Beavis and Butt-Head is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge for MTV. The series follows Beavis and Butt-Head, both voiced by Judge, a pair of teenage slackers characterized by their apathy, lack of intelligence, lowbrow humor and love for hard rock and heavy metal. The original series juxtaposes slice-of-life short subjects—in which the teens embark on low-minded misadventures in their fictional town of Highland, Texas—with the pair watching and commenting on music videos.

Judge developed the pair when making his own animated shorts. Two of these films, including Frog Baseball, were broadcast by MTV's animation showcase Liquid Television. The network commissioned a full series, which over its seven seasons became its most popular program. The original series ended in 1997, but has been twice rebooted, first in 2011 for MTV, and again in 2022 for Paramount+. Starting in 2025, the second reboot was moved to Comedy Central, which renewed the series for a twelfth season.

During its initial run, Beavis and Butt-Head received acclaim for its satirical commentary on society, as well as criticism for its alleged influence on adolescents. The characters became pop culture icons among Generation X viewers, with their sniggering and dialogue becoming catchphrases. The series was adapted into a theatrical film, the commercially successful Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), as well as a sequel, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (2022). The franchise also spawned other media adaptations and tie-in products, including comic book series, video games, books, and albums.

Beavis and Butt-Head are unintelligent teenage boys who live in the fictional town of Highland, Texas. Rolling Stone described them as "thunderously stupid and excruciatingly ugly". They spend time watching television, drinking unhealthy beverages, eating, and embarking on "mundane, sordid" adventures, which often involve vandalism, abuse, violence, or animal cruelty. According to The Baltimore Sun, Beavis and Butt-Head are "at their most incorrect when it comes to sexuality and matters of gender. The nicest thing you can say about them in this regard is that they are budding misogynists." When Beavis consumes high amounts of caffeine or sugar, he becomes Cornholio, a hyperactive alter ego. Over the course of the series, they developed more distinct personalities. Beavis was more hyperactive and even less intelligent than his best friend, Butt-Head, who was often more relaxed and tended to be (comparatively speaking) the smarter half of the duo.

Most episodes integrate sequences where Beavis and Butt-Head watch music videos and offer commentary. They prefer videos with "explosions, loud guitars, screaming and death", and favor rock bands such as the Butthole Surfers, Corrosion of Conformity, and Metallica. The music video sections allow the characters to provide diegetic commentary on the contents of the video; Judge himself noted that these sections allow the characters to say "things that are a little smarter than they ought to be". These segments have no script, with Judge improvising the dialog on the spot; editors would then cut together the animation mostly from existing footage. Starting from the 2011 revival, the music video sections also featured excerpts from reality television shows, and from 2022 onwards, viral videos.

Judge said he saw Beavis and Butt-Head as "pretty positive characters, generally speaking ... They usually think everything's pretty cool. Or, in one way or another, everything sucks." He said his perception of the characters changed over the years: "When I first started out with the first show, which was Frog Baseball, they were just two guys that I would definitely want to keep my distance from ... But, by the end of the series, I would think that two guys like that would at least be fun to sit and watch TV with." Judge composed the series' theme song, which is descended from AC/DC's "Gone Shootin'". He later claimed that the central guitar riff of the theme is that song played backwards. The original theme was played by Judge using a drum machine; for the 2022 revival, the theme was recreated by Gary Clark Jr..

Beavis and Butt-Head was created by the American animator Mike Judge. He graduated with a degree in physics but struggled to connect with his work in computer science. In the late 1980s, he began making short animated films on his own; he taught himself how to draw and animate and would shoot his projects with a cheap Bolex 16mm film camera. He made several shorts, including Frog Baseball, which marked the first appearances of the characters. Judge cold-called networks to pitch this concept, and would send out VHS tapes with prints of his films. The voice of Beavis was based on a kid in his high school calculus class, who would always snicker in a distinct way at their attractive female teacher.

The art style of what became Beavis and Butt-Head was intentionally disruptive; Judge wanted it to look like "it was drawn by an insane person." The comic strip Peanuts was an unlikely influence: Judge stated that Schulz's line work and sketchy sensibility worked its way into his as well. He was also inspired by the work of John Kricfalusi, and fellow Texas animator Wes Archer and his film Jack Mack and Rad Boy Go! Aesthetically, Judge likened the program's best episodes to comfort food: "I think there’s something kind of relaxing about it," he noted. He claimed the wacky comedy of The Beverly Hillbillies was an influence on the show. Other elements of the setting are left up to the viewer's imagination: there is little said of the characters' backstories, or their parents, and it's unclear whose house the characters are couch-surfing. This aspect of the show was also inspired by Peanuts, where the characters also seem to inhabit a liminal world without parents.