Beavis and Butt-head do modern pop culture

Almost 20 years later, Beavis and Butt-head still haven't scored. But they're back trying.

The two know-nothing, ever-snickering idiot savants of '90s MTV return to the channel Oct. 27 with more pithy cartoon commentary on pop culture of the moment.

Look out, "Twilight." (The guys wanna become vampires to get chicks.) Look out, "Super Size Me." (The guys pig out.) And, look out, MTV. Remember how B&B used to mock hair bands' music videos? Now they're after MTV "reality" hits like "Jersey Shore" and "16 and Pregnant."

Heh-heh-heh.

Concept creator, animator and comedy king Mike Judge, who in the intervening years made the more mature Fox fave "King of the Hill," is thrilled to give his boys such meaty modern targets.

"We had tried [mocking] 'The Real World' back in the day, and for some reason it didn't click," he told TV critics in Friday evening Q-and-A at our fall-season press tour in Beverly Hills. "Then I watched a lot of 'Jersey Shore,' and it really clicked. It was just paydirt, actually."

But that doesn't mean his two heavy-metal T-shirted teens will be up-to-the-minute with, say, Twitter, Facebook and other social media.

"I think they probably have as few thoughts about those kind of things as they ever had," Judge said. "But there's an episode where they work tech support that came out pretty good. There's an episode where they see 'Twilight,' and they think girls like vampires, vampires are sexy, and they try to become undead. Stuff like that is a little bit topical, but I wanted to make it not feel too forced."

In some very funny clips previewed here, the guys were still wearing their standard AC/DC and Metallica T-shirts. Twenty years later, the dimwitted appeal of Beavis and Butt-head is an oddly timeless thing.

"They really weren't all that much of their time to begin with," Judge said. "Their hairdos aren't really of a particular time. They also weren't really saying any hip lingo or anything. Those AC/DC and Metallica T-shirts, I've got teenage daughters and I still see those shirts on kids in their teens."

One thing that might be different this time? Judge isn't expecting the furious controversy stirred in the '90s by Beavis and Butt-head's reckless behavior.

"I mean, look what they got on [MTV] now."