definitely had a chip on my shoulder about the mainstream entertainment world not understanding Texas,” Mike Judge says. His voice over the phone is thoughtful and unhurried, the opposite of his cartoon alter ids Beavis and Butt-head, although there’s no mistaking Butt-head’s zonked-out baritone lurking under Judge’s own. There’s even a hint of that laugh—the needling huh-huh-huh that once drove so many parents and teachers crazy—which creeps in as the Austin writer and animator explains how he channeled his resentments into two of his most famous characters: a couple of teenage dirtbags who spend their days passing snickering judgment on pop culture from the pulpit of their couch. “You just feel like you’re not connected to show business, so why not make fun of it?” Judge says. “They’re not going to welcome you in, anyway, so just sit there and take shots at it.”
From 1993 to 1997, Judge’s Beavis and Butt-head, which aired on MTV, didn’t just make fun of showbiz. The little creeps were arguably the two most influential critics in America, capable of making a band—they quintupled
record sales for White Zombie, whose videos they deemed “cool”—and stubbing out careers (sorry, Winger) with a point-blank “this sucks.” But their impact was felt beyond music. To their equally bored and alienated young viewers, Beavis and Butt-head became the guttural voices of a generation. They mocked all manner of authority, defying the touchy-feely political correctness of the Clinton era and deflating pretentious phonies like a couple of paint-huffing Holden Caulfields. Theirs was an awesome power, wielded bluntly and fearlessly. And it all derived from the fact that, like their creator, Beavis and Butt-head were outsiders with nothing to lose.
