Beavis & Butt-Head – The Mike Judge Collection: Volume Two
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: B- Episodes: B
In the second of a trilogy that collects Mike Judge’s
highlights from his phenomenal hit Beavis & Butt-Head – The Mike
Judge Collection: Volume Two, some shows simply excel beyond belief in what
they were says and showing. For all the
reactionary critics trying (hoping?) to write off the show as stupid and
pointless as was said. Words like
“degenerate” were not far away either.
The animation improved slightly, while Mike Judge and his
crew reached new highs in what they were saying and showing about the downside
of society and that the stars of the show at their worst were not the real
source of societies ills as much as the ills that madder them possible. That is not to be apologetic or make excuses
for them, but that their state of being is not 100% their responsibility in
their case. Since I said much of what I
wanted to say about the show in my review of the first volume, I will not repeat
myself. This time, I will instead list
the episodes while still skipping the summaries, listing the 40 cartoons
hand-picked by Judge for this set. The
bolded titles are classics:
Disc 1: Plastic Surgin', Stewart Moves Away, Top O' The
Mountain, Bad Dog, Lightning Strikes, Party, What's The Deal, Wet Behind The
Rears, Animation Sucks, Candy Sale, Here Comes The Bride's Butt,
Pregnant Pause, Oil Change, History Of Women, Beavis Can You Spare A Dime?,
Premature Evacuation, Bang The Drum Slowly Dumbass, Close Encounters,
Vidiots, Tired
Disc 2: Whiplash, Spare Me, Womyn, Murder
Site, Another Friday Night, Patsies, Spanish Fly, Sexual
Harassment, Green Thumbs, Bus Trip, Blood Pressure, Feel A
Cop, US History, Date Watchers, Gang Of Two, Stewart Is Missing, Prank Call,
Babysitting, Buttniks, Bungholio: Lord Of The Harvest (A Halloween
Special)
The 1.33 X 1 image has once again been updated as much as
possible, but the shows were produced hand drawn, with analog video
compositing. The result is some fringing
in the fine details, but lets face it, the series purposely had crude animation
as its style, which actually upped the humor.
With that said, they look good and those with 1.78 X 1/16 X 9 video
playback can zoom in and will be surprised how well they reformat. The image quality is a bit better this
time. Widescreen is still not the way
they were intended to be seen, but it is an alternative that works. Only their Beavis & Butt-Head Do
America (1996) feature film is truly intended to be widescreen. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is also solid,
though it has no real surround information.
It sounds really good for Dolby 2.0 at this kilobits-per-second rate,
though. The combination is superior to
the previous DVDs and all other previous incarnations of the show, including
broadcast.
Extras this time all on DVD 3 and include more Music
Videos with commentary by Beavis & Butt-Head, 13 in this set, or two more
than the last. We also get another
“interactive” weblink to Judge’s and Don Hertzfeldt’s The Animation Show,
three promos for the show, two more amusing montages, previews for two other
Paramount DVDs, the previous and next sets in this series, next featurette of a
series to be concluded in the next and last boxed set: Taint Of Greatness
– The Journey Of Beavis & Butt-Head, Part 2 and special appearances
that shows their peak of pop culture popularity as follows: Butt-Bowl '94, '95,
'96; MTV's 20th Anniversary Special, Calvin Klein ad parodies including of what
turned out to be a very controversial campaign, Moron-A-Thon clips featuring
Snoop Dogg and Unaired I Love the '90s segment.
The 13 music videos inter-cut with classic Beavis and
Butt-head commentaries are: Beastie Boys, "Sabotage"; Seaweed,
"Kid Candy"; Pantera, "I'm Broken"; Mercyful
Fate, "The Bellwitch"; Compulsion, "Delivery";
Madonna, "Secret" (remix version); Six Finger Satellite,
"Parlour Games"; Pizzicato 5, "Twiggy, Twiggy";
Rush, "Stick It Out"; Radiohead, "Fake Plastic Trees";
Extreme, "Hole Hearted"; Helium, "Pat's Trick"
and MC 900 FT. JESUS, "If I Only Had A Brain". All that makes this set as strong and maybe
a bit stronger than the last. It is
still funny years later, with some of the material appreciating quite well. Beavis & Butt-Head – The Mike
Judge Collection: Volume Two could not have arrived at a better time.
- Nicholas Sheffo
