Austin Messner controversy
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Comedians is the first episode of Season 3 of Beavis and Butt-Head, which aired on September 6, 1993. It caused the show to be the subject of a major television controversy after a 5-year-old boy, Austin Messner, burned his family's Dayton, Ohio trailer home down and killed his 2-year-old sister, as he was believed to have been inspired by this episode.[1]
Background
On October 6, 1993, a 5-year-old boy named Austin Messner allegedly watched the episode. That night, Messner was looking for a cigarette lighter to imitate Beavis. When he started to light it up, he burned his family's trailer home down, which killed his 2-year-old sister, Jessica Matthews.[2] Luckily, his mother, Darcy Burke, survived, but she didn't blame her son for doing that; instead, she blamed the show for allegedly promoting that fire is cool and fun.[3]
Aftermath
MTV announced it would move the cartoon to 10:30 PM and delete any references to starting fires from MTV's animated shows.[4] MTV also added a disclaimer to warn young viewers not to imitate Beavis and Butt-head since they do dangerous things that could kill them in real life.[5] "Comedians" was also never aired on television again after the incident. The disclaimer read "Beavis and Butt-Head are not real. They are stupid cartoon people completely made up by this Texas guy whom we hardly even know. Beavis and Butt-Head are dumb, crude, thoughtless, ugly, sexist, self-destructive fools. But for some reason, the little wienerheads make us laugh." This was later changed to "Beavis and Butt-Head are not role models. They're not even human. They're cartoons. Some of the things they do would cause a person to get hurt, expelled, arrested, possibly deported. To put it another way: don't try this at home."
Beavis and Butt-Head were temporarily moved to the late-night timeslot in 1994 to make room for its replacement, The Brothers Grunt.
In 2008, Austin Messner himself disowned the claim of being influenced by the show after he was contacted about the fire:
"I literally NEVER saw the cartoon. How could I? It was 1993, my mom was a drug addict, and we lived in a trailer park. We couldn't afford cable! My mom called the news BEFORE the fire department."
— Austin Messner
Videos
Disclaimer for Beavis and Butt-head before the incident.
Disclaimer for Beavis and Butt-head after the incident.
References
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/10/us/cartoon-on-mtv-blamed-for-fire.html
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/28/opinion/public-private-tv-guide.html
- ↑ https://nypost.com/2011/10/30/as-seen-on-tv-2/
- ↑ http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/09/most-controversial-tv-show-episodes/comedians
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyz_OzZCld8