Given how much of Beavis and Butt-Head is devoted to its protagonists obsessing over their own boners, it might be fair to assume that this '90s cartoon wouldn't hold up in the year 2022. But Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe not only holds up, it emphasizes the strangeness and hilarious nihilism at the heart of B&B's juvenile humour — which, despite all that has changed in the world, is just as funny today as it was the first time around. It's hard to imagine how this comeback could have been any better. Heh heh heh, I said "hard."
Do the Universe races through a fairly substantial plot in under an hour and a half, with a sci-fi arc in which the boys get sent up to space, slip through a crack in spacetime (heh heh heh, I said "crack") and wind up getting pursued by corrupt government officials. Of course, the whole thing is in the noble pursuit of trying to score heh heh heh, uh huh huh huh.
It would probably be a waste to spend too much time analyzing the humour and what exactly makes it so funny — let's just say that a scene in which the duo's science fair project is "kick Beavis in the nuts and see what happens" had me crying with laughter. Mostly, Do the Universe is just a chance to bring back all the greatest hits: fire, nachos, boi-oi-oi-oing, "do it" and the Great Cornholio. There are also clever nods to memes that imagined what Beavis and Butt-Head might look like if they were rendered more realistically, or if they had continued to age in the years they've been off the air.
A scene when the lads enter a university classroom and learn about white privilege stands out in particular. This sort of parody of wokeness and cancel culture can easily go wrong (see: seemingly every hack Gen-X comedian), except Beavis and Butt-Head somehow pulls it off, gently ribbing activists while ensuring that ignorant privilege is the butt of the joke. Heh heh heh, I said "butt." It's edgy without being mean — a delicate and impressive tightrope walk for such a silly cartoon.
For all its outrageous wackiness, Do the Universe ultimately completes a simple yet effective trick: explaining how the boys arrive in 2022 at the same age they were back in the '90s, opening the door for the upcoming reboot of their series. And in doing so, Paramount+ proves the worth of the whole endeavour, showing that Beavis and Butt-Head transcends mere nostalgia and is a whole lot funnier than now-grownup listeners might expect. Heh heh heh, I said "hole."
(Paramount Pictures)Do the Universe races through a fairly substantial plot in under an hour and a half, with a sci-fi arc in which the boys get sent up to space, slip through a crack in spacetime (heh heh heh, I said "crack") and wind up getting pursued by corrupt government officials. Of course, the whole thing is in the noble pursuit of trying to score heh heh heh, uh huh huh huh.
It would probably be a waste to spend too much time analyzing the humour and what exactly makes it so funny — let's just say that a scene in which the duo's science fair project is "kick Beavis in the nuts and see what happens" had me crying with laughter. Mostly, Do the Universe is just a chance to bring back all the greatest hits: fire, nachos, boi-oi-oi-oing, "do it" and the Great Cornholio. There are also clever nods to memes that imagined what Beavis and Butt-Head might look like if they were rendered more realistically, or if they had continued to age in the years they've been off the air.
A scene when the lads enter a university classroom and learn about white privilege stands out in particular. This sort of parody of wokeness and cancel culture can easily go wrong (see: seemingly every hack Gen-X comedian), except Beavis and Butt-Head somehow pulls it off, gently ribbing activists while ensuring that ignorant privilege is the butt of the joke. Heh heh heh, I said "butt." It's edgy without being mean — a delicate and impressive tightrope walk for such a silly cartoon.
For all its outrageous wackiness, Do the Universe ultimately completes a simple yet effective trick: explaining how the boys arrive in 2022 at the same age they were back in the '90s, opening the door for the upcoming reboot of their series. And in doing so, Paramount+ proves the worth of the whole endeavour, showing that Beavis and Butt-Head transcends mere nostalgia and is a whole lot funnier than now-grownup listeners might expect. Heh heh heh, I said "hole."
