We all love King of the Hill, Office
Space, Idiocracy and even Extract, and we're sure the people who
actually watched The Goode Family dug
it, but for our money, Mike Judge's finest creation will always remain Beavis & Butthead.
Thankfully, at long last, our two favorite imbeciles are coming back to MTV
with a new series debuting this year. We made sure we had bangarang seat for
the Beavis & Butthead panel at
San Diego Comic-Con 2011 so we could see footage from the show and hear Judge
himself talk about his plans. Here's what we learned:
- The panel was moderated by none other than Johnny Knoxville, who shared bottles of Miller Genuine Draft with Judge.
- Knoxville is an admittedly lousy moderator.
- Beavis & Butthead started as an animated short that Judge did while going to school to become a math teacher and working as a musician.
- Judge used to be an engineer. Who knew?
- MTV's Liquid Television licensed the first four Beavis & Butthead shorts, including Frog Baseball in 1992 and Office Space, the initial inspiration for the movie of the same name.
- Judge sold Beavis & Butthead to MTV in 1992 and hit the air in 1993.
- He started making animated shorts hoping that it would lead to meeting someone in comedy or animation.
- When in high school, Judge chose to buy an electric bass and amp instead of a movie camera in order to meet girls. He regrets that choice now.
- Judge decided to bring Beavis & Butthead back because "TV was getting too smart."
- He's been writing things down over the years, thinking "I wish I was still doing Beavis & Butthead."
- Judge believes that Beavis & Butthead are timeless, partially due to their purposely unhip dialogue. A choice he made because he couldn't compete with Pauly Shore's California lingo, which was all over MTV at the time.
- On the new series Beavis & Butthead will watch and talk about music videos as well as Jersey Shore.
- Judge likes watching Jersey Shore, but doesn't feel good about it.
- Beavis & Butthead will also watch UFC mixed martial arts fights.
- While talking about visiting the animation inbetweeners in Seoul, Korea, Judge tells a kinda racist, totally hilarious story about communicating with them.
- Judge claimed that the hippies took over American education, so art classes and schools don't teach people the essentials, unlike in Korea, where those things are commonplace.
- Some of Judge's voices started out as characters he did on citizen's band radio to irritate truckers.
- Judge told a story about a fan who came in and told him about pouring McDonald's grease on the ground and setting it on fire.
- Judge loves the golden age of animation like Chuck Jones and Tex Avery, especially the Roadrunner cartoons, which he compared to the "pyramids in Egypt." He's also a big fan of Jack Archer, who he's since worked with on King of the Hill. Also, John Kricfalusi and the first two seasons of Ren & Stimpy.
- Judge set up the Beavis
& Butthead footage, which are individual scenes:
- Beavis & Butthead see Twilight and then try to become vampires to get girls and get bitten by a homeless guy they think is a werewolf
- Beavis screws a wood screw into his hand and the much-requested return of Cornholio, who naturally, gets worshipped as a deity by a group of cultmembers.
- Beavis & Butthead working as racist customer service representatives.
- Beavis & Butthead eviscerating episodes of Jersey Shore and 16 & Pregnant.
- And of course, Beavis & Butthead watching wacky music videos.
- The connecting, non-TV watching scenes have great animation, well better than the old version, but still maintain the show's unique aesthetic.
- Audience Q&A time!
- A fan asked about crossing Beavis & Butthead over with King of the Hill, but Judge said probably not.
- Someone asked about releasing the earlier full seasons on DVD, but the licensing issues with the music videos cause too much of a problem.
- The reason you never see a full, front view of Beavis and Judge said it was because he couldn't find a version of the character that doesn't look freaky.
- A fan dressed and talking like Cornholio asked about guest voices and also whether Beavis will ever score. Judge said that because he was doing things on his own and they weren't union, it was usually just friends who would jump in, and as of right now there are no huge celebrities planned for the new show.
- Where did the names Beavis & Butthead come from? Judge remembered from his childhood someone he knew saying, in a Butthead voice, "Beavis is cool." And Butthead is just, you know, butthead.
- Judge is particularly proud of one new character in an episode where Beavis & Butthead believe they've traveled in time after visiting a reenactment town.
- Judge's influences include Cheech & Chong and Jerry Lewis. Cheech & Chong specifically Judge sees as massive influences on Beavis & Butthead particularly. He also namechecks Lewis' Nutty Professor.
- He claimed that Robocop was a big influence on Idiocracy, and then went on to talk about the movie's reshoots. Judge claims that Fox loved the movie up until the editing process when they got extremely down on it. They got very hard about sticking to the budget with effects and did test screens way before any of the effects were dropped in.
- Judge named Beavis & Butthead's high school after a school his mother taught at in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which then led to the town being named Highland.
- Judge revealed that his mother, a high school Spanish teacher, was a big influence on Peggy Hill.
- A fan asked about "Leave it to Beavis," and Judge claimed that it was his favorite episode.
- Music videos on Beavis & Butthead were initially selected by Judge based on things he either liked or didn't like, and then he started looking for material that was good joke fodder. Then, influenced by Howard Stern, he began having Beavis & Butthead just talk about anything, even if it's unrelated to the music video.
- When asked about another favorite Beavis & Butthead episode, Judge pointed out the first Cornholio episode because it was an opportunity to do something totally out there. Now, he's a little sick of it just because he's seen it so many times.
- The inevitable Daria question got popped and Judge explained that MTV spun off Daria without involving him at all. Judge never saw the show, but said he heard it was pretty good.
- A fan asked about another Beavis & Butthead video game, and Judge said that there's been some talk and that he'd love to do it.
- Judge talked about a planned Beavis & Butthead ride that had Butthead driving a cab that people rode in.
- Beavis & Butthead will also be watching YouTube videos.
- When asked about the rebellious nature of much of his work, Judge recognizes it as a recurring theme, but not a conscious decision.
