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Description
Episode: Theatrical Movie
Year: 1996
Writer(s): Mike Judge, Joe Stillman
I'm just going to come out and say it: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is more or less what Tom and Jerry: The Movie SHOULD'VE BEEN! I may not hate that movie as much as everyone else, but I am aware of how flawed it really is compared to its direct-to-video kin and all the missteps it took. The biggest problem with that movie is that Tom and Jerry were thrown into a plot that was altogether foreign to them, and not only did that movie alter their personalities to make them more in-service to the plot, it BARELY used them as if they were an afterthought for what amounted to a rip-off of Disney's The Rescuers.
By contrast, this movie manages to do everything that one tried to do: putting its title characters in an epic adventure, while still keeping Beavis and Butt-Head as, well, Beavis and Butt-Head. Tom and Jerry would NEVER give up their longstanding rivalry just to become friends even if it meant surviving; even when they were on the same team in certain shorts, they were still going at their usual routine, and it felt natural. Even the 1975 TV series contained some trace of it, however bland it was. Beavis and Butt-Head are still their usual stupid oblivious selves throughout the entire movie, and that's a lot of what really gives it its charm.
We got our favorite chuckling fart-knockers here caught up in a government plot by two international terrorists (voiced by Bruce Willis and Demi Moore) who have planted a bio-chemical weapon on Beavis' ass, capable of wiping out 5 states in 5 days, and our boys are none the wiser! All Beavis and Butt-Head care about is either finding a new TV or "doing" the wife of one of the terrorist, who mistakenly hired the boys to kill her, which they mistook for sex with pay. Honestly, I couldn't blame them for this, having some guy outright tell you to "do his wife" (that's literally what he told them to do) can be easily taken out of context even by smart people, and besides that she's smokin'!
A good character means you can put them in almost any scenario, and they'll work with it. Tom and Jerry failed at this with their movie because they didn't get the characters right and barely used them at all. In both cases, it's as if the title characters walked into a completely different movie than what they're supposed to be in, but for Beavis and Butt-Head, they were still being themselves throughout the entire thing, not just the first 10 minutes! All they want to do is watch TV and score while unknowingly mingling within a government thriller movie!
And not to spoil anything, but midway through their journey, we learn something about our boys, but I won't say what because of how it just adds to this thing's charm and puts Beavis and Butt-Head into better perspective. I will say they do get to be in a music video though, through getting high off a peyote cactus! It just wouldn't be a Beavis and Butt-Head movie without one! I also really like the music in this thing: beyond the music video courtesy of White Zombie, we get songs from Isaac Hayes, Ozzie Osborne, and even Engelbert Humperdinck with his masterpiece "Lesbian Seagull". Get the soundtrack for this beauty if you can find it.
Unlike Regular Show: The Movie, which just felt more or less like an extended episode of the show, this movie truly feels grander than what fans of the show are used to. I wouldn't say it's like the Pokémon movies by any stretch, but it was very ambitious of Mike Judge to do something like this. You COULDN'T get away with making this movie in the post-9/11 era! Especially considering all the teenage terrorists coming out of the woodwork in recent years! But even though it might seem like the ones that have done acts like crashing planes into buildings which might you a cringey feel today, this movie doesn't have that kind of "harsher in hindsight" feel to it, at least not to me. Even though this aired shortly before the start of Season 7, I do consider this as the show's series finale in a way; I'd definitely give it a watch if their style of humor is your thing or if you really like Mike Judge's work.
Beavis and Butt-head is owned by MTV and Viacom.
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