Beavis and Butt-head

Beavis and Butt-head is an American animated television series created by Mike Judge. After the success of Judge's short film entitled Frog Baseball, which starred the characters Beavis and Butt-head and was featured in an episode of Liquid Television, the cable television channel MTV signed Judge to create a series with the same characters. The series aired from March 8, 1993 to November 28, 1997. It is rated TV-14 in the United States. Reruns of the series are currently airing on MTV2.

In 1996, the series was spun off into an animated feature film, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.

The show centers on a pair of teenagers, Beavis and Butt-head, who live in the fictional town of Highland, Texas. They wile away their time in sarcastic conversation, fantasizing about sex and masculinity, although they have no real-world experience with either thing. They attend Highland High (based on a real high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Judge grew up) and occasionally work at part-time jobs, putting as little effort as possible into everything they do. They survive their misadventures without serious consequences, and with a generally contented, though critical (not apathetic) worldview. During each episode, Beavis and Butt-head watch and make fun of two or three music videos.

The two characters often spend time around TV, junk food (usually nachos), Fruity Whips (a beverage similar to a Slurpee), shopping malls, heavy metal music, and utterly futile efforts at trying to "score with chicks". Beavis typically wears a blue Metallica T-shirt (in some earlier episodes, a Slayer T-shirt), while Butt-head is usually seen wearing a grey AC/DC T-shirt. (On some merchandising items these shirts were changed to read "Skull" and "Death Rock" due to trademark and licensing issues.) Their family names are never mentioned on the show individually, But in Beavis and Butt-head Do America, Butt-head comments that his first name is Butt and his surname is Head. Along similar lines, their parents are conspicuously absent, although Butt-head regularly comments on Beavis' mother, claiming she is "a slut". The film features a scene where they meet two middle-aged adult males who bear a strong resemblance to the duo and are most likely their fathers; the two men said they slept with two sluts from Highland (Beavis and Butt-head's hometown). The "family bush" in the first Beavis & Butt-head book, This Book Sucks, shows that the two boys have the same father, whom they never met. The film hints at this relationship as well, when one of the two men they meet, the one who resembles Butt-head, says he had sex with both of the sluts from Highland while the other man just watched.

Beavis has an underbite and a fixated stare on his face, which is almost always shown in profile. Beavis grunts when he laughs, has a grainy, guttural voice and has a penchant for picking his nose. The more excitable of the two, he is oblivious to what should be obvious and slightly nicer overall than Butt-head. He is often abused physically, either by Butt-head or various other characters whom he infuriates. He usually takes every beating and screams in pain before quickly reverting back to his trademark laugh. Before controversy erupted (see below) he exhibited an obsession with fire, as well as other psychotic tendencies (one episode showed that he has voices in his head telling him to engage in destructive activities); however, generally he has a passive demeanor in contrast to Butt-head's dominant personality. Beavis also has an alter ego named The Great Cornholio, who usually surfaces after he consumes large quantities of caffeine and/or sugar. Beavis was named after Bobby Beavis, a boy who lived in the same neighborhood as Mike Judge during Judge's time in college. Judge states, however, that it was only the name that he gave to Beavis, and that Bobby was nothing like Beavis at all.

Butt-head wears dental braces and has squinty eyes and a drooping nose with prominent nostrils. His top gums are often exposed due to a small upper lip, and he speaks nasally with a deep voice and a slight lisp. He begins almost every statement with "Uhhhhhh..." and ends with his short trademark laugh "Uh huh huh huh". Calmer, and cockier, Butt-head is oblivious to subtleties, but is usually 100% confident in everything he says and does, no matter how ridiculous or frivolous it is. The designated "leader" of the duo, he derives pleasure from being regularly abusive to Beavis. Mike Judge got the idea for the name Butt-head from two people he knew during his childhood called "Iron Butt" (who would encourage people to kick him in the butt to demonstrate his strength) and "Butt-head".