Looks like the real thing.

Quite randomly, yesterday our TiVo decided to tape an episode of Beavis & Butt-head from 1995.

I feel like Mena & I have somewhat of a history with Beavis & Butt-head, in that we actually saw Beavis & Butt-head Do America in the theater [1]. I think that probably makes us fairly unique, given how poorly the movie did. I don't even remember the movie much, but I do remember always loving the television show. My favorite part was always the music videos, because that's when they'd get their best lines in—that's where you'd get pop-cultural references, and the cleverly roundabout slams on the artists in the videos.

So in the episode I saw today ("Whiplash"), they were watching the video for "Fake Plastic Trees", which is just such a self-pitying piece of shit [2] (both the song and the video, I think). And so anyway, the video begins, the acoustic guitar comes on, and there are all these fluorescent supermarket lights, etc.

And then, Thom Yorke comes on for the first time, looking all pathetic and pushing a shopping cart. And this is where the magic begins!

Butt-head: "Hey, that looks like that dude. He was on TV, and then they made a cartoon out of him."

Beavis: "Oh yeah, yeah. He's got that shirt, and then his hair's all like a point on the top of his head."

"..."

"Yeah, yeah, what's his name?"

"Uh... Yeah, what is his name?"

"Oh... damnit... what's it, he's um..."

"..."

"Oh yeah yeah, he's like always going, 'I must say'..."

"Uh, yeah... And then he's like, always saying he's going to be on Wheel of Fortune, and he's like, all into Pat Sajak."

"..."

"Uh, Wiggly... Smeggly..."

"No, that's not it. Damnit! Damnit! This guy looks just like him! Damnit! I'm forgetting everything! I can't remember anything anymore!"

And then Beavis starts getting all frustrated, and asks Butt-head to hit him, and then he finally remembers Ed Grimley's name.

It's just so fantastic! I cried.

BTW, I really wish I could find a clip of this episode online, but I can't find it anywhere. I still have it on our TiVo. Can I get it onto my computer somehow?

[1] amazingly, considering that we hardly ever go to movies anymore. But we used to go see pretty much anything in the theater, because we were so bored in college. We even saw The Waterboy.

[2] One of my favorite things I've ever heard about "Fake Plastic Trees" was in Clueless, where Cher calls it "the maudlin music of the university station... waah, waah, waah." So funny! [3]

[3] And which is also sort of weird, because right after this line, Cher and Josh sit down to watch TV, and Beavis & Butt-head are on. Full circle!

Comments

[Angelo]

Beavis & Butt-head Do America did poorly? That's news to me. According to IMDB, it made about $60 million gross in US theaters: more than five times its production budget.