Beavis and Butt-Head/YMMV

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Butt-Head. Are his abusive tendencies on Beavis all there mainly for his enjoyment, or is some of it a well intended if misguided older brother tough guy act in the veins of Coach Buzzcut to teach him hard but necessary lessons to wise up? There are some episodes and games that show there are plenty of times he could have left Beavis for the wolves in a very nasty fashion, but instead stuck around, bailing him out, or was so lost in events to where he didn't know what happened, assuming he'd find him back at their house at the end of the day. Butt-Head also appears to have some form of "street smarts" and self awareness of the nastier aspects of life, often leading him and Beavis out of more severe situations and repercussions. Beavis has also been taken advantage of in ways that not even Butt-Head would ever consider, and there are times when Butt-Head does show his friendship. At worst, Butt-Head has only put Beavis in situations that he knows Beavis will come out alive from or is totally oblivious by their sheer ignorance. Considering Highland being a seedy and dumpy town and what the inhabitants are like, and with observation that local "wussies" like Van Dreissen tend to take it hard often, Butt-Head might be a better influence to help Beavis survive their substandard living situation.
    • He's also visibly disturbed when he finds out Beavis was roofied and raped by a guidance counselor, even asking "you didn't GO, did you?" when Beavis says the counselor invited him over to his apartment. He may abuse Beavis and laugh at his misfortune, but there's a difference between thinking nosebleeds or getting stuck in a copier are funny and, you know, RAPE.
  • God and all of his helpers in this instance. Are they right in proclaiming Butt-Head is such an awful influence that he is the cause of all of Highland's problems, or are they that narrowminded and even flawed to where they ignore everything else that's going on in the world than just one teenage punk who at worst is the result of its excesses and faults and whose existence is just making them all that more glaring to see? He might even be social commentary just as much as the boys and the town, being portrayed in a light that the Moral Guardians in the Fundamentalist Christian far right would only agree with.
• And the Fandom Rejoiced: They're baaa-aaack...
  • And if that wasn't enough, Beavis will be saying "FIRE! FIRE!" again.
• Awesome Music: The last montage of the final (at the time) episode clip show had a compliation of the two wreaking havoc set to "In the Hall of the Mountain King" with Beavis and Butt-Head's vocal air-guitar riff dubbed over it.
• Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The White Zombie video in the movie.
  • To be fair, it was a peyote-triggered trip that only Beavis had.
    • He even expresses awe in how it's like a music video.
    • BLAM? Hell, that was out-and-out Nightmare Fuel.
    • Uh huh huh huh huh, you wuss.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Really, this show lived on this trope, but "Way Down Mexico Way" was its apotheosis.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: They've played plenty of great music videos, but The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" was one of the few songs to get the boys to just shut up and rock out.
• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: It can be hard for some people to watch this show, considering the bad behavior Beavis and Butthead commit regularly. On the plus side, they were not designated heroes...more than a few characters on the show did not love them.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Beavis and Butt-Head themselves.
  • Todd of all people also had some major fangirls back in the day.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Snark Knight Daria Morgendorffer was popular enough to get her own series.
  • The biggest Ensemble Darkhorse of the show is Beavis's alter-ego, The Great Cornholio, he only appeared in few episodes and The Movie, but it is one of the most popular and funny characters in the show.
• Freud Was Right: The boys can find sexual innuendo in literally anything.
  • Huh huh huh, you said "thing".
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: There was at least two moments in the “Beavis and Butthead: Do America”
  • Early on the boys find their way to the cockpit, causing it to nose-drive before Butthead was moved out of the way. After 9/11, now it’s in poor taste.
  • Later on, when the boys arrive in Washington DC, they go on the intercom looking for Dallas, the woman they were suppose to score with. Fast forward to the Lewinsky scandal where… you know what happened.
• Growing the Beard: In the early episodes, the duo didn't go through the range of jokes as later seasons, and most of the time they were just playing pranks or causing all around mischief. When the show started to get popular (and when MTV got scared that kids may be imitating the duo's destructive behavior), their personalities changed into the way most people recognize them now by. Of course, this made everything a hell of a lot funnier.
  • Which is funny, because their earlier music video reviews were very little except jabs or praise for the band/artist. Their later reviews had a more intellectual insight, implying that the characters are savants.
  • Most agree that the revival is even better than where it left off, mostly thanks to Mike Judge being able to apply a lot more years of experience on perfecting the comedy.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, in which Beavis and Butt-Head pop up from time to time, urging viewers to put them back on the air by voting for them in the MTV Viewer's Choice Award (not realising they're not a voting option).
  • This poster released several years ago more or less captured what the fourth episode, Holy Cornholio, is going to be about.
  • In "Baby Makes Uh, Three", the boys and paired together as a couple because none of their female classmates wants to deal with them. Forward to 2010s, where same-sex couples are the norm.
• Ho Yay: Huh huh huh huh, Todd's cool. (floating hearts)
  • At the end of "At the Movies", the duo is hung from the marquee butt-naked, leading Butt-Head to make comments on Beavis' rear end.

Beavis: Why are you so interested in my butt? Butt-Head: Uhhh... have you heard the new GWAR album?

• • In "Sporting Goods", the two try on athletic supporters in the same dressing room.
  • In "Baby Makes Uh, Three", Beavis and Butt-Head are partners to take care of a flour sack for their health class. Buzzcut justifies this by telling them that with the increase of homosexual couples adopting children, it makes the project more realistic. Surprisingly, the duo makes no comment.
  • This exchange from the tie-in book "This Book Sucks":

Beavis: Hey, Butt-Head. Do you think you'll ever, like, get married? Butt-Head: Uh, are you proposing, dude? Beavis: No. Butt-Head: That's OK, I'd only marry somebody dumb anyway. Huh huh.

• Idiot Plot
• Jerkass Woobie: Principle McVicker. It was heavily implied many times that before duo came into his life, he was happier and less medicated.
  • Beavis himself could be this. There are numerous hints dropped throughout the original series that Beavis, despite being a thick-headed pain in the ass to most everyone he meets, actually has a heart in there somewhere, but Butthead is too much of an abusive bad influence for him to even remotely realize that potential.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some fans of the show only watched Beavis and Butt-Head for the music video segments. Other fans hated the music video segments and only watched for the actual cartoons.
• Magic Franchise Word: Many of the boy's insults for each other, like "dillweed", "fart-knocker", or "assmunch".
• Memetic Mutation: Diarrhea cha-cha-cha! Diarrhea cha-cha-cha!
  • Stop trying to change the subject! Hey everyone! Beavis was crying.
  • I AM THE GREAT CORNHOLIO! I NEED TP FOR MY BUNGHOLE!
• Misaimed Fandom: Show garners a cult following of the very slack-jawed teen morons that the show attempts to satirize.
• Misblamed: The family who blamed the show for their son setting their mobile home on fire? They didn't even have cable, so their son was never able to watch the show in the first place.
• Moral Event Horizon: Coach Buzzcut in "Young, Gifted & Crude, where he flat-out ordered his studends to beat up a new student for no reason.
• Nausea Fuel: Beavis and Butthead as "werewolves" in "Werewolves of Highland"
• The Problem with Licensed Games: Notably Averted with Beavis and Butt-Head In Virtual Stupidity, a really excellent point-and-click adventure.
  • Played Straight with the SNES and Megadrive adaptions, which were mediocre platformers.
• Recycled Script: Both "Good Credit" and "Customers Suck" begin with the duo watching "The Bunch".
  • "Heroes" and "To The Rescue" both involved the duo checking out an airplane crash, although the endings are different.
• Tear Jerker: While "Huh-Huh Humbug" is mostly hilarious, the scenes with the McVicker family in Beavis's dream sequence are just painful to watch. The family is extremely poor, McVicker can only bring home a fun meal from the restaurant for dinner and the children call it "the best Christmas ever". Then Christmas Future shows McVicker and his wife sitting alone at the table, indicating that the children didn't survive to see another Christmas. Ouch.
• The Scrappy: Stewart is probably an intentional example, but Todd's not really a fan favorite. It mainly stems from him being an Ungrateful Bastard, despite Beavis and Butt-head's loyalty towards him.
• Technology Marches On: In many episodes, some of the items, like a landline phone, would’ve been replaced with social media today… in fact, what ever happened to caller ID.
• Uncanny Valley: The faces look weird and realistic.
• Values Dissonance: Keeping around a resident asshole like Todd around in the show to bully the boys seemed rather fair at the time, for reasons ranging to showing what not to do around a such a person (like tolerating such a shitheel in the community and not tossing him and his other shitheads in the hole like anyone else would do) and giving the boys some well needed "just desserts" when others wouldn't. However, even in the 1990s, Todd's appearance was beginning to wear out a very, very thin welcome, as bullying would get out of hand in real life later in the decade and school shootings like Columbine would give much question as to what is getting teenagers to commit such atrocities, causing characters like him who didn't get their own punishment in turn foul up ratings and cause the audience to avoid any centered episodes regarding them. Even for a bully character, Todd's immense cruelty makes Beavis and Butt-Head's cruelty on "vermin" or "uncool" animals look like good pet treatment.
  • The duo's treatment of Stuart in certain episodes and in the books falls under this as well. While they don't beat him half to death the way Todd does to them, they mistreat him in other ways: vandalizing his home and leaving him to take the blame from his parents, only letting him hang out with them if he gives them money or his possessions, body shaming and overall insulting him, and throughout all of this Stuart legitimately believes they're his friends and that they actually like him. This kind of behavior is much more frowned upon these days as emotional and mental abuse are recognized as bullying, too.
• What an Idiot!: The duo, pretty much all of the time.
  • A notable example is in 'Vidiots' when the two go to a video dating service, Beavis gives a fake name to the lady working there (Heraldo, which she interprets as Mexican), and she mistakes Beavis' sexual answers to her questions as romantic while Butt-head is doing his video, and tries calling Beavis, only for Butt-head to hang up on her, shortly after Beavis answers the door for a Woman asking to turn on "The pleasure machine" (Butt-head, as he mentioned twice in his video), Beavis thinks she is talking about the TV and slams the door on her.
• What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: Lost in the tragedy of a child burning down a house, or part of a house, is the question Why is a child watching Beavis and Butthead?!? It's animation, right? Must be OK for the children, then.
  • There's also the fact that the kid's family didn't even have cable. It's quite possible the child in question could have watched the show at a friend's house, but who cares? Moral Guardians certainly don't.
• The Woobie: Beavis during his "We're never gonna score" speech in The Movie - even though it's Played for Laughs. You may remember a speech similar to that from Teen Talk.
  • Stuart, the naive and innocent but overall positive and kind boy who thinks Beavis and Butt-Head are his friends even when they treat him like shit. He's one of the few people who legitimately likes them and wants to be their friend, and they repay him with name-calling, body-shaming, throwing him under the bus after making a mess of his home, and only keeping him around so they can borrow his stuff and watch his TV.