Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe

Grade: B

I was the perfect target audience for Beavis and Butt-Head. The show ran on MTV from 1993 to 1997, which, for me, was ages 12 to 16. Like it or not, B&B certainly made waves and was a memorable cultural footprint of the 90s. From them, I learned one of my favorite words: fartknocker. Where I was, it came on at 10:30pm. This was back when you had to wait for a show to be on to see it. MTV often ran a commercial with the line “Watch MTV or your summer will suck.” My dad overheard that one night and quipped “So THAT’S what I’ve been doing wrong this summer.”

Awkward confused hormonal little boys now grown into their early 40s (and perhaps other individuals as well) will have a soft spot for Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe – a new feature film, streaming on Paramount+. It stays consistently true to form. Much like the show and their first movie (1996’s Beavis and Butt-Head Do America), the two main characters amble their way through life, miraculously not killing themselves or others, and anything good that happens to them is out of pure serendipity. They, of course, remain oblivious and clueless.

Consider the way one thing leads to another in the plot of Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe. It opens at their high school science fair, in 1998. Butt-Head is seeing how many times he can kick Beavis in the testicles before he passes out. One particularly powerful kick sends Beavis careening into the air, breaking equipment and starting a fire when he lands. The boys are sentenced to 8 weeks of space camp. Their fascination with the phallic shape of the machinery leads the instructors to misunderstand and think B&B are astronomical savants, so they are brought up into space. Through a series of inferences of unintended sexual double-entendres, B&B believe Serena – the captain of the mission – is taking them up into space to let them “score” with her. After the mission is botched, Serena throws B&B out into space to leave them for dead – where they get sucked into a black hole and land in Texas in the year 2022.

The movie is able to hold water because of the emotions it brings up. I was invested in the main conflict of the storyline. We find Serena alive and well 24 years later. She’s a pompous, corrupt politician running for re-election as governor, and just as big a fartknocker as before. I was legitimately upset at what she did, and wanted justice for our protagonists. There is also a surprisingly charming subplot where Beavis thinks he’s in a relationship with Siri. They have long conversations. (“Sorry, I don’t understand ‘butt head.’” “Me neither! Finally I got somebody who listens to me and says what I’m thinking.”) He blushes as he prepares to say the big three word phrase to her. When Butt-Head mercilessly ridicules him for having a girlfriend, Beavis confides that thinking about her always makes him feel good, whether or not he gets a boner from thinking about her. That might be the sweetest thing Beavis could possibly say.

The series was rebooted in 2011, for a season or two. Beavis’s voice sounded off to me then. It was as if creator Mike Judge forgot how to do it, after so much time away. Somehow, he found it again for Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, and all characters sound like they did in the 90s. It was nice to catch up with the boys. I’m glad Judge put his toe back in this pool, and am happy these guys can still entertain us. Huh huh huh. I said “ain-us.” That was cool.

Grade: B