![]() You Guys Are Smart, Right?: In that vein, the first episode of the new series, “Escape Room,” sees Beavis and Butt-Head join two girls in (you guessed it) an escape room after the girls learn the business requires at least four people to participate in the challenge. Lord knows we don’t need another comedian attempting Capital-C Commentary about how Times Have Changed (and likely alienating his audience in the process), and Beavis and Butt-Head’s simplicity offers a welcome escape from our ever-darkening reality. With more episodes to go (including one in which the boys are middle-aged men), it’s possible that Beavis and Butt-Head will more obviously tackle the problems presented by the modern age, but it’d probably be better if it didn’t. And even then, they’re still watching the clips on TV, not scrolling on an iPhone. But in the series, the boys don’t so much discuss the year they’re in as they hint at it by watching YouTube and TikTok alongside their go-to music videos. The new film Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe brought the characters explicitly into the 21st century, complete with the existence of smartphones and a college campus discussion about white privilege. Miraculously, Judge manages to bring these characters into a cultural climate much more attuned to how ignorance breeds violence without offending, tiptoeing around hot topics, or taking cheap shots at “cancel culture” in the process. He pulls this trick by, for the most part, presenting Beavis and Butt-head in a vacuum. Still, the point was always that their stupidity made them harmless - they were too dumb to hurt anyone but themselves, and their jokes were, for the most part, so childish that you felt okay laughing along with them. Beavis and Butt-Head are idiots, and their desire to “score” with hot chicks draws from an adolescent sexism that, in recent years, has mutated into a deadly incel culture. Mike Judge’s titular characters have always walked a fine line between ignorance and wholesomeness. And yet, the first two critic-ready episodes of the new season, which begins streaming on Paramount+ on August 4th, make a strong case for the show’s central argument: Times change, but the fool always gets a laugh. In an era when, on one hand, cerebral shows dominate prestige TV, and on the other, every hit on the planet eventually becomes the victim of a lazy, cash-grabbing reboot, it’d be reasonable to be hesitant about a third iteration of Beavis and Butt-Head, which centers on the shenanigans of two senseless, sexist, animated teenage boys. The rest of the film is all about their quest to reach Serena and Serena’s attempts to kill them when she discovers they’re still alive, but there’s more going on than what first appears.The Pitch: Our favorite idiots are back on the couch, more or less in the 21st century, and they still haven’t scored. When they see a billboard with Serena, now the governor of Texas, on it, they take it as a sign that she still wants them to come to her, so they can score. Even though they’ve just been transported a quarter of a century into the future, the pair are still as oblivious as ever. When Beavis and Butt-Head exit the black hole and find themselves in present day 2022, that’s when the real fun begins. By the end of the first act, Serena has figured out their disgusting intent, the two are locked out of the shuttle, and sucked into a black hole. The first act therefore plays out like what we’ve seen before, with the best friends getting themselves into trouble by their single-minded need to score. Of course, Beavis and Butt-Head interpret the invite as Serena wanting to have sex with them in space. What could possibly be gained by having these Gen X idiots come back again to tell more sex jokes and mock more music videos, all while trying and failing horribly to get laid? It was just one more give in to nostalgia. ![]() Sure, everyone still knows them, but they’re a product of their time. When it was announced that Beavis and Butt-Head would also be returning to Paramount+ in another full-length film, there was curiosity among fans now in their forties, but many saw the pair as a past fad. They’re scheduled to come back soon in another series for Paramount+. Creator Mike Judge brought the pair back briefly for one season in 2011. While their hold on fame slipped through the decades, they were never forgotten. Teenage boys worshipped and emulated them. Their MTV series was a massive hit, as was the 1996 theatrical film, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. In the mid to late 1990s, Beavis and Butt-Head ( Mike Judge) were pop culture phenomenons.
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