Beavis and Butt-Head Do America


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 as they travel across the country to retrieve their stolen television set.
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 from its release 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 was MTV's only theatrically released animated film.

Plot

and Butt-Head discover that someone has stolen their television, and they 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 thinks that the boys are the hitmen he has contacted. Muddy offers Beavis and Butt-Head $10,000 to "do" his wife, Dallas. Thinking that "do" refers to sex, Butt-Head convinces Beavis that both of them can "score" and get paid enough to buy a new TV. Muddy hands them a photo of Dallas with instructions on where to find her and drives them to the airport to catch a plane to Las Vegas.
After arriving in the casino, Beavis and Butt-Head are ushered to the room Muddy booked, which is located next to Dallas's. They eavesdrop on her room but are caught. Dallas offers them $20,000 to go back and "do" Muddy, which they refuse. When Beavis and Butt-Head begin arguing over who will "do" Dallas first, she realizes that they have misunderstood what they have been hired for. While they are fist fighting, she plants a stolen biological weapon known as the "X-5 Unit" in Beavis's pants in order to get rid of it. She then gets them tickets on a tour bus en route to Washington, D.C. and instructs them that she will be waiting for them in the US Capitol and will let them "do her" there.
The stolen bioweapon attracts the attention of the ATF, headed by Agent Flemming, who orders a body cavity search on everyone he encounters. Flemming becomes convinced that the duo are criminal masterminds after they accidentally release the water behind the Hoover Dam, cutting the power to Las Vegas. They are placed on the FBI's most wanted list. Failing to return to the tour bus on time, they get on a busload of nuns; repulsed by the boys' actions, the nuns later abandon them at a gift shop in Petrified Forest National Park. They are told Washington is about 2,000 miles away and begin to hike until they reach the desert.
The boys begin to hike again the next day, but they soon collapse from dehydration. They are eventually found by Muddy, who plans to kill them after realizing they were not the hitmen he hired. However, after hearing that Dallas is going to meet up with the duo in Washington, Muddy decides to take them the rest of the way in his trunk to hunt her down. In Virginia, The boys open the trunk with a car jack and jump out onto the interstate, inadvertently causing a 400-car pileup. They casually walk past the scene and get back on the tour bus, stopping at the Capitol before finally reaching the White House. Before Dallas can meet with Beavis and Butt-Head to recover the bioweapon, she is confronted in the parking garage by Muddy. Dallas, however, seduces him and they briefly reconcile and have sex in his car. The ATF catches them in the act and faced with the possibility of a 60-year jail sentence. Dallas betrays Muddy by saying that he hid the bioweapon in Beavis's pants.
The ATF is dispatched to the White House due to Beavis and Butt-Head being there on the same day as a peace conference. Beavis consumes caffeine pills, sugar, and coffee while on the White House tour, transforming him into Cornholio. Cornholio wanders into the Oval Office and picks up the red phone, causing the military to go to DEFCON 4. Meanwhile, Butt-Head tries hitting on Chelsea Clinton, but he gets thrown out of her bedroom window as well as detained and cavity searched by ATF officers. Beavis leaves the White House and goes to Mr. Anderson's trailer, where Anderson catches him after catching him "whacking off" and throws him out. The ATF spots Beavis walking around the camper bottomless and confronts him, thinking he has the bioweapon on him. As the ATF is about to open fire, Anderson opens his camper door and throws out Beavis's pants. The pants are ripped open by the ATF, with the bioweapon flying out of them. The weapon lands safely in Butt-Head's hand, who then hands it to Flemming. Blame for the crime is ultimately pinned on Anderson and his wife, who are accused of trying to frame Beavis and Butt-Head, and arrested along with Dallas and Muddy. Flemming informs the boys that they are heroes and their adventure will remain top secret. They meet President Bill Clinton, who makes them honorary ATF agents. Beavis and Butt-Head return to Highland and find their TV in front of the motel.

Voice cast

Other voice actors include: Jacqueline Barba, Pamela Blair, Eric Bogosian, Kristofor Brown, Tony Darling, John Doman, Francis DuMaurier, Jim Flaherty, Tim Guinee, Earl Hofert, 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, David Letterman had a role as a Mötley Crüe roadie and was credited under "Earl Hofert".

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. 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. 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 Bill Clinton lost his 1996 re-election 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 his bid for re-election, and did so 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. It had a $12 million production budget.

Critical reception

The film held a 72% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 53 reviews, with a weighted average of 6.18/10. The consensus is: "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is unabashedly offensive, unapologetically stupid, and unexpectedly funny." On Metacritic, the film has a 64 out of 100 rating based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times praised the film as a "vulgar" satire on American youth, and compared it favorably to Wayne's World. On the movie 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.

Awards and nominations

OrganizationAwardAwardeeResultCitation
BMI Film & TV AwardsBMI Film Music AwardJohn Frizzell
1997 MTV Movie AwardsBest On-Screen DuoBeavis and Butt-Head
17th Golden Raspberry AwardsWorst New StarBeavis and Butt-Head
17th Golden Raspberry AwardsWorst Screen CoupleBeavis and Butt-Head

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.

Future

Possible 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 or Beavis and Butt-Head 2. 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.

Possible live-action reboot

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.

Soundtrack

  1. "Two Cool Guys" – Isaac Hayes
  2. "Love Rollercoaster" – Red Hot Chili Peppers
  3. "Ain't Nobody" – LL Cool J
  4. "Ratfinks, Suicide Tanks and Cannibal Girls" – White Zombie
  5. "I Wanna Riot" – Rancid with Stubborn All-Stars
  6. "Walk on Water" – Ozzy Osbourne *
  7. "Snakes" – No Doubt
  8. "Pimp'n Ain't EZ" – Madd Head
  9. "The Lord Is a Monkey" – Butthole Surfers
  10. "White Trash" – Southern Culture on the Skids
  11. "Gone Shootin'" – AC/DC
  12. "Lesbian Seagull" – Engelbert Humperdinck
Noticeably missing are "Mucha Muchacha", the version of "Lesbian Seagull" with Mr. Van Driessen singing, and the score tracks performed by The London Metropolitan Orchestra, which were released on a separate album.
"Two Cool Guys", written and performed by soul/funk musician Isaac Hayes, is a semi-parody of Hayes' Academy Award-winning "Theme from Shaft". It incorporates the theme from the Beavis and Butt-head television series as a rhythm guitar line, and series creator Mike Judge, who wrote the theme, is given a co-writing credit with Hayes in the soundtrack liner notes. The opening credit sequence which the song features in is a take-off on popular 1970s cop movies and TV shows with Beavis and Butt-Head as hip ace sleuth Lothario detectives.
The version of Ozzy Osbourne's "Walk on Water" is not the same version included in the film. The film used an earlier demo version, while the soundtrack itself contains a later, revised version. The original demo, which appears in the film, can be found on Osbourne's Prince of Darkness box set. Ozzy and co-writer Jim Vallance both prefer the demo version heard in the film. "Walk on Water" was released as a single and peaked at number 28 on Billboards Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.