Abby Terkuhle Movies

MTV's favorite disaffected teen stumbles through her first romance, suffers through an awful summer job, and pines away for witty banter with her absent and estranged best friend in this feature-length entry in the animated series Daria. It's the summer before Daria Morgendorffer's senior year at Lawndale High, and her best friend, Jane Lane, is heading off to the Ashfield Artists' Colony for the summer. Jane withholds this piece of information until the last possible moment, presumably in retaliation for the relationship that has developed between her ex-boyfriend, Tom, and Daria. Unable to deal with her feelings for Tom and the rift they've caused between her and Jane, Daria blows the boy off, nearly sabotaging her nascent dating career. Daria's mother, however, refuses to let the girl spend the summer moping. Daria soon finds herself manning the OK to Cry Corral, a day camp where one of her teachers, Mr. O'Neill, bores and oppresses the children with his sensitive new age ways. Meanwhile, supporting players Kevin, Brittany, Jodie, and Mack suffer through employment horrors of their own. As for Daria's shallow younger sister, Quinn, she ignores the dictates of the Fashion Club and enlists the help of a tutor to get her test scores up and prove she's not stupid; along the way, she learns a little bit about depth and maturity. Jane, too, decides to act her age after Daria arrives for a weekend visit at Ashfield -- just in time to save Jane from the manipulative poseurs who surround her. Is It Fall Yet? premiered nearly commercial-free on MTV on August 27, 2000, serving as a bridge between the show's fourth and fifth seasons. MTV host Carson Daly and musicians Dave Grohl and Bif Naked provided guest voices, Daly in the role of Quinn's tutor. A second movie, Is It College Yet? followed in January 2002, putting an end to Daria's five-year run. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

This film is based on an innovative short film made for MTV about a guy living in a horrible downtown apartment filled with scores of mischievous, smart-alecky roaches. The story chronicles the adventures of Joe (Jerry O'Connell), a hapless rube from the rural Midwest who journeys to the wilds of New York City. Mugged repeatedly on his arrival, his luck seems to turn when he finds an affordable apartment in a very dubious neighborhood. Unfortunately, his landlord (Don Ho) is more interested in evicting or, if need be, murdering his tenants, so that the building can be turned into a (highly profitable) penitentiary. Joe finds the allies he needs in his apartment's cockroaches, who sing and dance their way into his heart. This film should be of interest for fans of 1930s musicals; it makes reference to Busby Berkeley's elaborate dance phantasmagorias and the odd water ballets of Esther Williams. Many of the scenes utilized real roaches who were "choreographed" via tiny filament harnesses and other devices. Animal rights activists will be pleased to note that no roaches were intentionally harmed during filming. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

After reaching a production peak with 50 episodes during its fifth season on MTV, Beavis and Butt-Head relaxed a bit for season six, which offered a scant 20 episodes. Beavis' sugar-induced alter ego Cornholio returns in the season opener, a Halloween "special." Later on, Beavis and Butt-head try to determine the cause of "morning wood" (if you have to ask, it isn't worth it!); a school history assignment proves beyond doubt that our heroes are the undefeated champs in the short-attention-span sweepstakes; and in a more whimsical moment, the boys try to "score" with a vice cop disguised as a hooker. The Christmas spirit is honored mid-season with a one-hour episode offering two fantasies, "Huh-Huh-Humbug" and "It's a Miserable Life," based on guess which holiday classics. For the rest of the season, it's business as usual -- Beavis and Butt-head assume the identities of Gerondo and the Pleasure Machine to make videos "guaranteed" to impress the chicks, they form their own two-man street gang and grow their own nachos, they accidentally end up as key speakers at a PTA meeting, and they get "drunk" on some "near beer." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Much to the delight of its many fans and the dismay of its many detractors, Beavis and Butt-Head managed to survive for a fourth MTV season, this one yielding 32 episodes. The games begin with the opener "Wall of Youth," in which the knuckle-dragging Beavis and Butt-head at last meet their intellectual equal when they befriend a sock puppet. Later on, they have trouble urinating in the episode of the same name -- or is this more information than we really need? In other adventures, Beavis and Butt-head face the deadly scourge of rabies and incompetent doctors, encourage a suicidal embezzler to jump off a high building, drive gym teacher Buzzcut to distraction with their body odor, try to mount their own late night TV show just like "that Letter-dude," establish a personal phone-sex exchange, chortle their way through a gory '50s driver's-ed movie, and fail not once but twice to score with the sexy Lolita and Tanqueray. Undoubtedly many a clean-up-TV fanatic was encouraged by the episode "The Final Judgment of Beavis," in which Butt-head apparently kills Beavis, who then has a heated "No way -- way" exchange with St. Peter at the pearly gates. But no, both boys were still alive and kicking for the rest of the season, which includes a confrontation with a Rush Limbaugh-like radio host (voiced by Gilbert Gottfried) and an easily offended etiquette expert (voiced by David Spade). And in a pivotal moment, Beavis undergoes his first transformation into "The Great Cornholio" when he overdoses on sugar. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though technically the second season of Beavis and Butt-Head (following a four-week test run), the 23 episodes seen on MTV beginning May 17, 1993, were originally advertised as first-season endeavors. They also originally included live-action music videos featuring top artists past and present, which have unfortunately been edited from the home-video version of the series. The first of the 23 half-hours this season is "Customers Suck," with the grotesque, giggling Beavis and Butt-head making a shambles of their duties at Burger World. In later adventures, the boys go skeet-shooting and end up downing a jumbo jet; hapless Mr. Anderson makes his first appearance in the episode "Home Improvement" (a scene in which the boys get high on paint remover had since been removed as a result of viewer complaints); Beavis and Butt-head become "American Gladiators" in hopes of seeing mud-wrestling bikini babes; and the boys' intellectual acquaintance Daria Morgendorffer (who'd later get a cartoon series of her own) has her first showcase in the episode "Scientific Stuff." Also, Beavis and Butt-head get temp jobs as sideshow freaks, almost sign up for the army, fill enema bags full of soda pop while volunteering at a local hospital, hitchhike to Mexico to pick up fireworks and unwittingly wind up as drug runners, and spend no fewer than two full episodes laying waste to their neighborhood drive-in movie. It was during this season that several pressure groups ganged up on Beavis and Butt-head, demanding its cancelation after a youngster, allegedly inspired by one of the episodes, set fire to his home. MTV wasn't about to abandon one of its highest-rated shows -- but the network did meet the critics halfway by moving the show to a later time slot. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi