In defense of Beavis & Butthead (and Mike Judge)

I'm halfway through Marc Maron's interview of Mike Judge on Maron's WTF podcast.

First, Judge tells Maron that his first car growing up in Albuquerque was a 1959 Datsun truck (with a crank starter). I found a video of such a truck on YouTube. Jump to 1:36 to see it.

But more importantly, Judge talked about Beavis & Butthead. My friend Eric and I watched these two nimrods all the time in high school. Of course, they were so funny because we could relate to them. In fact, to this day, Eric still calls me Beavis.

There was a lot of controversy when the show aired on MTV. The public blamed the show for a 5 year old child who set fire to his mobile home, killing his younger sister.

Judge gave the full account during the podcast. A single mother went on a date and left her two young kids at home. When the police was about to arrest the mother for negligence after her daughter's death, she blamed it all on Beavis & Butthead. In fact, the boy had never watched Beavis & Butthead; their trailer park did not have cable; and he had set another fire a year prior, before B&B's premier.

Another one of Judge's works came to mind last week. Idiocracy.

Why did that movie come to mind? Because this was on Speaker Boehner's official Congressional website. Gods help us.