Beavis and Butt-Head Do America

Our Review

What Happens

The television is stolen (by a burglar with nothing else to take), and Butt-Head is devastated. The only thing they have ever loved is inside that box, so when the static clears far enough to catch a fragment of a cereal commercial, the duo become convinced the man on screen, the ‘actual real senator’ Damien Drake, has their TV. Their plan: drive cross-country to Washington D.C. to take it back.

That is the entire engine of the best thing the franchise ever made. Mike Judge wrote and directed a real road movie under the stupidity: two kids crossing a satirical 1996 America (a police officer who talks about their missing TV as a metaphor, a mill, a Grand Canyon drop that should kill them) while FBI agents hunt them for a cross they stole off a dead body. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore voice the agents, and the late 90s news-anchor cameos stack up as background gag.

Our take: Cornholio reaches full power here, TCTLF, need TP for TCTFLW, and the film trusts its dumb premise long enough to build actual adventure set pieces around it. It opened #1 at the US box office with $20.1 million in December 1996, a record December opening at the time, and grossed $63.1 million against a $12 million budget. Best single element: the stolen-TV motive. It is the most relatable desire in animation, take our television back, played for a cross-country odyssey.

Verdict: 8/10. The definitive Beavis and Butt-Head, and one of the great cartoon road movies. Watch it if you liked the show: this is the show with a plot.

Where to watch

Streams on Paramount+ alongside the series library; regularly cycles through free ad-supported platforms. Released theatrically by Paramount Pictures December 20, 1996.