Why are Beavis and Butt-Head so dumb anyway?
Posted by Superswiper@reddit | BeavisAndButthead | View on Reddit | 41 comments
I know it's a comedy show, and their stupidity is played for laughs.
But what is your theory in the lore why they are so stupid? I think sometime between the 8th and 9th grade, they received severe head damage. I bring up that timeline, since, well, how would they make it to the 9th grade otherwise?
Again, yes, it's a comedy show, but it's just a fun theory of mine?
marteautemps@reddit
I think there's a lot of reasons like the ones mentioned here and another one to add I think on one of the first episodes of Daria she mentions the water being poisoned or something back in Highland
TistaMuna@reddit
Under rated answer
Grape_Pedialyte@reddit
I was an 80s baby so I grew up in the 90s, and I definitely knew kids like them at school. It was usually some combination of absent parents/a bad home environment, crappy public schools that were strapped for resources and either couldn't deal with them or didn't want to, overburdened social services looking the other way, and so on.
Jvvipt3r@reddit
I think one of them has fetal alcohol syndrome but that’s all i know
SunGreen70@reddit
I just figured they advanced so far in school because the teachers didn’t want to deal with them for another year and passed them.
Corrupted_Mask@reddit
It happened to me once in college.
nvmls@reddit
I definitely remember some dumbasses from ninth grade.
SillyGayBoy@reddit
Yeah I knew a guy who cheated on peoples math homework all through school. Dorks like that exist.
Andre_The_Giant610@reddit
Maybe that question should be directed towards their creator Mike Judge. Maybe he had a weird childhood or events that he’s displaying thru Beavis & Butthead. Ya never know lol.
Greendayiscool45@reddit
Maybe their parents were dumbasses too
JermHole71@reddit
I think it’s just having absent parents. No one to push them so they’re not motivated in school and just follow their desires.
DBryguy@reddit
He said hole, huh huh.
He said jerm, heh heh.
JermHole71@reddit
“Hey Beavis. If you take like, uhhh, 5 from 71…you get 69 huh huh.”
hereforpopcornru@reddit
Yeah, now take a bow
superBrad1962@reddit
Both of their parents are related to each other… inbreeding
stevesax5@reddit
They are social commentary on Gen-X and a prequel to Idiocracy. They are dumb kids that fail upwards. Van Driessen coddles them and makes sure they pass.
CaptainObvious110@reddit
Awesome observation
stevesax5@reddit
I should add: nobody wants to deal with them so they pass them to get them out of their class. McDicker addresses this a few times. He wants them gone.
Individual-Good-2073@reddit
Which makes the Held Back episode hilarious, as long as you suspend disbelief. B & B get progressively demoted from their current grade/class down to kindergarten. Not one teacher in the grades they're sent back to recognizes or remembers them to make a comment such as "What are these two doing back here? Wasn't having them here once bad enough?"
pidiota@reddit
This sub should be called Ask Mike Judge or I Really Need to Interact with People, So I Made Some Nonsense Up
FFS
MissMoxie2004@reddit
Parental neglect
CantB2Big@reddit
Because they’re high on cheap weed and oven cleaner all the time.
Fitzftw7@reddit
Combination of bad genes (their dads don’t seem especially bright, either) and no positive influences in their lives.
Impossible-Economy-1@reddit
I think Beavis is a crack baby and Butthead has fetal alcohol syndrome. May be a reason the Mom's are never around, they aren't just sleeping around, they're in and out of jail.
BeavisTheBest@reddit
Beavis? A crack baby?
doctorwhy88@reddit
I’ve seen an analysis that fits that description exactly. Mike Judge wrote them to fit the syndromes.
Impossible-Economy-1@reddit
I just correlated them. Beavis has a big head that's mostly his forehead, his brain capacity is 0, he's thin and crazy.
Butthead is slow, but has more ability to think out of the two. He talks slower and has a more pronounced lip.
Basic my thought was Beavis seems more like he's on crack, Butthead seems more drunk.
hyporheic@reddit
Yes. I think they're too dumb to buy drugs or save up the money.
egg35w34@reddit
I figured it's because they live entirely by themselves, with no parents. They probably decide if they want to show up to school or not.
1nOnlyBigManLawrence@reddit
As shown in The Good Deed (2024), they have massive brain damage.
Fig. 1: Brain scans of B&B before they drank the DDT. Yes, BEFORE.
UnWiseDefenses@reddit
They were the MTV generation before they were the TikTok generation.
_insomagent@reddit
I always theorized they are constantly getting high but just can’t show that on TV.
CthulhuMadness@reddit
They showed it when they were sniffing glue and paint thinner
outlaw_777@reddit
They also showed it during B&B Do America with the mushrooms
CthulhuMadness@reddit
True. Though to be fair, that was an accidental high.
quidpropho@reddit
They're from a time when not everything needed canon. They are who they are because it's funny.
eg0deth@reddit
In an early episode that was removed from rotation, they huffed gas. Safe to say this probably wasn’t the only thing they did to kill brain cells. There’s also loads of head trauma throughout the series. And they hate learning. They’re pretty much illiterate.
silverfang789@reddit
Probably dropped on their heads as babies.
swifty8519@reddit
Dieing_Breed@reddit
All the paint thinner and gas stoves they huffed melted the brains
elevenohnoes@reddit
In one of the newer episodes they ended up in hospital I think after drinking DDT, one of the nurses mentioned it gave them brain damage and the other replied that it was an old x-ray from the previous time they were there. So yeah, head trauma is definitely a valid theory