Date: 10/14/93

NEW YORK (AP) - Consider this news brief from August 1982: "A 12-year-old boy was electrocuted Tuesday when the television set he was watching while taking a bath fell into the tub."

Can anyone say who is to blame for this mishap? Baths? Electricity? The show the boy was watching?

This question arises as the collective wrath swoops down on its latest cultural scapegoats. They are, of course, Beavis and Butt-head, two doltish teenagers who exist at 7 and 11 p.m. EDT weeknights on the MTV cable network.

Last week, as the cartoon 14-year-olds shared Newsweek's cover with David Letterman ("Stupid TV Tricks - the Billion-Dollar Battle to Insult Your Intelligence"), an Ohio mother of a 5-year-old who started a fire that killed his younger sister accused the show of turning her son into a firebug.

MTV expressed regret and pledged that "we will of course be re-examining issues regarding `Beavis and Butt-head.'"

Maybe it's a good time for everyone to re-examine the issues, whatever they are.

And what's wrong with "Beavis and Butt-head" anyway?

The last word in male bonding and crude in almost every way possible, the cartoons troll the life of Beavis (the yellow-haired one with the wicked jaw) and Butt-head (the brown-haired one with the prominent gumline).

They spend much of the half-hour planted on a shabby couch, channel-surfing music videos to the backbeat of their own off-color commentary.

When they can tear themselves away they torment animals, terrorize teachers and, yes, delight in burning up things.

All this is punctuated by their shared hacking laugh, irresistible to millions of adolescent mimics: "...Huh-huh, huh-huh. Heh-heh, heh-heh. Huh-huh, huh-huh. Heh-heh, heh-heh..."

Not likely candidates for a MacArthur grant, perhaps. But don't overlook their virtues.

They know what they like. And you like some of it, too.

You might not think gasoline is cool, a man spinning on a stool is cool, bears defecating in the woods is cool. But isn't money cool? Seattle cool? As Beavis noted on Monday's episode, life is cool. N'est-ce pas?

"...Huh-huh, huh-huh. Heh-heh, heh-heh. Huh-huh, huh-huh. Heh-heh, heh-heh..."

They aren't alone in their immunity to nuance. Employing only slightly more sophisticated terms, Siskel and Ebert have made a fortune dividing their landscape into things that get thumbs up and things that get thumbs down.

Beavis and Butt-head serve as the MTV viewer's reality check: Compared to the typical rock video, they're models of propriety and smarts.

Not to mention connoisseurs.

They might go easy on Cycle Sluts from Hell, pounding out "I Wish You Were A Beer." ("Sluts are cool," offers Beavis.)

But they come crashing down on Alien Sex Fiend's "Now I'm Feeling Zombified."

"It looks pretty good," Butt-head allows, "but, like, the sound SUCKS!"

Who can argue?

If the show rings true, good reason. Beavis and Butt-head represent the dark side of growing up, where demons like anger, aimlessness and feeling left out flourish. It's a pretty scary place that every youngster has to reckon with.

Come to think of it, every adult too. Isn't there a little Butt-head in all of us?