Tonight’s The Night
“Throughout the alternative-rock era, from humble origins in 1992 through hosting their own show from ’93 to ’97, two of the funniest but most insightful voices rock criticism ever produced worked as a tag team shining a needed spotlight on the fads, hypes, poses, and pretensions of the day, occasionally celebrating but more often agitating for music that was ‘cool’ over that which ‘sucks,'” Jim DeRogatis writes on his Pop N Stuff blog for WBEZ.
“And now, 14 years after the end of their initial run, their proud creator Mike Judge – who also has given us Office Space, King of the Hill, and The Goode Family, for better and worse – is bringing those sages in worn concert T’s back for round two.”
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“First of all, Beavis and Butt-head do more than just watch TV,” Bill Wyman wrote for the Reader in 1993.
“In between sets of videos they wander across an unremarkable suburban landscape, inevitably injecting innocuous situations with terror and disaster. Between home and school and jobs they torture animals, blow up houses, hurt other people and each other, and steal. But the cartoony adventures mask a subtle commentary on adolescence in general, and the boys’ responses to the music videos are particularly telling – those inane snickers contain a complex set of signifiers about the way people consume popular culture.
“At the first chord of a heavy-metal video, the response is an immediate ‘Yes!’ – nicely conveying the mysterious but instantaneous connection certain teens make to such music. Songs that utilize metal sounds but are somewhat more challenging – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is a good example – the response is positive (‘Navarna is cool’) but less visceral. Self-consciously arty or collegiate videos produce long puzzled silences and ultimately dismissal (‘If I wanted to read I’d go to school’). And failed new-wave or old-school hard-rock bands, from Wang Chung and Loverboy to the Scorpions, are greeted with derision. (‘I’m not just a hair club member, I’m the president!’)”
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In other words, Beavis and Butt-head are among the world’s greatest semioticians, growing up at a time when media-savvy youth can read – and mock – the signifiers in an instant, like when they explain that when a band in a video all crowds onto the same couch, it means they’re, like, really good friends.
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“It is impossible to feel any affection for B&B,” an uncomprehending Roger Ebert once wrote.
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Leave it to USA Today to declare that “Beavis and Butt-Head Are Bringing Stupid Back.”
Um, you’re USA Today!
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On Pavement: “Try harder, dammit!”
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“(The cat killing) was a horrible thing, but it’s a real reach to blame it on Beavis and Butt-head.”
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Back in stock!
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Dammit, Pantera, this beer is warm! Get me another one!
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This guy’s under a lot of stress!
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Happiness!
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I can’t believe she’s talking to Snoop that way!
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This is what it’s all about.
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Previously:
*Beavis and Butt-Head Are Back
* The Glorious Return Of Beavis And Butt-Head
* Beavis And Butt-Head Are Gonna Score
* Gym, Tan, Butt-Head
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Comments welcome.
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1. From Lex Alexander:
When I told my friends that Beavis and Butt-head showed that Mike Judge was a genius, they laughed.
Then came King of the Hill, populated with characters people in my part of the country knew in real life. They stopped laughing and said, “Oh.”
Yeah.
Posted on October 27, 2011