Misfit Robot Daydream: Beavis and Butt-Head Christmas (Part 1) - A Very Special Christmas With Beavis and Butt-Head

CREEPY CHRISTMAS

Beavis and Butt-Head had two Christmas specials. The first was "A Very Special Christmas With Beavis and Butt-Head" and it originally aired on December 17, 1993. It consisted entirely of Beavis and Butt-Head sitting on the couch, commenting on Christmas music videos.

The second was "Beavis and Butt-Head Do Christmas" which originally aired December 19, 1995. It featured two animated segments that parodied A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life, and several short bits with Butt-Head dressed as Santa Claus (and with Beavis as a reindeer) answering Christmas letters from the show's fans. These segments were interspersed with clips of Beavis and Butt-Head sitting on the couch watching Christmas videos that were taken from the first Christmas special.

The second special was officially released on VHS and DVD. The original special, which features video segments that did not make it into the second special, has not been officially released, although, with some Googling it can be found online on YouTube and other streaming video services.

Today I'm going to be writing about "A Very Special Christmas With Beavis and Butt-Head," and tomorrow I'll be featuring "Beavis and Butt-Head Do Christmas." Then, on Wednesday, I'll be reviewing the Beavis and Butt-Head vinyl toys from Funko! Hope to see you there.

A Very Special Christmas With Beavis and Butt-Head

A Very Special Christmas With Beavis and Butt-Head (1993) - TV review and screencaps:

Christmas is "the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ."

"TV rules!," says Beavis, and I agree. In 1993's "A Very Special Christmas With Beavis and Butt-Head," the titular duo spend the holiday engaged in their favorite past-time: sitting in front of the couch, commenting on the music videos they see on TV. Traditionally, MTV would air the music video segments in between the fully animated shorts, to pad the episodes out to a half hour. Some people saw these as "filler," and technically they were right, but I always liked these a little better than the actual cartoons. Despite how stupid Beavis and Butt-Head were, they always managed to make some really biting observations. The Christmas show seems a bit cheap, like someone at MTV decided they wanted a Beavis and Butt-Head Christmas special halfway through November, and Mike Judge had to throw something together on the fly... but it's still really funny.

The Skull of Santa

Question from Butt-Head: "How come Christmas music always sucks?"
Answer from Beavis: "Because it's, like, not very good."

This special managed to find a slew of just plain awful holiday offerings from the likes of Hall & Oates, Band Aid, Billy Squire, and the horror show duet between David Bowie and Bing Crosby. They even have several segments were they just look at a novelty yule log burning video. There are a few legitimately good ones as well, from the Ramones and Run DMC. Well, actually Run DMC were cool, but that video is pretty cheesy, so maybe just the Ramones.

It's a shame Bowie didn't show up for this in his full on Ziggy Stardust drag. I would have loved to see the look on Der Binger's face.

Mike Judge's stream of consciousness ramblings as Beavis and Butt-Head are hilarious and weird, but most of the music videos are kind of annoying, which kind of limits it's replayability. I enjoyed watching it when it originally aired, and it's a fun thing to pull out and watch again every now and then, but I wouldn't consider making it a family tradition to watch every Christmas.