OC HIGH / STUDENT NEWS & VIEWS : BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD : Brash, Blue--and Big : Humor is ‘comic relief’ to some, but others are alarmed by the crude glue-sniffing duo. Orange County students examine the impact of the MTV show and offer their viewpoints.

Since its debut on cable channel MTV last September, “Beavis and Butt-head,” a half-hour cartoon series featuring two pubescent males who sit on the couch and tell the “real truth” about what “sucks and doesn’t suck,” has become a phenomenon and stirred up more controversy than Madonna.

Beavis and Butt-head are insipid: “Words suck.” They are ugly: “If my dog was as ugly as me, I’d shave his butt and teach him to walk backward.” They are crude: “Pull my finger.” Destructive: “I like to burn things.” Politically incorrect: “You could go to Bible camp and hug chicks when they find Jesus.” They are infamous for their monotonous and incessant laughter (“huh-huh-uh-huh”), and they are gracing the covers of magazines such as Rolling Stone and selling more posters than “Jurassic Park.”

According to an MTV demographic study, “Beavis and Butt-head,” which airs weeknights at 10:30 and 11, draws a larger-than-average audience (a rating of 2.4 compared with a typical viewer rating of 0.6).

What makes these two characters so appealing to today’s youth?

MTV creative director Judy McGrath said, in a Rolling Stone interview, “After the last (Presidential) election . . . I think we were sick to death of being politically correct. ‘Beavis and Butt-head’ came along at just the right time for comic relief.”

This so-called comic relief is definitely not what most members of the Howdy Doody or Brady Bunch generations would term conventional humor. Most episodes revolve around Beavis’ and Butt-head’s comments on different music videos--”Drums, guitars and death. They finally do it right”--sexual innuendoes and degrading women--”sluts are cool.”

When not watching television, Beavis and Butt-head enjoy traumatizing their elderly neighbor, Mr. Anderson, and mutilating small animals. In one episode, Beavis and Butt-head take Mr. Anderson’s poodle to the local Laundromat and stick it in the washing machine and dryer (“Set it on delicate”). As they watch the dog spin in the washing machine, Beavis and Butt-head chant “washing the dog, washing the dog” to the tune of an AC/DC song (one of the several bands Beavis and Butt-head idolize).

In the first cartoon of the series, Beavis and Butt-head blow up a locust with a firecracker (“light on in his butt”) and then play baseball with a frog. In other episodes, they kill grasshoppers with a chain saw and set fire to assorted insects.

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Surprisingly, these two attend high school. However, teaching Beavis and Butt-head is an impossible task because they break into uncontrollable laughter whenever someone mentions fellow student Daniel Buttkiss’ name or they hear the words penis or masturbation. Says Beavis and Butt-head’s Spanish teacher: “The only Spanish Senor Butt-head knows is what he picked up at Taco Bell. And Beavis can’t even get that right.”

Despite their apparent indolence, Beavis and Butt-head hold part-time jobs at Burger World. Butt-head, the more intelligent and worldly of the two, controls the cash register--”Uh, I guess that’ll be free”--and speaks to the drive-through customers--”Uh, we’re closed or something.” Beavis is in charge of the deep fryer and enjoys rummaging through the trash bins to find dead rats to fry.

These two miscreants--who thrive on torturing animals, discussing their flatulence, disregarding authority figures and inhaling stove gas and glue--have been called a reflection of the moral decay of the next generation. “When people complain (about the show), I would just remind them that no one is going to laugh at a goody-goody,” the mother of show creator Mike Judge told Rolling Stone.

“And I would tell people that if they don’t like the characters, they should look at the videos Beavis and Butt-head comment on. Some of them are in much poorer taste.”

Just the same, MTV commercials promoting “Beavis and Butt-head” have called the program “the stupidest, vulgarest, most pointless show on television.”

Arguments against Beavis and Butt-head range from their perpetuating the “women-are-merely-sex-objects” stereotype and cruelty to animals, to allegations concerning the dangers of sniffing paint thinner and playing with fire.

MTV airs a disclaimer before the cartoon and during some “sniffing scenes.” One such warning cautions viewers: “If you’re not a cartoon, stove gas will kill you.” The other: “Don’t inhale glue if you don’t want to be like Beavis and Butt-head.”

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Despite these warnings, several recent incidents have raised concern about the show’s influence on its viewers. A mother in Ohio claims that the show motivated her 5-year-old son to set fire to their trailer home, causing the death of the boy’s 2-year-old sister. In another Ohio town, a fire chief cited “Beavis and Butt-head” as the reason three young girls started a fire.

Creator Judge says his show is not the catalyst for these incidents. “Kids don’t do things because they’re getting mixed messages from TV,” Judge told People magazine. The kids “are testing” boundaries, he said.

Until recently, an edition of the show aired in the early evening when it was more likely to be seen by very young viewers. Responding to criticism of its potential impact on that group, MTV moved its 7 p.m. edition of “Beavis and Butt-head” to the 10:30 p.m. time slot, and said a new “K- (kid-) rated edition” will be created for an earlier slot. The network has also banned all references to fire in the series.

Perhaps the controversy will bring an end to “Beavis and Butt-head.” Or perhaps these degenerate and crass characters could become as mainstream and accepted as Mom’s apple pie.