Deconstructing Beavis and Butthead. You can tell the difference between the early shows from 1993 and later ones. First in the early shows the characters are drawn in a cruder less precise way and the voices are also like that. The voices, particularly Butthead, denotes a southern California valley surfer sort of dude who is very stupid.
The premises from the early shows are cruder and meaner while the later ones have been toned down. This happened after the trailer burning incident, and due to public opinion B&B were moved to a later time slot and the stories toned down. The first episode I ever saw a couple years ago showed Beavis with a chainsaw cutting things down and then he cuts his own finger off while blood spurts out. I found this completely horrid and disgusting and turned it off. If I ever happened to tune them in I would only watch the video segments and then switch it a few minutes later. I think I liked the later shows cause they were not as disgusting.
I used to only watch the video segment without paying attention to what Beavis and Butthead were saying but now I pay more attention to what they are saying during the videos cause they are making fun of it and it can be quite funny. Having gotten into the later shows which were toned down, now when I see an early one which is cruder I actually find them funny because I see it for what it is. If we look at our own response to Beavis and Butthead in those early shows, it's as if it were real and we respond as if it was that way. However, they are cartoon characters who are taking a situation over the top, to a ridiculous and bizarre conclusion, and they cannot be hurt. So if we step back from it and our initial reaction and realize this, we can see a finger cut off and blood gushing and hear them laughing at this and see that it really can be quite funny. Dark humor.
They have a limited vocabulary of which the words "Cool", "Sucks", "Nachos", and "Whoa!" are the most common. Everything they perceive can be viewed in one of these terms. Sexual references are the next big thing that enter their vocabulary and awareness. For example one day Beavis and Butthead are digging for oil in their backyard. After awhile Beavis says to Butthead: "Hey Butthead, we're in a hole!". When watching videos or listening to the teacher at school, any word which even remotely connotes sex or sexual activity elicits giggles or laughs. For example, Butthead will say to Beavis: "Hey Beavis, he said 'xxxx'!" They can even deconstruct a word which has no sexual reference whatever to one of its syllables which taken alone then would and have a laugh about it.
Telling Beavis and Butthead apart. Beavis's laugh is always "Heh heh" while Butthead's laugh is always "Huh huh". At times Beavis's laugh can get somewhat maniacal. Butthead's main interest is sex while Beavis's is violence and then sex, and for both of them after that its music videos. Butthead has brown air and wears the AC/DC T-shirts and Beavis has yellow hair and wears the Metallica T-shirt. Obviously each are thier favorite bands.
So far I have never seen their parents, and any other authority figures are made laughable. The only room in their house is a beat up (they are consummate slobs) living room with a TV and it is unclear who's house it is. They also hardly ever eat or sleep. When they do eat it is usually nachos or marshmallows or burgers, and when they sleep they just fall asleep in front of the TV on the couch.
Beavis and Butthead live the ultimate adolescent fantasy of doing whatever they want whenever they want but unfortunately for them and fortunately for the story, never seem to get any "chicks". B&B are the ultimate forces of entropy in an otherwise ordered and sane world. Many of the plot ideas involve normal everyday circumstances being stood on their heads with the introduction of Beavis and Butthead. School or work scenes shown in their normal and boring state become bizarre and funny when B&B are placed there. For example one day Beavis and Butthead wander into a real estate office and the receptionist mistakes them for temps that were called in to handle data entry and phone calls. Beavis and Butthead go into their usual routine screwing things up while the people at the office try to go on about their business as if nothing is wrong. It shows how everyday people would rather continue their illusions of a sane and ordered world rather than knock down the wall of chaos that has come in the form of Beavis and Butthead and face reality. So either this is what provides the comic relief, or what the writers are really saying is that average people are morons and Beavis and Butthead are what is real and sane, or that everybody is a moron and no one is sane.
Let's look at a particular episode. In "Tornado" Beavis and Butthead are watching a TV weather report saying a tornado is heading for a trailer park near them. They think this is cool and ride their bikes in a heavily blowing wind to get the to trailer park to witness the tornado. On the way they discuss why Tornadoes are so cool including the fact that they can carry a phone booth for five miles and set it down undamaged.
They get to the trailer park and see two pretty girls outside one of the trailers waving them over. They go over and the girls say that they want Beavis and Butthead to be their last boyfriends before the storm hits and they are all killed. In every episode I have seen, the girls who proposition Beavis and Butthead always look more or less the same and have the same names and act as if they have never met B&B before. And every time Beavis and Butthead have a stunned look on their faces and then play air guitar while singing some heavy metal guitar line.
They go into the trailer and are about to make out with the girls when the tornado hits breaking up the trailer and sending Beavis and Butthead flying into the air. As they are flying about in the tornado Beavis says: "Hey butthead, this sucks!" The tornado dissipates and they fall to the earth making a big impression in the earth where they hit. Then a shadow looms over them as something ala the roadrunner is about to fall on them. Turns out two big phone booths fall right on them and you see their legs sticking out of the earth under the booths. The doors on one of the phone booths opens and a man gets out and walks away.
After watching more videos, one of which shows some people golfing and Beavis comments how the golfer is going for: "A bunghole in one.", they wonder if the girls are still alive after the tornado. Butthead says of course they are not or they would have come looking for Beavis and Butthead. Cut to a scene showing the two girls in Oz on a yellow brick road talking to some little elves. They ask the elves if they can stay with them awhile cause they are trying to avoid two "sceves". The elves then go into an air guitar heavy metal song imitating Beavis and Butthead from a few scenes back.
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