Many took Mike Judge's creations to be harbingers of civilization's doom.

An audience comprised largely of white males in their 20s. This demographic is significant for one outstanding reason: It was the first MTV generation. MTV premiered on August 1, 1981. Anyone who was 10 years old at the time was 21 when Beavis and Butt-head first appeared. Throughout the teen years of males who comprised B&B's most loyal fans, thousands upon thousands of music videos were shown by the cable station. These were the first teens to grow up with MTV as a major cultural force in their lives, and it is certainly no accident that Beavis and Butt-head -- both male -- spent a considerable amount of time watching music videos (presumably shown by MTV) from their ratty couch.

For this audience, Beavis and Butt-head was a look back at their own teen years, a dunderheaded parody of the kids, teachers, and adults they shared their lives with. It poked fun at first jobs, seemingly useless classes, repressive administrators, and the sometimes unattainable goal of sexual conquest. Beavis and Butt-head even mocked the sacrosanct world of music that sustained them. Most of the music videos B&B watched "sucked," and those that were "cool" elicited ridiculous vocal and physical reactions from the boys, including dances like "The Fartknocker Double Inverted Nad Twist."

Beavis and Butt-head could, and did, get away with everything. No act of smashing, burning destruction ever met with any lasting punishment. The boys had the power to corrupt everything around them. In one episode, B&B befriend a diligent, brilliant Asian exchange student; by cartoon's end they have turned him into a brain-damaged clone of themselves. Beavis and Butt-head enjoyed a guiltless (and brainless) joyride through a satire of American adolescence during the prime years of MTV, and the audience it spoofed was the one that enjoyed -- and appreciated it -- most.

That is where highbrow cultural analysts blew it. Those who read the decay of civilization into this cartoon, in which B&B represented the vanguard of an atrophied youth, were far too profound in their pronouncements. If American culture was in fact falling into corrupt decay, using Beavis and Butt-head as an evident puzzle piece in the larger picture was a myopic choice. Blaming the pair for the ills of youth was unfounded; from 1993-1997, there was actually a decline in serious youth crimes, particularly juvenile homicides. Beavis and Butt-head never had the power to appear even as symbols of entropy; they had serious limitations of their own and in the end sank beneath them.

To begin with, the demographic that enjoyed B&B the most generally went on to college and greater concerns, and their tastes in entertainment changed. Even MTV switched content, and Beavis and Butt-head could not survive those changes. The series remained trapped in time, a satiric vision of an era gone by. By 1997, the last year that Beavis and Butt-head aired, MTV was receiving countless complaints that the channel was no longer giving enough air time to music videos -- the mainstay of Beavis and Butt-head. MTV increasingly generated original programming and found a suitable replacement in Jackass not long afterwards.

Mike Judge moved on, too, becoming a mainstream producer and director for the immensely popular prime-time animated series King of the Hill -- the very same year that B&B disappeared. As the ratings on FOX network proved, Judge had the talent to produce far more elegant entertainment than Beavis and Butt-head. Finally, Matt Stone and Trey Parker (also in 1997) premiered South Park on Comedy Central. This was perhaps the show that picked up most of the former B&B audience, now older and more sophisticated in their appreciation of humor. There was nowhere left for Beavis and Butt-head to go, and no one left to take them there. This is why only traces of them remain today, with no revival in sight. Even Gumby has had more lives.

While Beavis and Butt-head lived, they lived big. The age group and gender that followed them was highly sought-after by advertisers and merchandisers, and this is one reason why B&B were so pervasive in so many different media in their heyday. They were cool, hip, controversial, lucrative, and any mention of them anywhere was good for a laugh. Or ratings. Or a sale. When Beavis and Butt-head were no longer commercially viable, they simply passed on like so many fads tend to do. Beavis and Butt-head existed for a specific audience with specific tastes at a specific time. To say anything more is analytic overkill.

Beavis and Butt-head live on in extensive DVD collections and in the memories of those who see a certain vintage music video and smile at the thought of Butt-head thrusting his forked fingers into the air. Beavis, The Great Cornholio, may have gone on his final sugar binge but at least he had the last laugh: An older generation of serious critics, never realizing the true meaning of the show, made utter fools of themselves in damning Beavis and Butt-head as a leading example of a country's degeneration. Leave it to two utter morons to prick the critics' bubble.

(Huh-huh-huh! He said "prick!")

Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman is a longtime student and fan of animation. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.