Judge voices both title characters and several recurring ones as well, including Tom Anderson (using the voice that would later be more closely associated with Hank Hill), Van Driessen, McVicker and Buzzcut, as well as a handful of one-shot characters. Some scenes with upwards of four characters feature Judge as the only actor.
Tracy Grandstaff voices Daria, Cassandra, and Mrs. Stevenson.
Adored by the Network: You would've been hard-pressed to not find this show on MTV's daily schedule back during its initial run.
Approval of God: Plenty of people have found the duo mocking them during the music videos to be an honor. Sam Harris loved the commentary on his "Over the Rainbow" video. The cast of Jersey Shore also considered their "appearance" on the show to be great fun. Steve Grimmett of Grim Reaper personally told Mike Judge that he agreed with the duo's negative remarks about his band's video for "See You in Hell".
The infamous season three premiere "Comedians" featured Beavis trying to juggle flaming newspapers and burning down a comedy club. Because it aired only a month before the Ohio mobile home fire that the show was blamed for, the episode was swiftly pulled out of rotation and later heavily censored.
Other episodes were banned (some of which did return from being banned with content cuts made) for instances of Beavis saying "Fire! Fire!" or flicking a lighter ("Stewart's House", "Kidnapped"), animal cruelty ("Frog Baseball", "Washing the Dog"), inhalant and drug abuse ("Home Improvement", "Way Down Mexico Way") or anything that might be considered to be in poor taste after Columbine and 9/11 ("Heroes", "Incognito"). Many of these have aired on Viacom-owned networks overseas unedited, and some are commercially available on DVD sets.
Breakthrough Hit: While he'd had some success in the festival circuit and with the Milton shorts on Saturday Night Live, it was this show that put Mike Judge's name on the map, beginning an extremely prolific career in animation, television and film.
Cash-Cow Franchise: Beavis and Butt-Head were huge pop culture phenomenons back in the 1990s and even today. Comic books, video games, action figures, shirts, underwear, a theatrically released film, a music video with Cher, two appearances on Saturday Night Live (one in the mid-1990s during a "Weekend Update" segment and again on the season 27 episode hosted by Jon Stewart on a TV Funhouse "Fun with Real Audio" segment), The Tonight Show and the goddamn Academy Awards, appearances in films such as Austin Powers and Airheads. They were everywhere.
In the Japanese dub of Virtual Stupidity, the main characters are voiced by comedy duo, London Boots Ichi-gō Ni-gō.
The Italian dub has comedian Paolo Rossi voicing Butt-Head in Season 1, and musicians Elio (Butt-Head) and Faso (Beavis) from the comedic rock band Elio e le Storie Tese in most episodes of Seasons 2 to 7. The 2011 reboot has the voices of comedians Fabrizio Biggio (Beavis) and Francesco Mandelli (Butt-Head), who were popular hosts on MTV Italy in the previous decade. Finally, movie/theater actor and voice actor Neri Marcoré dubbed Butt-Head in the 1996 movie.
Channel Hop: From MTV for the first 8 seasons to Paramount+ for the 9th and 10th seasons. (The Paramount+ seasons bear the Comedy Central branding, making it a twice-over hop.)
Children Voicing Children: Adam Welsh, Stewart's first voice actor, was 12-years-old when he first appeared in the show.
Colbert Bump: A few artists have had a boost in popularity after their music videos were featured on the show. White Zombie in particular saw their 1992 album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1 go from being a flop to a best-seller after one of the album's songs was featured on the show.
Much like how Trey and Matt feel about the early seasons of their show, Judge hates most of the very early episodes of the show due to the very choppy animation and obvious humor compared to later seasons. He also hates some of the episodes that incorporate fantastical elements into them. Because of this, a great deal of the show has not been released on DVD.
In one interview, he said he disliked the episode "Eating Contest" so much that a couple years later he personally asked MTV not to air it in reruns anymore.
Creator's Favorite Episode: Judge has stated that "The Great Cornholio" was the best episode out of the entire series.
Cross-Dressing Voices: Judge voices Marcy Anderson (averted in the movie, where she's voiced by Lisa Kathleen Collins) and the school nurse.
Descended Creator: Judge not only voices the two main characters and multiple side characters, but he also wrote and performed the theme song in the original series and 2011 revival.
"Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: As mentioned above, Judge wrote, performed and recorded the theme song himself. Averted in the 2022 reboot, which has a new version by Gary Clark Jr.
Early-Bird Release: The episode "Vidiots" was originally released without music videos on the VHS "Chicks N' Stuff" 4 months before airing on TV.
Exiled from Continuity: Judge was barred from using Daria in the 2011 reboot, as MTV has stated that they want to keep the character freed up so as to possibly revive her show down the line. During a music video, it is explained that she moved (though Beavis thought she committed suicide), as per the canon of Daria. However, Daria does end up making a cameo in Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, as well as her Smart counterpart appearing in an episode of the 2022 reboot.
Franchise Zombie: At least from Judge's perspective. He felt that the series had overstayed its welcome by the fifth season, but MTV wanted to keep the cash cow going. That said, he's the one that's ended up reviving it twice now.
Harpo Does Something Funny: "The Great Cornholio" was almost entirely improvised, as well all of the music video segments.
And a third of the episodes, which Judge has refused to license to DVD. Judge has since relented on his stance regarding these episodes, and a number of them currently stream on Paramount+.
Also, all references to Beavis being a pyromaniac ("Fire! Fire! Fire!") were edited out of the show after an incident where a young boy burned down his home. Because the edits were made to the master tapes, the only way you'll see pyromaniac Beavis in the original episodes is if you buy a bootleg DVD set.
Averted as of 2022, as it was announced that, in addition to the new episodes moving to Paramount+, the service would stream the entire library, over 200 episodes, newly remastered. Most fans interpreted this as them releasing the episodes all at once... until Paramount+ reiterated that they were only releasing them one at a time throughout 2022. Only 116 episodes from the first 8 seasons are on the service as of October 2023.
The original airing of "Sporting Goods" opened with Beavis trying to set a grasshopper held by Butt-Head on fire. After the fire controversy, this scene was swiftly reanimated so that Beavis and Butt-Head are both holding grasshoppers. Every subsequent airing or home video release internationally, up to and including Paramount+, has used the reanimated version.
Many. Possibly the rarest is "Comedians", since it features Beavis juggling flaming newspapers and burning down a comedy club. It aired a month before the infamous mobile home fire for which the show was blamed. "Comedians" was re-aired a few times in a dramatically edited version that has the fire just happen without Beavis's intervention. Far less common were the very early episodes like "Bedpans and Broomsticks" and especially the infamous "Frog Baseball".
So many examples of this trope exist that Judge admits that the master tapes of many of the early episodes probably no longer exist due to the edits.
No Dub for You: In Japan, the series itself and it's movie were broadcast with subtitles rather than a full on dub, however strangely, the game Virtual Stupidity was actually dubbed, with the titular characters being voiced by popular Japanese comedy duo, London Boots Ichi-gō Ni-gō.
The Other Darrin: Stewart was originally voiced by Adam Welsh; in the 2011 revival, Thomas Middleditch replaced him. Adult Stewart in the 2022 revival is voiced by series writer Sam Johnson.
Real Life Writes the Plot: The music video segments slowly devolved from actual riffing and commentary to stream-of-consciousness rambling due to the sheer volume of videos Judge was forced to watch and ad lib over (at least five per-recording session), causing him to run out of material extremely fast.
Role Reprise: In the 2022 revival episode "Abducted", Daria (or at least her Smart counterpart) is again voiced by Tracy Grandstaff, reprising her role for the first time since recording for a Daria GPS voice in 2010.
Canada's MTV quickly replaced the revived series with Jersey Shore reruns, occasionally airing the episodes at ridiculous hours of the night.
In the United States, starting from the second episode and onwards, episodes of the revived series were aired Out of Order rather than in chronological order. Then in 2012, it was quickly taken off for more room for reality shows.
At the beginning of Nina Hagen's Herman Was His Name, Judge flubs a line as Beavis:
Beavis: Whoa, that's a bigass skull, Beavis — I mean, Butt-Head.
During the recording for "Generation in Crisis", Judge felt one line wasn't working and decided to riff on a joke he'd come up with after the L.A. earthquake "knocked a screw loose in his brain" about Beavis affecting an alter ego. He then proceeded to ad lib in a voice he used to do to annoy his sister. And thus, The Great Cornholio was born.
New episodes debuted in October 2011, but disappeared as soon as they premiered.
In July 2020, it was announced that the series will receive two new seasons on Comedy Central (later moved to Paramount+), which premiered in 2022 and 2023.
Write Who You Know: Most of the characters, particularly the ones whom Judge voices himself, were based on people from his youth.
The title characters were a friend of Judge's who called himself "The Iron Butt" (because he was always trying to get people to kick him in the butt as hard as possible) and a nerdy classmate, along with an amalgam of 14-year-olds living in his neighborhood; the concept for "Frog Baseball" came from something he'd overhear several of them talking about.
Butt-Head's voice was based on a bully Judge had in elementary school who'd always just bluntly state how he was going to bully him (that same bully would also serve as the basis for Stuart Dooley). His laugh was partly inspired by an incident at the graduation Mass at Judge's Catholic high school, when Judge heard an immature chuckle from a classmate in response to the priest saying "eat this" while handing out the Communion.
Beavis's "Cornholio" persona was based on something Judge used to do to tease his sister. The voice was a cross between Harry Belafonte and an angry customer at a movie theater where Judge worked as a teenager.
Prior to being an animator, Judge was a professional bassist and had toured with blues musician Sam Myers. The voice he'd eventually use for Van Driessen came from a yuppie journalist whom he'd watched interview Myers and ask him a lot of Innocently Insensitive questions.
McVicker was a high school band teacher whom Judge was convinced was an alcoholic.
Tom Anderson was an amalgam of older authority figures with inexplicable Texan accents and permanent thousand yard stares he'd grown up around in Albuquerque, including a none-too-bright customer on he and his brother's paper route.
Todd was based on a neighborhood bully he had who'd ride his motorcycle on the Judge family's front lawn and tear it up.
Writer Revolt: "Lightning Strikes"note in which Beavis and Butt-Head wind up in the hospital after imitating a documentary about Benjamin Franklin but a visiting reporter can't understand how an educational show could be a bad influence and concludes that they must've been watching music videos instead. was written in a direct response to the trailer house fire incident that the creators were blamed for.
after one of the album's songs was featured on the show.