Butt love

You learn a lot from watching eight hours of Beavis and Butt-head cartoons. For starters, you learn that nachos rule; that if you want something, the magic word always is butt-wipe; and that a tattoo of a butt on a butt on your butt is probably a bad idea.

Then, after some 90 episodes, you begin over-analyzing the duo. You wonder if eventually Butt-head’s passive-aggressive shtick and Beavis’ submissiveness might ever lead to, well, more than just watching TV. With all their talk of morning wood, nads, bungholes, pole playing … you get the picture. But I digress.

B&B mastermind Mike Judge—of King of the Hill fame—launched the cartoon with a simple 1992 short called Frog Baseball. MTV dug the bit, gave the show a chance, and the cream of the series’ crop is included in the new Beavis and Butt-head: The Mike Judge Collection DVDs. The set features nine discs, 122 episodes, and a serious butt load of extras, varying from their famous music-video commentaries to the less memorable “Butt bowl” vignettes and Kurt Loder Q-and-As.

The cartoons cover two-thirds of the B&B archive; there’s a remaining third that, according to Judge, isn’t quite up to snuff, which is difficult to imagine. I mean, where do you draw the line?

The best episodes are those that take place at Highland High School, where Judge questions both liberal and conservative ideologies. For example, Coach Buzzcut, the duo’s gym coach, takes heat for being a No-Child-Left-Behind hard ass. Conversely, their hippie teacher, Mr. Van Driessen, is scrutinized for his impractical world view.

However, Judge reserves his harshest condemnation for spineless ideological wafflers, like the high-school candy-sale fund-raiser spokesman, who is neither dumb nor crude, but wholly lacking in integrity. It’s these individuals who, in the words of our heroes, truly suck.