Mike Judge considers showing Beavis' mom, old Cornholio

Creator and voice actor Mike Judge said he already has more ideas beyond Season 2 of his Beavis and Butt-Head revival, premiering Thursday on Paramount+. Judge is thinking about finally introducing at least one of the animated teenagers' parents.

"Not in this season, but possibly down the road, we might reveal Beavis' mom," Judge told UPI in a recent phone interview.

Last year's film Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe revealed that Beavis has a mother named Shirley Beavis. In the movie, the boys time-traveled from 1998 to 2022 and discovered Beavis' house, where they watched videos, is up for sale.

The government bought the house for Beavis and Butt-Head so they still hang out there in the series. Judge also speculated on where Butt-Head lived since he's always watching TV at Beavis' house.

"I think Butt-Head's got his single mom off in possibly a trailer park," Judge said.

The film also introduced a parallel universe in which Beavis and Butt-Head grow up to be middle-aged. Season 1 of the Paramount+ show included episodes in which old Beavis and Butt-Head serve on a jury and Beavis needs a kidney transplant.

Old Beavis and Butt-Head return in Season 2. Judge said he has yet to decide whether or not Beavis still turns into his sugar and caffeine addict alter ego, Cornholio.

"He doesn't yet but there's a chance of that in a future episode," Judge said.

Judge said old Beavis and Butt-Head's misadventures in Season 2 include getting vasectomies and getting legally married. Considering Beavis and Butt-Head are always desperate to score with "chicks," it seems uncharacteristic of them to opt to marry.

"You'll see in the episode they're trying to get their [drivers] licenses unsuspended and wind up married," Judge said. "Their neighbors start treating them better."

Judge created the characters in the 1992 short Frog Baseball, in which Beavis and Butt-Head commit animal cruelty on the amphibian. After MTV included the short on Liquid Television, the network gave them their own series, which aired from 1993 to 1997.

Now, Judge said, Beavis and Butt-Head's hostility is mostly directed at each other. Judge said he steps in when new writers attempt to make the characters too destructive.

"I'm very picky about what they say and do," Judge said. "There's always a tendency to make them meaner and grosser than I think they are. That's what I'm usually policing."

Judge also protects Beavis and Butt-Head's language, having used words like "bunghole" and "dillweed" since the '90s to avoid swearing on MTV.

Even though Beavis and Butt-Head is on a streaming service now, Judge does not want to let them use harsher, R-rated profanity.

"It just wouldn't seem like them," Judge said. "It's fun to just have them look for more juvenile, stupid-sounding words anyway."

Judge does welcome animators surprising him with physical comedy in the Beavis and Butt-Head sketches. Titmouse Inc. animates the new series. The company is also behind Big Mouth, Baby Shark's Big Show! and Star Trek: Lower Decks among others.

A Season 1 episode in which Beavis gets stuck in a pair of yoga pants reminded Judge of a quote from Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones. In an interview with Animation Art Conservation, Jones said of the Looney Tunes characters, "They're not realistic, they're believable."

Judge applies that philosophy to Beavis and Butt-Head too. In real life, Beavis could be extracted from the yoga pants, but it wouldn't be as funny as Butt-Head's attempts to rescue his friend.

"When the idea is that he's being shot across a mall floor covered in oil, that's not too realistic," Judge said. "To make it look like it could happen is the tricky part."

Judge voices Beavis, Butt-Head, their neighbor Mr. Anderson, their teacher Mr. Van Driesen and other characters. In episodes featuring young Beavis and Butt-Head, they still attend high school classes with Mr. Van Driessen.

Van Driesen has not appeared to age since 1998 even though young Beavis and Butt-head presumably traveled 24 years to remain in his class. Judge said he and animators experimented with an aging Van Driessen, but decided it didn't matter.

"We're not too worried about continuity," Judge said. "We did go through all that and settled on something that wasn't all that different."

Some of Beavis and Butt-Head's '90s teachers like Mr. Buzzcut and Principal McVicker have disappeared from the revival series. Judge said he didn't like performing Buzzcutt's yelling voice or the anxious McVicker's, but hasn't ruled them out forever.

"We might bring them back," Judge said. "Buzzcut might still be around. I think we had him in the movie and we cut that scene."

McVicker may not have survived Beavis and Butt-Head in the '90s. He was already shaking over all the trouble Beavis and Butt-Head caused him.

"If you were really going with continuity, he would be dead by now," Judge said. "I saw him as this alcoholic who was about to go anyway."

In the '90s, Beavis and Butt-Head's commentary on music videos helped determine which artists were cool and which ones sucked. A 2011 revival added reality TV to their queue.

Now, Beavis and Butt-Head also watch YouTube and Tik Tok videos. Judge said he looks for videos that can spark a more random conversation, for which Judge improvises both parts.

"Pretty early on in the '90s I realized I was getting tired of them being critics and talking about the video," Judge said. "Why don't I just have them talk to each other about anything?"

Judge also co-created the Fox animated series King of the Hill and live-action comedy Silicon Valley. He wrote and directed the films Office Space, Idiocracy and Extract, but is returning to Hill for a Hulu revival series too.

"The '90s all over again, that's what my life is right now," Judge said.

New episodes of Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.