Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman.

Had President Carter been able to look ahead to 1992, he might have made an exception or two. That was the year that MTV spewed forth Beavis and Butt-head into America's popular culture. It began innocuously enough; independent animator (and former physics major) Mike Judge was preparing short films for a festival. MTV's senior vice president Abby Terkhule, on the lookout for new talent, grabbed one of them for the network's animated hodgepodge series Liquid Television.

The short, ominously titled Frog Baseball, premiered in September of 1992. It featured two disreputable young boys originally named Bobby and Billy. B&B were not exactly the epitome of evolutionary progress, and their dialogue suggested borderline intelligence, if that. The short delivered its promised vivisection, gleefully carried out by the lads, and stars were born that day.

These degenerates, soon to be known as Beavis and Butt-head, returned for a reprise shortly afterwards in a short called Peace, Love, and Understanding. Significantly, the boys ended up buried in feces, which was perhaps their natural habitat. No matter; Beavis and Butt-head elicited an incredible response from viewers, and Mike Judge was awarded a contract for a daily half-hour series. Considering that the animation was kept at a rather primitive level, this was very possible. Still, production delays moved the show from a March to May 1993 premiere. That was the last thing that would slow down Beavis and Butt-head for the next four years.

There is not much to be gained by recapping the show, save to recall that much of it was spent watching the boys watching TV. Beavis and Butt-head were discriminating, if rather unsophisticated, critics of countless music videos. When not doing this, the pair bungled their fast-food jobs in various disgusting ways; destroyed nearly everything of value belonging to Mr. Anderson, their demented neighbor; or attempted to score with chicks, a task that met with unremitting failure. For four seasons Beavis and Butt-head's moronic, monotonic giggles echoed through American culture.

A large number of highbrow critics wept with consternation; gallons of ink were spent on overblown interpretations of Beavis and Butt-head as a symbol of a culture gone rotten. Many took Mike Judge's creations to be harbingers of civilization's doom. In a representative text, Dr. Daniel Murphy of Hanover College took Beavis and Butt-head to represent "cultural arterial sclerosis" and went on to say that "we are living among other people's ruins, fashioning pale and increasingly crude imitations of other people's masterworks. Modernism, and with it the tottering edifice of the Modern Age, is dying not with a bang, but a whimper. We are at the end of the ending." Beavis would no doubt respond with, "Heh hehheh! You said 'bang'!"

Meanwhile, that crumbling culture embraced the teenaged morons. References to Beavis and Butt-head popped up on television, in movies, and in texts. The lads appeared on Late Night with David Letterman (Letterman himself is a pop culture arbiter), as well as on awards shows, in holiday specials, and in their own full-length feature. Merchandise and licensed items followed, as did controversy. Fires were alleged to be set and bowling balls hurled from overpasses due to young fools imitating Beavis and Butt-head. At the height of their popularity, the duo reached full celebrity status in America (not that it helped them to score with chicks). Then, almost as suddenly, they disappeared. Even more surprising, there are few traces left of them today.

Consider: When was the last time you saw, heard of, or thought about Beavis and Butt-head? Unlike many other animated shows that left a lasting mark on the cultural landscape, B&B simply faded away into virtual obscurity. Moreover, there has never been a wave of nostalgia for them, or any talk of even a one-shot revival. For a TV show that once commanded an audience of millions and stirred up so much controversy, analysis, and debate, this is truly stunning. How many other animated series, once they had broken through into mass cultural awareness, can this be true of? Not many at all.

How did one of America's most visible cartoons just disappear? It is tempting to say that Beavis and Butt-head was simply not a great show in the first place. Or one could say that their popularity was a freak accident, an abnormal blip in the pulse of popular culture. Tempting, but not true. Some of the episodes, in their sheer imbecility, were quite funny. The very nihilism of the show had a subversive appeal. Besides, the show lasted for four years; surely MTV was no more interested in losing money than, say, FOX, ABC, or BET would be. People were watching, and that was no freak accident. In truth, the reason that Beavis and Butt-head is supremely defunct in a way that even Ren & Stimpy is not is because Mike Judge spoke in only one voice to one audience.

B&B reached their zenith within a specific demographic. Relatively few females watched the show, and many despised it. Despite allegations that young kids were negatively influenced by the animated asses, not many of them tuned in, either. In fact, after Beavis and Butt-head was accused of inspiring a boy to set fire to his family's mobile home, MTV moved the show to a later slot in the evenings. The allegedly damning episode took place in 1993, not long after the show premiered. Thus, it was even harder (hunh-hunh!) to grab a young audience over the life of the show. Adults did not watch massive blocks of MTV, nor did they pay much attention to Beavis and Butt-head. Who did?