Customer Ratings & Reviews

Shows like “South Park” and “Family Guy” probably have a lot to thank the MTV cartoon for. “Beavis and-head” dropped television standards to an all new low, paving the way for the bathroom humor of modern day cartoons. Thankfully most shows of the same type these days at least use that bathroom humor as they offer up satire or social commentary - something Beavis and head would never attempt. Thinking about the evolution of cartoons on TV that way sort of redeems the low brow humor Beavis and --head brought to the small screen. Although it never could have been done by the two themselves, at least eventually their witless chuckles and clueless entendres led to something good. Volume 1 of The Mike Judge Collection is a three disc set that includes forty episodes of “Beavis and Butt-head”. Before I go any further then that, let’s explore that whole concept of “an episode”. In the collection an episode isn’t the half-hour segment that ran on MTV. Instead an episode is one of the short cartoons, usually ten to twelve minutes in length. Typically the half-hour show was made up of two episodes with music videos in between the three acts. Unfortunately those music videos aren’t here though, most likely because bands and studios don’t graciously give permission to people who mock them as badly as Judge did. So what you end up with is forty single plot stories, ten to twelve minutes long. When the episodes are displayed this way suddenly it becomes very apparent just how simplistic the plots are, and just how stupid the characters are. Despite that, after four or five episodes I found myself chuckling at all of the stupid jokes. These really are some of the best episodes and a good reminder that even stupid humor has a place in the universe. Since forty episodes only take up two discs, the third disc is full of bonus material. The centerpiece of the disc is a great featurette: Taint of Greatness: The Journey of Beavis and Butt-head, Part 1. The half-hour featurette explores the origins and history of the show and Judge’s inspirations for many of the reoccurring characters. It’s slightly odd to see Judge, who speaks in an extremely subdued manner, suddenly break into character voices during the featurette. It just doesn’t sound right, and it almost hurts my brain trying to comprehend the voice coming from Judge’s mouth. I felt the same way when I once saw Dan Castellaneta voice Homer Simpson on camera. It’s one of those odd side effects of cartoons - you get so used to the voice coming from the animated character it’s hard to reconcile the voice coming from anyone else. The other great thing about the featurette is how honest Judge is about his work. At one point he refers to not wanting to do a ------ episode every week because he didn’t want the magic to disappear - “if you can call it magic” Judge says with great candor. Judge realizes “Beavis and --head” isn’t exactly Emmy material, but at the same time it has bankrolled several other projects for the creator as well as quite a few years of his life, so he can’t quite renounce his creation. Also on the bonus disc are eleven videos done up “Beavis and Butt-head” style, which means some of them are shown in their entirety while others may only be a couple of seconds long (long enough for the two idiots to change the channel). Since the videos were my favorite part of the show it’s great to see a few brave souls who allowed their videos to be used. It’s really a bummer there weren’t more willing to take the humiliation in exchange for my personal entertainment. During the height of their popularity the boys made several appearances on other MTV programs which are also included here. You have to wonder how celebrities like Kurt Loder and David Letterman took to running skits with the animated duo, particularly Loder who co-hosted a Thanksgiving special with Beavis and -head during the height of his MTV News career. Of course neither Letterman or Loder reached Carson Daly status on the MTV scale, and you don’t see him on here interacting with animated creations, so maybe that says just who the popular ones in those skits were. The one thing that is noticeably missing from the set is any kind of commentary from Judge. Considering the set is put together based on what episodes he thinks are great or mediocre, it would be nice to get his impressions on why these episodes deserve a spot here. I know why I think “The Great Cornholio” is one of the best “Beavis and --head” episodes around, but why does Mike Judge? Minus that commentary though, this is a well assembled set for a television show, especially considering it’s not a “complete season” type set. Some people had to actually put some thought into these episodes. I just wish Judge had shared some of those thoughts with us. However, considering Beavis and --head’s previous DVD exposure has been extremely lacking, I’ll take this set happily even with its small flaws.

A great collection of some of the best episodes, however, I know that between all the volumes there are some episodes which are missing. It's still definitely still the closest you're going to get to owning them all on DVD.

B&B was an amazing show. It will not connect with you if you didn't watch it in the 1990s, but if you did this has some of the best episodes and also lots of music videos, which were the best part.

Really good bargain for the price. Loved watching years ago, love watching now. Great quality.

If you collect all three dvd sets, then some episodes are still missing. Some of them are really good ones that are missing too. Mike Judge needs to release all of the episodes in a future dvd or blu-ray set unedited with the music videos within the episodes. I think all Beavis and Butt-head fans would agree with that. Just do what we want. It's not that hard.