The simplest evaluate of this week’s new Beavis & Butt-Head TV sequence revival may in all probability be written as:

Huh-huh-huh, heh-heh-heh, huh-huh-huh. He mentioned “best.”

In the event you nonetheless fondly recall the ’90s pastiche of the world’s two stupidest teenagers’ laughing, moronic hijinks, with “TV” interruptions between scenes, Beavis & Butt-Head‘s latest episodes, debuting Thursday, August 4, solely on Paramount+, will do it for you. But crucially, the sequence has been taken over by a brand new technology of writers and administrators who grew up on creator Mike Choose’s unique model.

This implies a couple of issues for the sequence, and a few of these aren’t related to Ars Technica (although I will summarize my normal thumbs-up opinion later). However one factor stands out as an fascinating generational marker: a change to the sequence’ previous TV-watching scenes and the way their execution displays a brand new period of app-fueled media consumption.

A primer: The unique sequence, the 2011 reboot

For anybody who missed Beavis & Butt-Head within the ’90s, the MTV sequence wasn’t only a large pop-culture sensation but in addition a cleverly low-cost operation. Crude animation stored prices down whereas additionally pairing nicely with the sequence’ grungy ’90s tone. Plus, as an alternative of animating full 22-minute episodes, every episode solely had roughly 10-12 minutes of conventional animation.

The remainder was crammed up by the titular characters (heh, heh, heh) watching music movies whereas Choose rattled off jokes of their voices. MTV had the rights to rebroadcast these movies on the time, and in a manner, Beavis & Butt-Head turned one other MTV broadcasting block of movies when it dominated the pop-culture world. (Within the years since, these licensing rights are far messier. Final month, Paramount+ introduced again a tiny share of unique Beavis & Butt-Head video-watching sequences, with most edited out and trapped on followers’ traditional VHS tapes.)

You could have missed the primary Beavis & Butt-Head revival, which lasted just one season in 2011 and up to date the sequence’ TV sequences to incorporate snippets of unique MTV programming, notably Jersey Shore. This was when MTV primarily acknowledged that the “M” in its identify had been all however worn out by actuality reveals, relationship contests, and blacklight nightmares. Whereas this revival briefly referenced a then-burgeoning YouTube, the 2011 model wasn’t able to think about a universe during which both Beavis or Butt-Head knew work a desktop pc or a TiVo.

Laughing at Beavis’s new ASMR kink

This week, the animated sequence’ second revival emerges two months after a feature-length Paramount+ movie, Beavis & Butt-Head Do The Universe (itself an “Ars” movie due to its send-ups of American house journey and multiverse sci-fi ideas). As soon as once more, we’re again to the previous TV sequence shtick of totally animated episodes interrupted by video-watching joke fests.

These scenes are clearly curated by and for individuals who watch movies on the Web. Forward of this week’s premiere, Paramount made the revival’s first two episodes out there to members of the press (heh, heh, heh, “members”), and for the TV-watching bits, it positive looks as if somebody linked an Web video-streaming field to the duo’s historic rabbit-ear tv. (Their Winger-loving neighbor Nelson, perhaps?)

One spotlight sees the duo watch a minutes-long ASMR demonstration, one of many YouTube period’s largest genres, and it performs out in an unsurprisingly amusing style. Butt-Head lowers his voice to match the YouTube video’s quantity, and Beavis is cowed into whispering in type. Jokes in regards to the host’s noise-making arsenal emerge. Then Beavis begins to lose his cool: The mixture of a cute lady as host and strange whispering get him riled up. Butt-Head presents a familiar-sounding, “Shut up or I will kick your ass” in response. It concludes with Beavis’s aroused persistence making Butt-Head mad sufficient to slap Beavis, however even his slap is ASMR-appropriate: a delicate look of his hand on Beavis’s face.

The boys additionally watch some TikTok movies, which embody a highschool scholar opening up a university acceptance letter and an ex-con instructing viewers make jail tattoos. All three Web response movies are much more scripted than the stream-of-unconsciousness stupidity that the duo usually utilized to older music movies (heh-heh-heh, “stream”), and that is nearly definitely by design. Within the practically 30 years for the reason that animated sequence’ debut, the reaction-video style they invented has develop into its personal business, so its progenitors have chosen to adapt with a extra polished and hilarious tackle the idea—notably with Beavis and Butt-Head each hilariously impersonating the ex-con’s accent. (A part of me needs the characters had been energetic when response movies to viral NSFW movies had been en vogue. Maybe this season, we’ll get “Two Women, One Beavis”? A sequence fan can dream.)