Review: Beavis And Butt-Head: Do The Universe

Hollywood has been in love with the notion of space for decades. Some of the most beautifully terrifying films of all-time have used the cosmos and that trend has more than been influenced in adult animation. The likes of Futurama, Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites, Final Space, and others have boldly gone where no man has gone before more than a few times.

Now, you might think that I’m about to call Beavis and Butt-Head: Do The Universe a bit of a ripoff of the aforementioned series, and yes, Rick and Morty can be felt throughout and is actually one of the important plot points, but if it wasn’t for Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head, none of the series I had just mentioned would be here today. Yes, The Simpsons had happened, but arguably, MTV’s animation scene in the nineties was put on the map because of Beavis and Butt-Head, showcasing for the first-time ever that an adult animated comedy didn’t need to have a family dynamic in order for it to be successful. Moreover, various producers from Beavis and Butt-Head have gone on to have and continue to have important impacts on adult animation. Obvious candidates for this would be Judge who would go onto have as monster of an impact on pop culture relevance as anybody, but also the likes of the Daria character which would further cement MTV’s impact on American culture by way of animation. Producers like Chris Prynoski, Aaron Augenblick, Christy Karacas, and a host of other producers have gone on to prop up networks like Adult Swim and launch animation studios like Augenblick Studios and Titmouse, both of whom are regularly part of press releases announcing new projects even today. Titmouse is the animation studio behind Beavis and Butt-Head: Do the Universe, so now for the seque!

It took over 20 years but the sequel to Beavis and Butt-Head: Do America has finally landed in the form of Beavis and Butt-Head: Do The Universe, and this has given us a fantastic prelude to the upcoming revival series that focuses on the duo trying to come to grips with modern-day pastiche after a space-age mishap that sees the boys transported through a wormhole and transport from 1998 to that of 2022. Gone are the days where Beavis and Butt-Head are trying to fix the antennae on their TVs, we get to see Beavis and Butt-Head drive new cars, experience mobile tech, and yes, their takes on the continually bizarre community college classes. The clash of stupid with today’s “know-it-all” sense of scumbag entitlement will certainly be fun to watch when the new TV series premieres, until then we’re introduced to the main antagonists of the new movie, on one side is a re-team of FOX’s Housebroken’s Nat Faxon (Jim) and Andrea Savage (Serena), the other side is Gary Cole (Mattison). While at first on a mission to capture Beavis and Butt-Head for differing reasons, it doesn’t take long before everyone teams up to achieve a common goal. Along the way, Beavis and Butt-Head are constantly warned by their alternate-universe selves that if they don’t return to their original point in time, the universe could collapse.

Like Do America, our titular heroes’ journey is as a result of intense stupidity indicative of the classic franchise’s name sake with Mike Judge trekking us through a litany of hilarious road blocks complete with homages to the aforementioned film, the classic TV show, and complete with heavy metal-laden car chases that will kill you by way of internal bruising from being hunched over with belly laughs. The 90-minute feature-length never lets up and reminds you that Judge is still one of the proverbial gods of adult animation as twists and turns are abound all-the-while we get to see a litany of thank you’s to the meme creators of the world that have more than kept this franchise relevant even almost 30 years later. While The Bob’s Burgers Movie really didn’t grasp what makes turning a TV show into a movie entails, Judge continues to show everyone the proper way of doing it.

Don’t look now, but in the wake of Netflix making cuts to animation, Paramount+ is keeping me a subscriber on the backs of South Park and Beavis and Butt-Head.