Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is an adult animated comedy road film based on the MTV animated television series Beavis and Butt-Head. The film was co-written and directed by series creator Mike Judge, who reprises his roles from the series; Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, Robert Stack, and Cloris Leachman star in supporting roles. The film follows Beavis and Butt-Head, two teen delinquents who travel the US and unknowingly become fugitives.
Previous offers by MTV to adapt Beavis and Butt-Head to film were rejected by Judge, before he eventually agreed to the film in 1994. As production began, the series’ staff halted production while Judge wrote the screenplay with Joe Stillman. John Frizzell composed the film’s score.
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America premiered at Mann’s Chinese Theater on December 15, 1996, and was released in the United States on December 20, 1996 by Paramount Pictures. The film later aired on MTV in 1999. It also aired on VH1 in 2003. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing $63.1 million in the United States and becoming the largest December box office opening of all time until it was surpassed the following year by Scream 2. A sequel, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, was released in 2022.
The Beavis And Butt-Head Do America Original Motion Picture Soundtrack doesn’t contain “Mucha Muchacha“, the version of “Lesbian Seagull” with Mr. Van Driessen singing, and the score tracks performed by The London Metropolitan Orchestra, which were released on a separate album.
“Two Cool Guys“, written and performed by soul/funk musician Isaac Hayes, is a semi-parody of Hayes’ Academy Award-winning “Theme from Shaft”. It incorporates the theme from the Beavis and Butt-head television series as a rhythm guitar line, and series creator Mike Judge, who wrote the theme, is given a co-writing credit with Hayes in the soundtrack liner notes. The opening credit sequence which the song features is a take-off on popular 1970s cop movies and TV shows with Beavis and Butt-Head as hip ace sleuth Lothario detectives.
The version of Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Walk on Water” is not the same version included in the film. The film used an earlier demo version, while the soundtrack itself contains a later, revised version. The original demo, which appears in the film, can be found on Osbourne‘s Prince of Darkness box set. Ozzy and co-writer Jim Vallance both prefer the demo version heard in the film. “Walk on Water” was released as a single and peaked at number 28 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
The use of AC/DC‘s “Gone Shootin‘” is particularly fitting for the series, as Judge himself would eventually admit the guitar solo that serves as the show’s theme was in fact the solo from the AC/DC song played backwards. The soundtrack was re-released in 2016 on a special edition LP picture disc.
Tracklist:
- Two Cool Guys (Theme from Beavis and Butt-Head Do America) (Isaac Hayes)
- Love Rollercoaster (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
- Ain’t Nobody (LL Cool J)
- Ratfinks, Suicide Tanks and Cannibal Girls (White Zombie)
- I Wanna Riot (Rancid with Stubborn All-Stars)
- Walk on Water (Ozzy Osbourne)
- Snakes (No Doubt)
- Pimp’n Ain’t EZ (Madd Head)
- The Lord is a Monkey (Rock Version) (Butthole Surfers)
- White Trash (Southern Culture on the Skids)
- Gone Shootin’ (AC/DC)
- Lesbian Seagull (Engelbert Humperdinck)
