Beavis and Butt-Head

Heh huh heh huh heh huh...

"Beavis and Butt-head are not real. They are not role models. They're not even human. They are stupid cartoon people completely made up by this Texas guy whom we hardly even know. Beavis and Butt-Head are dumb, crude, thoughtless, ugly, sexist, self-destructive fools. Some of the things they do would cause a real person to get hurt, expelled, arrested, and possibly deported. But for some reason, the little weinerheads make us laugh. To put it another way: Don't Try This At Home."

—The original preshow content disclaimer(s)

"In time Beavis and Butt-head will become defined as a very, very significant part of American culture. It's brilliant. I've got all the tapes."

—Patrick Stewart

An early 90s animated cartoon on MTV by Mike Judge, who would go on to make King of the Hill, Office Space, Idiocracy, and The Goode Family.

Its stated purpose is to skewer the then-public stereotype of their viewing audience as lazy and unintelligent teenage slackers who did nothing but watch videos all day and were easily amused by bodily functions and dirty jokes.

The titular characters were a pair of not-too-bright heavy metal music fans who literally did do practically nothing but watch real-life music videos on their TV and make snide Mystery Science Theater 3000-esque comments about things in the videos that annoyed or amused them.

Inserted for filler between video screenings, the boys would wander around their hometown of Highland, Texas, generally annoying those they met and committing acts of petty vandalism. As the show went on, these two pieces slowly changed importance, with the video-watching becoming secondary to the brainless antics of the heroes.

The most common targets of the boys' pranks were their elderly neighbor Tom Anderson, their hapless school classmate Stuart Stevenson, and most of the faculty of their high school. The character who took the worst abuse was Principal McVicker, who was driven to drink, medication, and in the finale, an apparently fatal heart attack.

The dimwitted duo were, in turn, foiled by the sarcastic Daria Morgendorffer, who occasionally tricked them into publicly embarrassing themselves, and local hot-rodder/gangleader Todd, whom they admired (as the closest thing to a father they ever had) but who invariably ended up maiming them.

It horrified the Moral Guardians from the get-go, and a few of its more controversial aspects had to be dropped—notably Beavis' pyromania, after they reportedly inspired a viewing child to incinerate a kitchen.

Also spurring objections were the boys' constant use of fireworks to blow things up, along with their tendency to amuse themselves with physical violence and animal cruelty, most notably the infamous pilot episode "Frog Baseball".

A total of 199 episodes were produced, as well as the 1996 feature-length film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, several computer games, comic books, and tons of associated merchandise. Additionally, supporting character Daria successfully spun off into her own show.

A later Mike Judge creation, King of the Hill, would Retool Tom Anderson into the lead character of Hank Hill.

DVD and VHS releases of the series have left out most of the Music Video segments due to rights issues, losing a lot of the series' best moments.

In late 2011, the show returned to MTV; while the format had been slightly tweaked—the snark segments now covered both music videos and MTV original shows such as Jersey Shore and True Life, presumably to prevent the sort of rights issues that surround the original series' snark segments—the show remained the same otherwise.

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Tropes used in Beavis and Butt-Head include:

• Abusive Parents: In a recent^[when?] episode, it was stated that Beavis' mother tried leaving him behind at an IKEA so she could go to Vegas with a gang of bikers.
• Actually Pretty Funny: The guys' reaction to a joke from a Jersey Shore clip in "Used Car".
• Aerith and Bob: Butt-Head and Beavis, the latter being close to the name of the title character from a Richard Jefferies adventure novel.
• The Alcoholic: The character of Muddy in the movie is frequently seen chugging off of a bottle of whiskey. He even does this while driving.
• Alternate Universe: "It's A Miserable Life" showed Beavis as he would have been without Butt-Head's influence. He ended up as a nice guy, who was even helping Stuart feed the homeless on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately by the end, he seemed to be rather taken with the phrase "bunghole"...
• Anti-Hero: Type I
• Anti Role Model
• Art Evolution: The animation was pretty crude in the earlier episodes, but by mid season 2 it got better.
  • The quality of season 8's animation is substantially bumped up from season 7, on par with King of the Hill in its later seasons. Unsurprisingly, Film Roman, which was involved with the production of King of the Hill, is animating season 8 (although it still uses Rough Draft Studios and Plus One Animation).
• Ambiguous Disorder: There are occasionally hints that Beavis might have genuine mental problems in additional to being really stupid. For example, in "Most Wanted" he says that he hears voices and has pyromania (which was toned down when the show came under fire for influencing dangerous activity, but brought back when the show was revived in 2011).
  • At one point while taking a lie-detector test the one thing that came up as 'True' was his statement that 'I killed a bunch of people one time'.
• An Asskicking Christmas: Spoofed when RoboCop saves Christmas on one of the shows they flip through.
• Auto Erotica: If the van's a-rockin' don't come a-knockin'.
• Balls of Steel: In the episode "Buff 'N Stuff", Coach Buzzcut tells Butt-Head to "Kick me in the Jimmy". The only reaction to Butt-Head doing so (twice) is his face turning red while he goes "YYYESSS!"
• Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: Butt-Head uses this exact phrase at least once; fortunately, he's only fantasizing.
• Berserk Button: Beavis, upon being called a "butt-knocker".
  • Mr. Buzzcut will absolutely LOSE it if you strike him, even if you're a complete and total weakling. He doesn't take kindly to someone (besides himself) hurting his students either.
  • Principal McVicker has this with Beavis and Butt-Head themselves, the mere mention of the duo makes him edge closer to a nervous breakdown.
  • Do NOT touch Billy Bobs scooter. It wont be pretty.
  • The normally calm Mr. Van Driessen becomes very pissed if he catches someone harming one of his students, and he'll become more pissed off if you destroy his antique eight-track collection.
• Big Damn Movie: The film's bioterrorism plot.
• Big No: Beavis gives one when Butt-Head told him Yanni was his dad.
  • They both have this reaction upon learning that they pierced the wrong ears... and what said piercing means.
• Big Yes: When the boys see a Motorhead video in "Canoe".
  • Also on nearly every Pantera and GWAR video they see.
• Biting the Hand Humor: The new season's episodes involve riffing on other MTV shows, including Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, True Life, and 16 and Pregnant. It's rather hilarious when you consider MTV rarely shows music these days.
• Bloody Hilarious: The episode where Beavis saws off his finger in shop class.
  • Also "Nosebleed".
  • And "Give Blood".
  • Thanks to the revival, you can now add "Holy Cornholio" to the list.
• Breather Episode: The episode "A Great Day" shows nothing but good things happening to Beavis and Butt-Head and ends with them loaning money to Todd, who doesn't beat them afterward, but instead THANKS them! This is pretty much the highpoint of Beavis and Butt-Head's lives, unless the ending to "Virtual Stupidity" is canon.
  • Their lives' high point would be when they snuck into a nudist colony and stood there looking at naked people all day - a Flash Forward to decrepit old age has them stating that very thing.
    • Not if you look at "Spill" from the revival. It's the only time so far that they've ever been hugged by a woman!
• Broke the Rating Scale: Some videos were so bad that Beavis and Butt-Head's only commentary against it was to stare at the TV in shock and change the channel.
• Burger Fool: The boys inexplicably had jobs, if at the local burger joint.
  • They're usually the only ones working during their shifts, meaning Burger World is probably so understaffed their boss has no choice but to keep them employed.
• Butt Monkey: Stewart, and by extension, his parents. This show is arguably the Trope Namer as well, since it was among the many insults the boys traded with each other.
  • Mr. Anderson is a pretty extreme example of this as well, especially in the movie. Also, Mr. Van Driessen, Principal McVicker, and the title characters.
• Call Back: Beavis' infamous "We're never gonna score!" speech from The Movie is actually a reworked version of a similar rant he did in the episode "Teen Talk".
  • In 2011's "Snitchers", a lawyer seeking to discredit B&B's testimony recalls "Frog Baseball" and how they got failed all the way back to kindergarten in "Held Back".
• Cannot Tell a Joke: Butt-Head.
• Casanova Wannabe: Hilarity Ensues whenever Beavis and Butt-Head try to get laid.

Beavis: (about Butt-Head's mail-order wife) Do you think she'll know how to do it?
Butt-Head: She better.
Beavis: Cool!

• Cash Lure: The "Couch Fishing" episode.
• Catch Phrase: "That was cool", "uh huh huh huh...", "We're there, dude", "DA DAAA DA-DA DAAADAAA!"
  • Beavis' used to be "Fire! Fire! Fire!" until the trailer incident. Afterwards he made do with anything the sounded similar. "Water! Water! Water!"
  • Pretty much their entire vocabulary is limited to catch phrases. Take a sip for every time Butt-Head says "Whoa," "Oh yeah," "Dumbass," "Uh, no," "Come to Butt-Head," "Uh...OK," or "This sucks," and you'll be on the floor in a few minutes.

Mike Judge: I was trying so hard to not have catchphrases. How could “This sucks” be a catchphrase?

• • Almost all of Beavis' dialogue as Cornholio. "I am Cornholio! I need TP for my bunghole!"
  • And the ever popular "Are you threatening me?"
• Catchphrase Spouting Duo
• Caught with Your Pants Down: In Beavis and Butt-head Do America, Beavis (in his Cornholio persona) sees Mr. Anderson's camper, pulls out a picture of the woman he was sent to "do" and then goes into the camper. Later, Mr. Anderson is curious to find out why his camper is rocking, and investigates. Hilarity Ensues.
• Centipede's Dilemma: In the "Trouble Urinating" episode, the boys become unable to urinate after thinking too hard about how they actually do it.
• Chaotic Stupid: All they care about is food, girls, heavy metal, and whatever captures their interest at the moment, most notably, any sort of carnage, to which effect they were too amused by the wreckage of an airplane crash to help the victims. They're too lazy and stupid to care about anything else, like work or their education. Sometimes their actions may cause harm to someone unintentionally. This is very clear in the movie, as there is a terrorist threat to Washington D.C. involving a biological weapon, all they understand about it is that they can "score with a chick".
• Chronically Crashed Car: Tom Anderson's Camper in the movie.
• Church of Happyology: One appears in "Holy Cornholio", believing that Beavis in his Cornholio persona is their recently-deceased leader reincarnated.
• Clip Show: The final episode (of the first series).
• Comedic Sociopathy: This fueled both B&B and the audience watching them.
• Comically Missing the Point: Beavis and Butt-Head, all the time. More so with Beavis.

(watching Jersey Shore)
JWOWW: They just arrested Nicole!
Butt-Head: Uh... For what?
JWOWW: For being drunk and an idiot!
Beavis: Wait, you can get arrested for being an idiot?
Butt-Head: Yeah... You might want to lay low for a while, Beavis.

• Content Warnings: Even some within episodes, like in "Stewart's House" and "Way Down Mexico Way," where it had warnings like, "If you're not a cartoon character, swallowing a rubber full of drugs will kill you," or in the case of the episode where they paint Tom Anderson's house -- "Sniffing paint thinner is very dangerous. Just look at what it did to Beavis and Butt-head." Later episodes had the warning that serves as the page quote (only it went like this):

"Beavis and Butt-Head are not role models. They're not even human; they're cartoons. Some of the things they do would cause a person to get hurt, expelled, arrested -- possibly deported. To put it another way: Don't Try This At Home."

• • The first warning was:

"Beavis and Butt-Head are not real. They are stupid cartoon people completely made up by this Texas guy whom we hardly even know. Beavis and Butt-Head are dumb, crude, thoughtless, ugly, sexist, self-destructive fools. But for some reason, these little weinerheads make us laugh."

• Continuity Nod: Given the type of show this is, there's not a whole lot of continuity. There are occasional exceptions. The most memorable is Mr. Manners/Candy. When he first shows up, Beavis and Butt-head annoy him to the point that he attacks them, causing him to get into a fight with Mr. Van Driessen. When he shows up again he initially doesn't seem to remember them, until they piss him off again and he mentions that it took him six months to find another job. Unfortunately for him, this time he ends up picking a fight with Coach Buzzcut. It ends much worse for him.
  • The two's first meeting with Todd starts with him running over their bikes in the Maxi-Mart parking lot, and then harassing them for it. In a much later episode he does the same thing, and reminds them that he told them not to leave their bikes lying around.
  • Their latest meeting with Todd results in them having to testify against him in court. Todd's attorney then attempts to discredit them based on their stupidity, referencing "Frog Baseball" and "Held Back".
  • During the "Ghosts 'n' Stuff" video in "Drones":

Beavis: I know Daria killed herself, I remember that.
Butthead: Uh, she didn't kill herself, she just moved away.
Beavis: Oh, really? Wow! That's kinda surprising.

• Cool Teacher: Mr. Van Driessen defies the principal for his students' sake, protects them with Berserk Button ferocity and happily works with them during his off-hours to encourage their interests. Most of the class seems to begrudgingly respect him for it, but his efforts are completely wasted on Beavis and Butt-head.
• Courtroom Episode: "The Trial", "Snitchers".
• Cozy Catastrophe: This trope comes into play in one of the revival episodes, when the duo mistake an evacuation for the apocalypse. Rather than being horrified at the idea of being the last two people on Earth, Beavis and Butt-head seize the opportunity to loot the town and do whatever they want.
• Crapsack World: One of the more subtle jokes of the show is how, as stupid and irresponsible as Beavis and Butt-head are, the adults around them are even more irresponsible in dealing with them. Highland Texas itself appears to be a filthy, crime-ridden town populated mostly by assholes, idiots, and complete pushovers, even if one ignores the presence of the duo.
• Crossover: With Celebrity Deathmatch, somewhat. (Due to the viewers' requests, the two appeared to fight each other.)
  • They appeared in one episode in The Brothers Grunt. Butt-Head made a Cameo in The Head.
    • In the pilot, Butt-head was trying to get footage of The Head, but he got kicked out.
  • And those who like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Beavis and Butthead might appear in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 2.
  • Beavis and Butt-head were originally going to cross over with Daria when Daria got her own spin-off, but the show was so successful, the B&B crossover idea was dropped.
• Curse Cut Short: In the film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America:

Pilot: Get the hell out of the cockpit!
Butt-Head: Huh huh, you said c--
Pilot: [pulls Butt-Head out] NOW!

• A Date with Rosie Palms: The horrible fate of Mr. Anderson's tool shed. And his trailer.
  • Much of the show's humor revolves around this, including a Funny Moments in The Movie when Tom Anderson quite literally catches Beavis (in Cornholio mode) with his pants down in his camper.
• Deadpan Snarker: Daria, who elevated this to a trope in its own right.
  • Also Butt-head at times, usually if Beavis is being stupider than usual.

Beavis: Hey, Butt-head, do you know I'm from Compton?
Butt-head: Dammit, Beavis, shut up. You're not from Compton.
Beavis: No, wait, Butt-head, I'm serious. I was kickin' it on the streets. It was hard times. I used to drink Gin and Juice. It was cool.
Butt-head: Beavis...you're a white wussy from right here.
Beavis: No way, Butt-head, you don't know, you weren't around then. Yeah, me and Snoop used to go to the Compton swap meet together.
Butt-head: Beavis, you used to go to the flea market with your mom.
Beavis: See, I wore this shirt cuz these are my colors.
Butt-head: Beavis...
Beavis: Yep, I'm a straight G.
Butt-head: ...shut up.
Beavis: Yep. Got out of a Compton swap meet with Snoop. Used to kick it with Dre.
Butt-head: Beavis, shut up. You've never been to Compton. you're never gonna go to Compton, you're gonna be here for the rest of your life, you're stupid, you don't have any money, and you're never gonna score.
Beavis: Um, oh yeah.

• Dirty Harriet: She's a Fair Cop posing as a prostitute in "Feel a Cop".
• Dope Slap: *whack* Dumbass.
• Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: In "Tornado", Beavis and Butt-Head are sucked into a tornado and thrown back onto the ground unhurt, only to be crushed by falling objects.
• Double Entendre: Much of the humor came from this.
  • Uh huh huh, "came".
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Mr. Buzzcut, although he's nowhere near as abrasive to students who aren't pushing his buttons.
  • He still threatens to "physically kill" the entire class if they don't shut up.
• Drives Like Crazy: Beavis, when he gets behind the wheel during a Drivers-Ed class. He actually makes unflappable Mr. Buzzcut scream in terror as they hurtle into something.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: One Running Gag has Beavis and Butt-head constantly refer to long-haired men in music videos as "chicks". Sometimes they go as far as hitting on them.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Some of their comments on the music videos they watch, as well as on life in general, actually make a lot of sense, in a weird way.
• Early Installment Weirdness: The earlier episodes of Beavis and Butthead are a completely different show from the later episodes most viewers are familiar with. Rather than focusing on the consequences of the duo's stupidity in the usual mundane style of Mike Judge, the antics of the two are told in a wackier, more surreal tone, with Refuge in Audacity being more commonplace. In addition, the animation's even cruder than it already was in the later seasons, Butt-head's voice is different, and there are stronger indications of Totally Radical (i.e. metal guitar riffs).
• Episode Title Card
• Every Episode Ending: Beavis and Butt-Head try to think of something cool, and say "Let'th go do thomething cool."
• Everything Is Big in Texas
• Everything's Better with Bob: Bob's Fancy Skeet in "Heroes".
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: Beavis and Butt-Head's reaction to this occurring twice in the Godley & Creme music video "Cry" is priceless.
• Falling Into the Cockpit: Literally happens to Butt-Head in The Movie (the cockpit of an airplane while it was plummeting), leading to this exchange:

Pilot: Get the hell out of the cockpit!
Butt-Head: Huh huh... you said--
Pilot: NOW!!! (pulls Butt-Head out of the way)

• Fantastic Racism: In "Animation Sucks", Mr. Van Driessen shows the class an animated film he created about green and purple characters who didn't like each other because they were different colors.
• Far Side Island: In "Beavis and Butt-Head's Island", the two get stranded on an island in a fountain at the mall. They remain there for days, complete with tattered clothes.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: Beavis and Butt-Head eat tacos with "Mexican Death Sauce" (which a taco stand owner put in the duo's order after they fed hot sauce to his dog) in "Way Down Mexico Way".
• Foot Focus: Although there isn't really any in the show itself, there was one music video by The Go-Gos on the show that had some close-ups of the girls' feet causing Beavis to admit that he likes women with nice feet. Butt-Head, however, didn't seem very interested.
• Franchise Zombie: Subjective from a Word of God standpoint; Judge has pretty much stated that the last couple of seasons were forced upon him by MTV, who wanted to keep the cash-cow show going. Not that it kept the episodes from still being pretty damn funny in their own right.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: There was enough to warrant it’s own page.
• The Ghost: It is implied that the duo live with their mothers who are said to be prostitutes. They sometimes talk about them and call to them (mostly in the music video segments) but we never see them.
• Good Ol' Boy: Tom Anderson.
• G-Rated Drug: In "Buy Beer", the boys wind up with "near beer" instead of the real thing.
• Grammar Nazi: Agent Lemming insists that Federal Agents never end a sentence with a proposition. It's Actually Pretty Funny.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Beavis in his Cornholio Persona.
  • Oddly enough, in an earlier episode, Beavis seems incapable of learning Spanish properly.

Teacher: "Butt-Head, como es Juan?" (the correct answer is Juan es Alto).
Butt-Head: "Uh, huh-huh-huh, burrito."
Teacher: "No, Butt-Head. Beavis, como es Juan?"
Beavis: "Uh, Spaghetti!"
Teacher: "Dammit! The only Spanish you two learned is from Taco Bell, and Beavis can't even get that right!"

• Groin Attack: These two practically brought it to an art form.
• Gross-Out Show
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Todd.
• Halloween Episode: "Bungholio: Lord of the Harvest".
• Hates Being Touched: Beavis. Don't touch me, asswipe!
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": Trope Namer.
• Helicopter Flyswatter: Parodied in the opening scenes of Beavis and Butthead Do America.
• Helium Speech: In one episode, Beavis and Butt-Head buy balloons and try this on themselves. Upon hearing each other speak in high-pitched voices, the duo come to the conclusion that "WE'RE NEUTEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRED!!!"
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Beavis and Butt-Head each seem to be the other's only real friend. Stewart would hang out with them, but they can't stand him.
• Hippie Teacher: Mr. Van Driesen; also a rare case of a male Granola Girl.
  • Also Dreama, the astronomy TA in "Let's Clean It Up".
• Homage: The short segment "Cinema Classics" is clearly a homage to At the Movies right down to the clothes Beavis and Butt-Head wear.
• Horrible Judge of Character: The titular characters pretty much latch onto all the worst people. Similarly, some people (especially in the movie) can't see the bad in them.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Or, as Bill Clinton describes the boys in "Citizen Butt-Head", "hormonally challenged".
• Human Mail: The pair attempts to mail themselves in one episode.
  • Also done in a video Beavis and Butt-Head watched: "If I Only Had a Brain" by MC 900 Foot Jesus.
• The Hyena: Beavis and Butt-Head are constantly laughing. The only time they stop is if they're annoyed or more confused than usual.
  • Or when they're seriously threatened, like in "No Laughing".
  • Or when something has made them cry, like in "Door To Door".
• Hypocritical Humor: In the titlar student film in "Generation in Crisis", Beavis asks if he could say "nads". The filmmaker, Ken Alder, tells him, "There's no censorship of any kind, this is an independant documentary film... with a generous grant from the ESCO Corporation." Beavis and Butt-head then discuss censorship, and Beavis says something that gets censored anyway, complete with a Censor Box over his mouth.
  • Butt-Head is sometimes guilty of hypocrisy, such as when he makes fun of Beavis for being a virgin and for having a slut as a mom.
• Idea Bulb: Rather flickering ones though. Before the censors intervened, matches being struck, or a hand attempting to light a lighter were both used.
• Imagine Spot: Generally, they would fantasize about getting a bunch of chicks. In "The Future of Beavis and Butt-Head", the two imagine some careers, such as running a pornographic video store, working as a wrecking ball operator and destroying the school (with Principal McVicker protesting) and joining the military.
• Insane Troll Logic: Pretty much the reasoning behind every Zany Scheme attempted by the duo.
• Inherently Funny Words: The way they talk makes everything they say sound hilarious.
• The Internet Is for Porn: In "Cyber Butt", Beavis and Butt-Head pressure Stewart into going on a porn site on the school computer.
  • In "Tech Support" Butt-Head spends most of the episode trying to find a way to watch porn on a tech support company's computer.
• Innocent Innuendo: Inverted. Beavis and Butt-Head give Mr. Van Driessen a list of names for a petition he asked each student to take around the neighborhood. It's all double entendre joke names that go right over the teacher's head.

Mr. Van Driessen: "Hugh Jerection. Ben Dover. Rosie Palm and her five sisters. Beavis and Butt-Head, couldn't you get the sisters to each sign their names separately?"

• Iron Butt Monkey: Beavis in particular, but both he and Butt-Head suffer some serious physical abuse over the course of the show.
• Ironic Echo

Gus Baker: Hey, do you use that kind of language at home? [Later, after Beavis mooned the audience] GET THESE LITTLE BASTARDS OUT OF HERE!
Butt-Head: Uh, do you use that kind of language at home?

• Is That a Threat?: The Great Cornholio. "ARE YOU THREATENING ME!?"
• Karma Houdini: Despite their stupid destructive antics at School, Work, Mr. Anderson's yard, and everywhere else, Beavis and Butt-Head ACTUALLY get away with it most of the time. And when they do get caught and penalized for it, they won't learn anything. Huh huh huh huh. "Penal".
  • Whenever the thieves Russ and Harlan commit some art of robbery (i.e. the time they robbed the Stevenson house, breaking into Beavis and Butt-head's house and steal their TV set in the feature film, not to mention that they were also meant to be hired by Muddy to kill Dallas, and looting a office in the 2011 revival) They NEVER get caught nor receive some comeuppance.
  • Todd apparently takes advantage of and beat up Beavis and Butt-head and he never receives some sort of comeuppance for it and they would get in trouble with the law in his place... unless you count what happens to Todd in "Virtual Stupidity" as canon.
  • However, it was subverted in the film shorty causing havoc in church after mistaking the priest's booths for bathrooms. They get stuck by a lightning bolt just as they were about to board a bus full of nuns.
• Lampshade Hanging:

Beavis: So, um, are you gonna change the channel, Butt-Head?
Butt-Head: Why bother? All we seem to get on this TV are bad videos.

• Last-Name Basis: Beavis, possibly.
• Lighter and Softer: Than other adult animated series, like South Park or Family Guy. The show itself is full of jokes abuot bodily functions, sex and lots of swearing, it still looks light compared to other adult sitcoms.
• Limited Animation: In the first season.
• Limited Wardrobe: Lampshaded when watching AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" video.

Butt-Head: These guys always wear the same thing.
Beavis: We always wear the same thing! I've been wearing this shirt for six months!
Butt-Head: I've been wearing this shirt for seven months.

• Literal Ass-Kicking: "I'm kicking your ass, Beavis. Huh huh huh."
• MacGuffin: The stolen TV, in the movie. Technically, the whole plot is about them trying to find a new one (or get the money to buy a new one) but that becomes irrelevant to the story pretty quickly. Then they find it thirty seconds before the end.
• Made of Iron: Whether it's being maimed by the bouncer at a mud-wrestling club, piercing their own ears with a power drill and getting serious infections, suffering a major nosebleed, getting their faces slashed with dirty razors when they try to shave, getting hit in the crotch with a bowling ball, crashing head-first into the wall of their house, or getting sucked up into a tornado and crash-landing on the ground before being flattened by a phone booth, Beavis and Butt-Head suffered injuries that should have killed them many times over.
• Malaproper: The main characters are this all the time.
• Meat-O-Vision: In "Bedpans and Broomsticks", Billy Bob experiences this.
• Media Watchdogs: Resulted in a tone-down of the violence and Beavis' pyromania, but it also became a source of jokes that got the point across just as well, even calling MORE attention to it than it would have by itself.
• Missing Episode: Many. Possibly the rarest is the third-season opener "Comedians", since it features Beavis juggling flaming newspapers and burning down a comedy club. It aired a month before the infamous mobile home fire the show was blamed for.
  • "Comedians" was re-aired a few times in a dramatically edited version that has the fire just happen without Beavis' intervention. Far less common were the very early episodes like "Bedknobs And Butt-Heads" and especially the infamous "Frog Baseball".
  • So many examples of this trope exist that Mike Judge admits that the master tapes of many of the early episodes probably no longer exist due to the edits.
• Mock Cousteau: Heard in the beginning of "Couch Fishing" when they're flipping channels.
• Moral Guardians: In-Universe example: Stewart's mother is revealed to be one in the episode where Stewart gets a satellite dish, much to Beavis and Butt-head's frustration.
• Mushroom Samba: Particularly in the movie.
  • And even with Sugar and Caffeine. Do the words, "I AM CORNHOLIO!!!" mean anything to you?
• My Name Is Not Durwood: After an American Senator referred to our heroes as "Beaver and Buffcoat" (see Fan Nickname on the Trivia tab), the show introduced a Running Gag in which Beavis and/or Butt-Head's names were mispronounced by people who didn't know them well. They were referred to as everything from "Beatrice and Butt-Brain" to "Beavis and Nut-Head" to "Travis And Bernard".
• Mythology Gag: A weird one. The second episode has a monster truck run over a row of port-a-potties. We're then introduced to Straculious, the "Roman god of feces" who proceeds to drop a load of crap on the stadium. Cut to 2005 where Beavis and Butt-head are hosting the MTV music awards. One clip has Butt-head dressed up as Poseidon, and Beavis clearly dressed up as a sea horse. Despite this, Butt-head tells him that he's supposed to be Straculious, the "Roman god of feces and manure".
• Name and Name
• Negative Continuity
  • Better yet, in Mr. Van Driessen's very first appearance on the show, he actually gets killed by a monster truck. And then after that, he's still alive and well throughout the rest of the series.
• Never Learned to Read: Whenever Beavis and Butt-Head try to read, they typically mispronounce it. When they saw a sign that read "HORSE FARM: TRESSPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED", they thought it meant "whores and prostitutes."
• Never My Fault: Whenever they both screw up something, Butt-Head always blames it on Beavis, who, being the stupidest of the two, apologizes.
• Never Live It Down (In-Universe): When he thinks he saw Beavis crying over a television show (He actually sniffed an onion) Butt-Head rides him about it. For a long time. Until the day he falls over dead in an old folks home.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Averted in the final episode when everybody thought Beavis and Butt-head were dead (they were not). The only people to express remorse were Mr. Van Driessen and Stuart, while others were either glad or just indifferent.
• Nixon Mask
• No Celebrities Were Harmed/Captain Ersatz: Gus Baker, the Rush Limbaugh parody from "Right On".
• Non-Standard Character Design
• Noodle Incident:

Beavis: I killed a bunch of people once.

• No One Should Survive That: The duo are constantly doing stuff that could ordinarily kill a person (which is why the show has that warning that says that "Some of the things [Beavis and Butt-Head] do would cause a person to get hurt, expelled, arrested -- possibly deported"). In one episode, Beavis and Butt-Head are swept up in a tornado, and when they are hurled out onto the ground, a phone booth falls on them with no lasting effects.
• Not So Different: A lot of the people Beavis and Butt-Head come into contact with (whether antagonistic or otherwise) tend to end up laughing the same way at some point.
  • When Beavis and Butt-head are getting beaten up by a group of feminists at the end of the episode "Womyn" one can be heard yelling "Kick 'em in the nads!"
  • Including, in the movie, the entire U.S. Congress.
  • Also, a lot of them tend to be as ignorant as they are. Leading to Hypocritical Humor.
• Not Quite Dead: In the final episode of the original run, Principal McVicker supposedly died from a heart attack or stroke. Now he's alive and (relatively) well.
• Onion Tears: In a post-UnCancelation episode, Beavis cries from exposure to a slice of onion found in his chili dog, and Butt-Head makes fun of him for it, much to Beavis' frustration.
• Only in It For the Money

Mr. Manners: Listen, you little twerp. This is my job. This is how I make money. Don't screw with me.

• Only Six Faces: Of a different sort. The recurring characters all had unique designs, but the show had a habit of reusing the same model for different characters. One guy shows up as a bank manager, a health inspector and a grade school teacher, in seperate episodes, all with different names. Harry Sachz from "Prank Call" is shot dead in two different episodes, and given a different name in the second. The serial killer "Cuyler" from "Most Wanted" later shows up as a mall security guard.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Not exactly uncommon given their one-track mind. For example, in the Big Damn Movie, Beavis has a conversation on the plane with a little old lady.

Lady: Oh, hello, there. Are you two heading for Las Vegas?
Beavis: Yeah. Heh heh. We're gonna score! Heh heh.
Lady: Oh, well, I hope to score big there, myself. I'm mostly gonna be doing the slots.
Beavis: Yeah, yeah! Heh heh. I'm hoping to do some sluts, too. Do they have a lot of sluts in Las Vegas?
Lady: Oh, there are so many slots, you won't know where to begin.
Beavis: Whoa! Heh heh heh.

• Only One Name: The eponymous duo.
• Opening Narration: The disclaimer quoted above, added after the show became controversial.
• Overly Long Gag: During one music video, Beavis and Butt-Head, tired of music videos featuring water, turn the television off, and we're left to stare at a black screen for quite some time, with the camera never cutting back to Beavis and Butt-Head at any point.
• Papa Wolf: Despite being a Sadist Teacher, Buzzcut is EXTREMELY protective of his students.
  • As is normally docile Hippie Teacher Mr. Van Driesen.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: In "Incognito", when a teen at school threatens them, Beavis and Butt-Head don hats and sunglasses, rename themselves "Crevis and Bunghead", and speak in British accents. Their antagonist's reaction? "Nice try, Beaver and Buttplug."
• Parallel Porn Titles: In "Huh-Huh-Humbug", Beavis watches a porn parody of A Christmas Carol called Ebenezer Screw, featuring "Bob Scratchit" and "Tiny Johnson".
• Parental Abandonment: The boys' mothers are never seen; Butt-Head constantly insinuates that Beavis' mother is a "slut". Beavis himself seems to confirm this when he tells Butt-Head "My mom's a slut, not a whore. She doesn't charge money." The Movie reveals that their fathers are former heavy-metal roadies turned biker/drifters.
• Periphery Demographic (In-Universe): Many assume that the two characters only like metal videos, but sometimes other random videos will be enjoyed by them the most. They rocked out to videos by The Bee Gees and Bananarama. Butt-Head also called several New Age videos "The greatest video I've ever seen" just because they had nude models.
  • The duo also seem to enjoy Grunge quite a bit, despite the real life rivalry between Grunge fans and metalheads.
• Pixellation: Lampshaded in the True Life segment of the first Uncancellation episode where porn on a person's computer is blurred out.

Butt-Head: Dammit, the porn's all blurry!

• The Precious Precious Car: In "Car Wash", the boys get to wash their neighbor's car while the owner goes out for a jog. They decide to take it for a joyride. Guess what happens.
• Prepositions Are Not to End Sentences With: In the movie.
• Precision F-Strike: The show in general doesn't have the characters say anything that would necessitate a Sound Effect Bleep, but in the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, Beavis lets loose a Cluster Bleep Bomb as he kicks a chair when he realises that he and Butt-Head are not in the voting for the Viewer's Choice Awards.
• Pyromaniac: Beavis was this until Moral Guardians thought kids would imitate the behavior.
  • He still was, he just didn't vocalize it. In "Way Down Mexico Way" he heavily emphasizes the first syllable in "fireworks". At another point they see a music video which is slow-motion of a man casually jogging down the street while totally ablaze; while Beavis never used his former catch phrase, he apparently entered a state of nirvana and calmly and quietly threatened grievous bodily harm when Butt-Head said he was going to change the channel.
• Double Standard Rape (Male on Male): It's heavily implied that Beavis was drugged and raped by a grief counselor in Drones.
• Really Gets Around: Based on comments made by the titular characters, it sounds like Beavis' mom is quite promiscuous.

Beavis: "She's not a whore, she's a slut; she doesn't charge for it."

• Real Men Wear Pink: Utterly averted in Crying where Butt-head constantly mocks Bevis for crying while watching The Bachelor (the result of finding an onion in his chili dog while watching the show).

"Huh huh. You were touched."

• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The title characters.
• The Renaissance Age of Animation
• Revival: Now they make fun of Reality Shows.
• Rule 34: "Beaver and Buttface"
• Sadistic Choice: During "Massage" the boys are left with two choices. Either give a massage to a disgusting old man, or get arrested for disrupting the massage guys business. They(Very reluctantly) choose the old man.
• Sadist Teacher: Buzzcut, although he is still very protective of his students.
• Second-Person Attack: At least twice — once in the episode "Nosebleed", and again in the introduction to the 3D Jackass movie. Both times it's Butt-Head punching Beavis.
• Seemingly-Profound Fool: About three out of every five episodes.
• Sexual Karma: Beavis and Butt-Head are constantly attempting to score with chicks. These attempts always, without exception, end in failure.
• Shout-Out: Burger World is a reference to "Big Edna's Burger World" from UHF.
  • The restaurant is also based on the regional "Whataburger" chain (Judge worked at one in high school).
• Sick Episode: "Sick", in which Beavis and Butt-Head try to get prescription drugs in order to get high.
• Similar Squad: Stewart has two friends who are nerdy and polite versions of Beavis and Butt-Head.
• Slipping a Mickey: Double subverted when the two slip a vial of "Spanish Fly" into what they think is a girl's milk, only to have her boyfriend drink it moments later.
• Smoking Is Cool: Todd the badass smokes, and during the music video segments, Beavis would occasionally be seen trying to light a cigarette.
• Snap Back: The Running Gag of Beavis getting poked in the eye with a pencil, or losing teeth in acts of physical violence are always undone, sometimes by the very next scene.
  • This is most obvious in The Movie. Tom Anderson, his wife, and his camper trailer are hit by a wall of water that would easily kill a healthy person. In their next scene, they are both fine. Beavis and Butt-Head themselves wander in the desert until they collapse from dehydration, then get driven over half the country in Muddy's trunk, then jump out of the trunk at freeway speeds. They are perfectly fine in the next scene.
• Sound Effect Bleep: Used in "Scared Straight" when their class takes a field trip to prison and an inmate talks to them.
  • Also in "Generation in Crisis" when the filmmaker brings up censorship.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Mocked in The Movie, as Van Driessen sings "Lesbian Seagull" over shots of Federal agents kicking in doors.
  • Also on the series itself, which would open with a "sophisticated" jazz piece.
  • The end of "The Great Cornholio", where he leaves wandering the hallways with No Ending.
• Spanner in the Works: Beavis and Butt-Head foil a terrorist plot without realizing it in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.
• Spell My Name with an "S": The official spelling of Butt-Head's name has a dash in it, but it's often ignored.
• Spin-Off: Daria, arguably King of the Hill [given how Tom Anderson could now easily be mistaken as an elderly version of Hank Hill (with Tom Anderson's wife as a ringer for an aged Peggy Hill] and The Goode Family (the father sounds like Mr. Van Dreissen and his son looks like a mix between Stewart and Bobby Hill).
• Spit Take: When watching a particularly bad music video, a running gag would have Beavis spit his soda out on the side of Butt-Head's face.
  • Beavis spit while drinking (non-alcoholic) beer.
• Split Personality: Beavis' alter ego is brought to the fore when he has too much sugar and/or caffeine.
  • "I am Cornholio, I need TP for my bunghole"!
• Spiritual Successor: Due to the video mocking, the show has been considered one for Mystery Science Theater 3000.
  • Subverted and subverted big time with spin-off Daria and Judge's follow-up project King of the Hill, both of which ran screaming away from Beavis and Butthead tonewise.

Beavis: "I AM THE GREAT CORNHOLIO!!! I need teepee for my bunghole!"

• • Also, this may be like The Simpsons.
• Spoof Aesop: The episode "Supersize Me" teaches us that "Teen obesity kicks ass".
• Sting: Happens several times when watching the Violent Femmes video "Nightmares", whenever Butt-Head said "sucks", followed by Beavis screaming.
• Stock Footage: Over the years their music video commentaries would use animation from the earlier seasons. It got kinda weird seeing the two characters go from round and colorful to disfigured and dark within a couple seconds.
• Stunned Silence: For a couple of videos (Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanilli), all they could do is stare in horror for several seconds before wordlessly changing the channel.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: "There once was a man from Venus, / with a rocket ship for a... wiener."
• Super Bowl Special: During the height of its popularity, MTV would run a special episode against the Super Bowl halftime show.
• Super-Powered Alter Ego: Beavis' is The Great Cornholio, who emerges when Beavis has too much caffeine and/or sugar.
• Take That: To anyone who stands still long enough, but one memorable example was when Beavis and Butt-head went to a poetry reading, and Beavis ended up drinking some incredibly powerful cappuccino, triggering his Cornholio persona. The beret-wearing poetry snobs, of course, thought his insane ranting was genius. They stayed for hours listening to his "I am Cornholio, I need TP for my bunghole" glossolalia. He started to tire as the caffeine wore off, and the crowd started to leave... so of course the guy Beavis was sitting with dosed him with another almost-lethal cappuccino.
  • Mike Judge was told by MTV that Kip Winger had forbade the network from making fun of Winger videos, and the channel restricted the show from ever making fun of the band's videos again. In response, punching-bag Stewart wore a Winger shirt. Judge later learned that Winger didn't have a problem with the show.
  • With the return of the series, Mike Judge is also poking fun at YouTube Videos and other MTV shows like Jersey Shore. Their first vic- I mean choice since their return: The Situation and Snooki.
  • In the first video segment of the first episode of the 2011 revival (less than 5 minutes into the show!) Beavis repeatedly talks about fire, in a Take That to the Moral Guardians who censored the "fire" statements in the original show.
• Talkative Loon: Beavis, whenever he becomes Cornholio.
• Talking to Himself: Mike Judge does the voices of Beavis and Butt-Head, as well as a good portion of the reoccurring characters.
• The Dog Bites Back: For the first few seasons, Butt-Head was incredibly abusive to Beavis, and any injuries that came his way were either accidental or from a third-party. This includes (repeatedly) slapping Beavis during videos. At one point Beavis finally snapped after a rapid series of such incidents, and took advantage of how Butt-Head was sitting. From then on, there was about a 1-in-3 chance of violent reprisal from Beavis.
• This Loser Is You: Pretty much the ultimate example. Beavis and Butt-Head are stereotype of metalheads, which is a majority of their fans.
• Those Two Guys: Ross and Harlan, the thieves who claim themselves as movers in "Stewart Moves Away" and steal B and B's TV in the movie.
  • Arguably, Beavis and Butt-head could be considered this In-Universe.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: The end of "Holy Cornholio", in which Butt Monkey Stewart goes off to have sex with dozens of beautiful female cultists--the same ones who were trying to mate with B&B through much of the episode.
• Trash of the Titans: In some episodes, their house is littered with trash and crushed soda cans, and in others, it's relatively clean.
• Toilet Humor: Lots of it, both literally and figuratively.
• Too Dumb to Live: Obviously they are. Subverted for Beavis in the case of an It's a Wonderful Life pastiche, in which Beavis evidently turns out to be reasonably normal without Butt-Head's presence. (He finds Butt-Head's description of the real-world Beavis hilarious though.)

Beavis: What's a bunghole?
Butt-Head: You're a bunghole, bunghole!

• • In a wood shop class, Beavis cut his finger off with a table saw. It wasn't by accident when he and Butt-Head decided to slice up random things from around the classroom with the saw, it was because he just felt like touching the saw.
    • Among the random things they sliced up, prior to cutting off his finger: the first aid kit, and the phone so their teacher could not call the hospital.
  • Butt-head once got stuck after crawling inside a pipe. After taking the entire episode to get him unstuck (eventually having to resort to a rescue crew), Beavis went and got himself stuck in the same pipe.
  • In one of the revival episodes, Beavis tries to photocopy his butt, only to break the screen and get stuck. After eventually being freed, Butt-Head suggests he photocopy his butt so they can see the damage done. Beavis immediately does it.
• Trope 2000: In one episode, the protagonists deformed a coathanger and called it the "Butt-Scratcher 2000", trying to sell it.
  • And in "Good Credit", the boys shop at a "Turbo Mall 2000".
• Ultimate Job Security: Virtually every workplace related episode had the duo doing things that would under most circumstances get almost any employee fired, yet this inexplicably never happened. Then again it's just as inexplicable they were even hired in the first place...
  • They're usually the only employees even shown at the place. They're probably only still employed because the manager can't find anyone else to hire willing to take their place. (Be honest, how many tropers reading this page, for example, would voluntarily sign up for a fast-food job without either their parents making them to "teach them the work ethic" or without a poor economic situation where no other jobs were available?)
• Uncancelled: Returned to MTV after a 14-year hiatus.
• Unfortunate Names: Here's a little gem from the episode "Prank Call", where they were looking through the phone book for someone to call:

Butt-Head: Uh, Taylor, Bob... no... uh... M-Matthews, Al...
Beavis: No. Come on, Butt-head.
Butt-Head: Uh... Sac... Sachz. Harry... (starts laughing) "Hairy sack."
Beavis (also laughing): Yeah. Hairy sack.
Butt-Head (still laughing): This is gonna be cool.

• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Of a sort. Butt-head's name goes without comment for the entire series, at least by those who know the duo personally. Those that don't either mishear it, or think it's an alias.
  • Lampshaded in "Holding" where a cop thinks the names "Beavis and Butt-Head" sound like porn names.
• Verbal Tic: David Van Driessen, a school teacher, puts "mmkay" at the end of a lot of his sentences.
  • And then there's the titular duo's constant guttural laughter.
    • Heheh eheheheh you said 'tit'.
    • Forget that, he said titular.
  • Principal McVicker with his trademark "uhhhhhhhhhhhh".
  • To a lesser extent, Butt-head's tendency to start most sentences with "Uhhh," and tag "like" and "or something" to the end of clauses.
  • Beavis also had "Hey, how's it goin'?" and "Yeah, me too".
• Very Special Episode: A Very Special Episode where the duo are tasked with nursing a baby bird back to health. Given the nature of this show however...
• Vocal Evolution: Quite noticably. Compare Beavis and Butt-Head's voices in "Frog Baseball" to any of the post-Season 2 episodes. Also, Principal McVicker sounded completely different in his first appearance.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot
• Villain Protagonist
• Villain Protagonist Breakdown: The "we're never gonna score!" speech in The Movie.
• Vitriolic Best Buds
  • "Shut up, buttknocker!" *whack*
• The War on Terror: It sure is convenient for Highland to have a drone base.
• Who Names Their Kid "Butt-Head"?
• Would Hurt a Child: Coach Buzzcut and Muddy Grimes (who spends half of The Movie trying to hunt down and kill the boys).
• Yandere: Beavis and Butt-Head are both this to Tod, regardless of how much of a violent Jerkass he is to them.
• Yet Another Christmas Carol: The episode "Huh Huh Humbug" has Beavis in place of Scrooge. Anderson, Van Driessen, and Buzzcut and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, respectively.
• You Get What You Pay For: Van Driessen hired our heroes to clean his house as a way of teaching them the value of hard work. He only gave them a dollar each for their work, but in the end Van Driessen got what he deserved when he sees that Beavis and Butt-Head destroyed his irreplacable 8-track collection.