If you had to have sex with either Beavis or Butt-head, who would you choose?

Probably Beavis, because he'd put up less of a fight. But if I was the passive partner, then it would have to be Butt-head. I figure Beavis is one of those guys who God didn't give much at all except for a big penis. One of those guys with a gigantic schlong. It would certainly hurt.

Did you have a hard time at school?

Yeah, there were plenty of people who bullied me. I went to a junior high that was very rough. It was multi-ethnic, 70 per cent Hispanic, and I was the perfect target for them to vent their hatred of the white man on, because i had buck teeth and I was skinny. I was one of those guys whose elbow is wider than his bicep. I used to get robbed every day. If you got caught in the wrong part of the hall, they'd say, "Give me some money, gringo." And if you said,"I don't have any," they'd shake you down with knives. So I always gave them something from my wallet.

Hardly the Alamo spirit...

I saw one kid get put in the hospital for two weeks, and another guy was blinded in one eye. If you're a goof-looking white guy, you're a younger version of the people their parents have to go and clean for. So it's payback time.

Would you like to lord it over those guys, now you're rich?

Yes definitely. Whether we admit it or not, a lot of the motivation to becoming successful is to think, "yeah, all those people who pushed me around, where are they now?" I don't call them up and gloat, but I do occasionally fantasise that they're checking me out on TV. It's pathetic really. But I figure, hey, why the hell not?

What happens in the Beavis and Butt-head film?

It starts when their TV gets stolen, which is like the end of their life, so they go looking for it. They stumble into a motel where they meet this guy who mistakes them for two hitmen he's hired to kill his wife. He asks, "Are you the guys Earl sent to do my wife?" Predictably, they misunderstand the meaning of the word "do" and say "Yeah, we're the guys, uhuhuhuhuh..." From there, the plot snowballs, and it's all a bit complicated to go into, but at one point the guy's wife says, "I'll give you $20,000 to do my husband instead." Butt-head says no, but Beavis says, "well hang on, that is a lot of money."

Very Merchant-Ivory. But were there any plot ideas you rejected as being too unbelievable?

I had one idea, based on a Mary Tyler Moore movie called What's So Bad About Feeling Good? in which there's a virus that makes everybody happy. I figured, "How would it be if there was a virus which made everybody behave like Butt-head?" It was kind of a science fiction idea...

When you were growing up, did you show any of the three classic signs of being a serial killer - namely bed wetting, fire-starting and cruelty to animals?

I didn't have a bed wetting problem. And I was like an animal lover in a big way. I was like an animal freak. I had books on mammals and knew all the facts about them, and I'd draw really nice pictures of moose. However, I did have a friend who was a pyromaniac, and from time to time I'd watch him at work and think, "Woah. That looks kind of cool." My parents had a concrete backyard, and he came over one day and poured stove fuel on this patio and lit it. The flames were huge and he just sat there with a spaced-out look on his face.

You say you liked animals, but didn't Beavis and Butt-head kill a cat in one episode?

Nope. They did paint a cat's butt, but they never killed one. That rumour started because when they were bored Butt-head suggested they try sticking a firecracker up a cat's butt to see what happened. But they never actually did it. The one really cruel thing they did was in the first episode, Frog Baseball - a self-explanatory storyline where the frog, alas, didn't pull through.

What is the worst insult?

I think "ass goblin" is probably the worst. And "dillweed" is a combination of two insults at my high school, dildo and dickweed. If they want to be really damning they stare at each other for a moment and wordlessly change the channel.

How many bands have they done that to?

Just two, so far. Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanilli.

Good choice. But do band members ever have a go at you for slagging them off on the show?

I once met a guy from a British band called Grim Reaper, and I was worried he'd kick my ass because Beavis and Butt-head had ripped into one of their videos. But he said he was a huge fan of the show, and that he'd have lost all respect for them if they had liked the clip, because it was, in fact, really bad.

Have you ever done Beavis and Butt-head in bed with a woman?

I've been married since it started, but I have met women fans who get excited by it. The only trouble is they usually ask me in loud bars, and I do the Butt-head voice softly, so they don't hear me too well when I go "huhuhuhuhuh". They go, "What? Do that again." It's not impressive.

Have you ever had threatening mail from Christian fundamentalists?

I got some death threats - mostly from animal rights people. I rarely get letters from Christian fundamentalists, because they think Beavis and Butt-head are real, and they were created by evil scientists at MTV to destroy our youth.

They think they're real people?

Yes, and they're not the only ones. We get letters asking for Beavis and Butt-head to make appearances at children's parties. I'm like, "What? Do you think a cartoon is going to come over and eat cake?"

What's it like getting hate mail?

The first one I got really did freak me out. I can laugh about it now, but it was scary at the time. This guy wrote me a poem all about how he was going to feed me to his pets... something like, "My pussy loves dick, my dog loves balls." And I still remember the last line. It went, "And for your mother I'll save a portion, when I'm done with you, she'll wish she had an abortion."

Neatly put...

And I also got weird hate mail from a skinhead guy who sends threats to a number of famous people. It was like a form letter, with little dots where he fills the name in. He sent me some Xeroxes of newspaper articles with my photo circled, and a note saying, "Why is it that every time there's hatred for the white race or immoral behaviour, the smell of Jews and Negroes is never far behind." He'd circled my name and written, "Is his real name Judgestein?"

Is your real name Judgestein?

No. I am a gentile.

A person in LA recently advertised a collection of celebrity fingernails he'd bought from a beautician. What part of a celebrity would you collect?

Ted Turner, who owns CNN - I'd like to collect his 'nads. He supposedly said that Beavis and Butt-head is the worst show on TV and he was going to get it taken off the air.

What cartoons influenced you?

There was a strip called Goofus and Gallant, which was like a moral story supposed to teach children good and bad behaviour. But, of course, all the kids liked the bad guy, Goofus. He was bad for the sake of it. There'd be these captions like, "Goofus throws leaves around the yard," or when his mother bought soup to an ill neighbour, he'd be like saying, "Why do you always bring food to sick people?" The illustrations were so square they didn't realise how funny it was.

Your cartoons are processed in Korea. Do they understand the humour?

When I went over there, I had the head of the film company asking me all these questions through his translator, who was a timid-looking woman. She'd be asking, "What do 'morning wood' and 'high noon on the sundial' mean?" I could hardly bear to tell her.

╘ fhm magazine 1997

reproduced without permission