ERIC FOLTIN

Who is your favorite cartoon character?

Easy.

Beavis and Butt-Head.

I’m Gen X. We didn’t have a million streaming services, seventeen thousand cartoon options, and an algorithm carefully calculating what kind of animated nonsense would keep us staring at a screen for six hours.

We had two idiots sitting on a couch, watching music videos and laughing like their brains had been unplugged.

And somehow, that was enough.

Beavis and Butt-Head were stupid. Completely stupid. Gloriously stupid. They had questionable hair, questionable intelligence, questionable hygiene, and absolutely no useful life skills.

Basically, two teenagers were handed a television and somehow civilization survived.

That’s what made it funny.

There was no inspirational lesson at the end. Nobody learned about friendship. Nobody discovered their inner potential. Nobody sat around talking about feelings while a soft piano played in the background.

They were idiots.

They stayed idiots.

And we loved them for it.

They were also a perfect product of the 90s. MTV, loud music, bad decisions, cheap animation, and the general feeling that nobody really knew what the hell they were doing. It was a simpler time. Not necessarily a better time. Just a time when two morons could sit on a couch and become cultural icons.

Today, apparently, cartoons need character development, emotional arcs, educational value, and a detailed explanation of everyone’s personal trauma.

Give me two idiots yelling “Fire!” and laughing for five minutes.

That’s entertainment.

So if somebody asks me who my favorite cartoon characters are, I don’t need to think about it.

Beavis and Butt-Head.

Because sometimes the greatest achievement of a generation is realizing that you don’t have to take everything seriously.

Heh.

Heh heh.

Heh heh heh.