The Beavis and Butt-Head Appreciation Thread

Cafe Society
21

Appreciation? Well, this cartoon certainly made me appreciate my staunch ionoclast status among TV-viewing America, and it definitely helped me down the road to never, ever following any kind of herd mentality again. (“Huh huh, this one’s for you, Nader!”)

The two questions about this show I’ve been asking for seemingly years now: 1) why am I the only non-bible thumping non-ultraconservative non-parent non-meathead who had ANYTHING bad to say about this show, and 2) what made it so damn appealing…in particular, what did it do that another cartoon didn’t know better?

I haven’t gotten any kind of answer to #1, which is frankly distressing, because one of the great mysteries about this show is the unamious praise it got from practically everyone who ever watched it. Except for the aforementioned bible thumpers, of course, who don’t count as far as I’m concerned (remember, these are the same idiots who fight tooth and nail to prevent evolution from being taught in public schools). How about someone going in with a clear mind and open eyes, not bearing any biases for or against shows about worthless teenagers, and hating it anyway? Am I really the only one?

And #2. Well, I’ve asked this at least twice on the SDMB alone, and every time, these are the kind of responses I get:
“Hey, you said it yourself, you didn’t get it. If you got it, you’d have liked it, but you didn’t get it, so of course you didn’t like it.”
“You have to understand…you had to be there. In that situation, with those kind of people…you really had to be there to really understand.”
“See, they want to get laid, but they’re never going to! That’s FUNNY! And they make jokes about erections and flatulence! That’s also funny! And they do an incredibly stupid ripoff of Siskel and Ebert every time a music video comes on! That’s incredibly funny! Mindless chuckling is also screamingly funny! And all that stuff the hyperconservative bible-thumping morons keep whining about, you better believe that’s funny!”
“A lot of parents blamed this show for a lot of stuff, but the show wasn’t really at fault. This show was reflecting an actual segment of society, not influencing anyone, and that’s what made it so good.”
“I saw an episode with some of my friends once, and we laughed so hard. So there definitely was something good. I suppose if you had the kind of friends I did, you’d understand, because…well, you really had to be there…”
“It’s like…it’s funny, man, because…it’s funny, and the reason it was so funny was…well…it had these two idiotic teenagers, and they’re total losers…and…it just fit in, and…I mean, just look at it, man!”

Folks, the Free Mumia people have come up with move concrete arguments than this. Am I to understand that freaking je ne sais quoi was the only thing this crazy cartoon had going for it?

“Huh huh huh huh, Darrell doesn’t get it, heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh…” Yeah, well, you’re all welcome to change this anytime.

(I mean, geez, why doesn’t anyone miss Duckman, for crying out loud…)

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Documentary Filmmaker: What’s your raison d’etre?
Beavis: Um…it’s in my pants, heh heh.

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Hey, I miss Duckman. I liked that show primarily for the rants he would go off on and Ajax’s sometimes surreal insights. Corny always got the best lines though. I don’t think B&B was the best out there but they did the “great unwashed masses” that I sometimes had to deal with. All in the Family did the same thing with Archie Bunker (and did it better, IMHO). You were supposed to laugh at his idiotic and bigoted mentality.

Cornfed: “Either you’re babbling or you just told me in Cherokee that my scrotum is many-colored.”

Duckman: “I can’t believe they shared their girlfriends with us Corny! I just spent the night with the sexiest, most insatiable, voluptious, adventurous, least inhibited women I’ve ever met! If she didn’t suddenly get a headache… Woo Hoo! there’s no telling what wild and tawdry escapades we might have experienced. How was your night?”
Cornfed: “Like yours… minus the headache.”

I surprised you liked Duckman and not B&B. I laugh at him for nearly the same reason I do the Dumbass Duo.

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Hmmm, left out a word in my last post. “…they did represent the “great unwashed masses”…”

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I liked it because it was stupid, immature potty humor. It wasn’t supposed to be all ‘intellactual’, or something…

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Beavis and Butthead was so funny because we all knew (and apparently some of us were) people like that in junior high and high school. Horseflesh mentioned seeing some B&B shorts at a film festival. They also aired on MTV’s Liquid Television before they had their own show. I remember the Frog Baseball short and one about a Monster Truck Rally. I really miss Liquid Television…Aeon Flux, Winter Steel, Stick Figure Theater. OMG, and I almost forgot–Dogboy!

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But didn’t anyone find it annoying?

I found the chuckling annoying. I mean, not like a knife in the back or anything, but annoying enough. I couldn’t stand it for more than half an episode at a time. I found the crazy antics annoying. And the pointless violence. And the pointless toilet humor.

I know they weren’t role models. I know that no sane person would ever want to emulate them. I know they were supposed to be the worst representation of teenage life imaginable. I know, dammit. I still found them unbelievably annoying. Did anyone else in the entire country feel the same way?

Again, why the complete, unanimous, unqualified, unchallenged praise? Why were the ONLY people who ever spoke up against it the same hypersensitive noodleheads who freak out at “suggestive” images in ice cubes? Can someone name ONE other show where this was the case?

PS - Yeah, I liked Duckman. That duck could also get plenty annoying, but no one pretended that he wasn’t, and his irascibility wasn’t the whole friggin’ point of the show. He was more a stubborn dolt who still often managed to wise up long enough to do the right thing…note that last part. No need for extended periods of chuckling or half-baked music video reviews. The Critic was also a very funny “adult-themed” show until it got heavy-handed with Jay’s supposed loser status. I also liked Futurama quite a bit until Bender became a completely irredeemable jerk who always got his way…something I’ll never tolearte. At any rate, there were tons of differences between all these cartoons and B&B.