Facts of the Case
Forty episodes from Seasons Five and Six are included, not entirely in
release order:
Disc One:
• "Plastic Surgin'"
Hoping to make their wieners
bigger, Beavis and Butt-Head visit a plastic surgeon.
Beavis [about
wieners]: Butt-Head says it's, like, not really a bone.
Surgeon
[about noses]: Actually, it's cartilage, which acts like a bone.
Beavis: Yeah, mine acts like a bone in the morning sometime.
• "Stewart Moves Away"
Beavis and Butt-Head break
into Stewart's house to watch TV when some "movers" arrive.
Butt-Head [about the thieving movers]: These are the coolest dudes I've
ever met.
• "Top o' the Mountain"
Beavis and Butt-Head go
to the hair salon to see the stylist's boobs…and maybe get their hair cut.
Beavis: I was thinking of writing a song called "Dammit
Son-of-a-Bitch."
• "Bad Dog"
Without realizing the risks and
responsibilities, Beavis and Butt-Head adopt a vicious dog.
The boys want
to "teach it to bite stuff that sucks."
• "Lightning Strikes"
Imitating Ben Franklin from
a PBS special, Beavis and Butt-Head get hurt and wind up being used as an
example of kids harmfully imitating violent TV.
Butt-Head: He said
BS.
Beavis: But first he said P.
• "Party"
Beavis and Butt-Head throw a party,
taking pains to get plenty of "the hard stuff."
Beavis:
Where do you get these ideas?
Butt-Head: They come from my
wiener.
• "What's the Deal"
Neighbor Tom Anderson pulls
Beavis and Butt-Head into a poker game with very distracting nudie cards.
Butt-Head [playing rock-paper-scissors]: Rock smashes scissors. Smacks
Beavis.
Beavis: Ahhhhh!
Butt-Head: Paper smashes
scissors. Smacks Beavis.
Beavis: Ahhhhh!
• "Wet Behind the Rears"
The coach forces Beavis
and Butt-Head to shower after P.E.
Coach: Look at you, boy, you're
covered in crap!
Beavis: That was last week. This is blood,
sir.
• "Animation Sucks"
For a class project, Beavis
and Butt-Head animate lots of dead people.
Beavis: So, like, in
animation you have to draw tons of dead people just to end up with two dead
people?
Butt-Head: Animation sucks.
• "Candy Sale"
Highland High makes Beavis and
Butt-Head sell candy for a fundraiser. Their sales pitch:
Butt-Head: Uh, our school's making us sell candy.
Beavis:
Yeah. We're losers.
• "Here Comes the Bride's Butt"
Beavis and
Butt-Head crash a wedding. (See the quotation above in "The
Charge.")
• "Pregnant Pause"
Beavis sees a commercial about
morning sickness and begins to think he may be pregnant, which every event in
his day soon appears to confirm.
Butt-Head: These guys think
they're funny, but they're just stupid.
Beavis: Yeah, it's like
when you think you're pregnant but you really just have to take a big dump.
• "Oil Change"
Ordered to change the oil in the
Burger World fryer, the boys head to their local oil change garage for
supplies.
Butt-Head: Remember to check it with your dipstick.
Beavis: No way!
• "History of Women"
Needing to complete a report
on women's history, Beavis and Butt-Head seek help from a female librarian.
Beavis [asked what woman he most admires]: My mom.
Butt-Head: You wuss.
Mr. Van Driessen: Butt-Head, I hope
your oral report is a little wider in scope than Beavis's.
Butt-Head: Uh…the woman I admire most is…Beavis's mom.
• "Beavis, Can You Spare a Dime?"
The boys start
a new career as panhandlers.
Butt-Head: What's the best nation in
the world?
Beavis: Um, urination.
• "Premature Evacuation"
A bomb scare causes the
school to evacuate but fails to scare Beavis and Butt-Head.
Beavis:
I bet if we had a bomb, Pantera would hang out with us.
• "Bang the Drum Slowly Dumbass"
Beavis and
Butt-Head stumble upon Mr. Van Driessen and his New Age men's group having a
drum circle in the woods.
Mr. Van Driessen: And that's important,
especially today as we men wrestle with our manhood.
Butt-Head:
Beavis wrestles with his manhood.
Beavis: Yeah. I usually win.
• "Close Encounters"
Highland High's principal,
fed up with Beavis and Butt-Head, sends them to group therapy.
Facilitator: Let's have a reality check. Does anyone think Michael's a
jerk for what he just shared?
Butt-Head: Uh…Yeah.
Beavis: Yeah, me too. Jerk!
Facilitator: Butt-Head, perhaps
you see a part of yourself in Michael.
Butt-Head: Yeah, my
butt.
• "Vidiots"
In another attempt to find chicks,
the boys visit Desperate Embrace Dating Service.
Butt-Head: My
interests are, like, doing it…and that's about it.
• "Tired"
Looney Tunes–style antics ensue
when Beavis and Butt-Head find a huge tire and ride it down a hill.
Butt-Head: Shut up and get in the tire, dumbass.
Disc Two:
• "Whiplash"
Butt-Head masterminds a bus crash to
give Beavis whiplash so that they can get rich from a lawsuit.
Beavis: This is cool. I hardly ever take the bus to school.
Butt-Head: You hardly ever go to school, dillhole.
• "Spare Me"
Two hot babes ask Beavis and
Butt-Head to change their tire, promising to "take them for a ride"
afterwards.
Daria: You guys are never gonna get any.
• "Womyn"
Beavis and Butt-Head find a place where
lots of chicks hang out: a militant feminists' meeting.
Butt-Head:
So. You chicks wanna get it on?
Feminist: We prefer to be called
women.
Butt-Head: So. You "women" want to get it on?
Feminist: Jerks!
• "Murder Site"
The boys investigate a Highland
murder site they see on TV.
Beavis: Dammit, Butt-Head, stop calling
me Butt-knocker!
• "Another Friday Night"
Up to their usual Friday
night antics hanging around the convenience store, Beavis and Butt-Head find
themselves in the middle of a hostage situation.
Police negotiator:
Just tell us what you want. Anything.
Beavis: Get nachos! Get some
nachos!
• "Patsies"
The boys go on an outing with the
PATs, "Positive Acting Teens."
PAT member: But what if
you could go into the future and either give Geordi his normal sight back or
make Data a real human being, which would you do?
Butt-Head:
Huh-huh. Wood.
• "Spanish Fly"
Butt-Head finds some mythical
Spanish Fly and tries to give it to a chick, but ends up giving it to a dude,
who the boys then think is hitting on Beavis.
Coach: Dammit,
Beavis, you have been challenged! Now get down on all fours!…Tommy, mount
him.
• "Sexual Harassment"
Beavis and Butt-Head charge
a female classmate with sexual harassment.
Beavis: She's doing it
again! She's doing it right now!…She's giving me a stiffy!
Judge: She's giving you a what?
Beavis: Boi-oi-oi-oing!
• "Green Thumbs"
The boys try to counterfeit
money.
Clerk [as Butt-Head pays with ratty, photocopied bills at the
convenience store]: Son, I have a mind to throw you out of this store.
Butt-Head [sliding one more ratty bill over the counter]: Maybe this will
change your mind…
• "Bus Trip"
Field trip! Mr. Van Driessen's class
goes to the mountains.
Butt-Head: I've got a rock formation in my
pants.
• "Blood Pressure"
Beavis gets stuck in a blood
pressure tester machine at the drug store.
Butt-Head: Whoa, I just
thought of something, Beavis! Someday, every one of these [condoms] is going to
be on a wiener.
• "Feel a Cop"
Beavis and Butt-Head try to score
with a female cop undercover as a prostitute.
Butt-Head: Like, do
you know any real prostitutes around here? Cuz I still have a stiffy.
• "U.S. History"
Beavis and Butt-Head have to
come up with some oral reports to pass ninth grade.
Mr. Van
Driessen: People, these have been some of the best oral reports I've ever
heard.
Butt-Head: Oral.
Beavis: I'm gonna do an anal
report.
• "Date Watchers"
The boys see Mr. Van Driessen
on a date at the mall and follow him home.
Butt-Head: Yeah, baby.
Cuz like, if we were on a date, we'd already be naked by now.
Beavis: Yeah, and you would, too.
• "Gang of Two"
Tired of being beaten up by Todd,
Beavis and Butt-Head form their own gang.
Beavis: Yeah, we're just
kickin' it. Hangin' out in the crib. In the hey-ouse.
Butt-Head:
Hey, Beavis, how will anyone know we're a gang if we're just like, hanging out
at home?
• "Stewart Is Missing"
Stewart is missing, and
Beavis and Butt-Head help his parents search for him.
Stewart's mom
[crying]: I've looked over and I can't find him.
Butt-Head: Uh,
maybe he's in the bathroom.
Beavis: Maybe somebody killed him and
buried him in a shallow grave.
• "Prank Call"
A month of prank calls from Beavis
and Butt-Head heightens their victim's thirst for revenge.
Butt-Head: Huh huh huh huh, Harry Sack.
• "Babysitting"
Some lunatic mother trusts Beavis
and Butt-Head to babysit her kids.
Butt-Head: You idiot, she was
probably gonna pay us until you started going on about poop.
Beavis: That's okay, because I left a little something in the bed.
• "Buttniks"
Cornholio and Butt-Head perform at a
beatnik open mike night.
Butt-Head: There once was a man from
Venus, with a rocket ship for a…uh, wiener.
• "Bungholio: Lord of the Harvest"
An extra-long
episode about trick-or-treating. Butt-Head pours cheese over his head and goes
as nacho, Beavis as "a nad."
Beavis [with a sheet over his
head]: These sheets smell funny.
Butt-Head: Yeah, these are my
special monkey sheets.
Beavis: Ahhhh! Dammit, get it off me!
Ahhhh!
Disc Three contains the extras and a selection of music video segments with
Beavis and Butt-Head's commentary:
• Beastie Boys, "Sabotage"
• Seaweed,
"Kid Candy"
• Pantera, "I'm Broken"
• Mercyful Fate, "The Bell Witch"
• Compulsion, "Delivery"
• Madonna,
"Secret"
• Six Finger Satellite, "Parlour
Games"
• Pizzicato 5, "Twiggy, Twiggy"
• Rush, "Stick It Out"
• Radiohead,
"Fake Plastic Trees"
• Extreme, "Hole
Hearted"
• Helium, "Pat's Trick"
• MC 900 Ft. Jesus, "If I Only Had a Brain"
The Evidence
Since their music video commentaries are so funny, I thought we should bring
Beavis and Butt-Head in to record a commentary for this review. Hi, guys.
Butt-Head: Hey baby. We're, uh, happy to be here.
Beavis: Yeah. I'm, like, so excited that I've got a stiffy.
Back in the old days of the mid-1990s when I was even younger than ninth
graders Beavis and Butt-Head, I used to crack up at their immature antics.
Revisiting them now, as a 23-year-old lesbian and feminist --
Butt-Head: Whoa. This chick's a lesbian! That's like, a chick who
does it with other chicks.
Beavis: No way, man. That's
called…um, a les-bi—Oh yeah.
-- I didn't think I would be so drawn to these awkward teenage boys whose
twin obsessions are fire and chicks (plus, of course, their own wieners). But I
still cracked up every time Beavis says "Boi-oi-oi-oing," "Oh
yeah" --
Beavis: Oh yeah. That is pretty cool.
Butt-Head: Maybe
if you do that "Boi-oi-oi-oing" thing, we can score with this
chick.
-- or just does that little grunt giggle.
Butt-Head: Huh huh. She said "grunt."
Sometimes the anti-women tone becomes a little much, though, as in
"Womyn," when Butt-Head remarks at the feminist meeting, "I
didn't know this town had so many sluts."
Butt-Head: It was true. Before then, I didn't know.
It's fun and in a weird way almost touching --
Butt-Head: Huh huh, touching.
Beavis: Yeah, if she can't
find any other les-bi-ans, she can, like, touch me any time.
-- to see these two morons continually think they've discovered ingenious
ways to beat the system.
Butt-Head: Beavis found a way to beat his system.
Beavis: Oh yeah. I beat my system at least twice a day.
They think they've found a great source of chicks at a militant feminists'
meeting, they sell each other candy bars by trading the same two dollars back
and forth, and they try to copy their dollar bill at the copy shop to make more
money. Butt-Head remarks, "I can't believe no one's ever thought of this
before," while Beavis makes ten-cent copies of a nickel.
Butt-Head: Whatever happened to those nickels?
Beavis:
Um, I left them in my shorts in the laundry and they, like, got all wrecked.
Butt-Head: You dumbass.
They're so dumb that they don't even realize the depths of their own
stupidity. When the copy shop clerk asks them, rhetorically, "Hey man, are
you aware that you're asking me to commit a federal crime?" Butt-Head
simply and honestly says, "Uh, no."
"Pregnant Pause," "Close Encounters," "Green
Thumbs," and "Stewart Is Missing" are highlights on these discs.
Each episode is around five minutes, although some are as long as six.
Butt-Head: Huh huh, she said "long."
Okay, I know the word "package" is coming up, so I'm going to turn
off Beavis and Butt-Head's mikes at this point. Anyway, the set comes packaged
in three slim cases with an outer box and then another window box that slides
over that. The artwork is a lot of fun, with Beavis and Butt-Head drawn into
works by Magritte and Michelangelo, among others. It's great to watch the
episodes right through without video and commercial interruptions. However, it
would be nice to see more of the videos on Disc Three. Here are a few gems from
the ones we do get:
Commenting on Seaweed:
Beavis: These guys are cool. Like, they
kind of remind me of myself.
Butt-Head: You remind me of Urkel.
Commenting on Madonna:
Butt-Head: Madonna's always masturbating
during her videos.
Beavis: Yeah, so am I—during her
videos.
Butt-Head: Yeah, but like when she masturbates, she's still
doing it with Madonna. When you spank your monkey, you're just doing it with
Beavis.
Beavis: Um, little Beavis.
From a technical standpoint, the quality is about as bad as the original
series. Some scratching is visible, and the brightness is inconsistent. Mostly,
one notices the same crappy, washed-out colors featured when the episodes aired
on TV. But Beavis and Butt-Head live in a pretty crappy, washed-out world, so I
can't fault Mike Judge for the coloring. The dialogue is pretty clear, although
it is mixed so that the music is all much, much louder, resulting in annoying
constant volume changes. This is especially a problem with the special features.
The picture will also freeze partly faded out at the end of each episode, and
the discs begin with unskippable previews.
The extras are plentiful, but most of the "special appearances"
are a little dull. I did enjoy the 20-minute making-of featurette, "Taint
of Greatness." It is mostly an interview with Judge and a few writers,
though Snoop Dogg and South Park co-creator Trey Parker are also
featured. Snoop Dogg, for his part, would "love to see Beavis and Butt-Head
get some p****." Judge insightfully counters that scoring for Beavis and
Butt-Head was like Charlie Brown kicking that football. It was never going to
happen, but we always rooted for them anyway. Be on the lookout for a couple of
Easter eggs in the "Cartoons" menus, too.
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