The most-watched MTV show in its day, it inspired movies, spin-offs and imitators. Did escape rooms exist in the 90s? Did TikTok? When is this meant to be set?īeavis and Butt-Head was a phenomenon. Everything about Beavis and Butt-Head, from the voices to the animation style to the costumes, are firmly stuck in the 90s. They’re diverting, but their nature is weird and uncanny.

These are also present and correct in the reboot, with the pair messing up an escape room and causing mayhem with a box of bees. There were also animated skits about them wandering through suburbia annoying people. Of course, the Mystery Science Theater segments were never the only parts of Beavis and Butt-Head. Music videos no longer have the currency they once did, so Beavis and Butt-Head no longer seem particularly interested in wasting their energy on them. If you were wondering, he likes it enough to start humping his couch. However, stripped of juvenile wisecracks, the commentary ends up being about how much Beavis enjoys the music of BTS. In episode two, the pair watch a BTS video. In fairness, the occasional music video does crop up, but it’s clear that their hearts aren’t really in it. And, as with the original, the mockery is so gleeful that you find yourself cheering them on a little. They lay into a woman who makes ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response videos).

And so this version of Beavis and Butt-Head comes studded with segments where the pair watch viral videos about, say, making your own prison tattoos, and breezily mock the accent of the idiot telling the internet how to do it. Three decades ago, those people joined bands. The people who most urgently need deflating are pompous and preening and utterly self-regarding. And, in fairness to Judge, this makes a lot of sense.

Without the material provided to them by self-regarding pop stars, what could Beavis and Butt-Head possibly mock in 2022? The music industry has entered such a state of stasis that the biggest hit of the summer is a 37-year-old Kate Bush song that was shown in a Netflix programme about a girl running away from a monster. Photograph: Rob Latour/Rex/Shutterstock for Paramount+ Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge at ComicCon, San Diego, last month.

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