15 unexpected Christmas specials you have to see to believe

A Beavis and Butt-Head Christmas

Ah yes, who better to ring in the festive holiday season than the (un)godly duo, Beavis and Butt-Head. Even their names just sound holy! The show, which focused on the two burnout teenage boys who love heavy metal music, first aired in December 1995.

In this Christmas special, the dynamic duo parody two classic Christmas stories: A Christmas Carol (“Huh Huh Humbug”) and It’s A Wonderful Life (cleverly titled, “It’s a Miserable Life”). In the first segment, Beavis plays the Scrooge-like manager of Burger World. Like in the original, he’s visited by three ghosts, but this time they’re people from the show. The Ghost of Christmas Past is Tom Anderson (an old man in their neighborhood), The Ghost of Christmas Present is Mr. Van Driessen (the hippie teacher at their school), and Coach Buzzcut is The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Instead of visiting him while he’s asleep, they visit him while he’s trying to watch porn. Butt-Head plays the role of Jacob Marley, who, in the original story, was Scrooge’s business partner who comes back to haunt him. Principal McVicker takes the spot of Bob Cratchit, Scrooge’s underpaid employee, but instead works at Burger World under the terrible Beavis.

For the second segment, “It’s a Miserable Life”, Butt-Head takes on the George Bailey role, who wants to end it all because the world would be better off without him. He’s visited by his guardian angel Charlie (a play on Clarence), who shows him that everyone in their town would actually have a better life if he was never born, including his bestie Beavis. So, uh, it’s not quite the same as the original movie.

The holiday special also featured two other segments where Butt-Head, or rather, Santa Butt-Head, read real letters mailed to them by fans. Beavis played a reindeer, who Santa Butt-head continuously abused. Some letters were meant for Beavis, which is usually when Butt-head would beat him around a bit.

Even though it wasn’t your typical Christmas special, it was perfect for Beavis and Butt-Head. The special got pretty popular and earned a VHS release the following September and a subsequent DVD release in 1997, which also included four original music videos.