There is little that is more subjective than humor and entertainment. When you say “It wasn’t funny” you mean it wasn’t funny to you. Obviously, it was funny to some. For the most part, it wasn’t funny to me, either. (although “Cornholio” was a riot) But to me, nothing is as un-funny as Louie Anderson, and he was one of the top stand-up comics in the country. It’s a matter of personal taste.
The film, though, was very well done.
People like Beavis & Butthead because everybody enjoys having somebody to look down on, & laugh at.
Our society once used ethnic jokes for this purpose. PC has stopped this.
But nobody, and I do mean nobody, is willing to identify themselves with these two monkey-spanks. So, it’s O.K. to laugh at them & poke fun at these twerps.
As a side note—has anybody besides me noticed that neither Bevis nor Butthead is quite crazy ( close, but no cigar), nor are they quite criminal threats to society (misdemeanors are the limit of their abilities); neither can the exactly be called perverts (you gotta find somebody willing to do something with you in a sexual way to qualify, & these boys ain’t ever gettin’ any).
Another side note—Beavis & Butthead has less violence in it than any episode of Tom & Jerry.
Why is it O.K. for a cartoon cat & mouse to do this stuff & not a couple of cartoon teenagers?
I think I sum it up in one excerpt from B&B Do America:
Now, come on. Even you can admit that that’s good humor.
Thanks…I feel, it not totally convinced, at least a little better informed.
For the record, I have nothing against violence, ugliness, or even outright vulgarity in itself. I personally thought that South Park had some great episodes, and even the movie was pretty good. However, anytime a show absolutey wallows in vulgarity, crudity, and obnoxiousness, to the point that it becomes the entire point of the show (which South Park eventually became, which turned me off to it for good), I can’t even bear to watch. And mindlessly taking shots at celebrities, music videos, or anything else is not entertainment, something even Andrew Dice Clay eventually figured out. (Check out Roger Eberts review of Dice Rules for an excellent analysis of this point.)
Tell you what…I’ll make a comparison to one of my current favorite cartoons, The Powerpuff Girls. It has plenty of funny moments. It takes shots at some of our nation’s most honored institutions. It has lowlifes, reprobates, and outright villains. There are conflicts. Screaming matches. Immense deluges of violence. All the things that made B&B popular. However, its title characters are not chucling morons, there’s no real scatological humor, and the dialogue doesn’t sound like it was written by a 10-year-old with several axes to grind. PPG looks and sounds infinitely better, and that makes all the difference in the world.
The thing about B&B that really got me upset was that it got no negative press whatsoever (aside from the predictable diatribes from alphabet soup “family” groups and whatnot). Every letter, TV show, and magazine seemingly could find nothing but praise. Not one person dared to suggest that a show centered around two of the most unappealing characters imaginable might not be all that good. Or that it wasn’t particularly creative. Or that there could be reasons why a lot of people wouldn’t like it. Or that, all issues of censorship aside, that there might be some good reasons to prevent young kids from watching it. I had never seen such unqualified, unmitigated praise for “shock” entertainment in my life. Howard Stern has been one of the most criticized talk show hosts ever (and a lot of it has been justified), yet B&B somehow remains a sacrosanct institution which one must never speak ill of, unless of course one is an easily-ignored moralistic goofball. I can’t help but be dumbfounded.
Sorry for running long…just gotta vent a bit every time something like this comes up. Please keep the good comments coming in.
Beavis and Butthead got no negative press? What magazines are you reading? Beavis and Butthead was savagely trashed quite roundly. Of course they were praised quite equally as well.
I don’t know. Beavis and Butthead is over. I don’t think I’ve heard it mentioned outside this thread for quite a while. It captured a certain moment in time, and then moved on to pop culture lore.
Mike Judge, however, has showed himself to be quite the versatile entertainer. King of the Hill is the classic sitcom. The only thing that separates it from the rest is the fact that it’s animated. And if you haven’t seen Office Space, you’re missing out. Office Space is based on a pre-B&B sketch called Milton. Simply put, it’s Dilbert for the big screen, but that would be too much of a let down. Office Space is one of the funniest comedys that’s come down the line for a while.
On the flipside, I almost got a friend of mine to knock on his bosses door early in the morning and yell, “Kick me in the jimmy! Do it now! Do it harder!” This close. I consider it a wasted opportunity.
Why is it O.K. for a cartoon mouse & cat to duel with various blunt instruments, bombs, razor-sharp blades & other engines of devastation; & it somehow becomes wrong for two cartoon teenagers to do something much less violent?
DKW- you had me worried for a bit there! I’m going to check out the PowerPuff Girls next time they’re on, just because of your mentioning it.
One interesting thing I noticed about both Beavis and Butthead -and- South Park; The reasons people had strong feelings about it were the same- some folks hated it, some loved it, but the reasons for their like/dislike were the same (stupid, vulgar, violent, etc).
ok, I’m done now.
DKW:
There’s a bit of difference between someone who tries writing more books and flops, and between someone who doesn’t bother. He had two books, they were both best-sellers, and yes, they were quite a while ago, but big deal.
A consequence of the awful time-slots he’d been given. What time was he on, 2 in the morning? 3? I’m a pretty big Rush fan, and I think I’d only seen the show once.
What’s that supposed to mean? A Pulitzer is for print journalism, not broadcast journalism. You might as well point out that he’s never won an Oscar either. The Marconi award comes from the National Association of Broadcasters, and is quite the big thing for radio.
Is that your opinion, or do you have an actual ranking for political commentators, and their “discrediting frequency”?
Chaim Mattis Keller
It’s funny because it’s SATIRE.
I KNEW guys like B&B in high school. To me, it was like making fun of those morons all over again. And yes, sometimes, potty humor is funny.
It’s just a show about stupid people and the things they do.
Stupid people ARE funny.
I always admired it as the most subversive thing on MTV. MTV, while purporting to be a bastion of youth culture, is incredibly conservative at times. B&B, while watching videos, would often cast a sly dig at the hand which fed them. On another note, I have to say that I fit many of the B&B characteristics when I was in high school. Obsession with sex, which was unobtainable at the time (for me anyway). A willingness to party at any time, and a total disinterest in the stated purpose of school, that is, education in order to build one’s future successfully. While far from those days, I could still relate at times to the characters, though I’ve never been quite that dumb (well, at moments, but never sustained over the course of my every waking moment.)
When I first saw the title to this thread, I wondered why anyone would question Bed and Breakfasts…
This is what it boils down to. DKW, I’m sure every one of us feels just as strongly about something you enjoy as you do about Beavis and Butt-Head. The show wasn’t for everyone. But I personally thought it was a riot. High school and college kids all know people with or maybe even themselves have some of the same vices as beavis and butt-head, and watching the two of them flounder through life was just plain funny. I really liked the movie too.
Questioning B&B is like questioning farts.
We know they stink.
And we’re gonna laugh.