Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)

VERDICT:
8/10 Great Cornholios

Stupid done right by Mike Judge. An easy 8 if you ask me.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is about two of the most idiotic teenagers you’re ever likely to come across who wake up one day to find their precious TV stolen out of their apartment, so they head out to find a replacement and, due to a case of mistaken identity, end up being contracted to kill some guy’s wife and wind up on America’s Most Wanted. But since these two kids are convinced that “doing” his wife means that they’ve been paid to score with her, they embark on a cross-country adventure filled with more cavity searches and boner jokes than you can imagine.

It’s based off the show of the same name, only without the “Do America” part, and despite how apparently unfortunate certain aspects of my youth were, this movie is about as familiar as I’ve ever gotten with the series. If I had been born a couple years earlier, chances are I would have been a life-long fan, but as fate may have it, ’86 just wasn’t my year and this was one of those shows that landed on ma’ and pa’s blacklist for little Aiden. The one time my mom did catch me watching it, Beavis was in the middle of a rant about Janet Jackson’s boobs and, needless to say, bed time came early that night.

But whether you were there from the beginning or just missed the cut-off and was resigned to Scooby-Doo reruns like myself, this is still one funny effing movie.

Then again, it also helps if you can laugh at the word “cockpit”.

No? Well I say give it a shot anyway. I assure you, “cockpit” can be quite humorous.

So Beavis and Butt-Head are two really freakin’ dumb individuals and a whole lot of the humor here revolves them acting as such while everyone around them either mistakes them for criminal masterminds or just stare in disbelief that they actually exist. It’s actually a pretty solid formula that works especially well when they find themselves mistaken for priests or attempt to hit on Chelsea Clinton with a suave line about braces, and while it’s not quite up to snuff with Office Space, it’s definitely one of the best things that Mike Judge has been responsible for.

After watching Idiocracy recently and finding myself surprised at how stupid-beyond-belief it was (not trying to start up another firestorm of comments here, but just sayin’), Beavis and Butt-Head is a swell reminder that Judge sure knows a thing or two about The Art of Dumb. It works in ways that Idiocracy doesn’t because B & B’s IQ levels aren’t quite at the level of cowpies and it’s a lot funnier to watch a couple dumbasses thrown into a sea of average Joes rather than the other way around. But even when B & B aren’t on-screen, it’s still great because every character’s a riot and they’ve all got a hint of stupid going for ’em, too.

The only real drawback is that all of B & B’s constant grunting and chuckling starts to wear out a bit towards the end and there are only so many words you can pull out that sound like euphemisms for “cock” before the gag loses its novelty, but other than that, I got nothin’. 

And it’s also got some vocal contributions from Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Greg Kinnear, the guy who plays Hank Hill and the host of Unsolved Mysteries, so that’s nice, too. 

Look, the first time I saw this movie was in middle school with my dad (who wasn’t exactly a fan of the show at the time despite our shared love of Ren & Stimpy and the first album by The Jerky Boys) after it was recommended to him by two Christian Brothers he met on a retreat who hyped it up like no other. I might not have gotten a whole lot of the jokes the first time around, but we still laughed our asses off and if the fact that there are two holy men out there who most definitely found the humor in “cockpit” doesn’t help you to keep an open mind, I’m not sure there’s anything more I can do. You, sir or madam, are a true grown-up.

I don’t think the title’s gonna sway anyone towards my adoration of it, but Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is just awesome and it cracks me the hell up at all the same parts every time I see it.

Atta boy, Mike. Atta boy.