There’s nothing particularly unique about the story of Beavis and Butthead. I can’t speak for the way women interact amongst themselves but I know that when you grow up a dude in the ol’ U.S. of A., you’re most likely going to spend countless hours of your time with some other dude, keeping a running narrative of the things that are awesome and the things that suck, vaguely searching for girls and stuff to blow up. So we have Wayne and Garth, and Bill and Ted, and Magic and Bird, of course, Beavis and Butthead.

Theirs is not an explosive, fly-by-night Paul Rudd bromance. It’s more akin to something shared by an old married couple, not overwhelmingly thrilled by the arrangement but long-since resigned to the understand that they’re not going to do any better. And it’s hilarious, of course.

Beavis and Butthead was funny the first time around, but what makes it sing in 2011 is the protagonists’ takes on contemporary MTV “reality” fare. In the show’s initial run, Beavis and Butthead watching music videos made for an entertaining diversion from the episodes. They still watch some music videos now but mostly they tune to Teen Mom, Jersey Shore, True Life and the like. iIt feels like their take on pop-culture is the highlight of the show, and almost as if sometime in the past couple of years Mike Judge stopped on MTV while flipping through channels, watched for an hour and said, “Something needs to be done!”

That something, in this entirely fantasized sequence, was the return of Beavis and Butthead to skewer the programming. They’re entertained by it, of course — they’re laughing and cringing at Jersey Shore in the same way most others who watch the show do. But Judge does a pretty amazing job allowing Beavis and Butthead to present some pretty smart observations in a manner that seems sort of stupid, and, well, it plays. It’s like their straightforward teenage focus on boobs and explosions provides some form of clear-headedness.

The episodes themselves are still pretty great, too. In one, Beavis and Butthead think they’ve survived the apocalypse and decide to go live in the nicest place they know: Stuart’s house. In another, Beavis suffers an obvious existential meltdown after trapping a rat. They succumb to and provide fodder for the histrionic displays of a local broadcaster. They crash a car and get mistaken for meth dealers. Beavis becomes the leader of a religious cult.

It’s all funny, in part because at this point just looking at Beavis and Butthead is pretty funny. I think the animation might get undercut in the show because there’s so much else going on, but it’s really pretty awesome. If you watch the show, think about Beavis and/or Butthead dancing — just picture that in your head — and try not to giggle. They’re silly looking: Everyone else in their world is drawn close to reasonable human proportions, and they’re tremendously awkward, with giant heads and skinny limbs and huge hair.

Point is, I’m glad the show is back, so it’s the No. 8 best thing that happened in 2011.