Beavis & Butthead - As revolutionary as they say?

M

msu_jbird

New member
Some people consider Beavis & Butthead the definitive example of what it was like to be a teenager in the early 1990s, and thus, a revolutionary show even to this day.

What do you think? Is this description fitting? Or is the show overrated?

Personally, it's one of my favorite cartoons of all time, but people's opinions on it differ heavily, and I'd like to hear what the people of rabroad think.
 
Well, I know I didn't know anybody even remotely coming close to acting like Beavis & Butthead in the early-90s. And frankly, I've never heard that claim before.

As for the show itself, I found it amusing. Stupid, sure, but I'm easily amused. I remember enjoying the days I would stay home from school and watch reruns home alone, as it felt like I was getting away with something. LOL!!
 
It was fun because it was exaggerated. But I think Judge did kind of do a semi-commentary on how lackadaisical, sardonic and "I don't really give a crap" a lot of kids were in the 90s.
 
It was revolutionary for its time, I mean if it wasn't for it we might not have shows like Family Guy or South Park. They really kicked the door down for animated shows to be more edgy. In hindsight, it wasn't all that great, but it was what it did for cartoons that makes it great.
 
Who says that? I've honestly never heard that claim before.

Beavis & Butthead was funny enough, if not just a tad lowbrow, but calling the show "the definitive example of what it was like to be a teenager in the 1990s" is pushing it, I think. A statement like that just reeks of rampant fanboysim. I always thought that B&B were regarded mostly as a modern day 3 Stooges or like human versions of Ren & Stimpy.
 
I don't think I could watch B&BH. Not so much because of the stupidity, but because I was so not like that as a teenager. I just wasn't deviant until maybe age 14 and even then, it was all just fairly tame stuff. I'm 21 and I still can't even say "damn" lest everyone in my family smack me.
 
It's a guilty pleasure for me, what little I've seen of it. The concept made a pretty decent movie, too. I was nothing like Beavis or Butthead in high school, but I knew some guys just like them...I think a lot of people knew guys like Beavis and Butthead. That's the secret to their popularity...familiar characters.
 
My now-senior citizen dad was a fan of this show when it was originally on (my older sister "introduced" it to him). They let me watch it, even though they knew it was too mature for me (I was six at the time it was on the air).

It came on during an "animation revolution" of the '90s and it certainly paved way for other adult-oriented cartoons.

So yes, I'm a fan of the show, and I never knew ANYONE like those two. Thank god.
 
I never quite got the claims that B&B was really this revolutionary, smart, subversive satire. I mean, I loved the heck out of the show at the time, but looking back it's nothing more than a guilty pleasure which I enjoy more for nostalgia than any actual lasting value. It's just a bunch of dick and fart jokes. It's funny because the characters are incredibly stupid, and so when I watch them I get to feel superior for a few minutes. That's all.
 
The subversive satire is what makes a lot of it funny. Everything down to the speech, look, and attitude of the characters and the way they think everyone around them is lame pretty much sums up every rebellious teenager of the Gen X era. Someone said it best when they said "Beavis and Butthead is the smartest dumb show ever"
 
I thought the show really nailed the counter-culture post-punk rock teens of early 90s. These characters were really just meant to be a couple of idiots who think they're cooler than they really are. It's more tuned into the era, but I found the concept of a couple of posers struggling to funtion in a society they've clearly detatched themselves from very enjoyable. Yes the dialog from the characters is just what you would expect from a couple 12/13 year-olds, but it really just adds to the genuineness of the characters rather than an attempt at humor in and of itself.
 
Well, yeah, but EVERYTHING was so quick to deconstruct and ridicule youth culture at the time that I guess I didn't find it particularly subversive. B&B went slightly further with it than most, but that was about it.

Portraying youth culture-- and indeed, the majority of America in general-- of the early-to-mid-nineties as a vapid, lowest-common-denominator wasteland just plain never seemed all that clever to me. You could see that any day of the week just by looking around. Now, finding something even slightly redeeming about it, THAT would have been clever, THAT would have taken some doing.
 
This is the one opinion I repeatedly see for this show and it's not quite accurate, but at least you didn't credit B&B as *the* show that "started it all".

For starters, The Simpsons debuted nearly 6 full years before B&B.

And also, to credit B&B with such accolades is to completely ignore the classics and other key influences on adult animation -- Looney Tunes, Popeye, Betty Boop, as well as cartoons from Tex Avery and Ralph Bakshi -- were all full of adult content, and many of them long before Mike Judge was even born:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_animation
 
Back
Top