Beavis

MTV

Beavis first appeared in an animated short called Frog Baseball, presented at a 1992 international animation festival. Later that year, MTV bought the short and hired Mike Judge (the creator) for an ongoing series with the characters Beavis and Butt-Head.

Judge later said that he named Beavis after a neighbor named Bobby Beavis, who, he was quick to say, was nothing like his character, a caricature of a delinquent, grunge-loving teen.

Beavis and Butt-Head ran on MTV from 1993 to 1997, rebooted for one season in 2011. The show featured the title characters idly causing trouble and criticizing popular music videos of the day. Over the course of the series, Beavis became known for his dim wit, crass sense of humor, underbite, large forehead, unusual laugh, raspy and nasal voice, and fascination with fire.

In early episodes, Beavis would chant “Fire! Fire!” while playing with fire. In 1993, the show was blamed for inspiring a fire set by a five-year-old. In response, references to Beavis‘s pyromania were dropped from later episodes, but the creators later alluded to the incident in a scene where Beavis, working in a fast-food burger joint, punningly cheers, “Fryer! Fryer!”

Another recurring gag is Beavis‘s alter ego, Cornholio. When Beavis consumes too much sugar or caffeine, he pulls his shirt over his head, acts erratically, and calls himself “the Great Cornholio.” In this state, he often mutters nonsense and repeatedly demands “TP [toilet paper] for my bunghole” or “bungholio.”