Beavis and Butthead: The Mike Judge Collection DVD

In Stores November 8

I am so happy to finally have a proper DVD of Beavis and Butthead. I’ve come to accept that we’ll never get a season by season release with all the episodes featuring the music video interludes because those bands demand too much money for DVD royalties. But this stellar collection of episodes and extras is the best we can hope for.

Not all of my favorite episodes are included. “A Pregnant Pause” is missing, though I don’t know how popular that one was. They do have many classics like the seminal “No Laughing” and “The Great Cornholio,” and obscure favorites like “Dream On” and “The Final Judgement of Beavis.” Oddly, “Citizen Butthead” is missing but they have the promo for it in the extras.

As far as “director’s cut” episodes go, I could not tell any difference. I know these episodes backwards and forwards, even after they’ve been off for seven years. I guess the old episodes are presented with the fire references, but anything that came after the fire ban doesn’t seem any edgier to me.

The 11 music videos they did manage to include as standalone extras include some classic Beavis and Butthead banter. Beavis imitating Pantera’s stepfather to Butthead imitating Beavis to debating what Wolverine looks like in England, these are the inane sort of non sequiturs that made the video segments great. I just wish there were more.

The “Taint of Greatness” documentary is fantastic. They actually show focus group footage from the original test groups. They cover most of the central characters and even explain where Cornholio came from. The hate mail from sixth graders is the ultimate evidence that this show did not cause any social harm. It was already there.

They do have the Thanksgiving special from when the movie was coming out, only without the cool music video segments. Still, their skits with Kurt Loder are just hilarious. There are three VMA appearances too, but not their first one (which was stupid but still historical), and not their Late Show appearance promoting the movie. Guess they’re saving that for the Do America special edition.