Movie Review: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America

Grab the popcorn, Blabberfans! PvonD is taking you to the movies with a throwback review of the 1996 classic film Beavis and Butthead Do America.

We all knew at the time it would come to this. The show was way too popular to not get its own full length movie. I know I’m glad it did, because I saw it three times when it came out. My brother liked it so much that he got the soundtrack cover on his birthday cake. Man, seeing Beavis and Butthead in icing was something. I wish I had a picture of that cake, but this was before digital cameras.

Beavis and Butthead Do America answers the question of what happens when the two dumbest guys in the history of television are faced with a potential world catastrophe. The answer is they nearly destroy the United States (the Hoover Dam included,) outrun federal agents and seedy bad guys, go on a bad mushroom trip, almost score, and get Tom Anderson arrested for smuggling a biological weapon.  Their reward: Slick Willy makes them honorary agents of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.

The film features a really great voice cast that includes Bruce Willis and Demi Moore (then husband and wife, playing the two antagonists, Muddy and Dallas Grimes who easily trick the boys into hiding the biological weapon) Robert Stack as a committed federal agent prone to giving people cavity searches and the great Cloris Leachman as a kindly old lady the boys meet on a bus. The soundtrack features the Red Hot Chili Peppers doing a cover of the old funk standard “Love Roller Coaster” and Isaac Hayes doing the opening number channeling his song “Shaft”, which put him on everyone’s radar.”

I loved this movie when I was a kid and I still do. The jokes are still funny and the gags make me laugh. People who are fans of the show will obviously love the hilarious antics of these two teenage morons as they travel across the country to score with a chick who is really trying to sell a biological weapon to the highest bidder, a weapon she stole from her sleazy, grease ball of a husband. In the end, Robert Stack and his team of prodding Federales arrest the two criminals and Beavis and Butthead are regaled as heroes.

The great thing about this movie is you know exactly what to expect. The boys get themselves into an impossible situation but come out completely clean when it’s all over with. They even manage to meet President Clinton, an idea completely lost to them.  Though the humor is the lowest of the low brow it set the stage for other animated films that weren’t produced by Disney to come out (South Park, anyone?)  This was a refreshing change from the G rated fare we were all used to. The movie pulled no punches and targeted the audience it was intended for perfectly. It showed us that Mike Judge was more than capable of big screen success (with a budget of just 12 million bucks, he managed to gross 63 million in the US alone,) and we’re grateful because when Mike Judge makes a movie, you know it’s quality stuff.

I really don’t have anything negative to say about this movie other than that today’s audience might find it too tame, the jokes a little stale, but those are minor complaints of an otherwise funny film that is completely rewatchable. So fire up the Netflix instant and grab some nachos because this is one to watch!