Fans of older TV shows—and especially older TV shows that used to run on MTV, which was famously liberal with its once-extensive audio library—know that few things can screw up the re-release of a beloved classic like music licensing issues. The issues surrounding sketch comedy series The State are legendary, of course, but anyone who’s noticed an iconic track absent from their streaming re-watch of an old favorite can infer what a headache it is to update a short-lived broadcast licensing deal when it needs to expand out to being viewed in perpetuity.
That gets even thornier when the music (or music video) is part of the whole point of the show, as it was with Mike Judge’s Beavis And Butt-Head, which broke up the title duo’s idiot adventures by having them perform Mystery Science Theater 3000 duties on MTV’s extensive roster of videos.
Happily, it sounds like those segments—so vital to the tone and “hanging out with your idiot genius friends” feeling of Beavis And Butt-Head back in the day—have apparently been preserved as part of the show’s remastering on Paramount+. (Itself part of a larger effort to leverage the show’s brand for the streaming service’s benefit, including a new Judge-directed movie, .) , the remastered versions of the more than 200 episodes of Beavis And Butt-Head that are on their way to the streaming service will arrive with all their music videos (and the attendant riffing) intact.
The old episodes are reportedly set to arrive on the service the same day as Do The Universe, June 23. And thus was a whole new generation exposed to the moron wisdom of Beavis and Butt-Head, the kind of earnest truth tellers who will never let you forget (courtesy of their coverage of R.E.M.’s “Shiny Happy People”) that you can’t say “happiness” without saying “penis” as well. Imagine losing such revelations to the cruel sands of time!