Beavis and Butt-Head | |
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Genre |
Animated sitcom Black comedy Cringe comedy Off-color humor Slice of life |
Created by | Mike Judge |
Written by | Mike Judge Morris P Johanson Joe Stillman Tracy Grandstaff Greg Grabianski Don London Josef McStein |
Directed by | Mike Judge Yvette Kaplan |
Voices of | Mike Judge Tracy Grandstaff |
Theme music composer | Mike Judge |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 8 |
No. of episodes | 222 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Mike Judge Abby Terkuhle |
Producer(s) | Michael Blakey |
Running time | 5–11 minutes (Regular) 12–21 minutes (Special) |
Production company(s) |
J. J. Sedelmaier Productions, Inc. (Season 1) Tenth Annual Industries (Season 2–7) Ternion Pictures (Season 8) MTV Animation (Seasons 1–8) Inbred Jed's Homemade Cartoons (Pilot only) Paramount Television (Seasons 1–7) Film Roman (Season 8) Judgemental Films MTV Production Development |
Distributor |
Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation (Pilot only) MTV Networks Paramount Television |
Release | |
Original network | MTV |
Picture format |
4:3 SDTV (1992–1997) 1080i (4:3 HDTV) (2011) |
Audio format |
Stereo (1993–95) Dolby Surround (1995–97) Dolby Digital 5.1 (2011) |
Original release |
Original Series March 8, 1993 – November 28, 1997 Revived Series October 27, 2011 – December 29, 2011 |
Chronology | |
Preceded by | Liquid Television |
Followed by | Daria |
Related shows |
King of the Hill The Goode Family |
External links | |
Website |
Beavis and Butt-Head is an American animated sitcom created and designed by Mike Judge. The series originated from Frog Baseball, a 1992 short film by Judge originally aired on Liquid Television. After seeing the short, MTV signed Judge to develop the concept. The series first ran from March 8, 1993 to November 28, 1997. In 1996, the series was adapted into the animated feature film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.
The show centers on two socially incompetent, heavy metal-loving teenage delinquents, Beavis and Butt-Head (both voiced by Judge), who go to school at Highland High in Highland, Texas. They have no apparent adult supervision at home, and are dim-witted, under-educated and barely literate. Both lack any empathy or moral scruples, even regarding each other. Their most common shared activity is watching music videos, which they tend to judge by deeming them "cool," or by exclaiming, "This sucks!" (the latter is sometimes followed by the demand, "Change it!"). They also apply these judgments to other things that they encounter, and will usually deem something "cool" if it is associated with violence, sex, or the macabre. Despite having no experience with women, their other signature traits are a shared obsession with sex, and their tendency to chuckle and giggle whenever they hear words or phrases that can even remotely be interpreted as sexual or scatological.
Beavis and Butt-Head are in ninth grade at Highland High School. Their stupidity leads to a demotion all the way down to kindergarten in the episode "Held Back," but they soon prove to be such an annoyance that the elementary school principal quickly re-promotes them back to Highland High.
Each episode features frequent interstitial scenes in which they critique music videos using commentary improvised by Judge. The remainder of the episode depicts the duo embarking on some kind of scheme or adventure. Their teachers at Highland High are often at a loss as to how to deal with them, and in many episodes they skip school altogether. Their actions sometimes result in serious consequences, but often for others, for which they themselves show no remorse whatsoever.