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Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is a 1996 American animated comedy film based on the MTV animated television series Beavis and Butt-Head. Co-written and directed by series creator Mike Judge, the film stars the regular television cast of Judge with guest performances by Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, Robert Stack and Cloris Leachman. The film centers on Beavis and Butt-Head trying to find their stolen television, but later end up traveling across the country in an attempt to "score."

Previous offers by MTV to create a film version of Beavis and Butt-Head were rejected by Judge, but he eventually accepted one in 1994. When the film went into production, Judge and the show's staff halted production on the series while Judge and Joe Stillman wrote the script. They conceived numerous plot ideas with Judge's being the one developed into a film. John Frizzell composed the film's score.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America was praised by critics and proved to be a major box office hit. The film premiered at the TCL Chinese Theater on December 15, 1996, and it was released in the United States on December 20, 1996 by Paramount Pictures, grossing $63.1 million in the United States, becoming the biggest December box office opening in history until it was beaten the following year by Scream 2 and subsequently one week later by Titanic. Although not the only time a feature film was based on an MTV cartoon, it is MTV's only theatrically released animated film to date.

Plot[]

Beavis and Butt-Head discover that their TV is missing, and set out to find it. After several failed attempts to get a TV, they come across a motel which offers one in every room. They meet Muddy Grimes, who mistakes them for hired hitmen and offers them $10,000 to "do" his wife Dallas in Las Vegas. Thinking that "do" refers to sex, Butt-Head convinces Beavis that they can "score" and buy a new television.

Muddy drives them to the airport. In Las Vegas, Beavis and Butt-Head arrive to their booked hotel room, but Dallas catches them eavesdropping on her room and holds them at gunpoint. The boys refuse Dallas' offer of $20,000 to "do" Muddy and argue over who will "do" Dallas first. Realizing that Beavis and Butt-Head have misunderstood their instructions, she plants the "X-5 Unit" (a stolen, volatile biological weapon) in Beavis' shorts, which were laying on the floor. She tells them to meet her for sex at the U.S. Capitol, but actually plans to recover the unit.

Beavis and Butt-Head then leave the hotel and get on a tour bus. After they accidentally sabotage the Hoover Dam, Agent Flemming of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) becomes convinced that the duo are criminal masterminds and places them on the FBI's most-wanted list. Beavis and Butt-Head accidentally board the wrong bus, joining a busload of nuns who are repulsed by the boys and abandon them in Petrified Forest National Park. After walking through the desert, the boys meet and hang out with former Mötley Crüe roadies, oblivious that they are their biological fathers.

Muddy returns to the motel and meets the real hitmen. He angrily swears to track down and kill Beavis and Butt-Head. The hitmen, who stole Beavis and Butt-Head's television, abandon it in front of the motel. Beavis and Butt-Head awaken to find the drifters gone and continue walking until they become dehydrated and weak. Beavis, suffering dehydration, takes a bite out of a peyote cactus, causing him to hallucinate.

Muddy eventually finds Beavis and Butt-Head and, after learning that Dallas intends to meet them, puts them in his trunk and drives on. In Virginia, they jump out onto the interstate and cause a 400-car pileup. They walk past the scene and board their original tour bus, stopping at the Capitol before reaching the White House. Muddy confronts Dallas in a parking garage before she can can meet Beavis and Butt-Head. She seduces him and they have sex in his car.

The ATF is dispatched to the White House because Beavis and Butt-Head are there on the same day as a peace conference. Beavis is transformed into Cornholio by excessive consumption of caffeine and sugar and, wandering into the Oval Office, picks up the red phone, causing a military alert. Butt-Head hits on Chelsea Clinton but is thrown out of her bedroom window. He is then detained and cavity searched by ATF officers.

Beavis goes to their neighbor Tom Anderson's travel trailer, where Anderson catches him "whacking off" and throws him out, bottomless. The ATF, thinking Beavis has the bioweapon, are about to open fire when Anderson throws out Beavis' pants. The bioweapon flies into Butt-Head's hand and he gives it to Flemming. Anderson and his wife are accused of trying to frame Beavis and Butt-Head and are arrested along with Dallas and Muddy. Flemming proclaims Beavis and Butt-Head heroes, and they meet President Bill Clinton, who makes them honorary ATF agents.

Beavis and Butt-Head return to Highland upset that they never scored or got any money, but they find their television at the motel and walk into the sunset, carrying it and insulting each other until Beavis suggests going to Anderson’s toolshed to masturbate.

Voice cast[]

Other voice actors include: Jacqueline Barba, Pamela Blair, Eric Bogosian, Kristofor Brown, Tony Darling, John Doman, Francis DuMaurier, Jim Flaherty, Tim Guinee, Toby Huss, Sam Johnson, Richard Linklater, Rosemary McNamara, Harsh Nayyar, Karen Phillips, Dale Reeves, Mike Ruschak, and Gail Thomas

Greg Kinnear had an uncredited role as ATF Agent Bork;[5] David Letterman had a role as a Mötley Crüe roadie and was credited under "Earl Hofert".[6]

Production[]

Development for the film began in 1993 as part of a production deal with MTV, David Geffen, and Warner Bros. Geffen so believed in the potential of the Beavis and Butt-head TV series that he suggested creating a movie and record album based on the program. They originally conceived it as a live action movie, with Saturday Night Live regulars David Spade and Adam Sandler in mind to play the title characters. After MTV's parent company Viacom purchased Paramount Pictures in 1994, the studio became a partner in the film, replacing Warner's interest in the project and dropping the live action concept under pressure from Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge.[7] Judge has stated production of the animated film was very ad hoc and had some difficulties with progressing due to most of the staff's television background. Beavis' hallucination sequence's design and animation was based on the works of Rob Zombie. The sequence's director was Chris Prynoski.

Deleted scene[]

When the film premiered on MTV on August 7, 1999, an additional deleted scene followed the airing: while visiting the National Archives, Beavis attempts to use the restroom, but cannot because of the lack of toilet paper in the stall. Coincidentally, Butt-head is angry because the urinals lack the automatic flushing mechanisms that had amazed him at Yellowstone National Park. After the rest of their tour group finishes looking at the encased Declaration of Independence, Beavis sneaks out, breaks the glass with the U.S. flag pole, and steals it to use as "T.P. for his bunghole." While Archive guards rush to see what happened, Beavis cleans up, and exits the stall with a piece of the Declaration, containing John Hancock's signature, stuck to his shoe. The scene does not appear on the DVD, although it is mentioned on the disc's commentary track. In the track, Judge noted that the scene did not test well.[Citation needed] Another alternate scene was done for when Butt-Head meets Chelsea Clinton in her bedroom, which showed her packing up to leave the White House. This alternate scene was created in the event that Bill Clinton lost his 1996 reelection bid to Bob Dole. However, by the spring of 1996, Judge ultimately decided to keep the original scene because he felt that it was looking as if Clinton was going to win reelection, which he did that November.

Reception[]

Box office[]

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America opened in North America on December 20, 1996, and earned $63.1 million at the US box office after opening at #1 with $20.1 million.[8] It had a $12 million production budget.[3]

Critical reception[]

The film holds a 70% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 54 reviews, with a weighted average of 6.4/10. The consensus reads: "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is unabashedly offensive, unapologetically stupid, and unexpectedly funny."[9] On Metacritic, the film has a 64 out of 100 rating based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[10]

Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times praised the film as a "vulgar" satire on American youth, and compared it favorably to Wayne's World.[11] On the film review show Siskel and Ebert, Ebert's reviewing partner Gene Siskel gave the film a "modest recommendation", having been taken with the two lead characters. Ebert and Siskel ultimately awarded it a "two thumbs up" rating.[12]

Awards and nominations[]

Organization Award Awardee Result Citation
BMI Film & TV Awards BMI Film Music Award John Frizzell Won [Citation needed]
1997 MTV Movie Awards Best On-Screen Duo Beavis and Butt-Head Nominated [13]
17th Golden Raspberry Awards Worst New Star Nominated [14]
Worst Screen Couple Nominated

Home media[]

The film was released on VHS on June 10, 1997 and on DVD on November 23, 1999, by Paramount Home Entertainment. The bonus features on the disc were a widescreen presentation, and two theatrical trailers. The film was re-released on a Special Edition DVD in 2006 as "The Edition That Doesn't Suck". It contained more in the way of bonus features such as audio commentaries, Spanish language tracks, more trailers, "Making of" documentaries, and more. It lacks the deleted National Archives scene. In 2013, "The Edition That Doesn't Suck" was re-released on DVD exclusively by Warner Home Video, under a deal with Paramount. Oddly enough, Warner Bros. was Geffen's distributor until The Geffen Company went bankrupt. Today, Warner Bros. holds home video distribution rights to all of Geffen Pictures' library.

The film was released on Blu-ray for the first time on December 7, 2021, by Paramount Home Entertainment; in commemoration of the film's 25th anniversary.[15]

Sequel[]

In the years following, many fans rumored the possibility of a sequel or follow-up to the film, tentatively titled Beavis and Butt-Head: The Sequel[16] or Beavis and Butt-Head 2.[17] On August 31, 2009, during the promotion of Extract, Mike Judge said he would like to see Beavis and Butt-Head on the big screen again.[16] In 2019, Judge revealed that he has "some ideas" for a new film, saying there might be potential for a live-action version of the show.[18] On February 24, 2021, ahead of the show's reboot set at Comedy Central, a second movie based on the series was announced for streaming service, Paramount+; as the first promotion for it, the announcement was made by the titular characters in a video released for YouTube on the page for Comedy Central.[19][20]

Trivia[]

  • Paramount executives considered making this a live-action movie.
  • It is produced by Geffen Pictures, but not to be distributed by Warner Bros.
  • In the desert scene, where Beavis and Butt-Head hallucinate, voices are heard in the background. When the soundtrack is played backwards, Beavis and Butt-Head are heard speaking clearly, including phrases such as "Everybody go to college, study hard, study hard."
  • Major Beavis and Butt-Head characters that never appeared in the movie at all include Stewart (even his mother and father), Coach Buzzcut, Todd, the Burger World Manager and the Maxi-Mart Owner.
  • One of the people sitting in the circle when the teacher sings "Lesbian Seagull" is Daria Morgendorffer, who later got her own series.
  • On classic MTV2 Airings of the movie, It has an end bumper after the credits where it shows silhouettes of Beavis and Butt-Head and the fire and explosion from the desert scene with them laughing in slow motion voices, it was considered on of the scariest bumpers ever made, and later on was edited out, on current airings of the film on MTV2, it stays black for ten seconds until it ends.
  • There's a line in the script that indicates that if 'Bill Clinton' lost his re-election campaign in 1996, there would be a change to the scene where Butt-head meets Chelsea Clinton. In the regular movie, she's folding clothes, but the scene was written so she could also be packing a suitcase instead with only a minor addition to the scene.
  • Beavis' hallucination scene in the desert was inspired by artwork drawn by Rob Zombie. The music of the scene is White Zombie's "Rat Finks, Suicide Tanks and Cannible Girls".
  • When Beavis and Butt-Head try to steal the TV from the high school, and Mr. Van Driessen stops them, the Geffen Productions logo can be seen on the chalkboard,
  • Muddy's red car is a 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark IV.
  • Owing to the success of the film, a sequel was planned to be released in 1999, but plans were eventually scrapped.
  • This movie broke the box office receipts record for an opening weekend in December until Scream 2 was released the following year.
  • The version of "Walk on Water" on the official soundtrack is not the version that is heard in the movie. The version you hear in the movie is actually the 'demo' version, and it appears on Disc 2 of Ozzy Osbourne's 'Prince of Darkness' boxed set.
  • The name David Letterman chose as his credit for his voice-work in the film, Earl Hofert, is actually the name of his uncle, the same "Uncle Earl" Letterman routinely mocks on his show, especially for an incident where a drunk Uncle Earl supposedly said "Here, kitty kitty kitty" to the Thanksgiving turkey.
  • A reference to Butane made by the Tom Anderson character was changed from Propane to avoid a connection to Mike Judge's other animated series King of the Hill.
  • In the original cut, in the scene in which Principal McVicker is being spanked in the motel room, he was naked from the waist down. The animators had to give him boxer shorts in order to get a PG-13 rating.
  • Mike Judge actually got the "is this a god dam" joke from his grandmother, and when she told him it, he didn't find it funny at all. Ironically, numerous viewers have since told Judge it's their favorite part of the movie.
  • In the DVD commentary, 'Mike Judge' confesses that the guitar riff from Beavis and Butt-Head theme music is the riff from AC/DC's Gone Shootin' played backwards.
  • All of the hotel/casinos shown in the Las Vegas scenes actually exist. In contrast, Mike Judge's "more serious" show, King of the Hill, used fake hotel/casinos during a visit to Vegas.
  • Beavis and Butt-Head are never shown working their jobs at Burger World in the film, although this is briefly referenced during the hallucination scene.
  • During the trek across the desert, the boys mention the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores, a rare mention of a real-world store chain on the show. This dialogue was possibly chosen instead of the duo's favourite hangout "Maxi-Mart" to avoid confusion for viewers not familiar with the TV show.
  • The white trash hoodlums that steal Beavis and Butt-Head's TV are not unique to the movie. Their names are Ross and Harlan, and they previously appeared on the series robbing Stewart's house.

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America".
  2. "Title << British Board of Film Classification". British Board of Film Classification (January 13, 1997).
  3. 3.0 3.1 Dutka, Elaine. "Beavis and Butt-head Make Creator and Paramount Proud", The Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1996. 
  4. "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996 film)". Box Office Mojo.
  5. "Beavis and Butthead do America: Special Collector's Edition" (May 27, 2016).
  6. https://www.ifc.com/2016/01/15-things-you-might-not-know-about-beavis-and-butt-head
  7. Ellen, Claudia. "The Geffen Camp Heh-Hehs All the Way to the Bank", The Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1997. 
  8. "Weekend Box Office Results for December 20-22, 1996". Box Office Mojo.
  9. "Beavis and Butt-head Do America". Fandango Media.
  10. "Beavis and Butt-head Do America". CBS Interactive.
  11. Roger Ebert's review of Beavis and Butt-head Do America
  12. Siskel and Ebert review Beavis and Butt-head Do America
  13. "1997 MTV Movie Awards".
  14. Wilson, John (2007). "Seventeenth Annual Razzies (1996)", The Official Razzie Movie Guide. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 9780446510080. 
  15. 16.0 16.1 Outlaw, Kofi (August 31, 2009). "Beavis and Butt-Head: The Sequel?". Screen Rant.
  16. "Comic Con: Mike Judge Teases Beavis and Butt-Head 2" (July 25, 2009).
  17. Pattillo, Alice (July 29, 2019). "Mike Judge has "some ideas" for new Beavis and Butt-Head movie" (en). Metal Hammer Magazine.
  18. White, Peter. "Beavis And Butt-Head & 'Workaholics' Movies, Weekly Show From Trevor Noah & 'Inside Amy Schumer' Specials Lead Paramount+ Comedy Slate", Deadline, August 19, 2020. 
  19. An Announcement from Beavis and Butt-Head- YouTube

External Links[]


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Media
TV Pilots: Beavis and Butt-Head (TV Pilots) (Beavis and Butt-head) • Daria: Sealed with a Kick (Daria) • TV Shows: Beavis and Butt-HeadDaria • Films: Beavis and Butt-Head Do AmericaDaria: Is It Fall Yet?Daria: Is It College Yet?Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe • TV Specials: "Daria: Behind the Scenes" • "Daria: Look Back in Annoyance" • Video games: Beavis and Butt-Head (video game) • Beavis and Butt-Head: Virtual Stupidity • Beavis and Butt-Head: Bunghole in One • Beavis and Butt-Head: Do U • Daria: Daria's Sick, Sad Life Planner • Daria: Daria's Inferno • Comic: Beavis and Butt-Head (comics)
Characters
Beavis • Butt-Head • Principal McVicker • Coach Buzzcut • David Van Driessen • Tom Anderson • Todd • Mrs. Stevenson • Daria Borgdorfer • Jane Lane • Jodie Landon • Quinn Morgendorffer • Helen Morgendorffer • Jake Morgendorffer • Trent Lane • Tom Sloane
Episodes
Beavis and Butthead: "Comedians" • "Werewolves of Highland" • "Crying" • "Daughter's Hand" • "Tech Support" • "Drones" • "Holy Cornholio" • "Supersize Me" • "Bathroom Break" • "The Rat" • "Escape Room" • "The Special One" • "Boxed In"
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Locations
Highland, Texas (USA)Lawndale TownLawndale High School
Songs
Related
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