Spare Me

This is going well.

Spare Me is an episode of Beavis and Butt-head which aired on September 12, 1995. The credited writer is Bo Weinberg.

Synopsis

Beavis and Butt-head are spending their time on a scientific experiment, i.e. Butt-head is licking the top of a battery to get an electric shock, when two hot chicks pull up in a car with a flat tyre. They ask for help and promise, very insincerely, "we'll take you for a ride". Ecstatic at a chance of scoring, the dillweeds leap into action - but are left stunned when they realise they're expected to fix the flat and not just notice it exists.

Butt-head orders Beavis to fix it, but blowing on the tyre fails to have an effect (except giving Beavis a headrush). Being stupid, they assume they've fixed it and the driver has to explain to them how changing a tyre works. Now armed with keys, they take out the spare and a jack. Beavis sits on the jack to proclaim "check it out - jack... ass! heheheh!", but is ordered to take things seriously as "these chicks are horny"; Butt-head deploys the jack (badly, damaging the car in the process) and orders Beavis under the car. The lad reports what he can see: "some rocks and, like, some pavement".

Eventually Butt-head's pulling on the tyre while Beavis tries to push on it from under the car, which succeeds in getting the hubcap off but little else. After concluding this sucks, they decide to claim they've done it and hope they score before the women notice they lied. But before they can enact such a genius plan:

• Daria: Flat tyre, huh?
• Butt-head: DAMN IT.

He whacks the tyre with a crowbar, which rebounds and hits him in the head. The girls turn and look, and a desperate Beavis tries to pull the tyre off before the situation gets worse:

• Daria: You guys are so stupid.

Daria changes the tyre and puts everything back in the boot:

• Daria: I hope you two paid attention because this will come up again.
• Butt-head: Uhhhh... yeah. So, like, if you'll excuse us, there's, uh, still work to be done. Huh huh huh.
• Beavis: Yeah, go away. Diarrhea. Heheheh.

As soon as they hand the keys to the girls, they say "thanks guys!" and drive off.

• Daria: You guys are never gonna get any.

Later on, the buttmunches come across the same car, now with a buggered engine, and fall for exactly the same con...

In fanfiction

An alternate universe version of "Spare Me" is part of the backstory for "It Slipped Through My Hands, Like a Shadow, Like a Dream". As Daria was mentally retarded in that universe, she isn't around to fix the car and the lads manage to kill themselves trying to fix it.

Trivia

• Highland High gave driving lessons to ninth graders in the non-Daria episode "Safe Driving"; Daria's car maintenance skills could have been learnt in that class. (This would suggest that Daria had prior driving experience to what was shown in "Through a Lens Darkly", and it still took her until "Speedtrapped" to pass!) However, after this ep she never showed these mechanical skills ever again.

• This is only one of three speaking parts for Daria in 1995, though she has a significant non-speaking bit in "It's a Miserable Life". After that, she only gets a role in two episodes in two years - a contrast to eleven episodes across 1993 and 1994. In 1995, MTV was already at work on Daria's own show and in circumstances that had annoyed Mike Judge (who felt MTV were deliberately leaving him out). Either reason may explain Daria's drop-off in appearances (though she continued to be a regular in the comics).