After much speculation how the public would welcome them back, looks like Beavis and Butthead got the last laugh, or the last “Uh, huh, huh, heh, heh.”
The cartoon duo have indeed come back strong to MTV, and fans all over the world couldn’t be happier with their return.
According to reports on Variety and Zap2it, Beavis and Butthead scored 3.3 million people watching their debut, and Zap2it also confirmed about two thirds of the viewers were young males, “which advertisers loves because they’re considered a hard-to-reach demographic.”
It was an interesting waiting game to see how Beavis and Butthead would do on their return, and it’s not certain yet how many people watching the show are new fans, but they’re clearly off to a very good start.
Before Beavis and Butthead came back, their creator Mike Judge did some reflecting on his best known creation. Beavis and Butthead made Judge a fortune when he was about to take a position teaching math, but by 1997, he was burned out.
Judge subsequently moved on to King of the Hill, which was a hit on Fox for 13 seasons, and he also made the beloved 1999 comedy Office Space.
When he was finally ready to try Beavis and Butthead, Judge told Rolling Stone, “it was already a hit once, so if it doesn’t go over this time then it’s not a big deal.”
He also recalled it was MTV’s idea to make fun of their own reality TV programming, in part because it’s harder to clear music videos to make fun of.
“Part of the reason the show can’t sell in syndication is because back in the day those videos were only cleared for MTV,” Judge continued.
“No one was thinking that far in advance because they just thought that Beavis and Butt-Head were taking the place of VJs.”
Judge also gave a little sneak preview for what to expect in future episodes, including a glimpse of Beavis and Butthead at 80 in a nursing home, a cameo from Daria, and they’re also allowed to say “fire” again.
Of course, you may recall Beavis was banned from saying fire after a little kid who watched the show caused a tragic accident, which brought major controversy to the show, and made MTV move it up to a later time slot so younger kids couldn’t watch it.
