly, Beavis and Butt-head’s quest to even glimpse at their proverbial “top of the mountain” becomes less interesting when there’s nearly unlimited porn available for free at anytime on the web. I mean sure, they’re too dumb to even use a computer anyway (as evidenced by Beavis’ banging on a keyboard in one episode) and the internet probably wouldn’t get them any close to “getting some” (or would it?) but still, there’s something lost in that transition.

The music videos are coming back and I suppose that could still work. Even with more contemporary stuff, the duo’s umistakeable commentary should provide some good laughs. Regardless of what I think of these new episodes though, I do have to applaud MTV for trying to get some actual music into MUSIC Television for a change. Surely all that reality nonsense must have run its course by now, right?

Beavis and Butt-head is almost a period piece in my eyes. It’s a product of the 90′s that’s an ode to the zeitgeist of the 80′s. Music and animation have both changed since the show was canceled some 10+ years ago. The fact that series creator Mike Judge is on board gives me some semblance of hope but I’m not even sure if there’s anything new I want to see out of these guys. I mean, I still get some honest-to-goodness laughs out of that show but Beavis and Butt-head were pretty one note to begin with and it seems like they’ve run through every conceivable scenario at this point.

And besides, they must’ve run out of penis jokes and double entendres during those five long years on the air, right?

(Huh-huh, I said “long.”)

Related posts:

1. Beavis and Butthead
2. The Maxx is finally out on DVD.

Posted in Animation |