''The Honky Problem'' is a 1991

animated short Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

film by

Mike Judge Michael Craig Judge (born October 17, 1962) is an American actor, animator, writer, producer, director and musician. He is the creator of the animated television series '' Beavis and Butt-Head'' (1993–1997, 2011, 2022–present), and the co-cr ...

.Appalachian Journal, Volume 21, 1993, pg. 251 It features an original character, Inbred Jed, who is playing with his country music band somewhere in the desert by a trailer for a small audience of American

white trash White trash is a derogatory racial and class-related slur used in American English to refer to poor white people, especially in the rural southern United States. The label signifies a social class inside the white population and especially a ...

. Like Mike Judge's early Beavis and Butt-Head shorts, the film was funded by Spike and Mike and shown on

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

's '' Liquid Television'' in the early 1990s. The cartoon is also available on Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation Volume One VHS.

Plot

''The Honky Problem'' opens with Inbred Jed, a very emotional

hillbilly Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in southern Appalachia and the Ozarks. The term was later used to refer to people from other rural and mountainous areas west ...

, and his band The Little Bottom Boys (consisting of an

upright bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

player,

steel guitar A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conve ...

player, and himself on

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

), playing a

honky tonk A honky-tonk (also called honkatonk, honkey-tonk, or tonk) is both a bar that provides country music for the entertainment of its patrons and the style of music played in such establishments. It can also refer to the type of piano ( tack piano) ...

outdoors concert for a small group of similar white trash citizens in a Texas trailer park. Jed introduces himself and the band, bringing himself to tears explaining how good it is to be there, playing a concert. He performs one of his songs, "Long-Legged Woman". After the song is finished, Jed tearfully proclaims how much he loves the song he just played, and performs it again. During the encore, a narrator warns the viewers that what they have just seen is real, and could have been avoided. The narrator further urges viewers to check the

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into seve ...

church that they and their spouse are not related before having children, reminding everyone that "

inbreeding Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely related genetically. By analogy, the term is used in human reproduction, but more commonly refers to the genetic disorders an ...

is everybody's problem".

Notes

One character in the film, the one who yells "Play some

Skynyrd Lynyrd Skynyrd ( ) is an American rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida. The group originally formed as My Backyard in 1964 and comprised Ronnie Van Zant (lead vocalist), Gary Rossington (guitar), Allen Collins (guitar), Larry Junstrom ...

, man!", was later named Dave and appeared in a few early '' Beavis and Butt-Head'' episodes, most notably the episode " Way Down Mexico Way". The character Inbred Jed's only other appearance was in the opening titles for the first ''Beavis and Butt-Head'' short, '' Frog Baseball''. Before the cartoon starts, there's an "Inbred Jed's Homemade Cartoons" title card styled like the

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...

logo with country-western music playing and Inbred Jed giving a somewhat evil hillbilly cackle, animated similarly from the short's closing shot.

References

1991 short films 1990s American animated films Films directed by Mike Judge American animated short films Mormonism in fiction 1990s animated short films 1991 animated films 1991 films Films with screenplays by Mike Judge Films about hillbillies Films set in Texas {{short-animation-film-stub