Paramount+, the streaming arm of the ViacomCBS empire, announced on Tuesday that the dumbass duo will return to TV, tablet and mobile phone screens sometime later this year with a new film called Beavis and Butt-head Do the Universe.
This time, the boys are sentenced to Space Camp by a judge with a flair for creative sentences. During their stint, the pair will naturally develop an interest for the docking (see Urban Dictionary if you don't know why that's funny. Hint: it's also known as "soaking") simulator that somehow gets them a seat on a NASA Space Shuttle.
During their trek into space, they get sucked ("huh, huh") into a black hole ("huh, huh, huh") that transports them to our time explaining why they are still teenagers after almost 30 years since the premiere of their half-hour cartoon series. Last month, Judge shared some early pencil test sketches of the duo with a look that's more appropriate for their age (but not their sensibility, of course).
The Viacom cable channel Comedy Central first announced in 2020 that Beavis and Butt-Head would make their third return to television on the channel. The following year, Paramount+ announced Beavis and Butt-Head would be on its streaming channel with a teaser trailer released the following year featuring footage of the duo trying to adjust to our isolating age of analog technology ("'huh, huh,' he said 'log.'")Beavis and Butt-Head will be returning this year with a brand new movie and more on Paramount+. No exact date yet, but soon. They need some time to get back in shape. pic.twitter.com/tN5rePP9Kn
— Mike Judge (@MikeJudge) January 5, 2022
Judge created Beavis and Butt-Head while pursuing a career in independent animation during his time living in Garland. He originally had produced a short film called Frog Baseball, the first piece of footage to feature the famous friends. Judge also created another short featuring a mumbling character named Milton who became the basis for his cult 1999 workplace comedy movie Office Space with Stephen Root playing the timid, bespectacled office peon ("heh, 'pee on,'") who made orange Swingline staplers a sought-after office supply item.
That short found its way to Saturday Night Live in the mid-1990s and The Frog Baseball short caught the attention of MTV executives who did some test screenings of their core-age audience in 1992. The results showed great responses from the male members (uh heh, heh, he said "male members"), one of whom made the unprecedented request for a copy of the tape, according to the 2006 MTV documentary Taint of Greatness: The Journey of Beavis and Butt-Head.
Beavis and Butt-Head is one of two of Judge's cartoon creations making a comeback to the small screen. Last month, Judge and Greg Daniels announced they are working on a reboot of the FOX animated series King of the Hill about the life of the blue-collar Texan and proud propane salesman Hank Hill, his family and friends Dale, Bill and Boomhauer and the suburban Texas town of Arlen.
