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(The Channel Awesome logo is shown, followed by the 2023 NC title sequence.)
NC: Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to. Hey, remember in the ‘90s when we used to watch under-qualified dumbasses review media from a couch? (A shot of Beavis and Butt-Head sitting on their couch is shown in the upper right.) This is the movie.
(The title for Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is shown. Clips from the movie start playing.)
NC (vo): Released in 1996, near the height of their popularity, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America holds two fond memories for me. One is, of course, laughing at two of my favorite animated slackers with an audience on the big screen, and two, giggling when an obvious Oscar-bait movie at the time called Ghosts of Mississippi didn't get as good reviews. Not that the story didn't deserve to be told, but everyone agreed it was told in a schmaltzy way, despite having some of Hollywood's finest at the time.
Gene Siskel: I would have much preferred to see a documentary on this subject rather than this Hollywood version that is well-meaning but so safe.
Roger Ebert: This is not one of Whoopi Goldberg's good performances. She spends most of it on the telephone, saying, "Yeah, yeah, well, I don't believe you're really gonna do it."
Gene Siskel: She's done writing.
Roger Ebert: You don't – you really understand what – who Medgar Evers was and what he did.
(More clips from Beavis and Butt-Head Do America are shown.)
NC (vo): There's just something so funny about a Rob Reiner drama with James Woods, Alec Baldwin, and Whoopi Goldberg in Southern accents getting bested by Beavis and Butt-Head.
(Now we are shown Siskel and Ebert's review of Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.)
Gene Siskel: I was taken with their adolescent awkwardness, bravado, and vulnerability.
Roger Ebert: I think there was satire of this kind of couch potato, uh, disaffected attitude.
(More clips from Beavis and Butt-Head Do America are shown.)
NC (vo): Most people thought this was going to be a film written by simpletons for simpletons about simpletons. But in fact, it was a film written by smart people for most people but, yes, still about simpletons. But the truth is, Beavis and Butt-Head were so celebrated at the time by their young audience that it could've been just a phoned-in movie, and it wasn't. They worked hard...
Butt-Head: Hard. (laughs)
NC (vo): ...at making the writing, timing, acting, and animation all get solid laughs. Like many have said, you have to be surprisingly smart in order to make dumb funny. But what is it about the film that won so many over? Well, let's dive on in and check it out.
(We go back to NC.)
NC: This is Beavis and Butt...
Butt-Head: My first name's "Butt".
NC: ...Head Do America.
(The film opens with a panicked crowd in the city streets. It turns out that Beavis and Butt-Head are in the roles of Godzilla and King Kong.)
NC (vo): The film opens with a dream that – okay, let's face it – is here for trailer fodder, but it's good trailer fodder.
(Butt-Head is holding a beautiful woman in his fist.)
NC:(as Butt-Head) My head alone is one-third of my body. (A shot of Butt-Head on the couch is shown.)(laughs) Head.
(Beavis is shaking Butt-Head, trying to wake him.)
NC (vo): Beavis wakes up Butt-Head to show that something has happened to the TV.
Butt-Head: Uh... (laughs)
(The camera moves around the room, showing the window has been shattered, the television is missing, and there are footprints leading to the open door. Despite this, Butt-Head fails to put the clues together. We go back to NC.)
NC: One of the interesting things is in the Siskel and Ebert review.
(We are shown more of said review.)
NC (vo): Siskel swore the director of the movie was trying to help Butt-Head figure out what happened.
Gene Siskel (vo): This clever scene where the film's director actually tries to help the boys figure out that their missing television set has been stolen. This is clever.
NC: I think more likely it's just his point of view putting together what happened.
NC (vo): But again, that's what's son great about getting a different take. You can look at it from an equally funny way you never thought of before.
Butt-Head: This sucks more than anything that has ever sucked before.
NC (vo): The opening credits roll, satirizing old ‘70s movies and shows like Starsky and Hutch. Yeah, ‘70s nostalgia was like what I guess ‘90s nostalgia is like now. (Posters for the following movies are shown: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, and The Brady Bunch Movie.) Why else do you think I'm talking about this flick?
(We cut to Beavis and Butt-Head standing outside of Highland High School.)
Beavis (Mike Judge): Hey, wait a minute! I don't wanna go to school!
NC (vo): They go searching for their TV and decide to steal the one from their school, but their teacher (David Van Driessan) stops them.
NC (vo): ...than just Sean Connery Jeopardy jokes.
NC: Well, funny enough, I don't think much of the audience would mind if it was all that.
NC (vo): They accidentally break the TV, resulting in the principal expelling them.
Principal McVicker (Mike Judge): Beavis and Butt-Head, you're both expelled!!!
NC (vo): That's the code for "Yeah, school jokes are boring in a big animated film." King of the Hill prototypes, however...
(We cut to Tom Anderson and his wife Marcy standing near a camper in the driveway near their house.)
Tom Anderson (Mike Judge): Ya know, the most important thing you can have on a camper is a good butane regulator.
NC (vo): Butane, huh? Why do I feel like Tom Anderson and Daria (a screenshot from the Beavis and Butt-Head episode "Walkathon" pops up) and this are in the same neighborhood (the image is replaced by one from the Seinfeld episode "The Bizarro Jerry", with the faces of Tom Anderson, Daria Morgendorffer, and Hank Hill photoshopped over the characters next to Elaine Benes) as Elaine's Bizarro friends?
(Inside the Andersons' camper, Beavis and Butt-Head are watching a show based off of Cops. Beavis takes a drink from a soda can, then suddenly spits it out all of the top of the television.)
Beavis: AAAAAAGH!!! This crap is warm!
(The soda drips into the inside of the TV, causing it to short out.)
[...]
(We cut to the inside of a conference room. We see two ATF agents – Flemming and his right-hand man, Bork – looking at a computer screen. On the screen is footage of a device containing a man-made virus.)
Agent Bork: The X-5 Unit is a new top-secret biological weapon.
[...]
Old Woman (Cloris Leachman): Are you two heading for Las Vegas?
Beavis: We're gonna score!
NC (vo): The lady they sit next to on the flight is played by comedy legend Cloris Leachman.
NC: I love how well these two get along just because they misunderstand one word.
Old Woman: I'm mostly gonna be doing the slots.
Beavis: They have a lot of sluts in Las Vegas?
Old Woman: You won't know where to begin.
Beavis: Whoa!
NC (vo): In a strange, perverted way, it's almost wholesome.
Old Woman: It's so nice to meet young men who are so well-mannered.
[...]
David Van Driessen: (singing) Come with me, lesbian seagull.
[...]
NC (vo): The boys lose track of their fathers and continue to roam the desert, eat some [peyote] cactus, and start to hallucinate.
Beavis: It's like a music video!
(We see the hallucination, all synced to "Ratfinks, Suicide Tanks, and Cannibal Girls".)
[...]
Beavis: What are you doing, Butt-Head? Stop it! You're freaking me out! Cut it out!
[...]
Lieutenant: Yes, Mr. President?
Beavis: I am Cornholio! My bunghole, it goes ralalalala!
NC: Admit it. You know at least two presidents who have made a call like that.
(We go back to Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.)
NC (vo): Butt-Head stumbles across Chelsea Clinton and doesn't exactly make the best impression.
Butt-Head: I noticed you have braces. I have braces too.
(Chelsea throws Butt-Head out the window.)
NC: Admit it. You know at least two presidents who have been thrown out of the White House like that.
[...]
Channel Awesome tagline:David Van Driessen: (singing) Lesbian seagull.
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