From the Pile Episode #5: Beavis and Butthead #8

Today From the Pile takes you back to that gilded year of 1994! The Cold War has been over for about two years.  The biggest trend in music has been grunge but that's all about to be over with the death of Curt Cobain. Natalie Portman will make her big screen debut in Luc Bisson's Leon: The Professional and Quentin Tarantino will will change and influence films for the next twenty years with the release of his second feature, Pulp Fiction.

Quentin Tarantino's 1994 hit, Pulp Fiction

1994 will introduce the world to future Thor co-star, Natalie Portman in Leon: The professional

Meanwhile on MTV, music hasn't been totally abandoned yet but they are pioneering reality TV with their Real World and are jumping on the animation train that started with the Simpsons in 1989 with the release Beavis and Butt-head in 1993.

Beavis and Butt-Head #8

Beavis and Butt-Head was created by Mike Judge who would go on to create the long-running King of the Hill and The Goodes as well as the cult-hit movies, Office Space(1999) and Idiocracy(2006).

Brawndo as seen in Idiocracy

Beavis and Butt-Head would become an instant hit and in 1994, Marvel Comics would begin publishing a comic book under their  Marvel Absurd imprint that would run for two years.

Issue #8 kicks off with Beavis asking Butt-Head how music comes out of the radio. Butt-Head offers the possibility that the music comes through the wires and plutonium is somehow involved. The dimwitted duo poke at the radio's casing until both electrocute themselves. Death briefly appears and I briefly think we are going to be in a Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey(1991) type of adventure but no. We are in a bizarre super hero sort of parody as Beavis and Butt-Head take on The Suck.

Coolman and Doctor Weird parody superheroes very poorly

So, what this comic is, is three loosely connected stories involving around Beavis' and Butt-Head's superhero alter-egos, Doctor Weird and Coolman. It has some cameos by other characters like that kid who wore the Winger t-shirts on the cartoon. The hippie teacher. A very brief cameo by Daria. And a couple of people who look like the characters from the painting American Gothic and some biker guy.

Beavis and Butt-Head also take time out to read a comic book, a Quasar comic book, and comment on it the why they did on music videos of the day during the original cartoon show.

Quasar will have ended its run by the time B&B reference it in this comic.

While I watched Beavis and Butt-Head a few times when it was first run, the show never really appealed to me. I'm not a big fan of gross-out humor but occasionally the show would strike a note I found funny. Perhaps the most annoying thing to me at the time was the commentary on music videos which just never really had the ring of truth. The comic book rings true to what I remember of the TV show but for whatever it is just how nihilistic the whole thing is that strikes me now. Beavis and Butt-Head are so nihilistic that they don't even know they're nihilists and they never really come off as characters. They care about nothing, not even each other really. So, interesting relic of a bygone era but nothing very lasting. At least not in Beavis and Butt-Head issue #8.

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