Beavis and Butt-Head returned in 2022 and after such a long absence, the dim-witted duos haven’t
grown at all… In a good way! The original series commented on 90's culture quite a
bit so naturally this newer series tackles more recent developments in society from the viewpoints
of these two nacho loving metal-heads. And we’re exploring those topics today.
I'm Brad with WickedBinge and these are Beavis and Butt-Head Culture Wars (2022):
Funny to Hilariously Brilliant.
Beavis and Butt-Head are well known couch potatoes, however instead of being addicted
to cable television, this new series saw them commenting on internet videos. These
videos encompassed everything from ASMR, mukbangs, unboxing, twerking and of course music videos. The
format has changed but Beavis and Butt-Head have not, giving the same snide, cynical and ridiculous
remarks they made while watching videos in the 90's. Beavis and Butt-Head were initially created
by Mike Judge to comment on the generation of television obsessed dimwitted teenagers who
were tuning into MTV, the very channel that was airing the show. Now that the new series is on a
streaming service, Beavis and Butt-Head naturally are commenting on other internet videos. It's very
clear that the creator of the show is saying that the generation of lazy, moronic teenagers
never really went away, they simply adapted from watching MTV to watching YouTube and Netflix.
Mike Judge has commented on how stupidity can be passed down through different generations in the
film Idiocracy and it's great to see that same satire be tackled within Beavis and Butt-Head.
As with many shows and films nowadays, Beavis and Butt-Head delved into the multiverse in their new
series. This was actually first commented on in last year's Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe
which saw the duo traveling into the future from the 90's and meeting Smart Beavis and
Smart Butt-Head. Here it was explained that there are a multitude of different Beavis and Buttheads
throughout the galaxies which vary slightly despite being consistently horny and stupid.
This was a great way to explain the 2011 series as well as opening the doors of potential for this
new series. While most of the new episodes follow the teenage iterations of Beavis and Butt-Head,
several episodes follow the duo as middle-aged men who have aged from the 90's. This opens
the door for new opportunities with Beavis and Butt-Head being alcoholics with health
problems and adult responsibilities. Not only that, the introduction of the Multiverse opens
the potential for Beavis or Butt-Head to die at the end of any given episode as the next
episode can follow a completely different duo from a completely different timeline.
Speaking of which, the introduction of the Multiverse allowed certain versions of Beavis
and Butt-Head to experience Aging. While most episodes in the newer series follow the teenage
versions of Beavis and Butt-Head, several episodes also follow middle aged versions of
the duo who have continued aging from the 90's. This opens the door for Beavis and Butt-Head
to experience much more adult oriented issues such as alcoholism, kidney failure,
jury duty and more. This is not dissimilar to the South Park: Post Covid specials, Stewie Griffin:
The Untold Story or episodes of The Simpsons that take glimpses into the future. While Beavis and
Butt-Head may experience different issues than what they faced as teenagers, one thing that has
stayed consistent is their crude, juvenile and really dumb personalities which unsurprisingly
haven't evolved at all since high school. No matter what age this dimwitted duo are they
manage to deliver many laughs to audiences around the universe (and supposedly Multiverse as well).
The first episode of this season involved Beavis and Butt-Head partaking in Escape Rooms... Well,
sort of. When two girls need another duo to partaking in a game, they recruit Beavis and
Butt-Head who are looking to impress chicks with their abilities. Unfortunately for them,
Beavis and Butt-Head accidentally end up in the bathroom and believe that to be the room
they're supposed to be escaping from. Escape rooms weren't really an activity back in the
90's so neither the old series nor the 2011 episodes got to comment on this new pastime.
It makes total sense to us that Beavis and Butt-Head would use this opportunity to show
off their incredible thinking skills to chicks, even if they aren't around to see them escape
the bathroom. It may seem silly but we're willing to bet they aren't the first horny
teenagers to come up with this idea, even if Butt-Head would like to believe he is.
2022 also marked the year that Beavis and Butt-Head were introduced to the concept of
White Privilege. After traveling into a college classroom by accident, Beavis and Butt-Head
are labeled by other students as having white privilege. So naturally, Beavis and Butt-Head
assume this to be a super-power and that they can do whatever they want without suffering any
sort of consequences for their actions. While the class intended this to be a moment of reflection
for the two, Beavis and Butt-Head of course take it to the extreme by stealing things,
pushing over people and stealing cop cars. The college landscape has certainly changed
from the 90's, and even then, Beavis and Butt-Head entering a college campus would have been a rare
occurrence indeed. They are eventually apprehended by the police but are released from jail shortly
thereafter. We're sure the college students in this film would indicate that as another
clear sign of white privilege, though we don’t expect Beavis or Butthead to grasp the lesson.
Beavis and Butt-Head also got to see how the gaming industry developed through the use of
Virtual Reality. At least, that’s what they think. In the episode Virtual Stupidity, which oddly
enough shares the title of a Beavis and Butt-Head PC game from the 90’s, the duo mistake regular
sunglasses as a VR headset and believe themselves to be playing a video game. This causes them
to run amuck in the mall, destroying property and attempting to kill themselves so that they
can respawn with weapons. This is not totally dissimilar to the South Park episode Grounded
Vindaloop wherein Cartman tricks Butters into believing he’s playing a VR game when really,
he isn’t. Beavis and Butt-Head do eventually wake in the hospital where they believe their hospital
equipment to be weapons and use them to attack a man who came to visit them. With gaming becoming
as popular as it has, this episode is a subtle reminder of what happens when players are unable
to distinguish fiction from reality, especially when they’re as stupid as Beavis and Butt-Head.
Is there a potential Beavis and Butt-Head VR game coming in the future? Only time will tell.
One thing that has returned in this set of episodes is Beavis’ fascination with Fire.
For those of you who are unaware, Beavis’ fascination with fire was a huge controversy
back in the 90’s when a woman accused the show of inspiring her son to burn down their house,
causing the death of a two-year-old baby. This caused MTV to remove all references to fire in
subsequent episodes, even though it was later revealed that the woman who made the claim was
a drug addict who didn’t even own cable and her son never saw the show. This allowed fire to be
referenced once again in the 2011 series and this new season continued with the trend, giving us an
episode where Beavis meets a sentient fire in a dumpster. While initially worshiping it as a good,
Beavis grows tired when the fire starts making him do really “lame” activities such as exercising,
read a book and start thinking about college. This is a classic take on the “never meet your idols”
trope with Beavis losing interest in the fire and asking an employee to extinguish it. The fire
controversy itself was even possibly referenced indirectly in the later episode Weird Girl. Here,
an unstable girl who has a crush on Beavis burns down the school gymnasium in an attempt to impress
him which bears a striking similarity to the original story that the woman told in the 90’s.
At any rate, we’re glad the past controversies of the show do not continue to cause censorship
for it all these years later which shows us the benefits from being able to move on from the past.
As crude and vulgar as these two are, one episode last season actually improvement for Butt-Head
when he started taking Medication for his issues. After realizing Butt-Head has problems with anger
and violence, the school’s psychiatrist Mrs. Oritz gives him pills to take to help subdue his
less favorable tendencies. Butt-Head then starts popping these pills in like candy leading him to
change drastically. This new Butt-Head turns out to be much more well-spoken, professional
and intelligent than his previously unmedicated self, leading him to finally excel in school.
However, as this continues Beavis starts to miss the old Butt-Head who would beat him up and laugh
at juvenile jokes with him. There is so much commentary in this episode from so many angles,
including how medication can drastically change a person and how Butt-Head’s own
toxic friendship with Beavis is a huge part of the reason why the two can never mature.
We also learn that Beavis feels lost without Butt-Head constantly insulting him and beating
him up which is very true for many people in dysfunctional friendships and relationships.
Perhaps in the multiverse there could exist a version of Butt-Head who continued to get the
help he needed and become a student role model but this certainly wasn’t the case this time around.
Speaking of the multiverse, middle aged Beavis and Butt-Head also experienced participating
in Jury Duty. In an obvious homage to 12 Angry Men, Beavis and Butt-Head vote against the rest
of the jurors in a manslaughter case on the basis that they think a guy who breaks the law is cool.
This causes a huge delay in the prosecution as everyone else in the room replays the video tape
to convince Beavis and Butt-Head that the man did indeed commit the crime. Upon rewatching the tape
several times, the other jury members begin to realize inconsistencies that do seem to indicate
that the defendant in the case is innocent. This causes a second vote where everyone agrees that
the man is innocent, except for Beavis and Butt-Head who want him thrown in jail for
“taking credit” for a crime he didn’t commit. This is a case where Beavis and Butt-Head’s
stupidity actually does come in handy even though it ultimately results in a hung jury anyway. Heh
heh heh, “hung.” Either way, this experience did teach Beavis and Butt-Head a valuable
lesson which is receiving fourteen bucks for jury duty doesn’t buy them as much beer as they hoped.
Beavis and Butt-Head also took on the concept of the classic Body Swap formula… somewhat. In
the episode Freaky Friday (we’ll leave you to speculate what film this story is spoofing),
Beavis and Butt-Head believe they swapped bodies once they got knocked out by a disgruntled
customer who is annoyed from them shaking soda bottles as a prank. When they come to,
Beavis and Butt-Head look into a window which they believe to be a mirror and
see the other person. This causes Beavis and Butt-Head to think that they switched bodies,
resulting in them exchanging clothes and attempting to act like the other
person. The funny part of all this is that Beavis and Butt-Head are already
so similar to begin with that switching bodies wouldn’t really changed them much if they actually
did it. The body swap premise may be an old one but as usual, Beavis and Butt-Head’s hilarious
take on this issue prevents it from feeling stale or run into the ground in any way, shape or form
Beavis and Butt-Head returned to their job at Burger World this season where they discovered
the Right to Refuse Service. The attitude of the customer service industry has shifted over
the years as the classic mantra of “the customer is always right” has pretty much
been rejected by most current companies. Nowadays, if customers are being rude,
belligerent or intolerable, many managers will put the well-being of their staff over
that of a toxic stranger looking to harass employees. Of course, Beavis and Butt-Head,
being who they are, take this to the extreme and refuse service to pretty much anyone,
causing absolute chaos to ensue in Burger World. This is a good reminder that while it’s definitely
okay to refuse service during the right circumstances, such as a rude customer…
That does not indicate that you can treat everyone who comes into a store or restaurant like garbage.
Given the current issues with labor shortage and teenage employees, we wouldn’t be surprised if
Beavis and Butt-Head find themselves in more situations like this in subsequent seasons.
This new season also dealt with Beavis learning about Religion and Spirituality. In the only
22-minute episode this season, Beavis sees Jesus’ face on a nacho which makes
him go to church and ask for answers as to why he’s never able to score.
He fails to understand the priest’s teachings so he goes to a synagogue
and asks a rabbi instead. Neither Beavis nor Butt-Head have been portrayed as the
most religious people in the world, probably stemming from the fact that they are much more
interested in television, sex, nachos and fire. The concepts of Judaism and Christianity do indeed
go over their heads but Beavis and Butt-Head’s tunes change once they find an abstinence group
who they believe are conducting an orgy. A lot of the humor in Beavis in Butt-Head are derived from
misunderstandings between the people who they are interacting with and this is no exception. Much
like many issues that the show covers, this episode isn’t saying anything for or against
religion and instead satirizes how these two really moronic teenagers could misunderstand
the concept entirely. Whether you’re a Christian, Jewish, a Muslim, an atheist
or of any other belief, we can all be thankful that we aren’t as lost as Beavis and Butt-Head.
But let us know in the comment section what you think the funniest Beavis and
Butt-Head episode of 2022 was, as well as what we should cover next. Make sure to hit
that notification bell and binge our other videos. But most importantly, stay wicked.