Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)

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Creator Mike Judge brings his animated MTV characters to the big screen in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. If you’re not familiar with Monsiers Beavis and Butt-Head, all you really need to know is that they are the cartoon embodiment of male adolescence — two teen boys with aversions to education and preoccupations with sex and violence. They sit together on a couch watching television most of the time, laughing at all things puerile and eschewing anything remotely deep or emotional.

I love Beavis and Butt-Head. They hit MTV while I was in college and provided a hilarious and irreverent antidote to a day full of classes and studying. And maybe it’s true — maybe there’s a little of Beavis and Butt-Head in every man. Even in me. There must be, because whenever anyone wants me to read anything in a hurry, I always remember Butt-Head flipping through text books and reading aloud: “Uh… words, words, words…” I’m not sure that Beavis and Butt-Head work on any other level than surface, but damn it. The funny bone is tickled by that which tickles the funny bone.

Huh-huh. I said ‘bone’.

With this feature film excursion, I think Mike Judge pulled off a rare fete. He knows to keep the narrative very simple and streamlined as far as his characters are concerned: Beavis and Butt-Head awake from a nap on their couch to discover their beloved television is missing! So they set out on a quest to find it, and maybe score along the way. But through serendipity, these lovable idiots end up touring the country, pursued by both a hit man and the U.S. government. The plot moves briskly and grows arbitrarily more and more complicated — but it’s always happening behind Beavis and Butt-Head or around them, never bogging down the comedy or their opportunity to exhibit profound obliviousness. Highlights include a desert meeting with two men who may or may not be their fathers and a White House showdown during which Chelsea Clinton throws Butt-Head out a second-story window.

Fart jokes. Boob jokes. Dick jokes. It’s all here. Mike Judge implements them like a true artist. Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ “Love Rollercoaster” elevates a scene in Las Vegas, while composer John Frizzell’s deadly serious scoring serves humorous counterpoint. The supporting voice cast includes Bruce Willis and Demi Moore as criminal foils, but it’s Unsolved Mysteries‘ Robert Stack who really shines as a government agent obsessed with cavity searches.