Beavis is one of the title characters of Beavis and Butt-head, an American animated sitcom created and designed by Mike Judge. The series originated from Frog Baseball, a 1992 short film by Judge. After seeing the short, MTV signed Judge to develop the concept. Beavis and Butt-head first ran on MTV from 1993 to 1997. In 1996, the series was adapted into the animated feature film Beavis and Butt-head Do America. In 1997, Daria, a spin-off show based on their classmate Daria Morgendorffer, was created. During a short-lived revival in 2011, new episodes of Beavis and Butt-head aired on MTV.
Butt-head – No. 928
Butt-head is one of the title characters of Beavis and Butt-head, an American animated sitcom created and designed by Mike Judge. The series originated from Frog Baseball, a 1992 short film by Judge. After seeing the short, MTV signed Judge to develop the concept. Beavis and Butt-head first ran on MTV from 1993 to 1997. In 1996, the series was adapted into the animated feature film Beavis and Butt-head Do America. In 1997, Daria, a spin-off show based on their classmate Daria Morgendorffer, was created. During a short-lived revival in 2011, new episodes of Beavis and Butt-head aired on MTV.
Marty McFly (Back to the Future) – No. 926
Marty McFly is a fictional character in the Back to the Future trilogy. In 1985, Marty plays guitar with his group The Pinheads and is a talented skateboarder. His girlfriend is Jennifer Parker and his best friend is Emmett Brown, a scientist whom Marty and Jennifer call “Doc.” Marty is portrayed by actor Michael J. Fox. Marty also appears in the animated TV series (1991-92) and the episodic video game (2010-11).
P.S. Happy Back to the Future Day! Today, October 21, 2015, is the futuristic day that Marty McFly and Emmett “Doc” Brown visit in Back to the Future II. Hoverboards for everyone!
Popeye – No. 925
Popeye the Sailor Man is a cartoon fictional character, created by E. C. Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and theatrical and television animated cartoons. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre in 1929; Popeye became the strip’s title in later years. In 1933, Fleischer Studios adapted the Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s, and the Fleischers—and later Paramount’s own Famous Studios—continued production through 1957.
Tori Amos – No. 924
Tori Amos is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and composer. She is a classically trained musician and has a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at age five and was expelled at age 11. She originally served as the lead singer of short-lived 1980s pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Amos has since become one of the world’s most prominent female singer-songwriters and has received eight Grammy nominations. Early in her solo career, she was one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument. Amos has sold more than 12 million albums worldwide. She was born on August 22, 1963.
PJ Harvey – No. 923
Polly Jean Harvey, known as PJ Harvey, is an English musician and singer-songwriter. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments. Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined local band Automatic Dlamini. In 1991, she formed an eponymous trio and released two studio albums, Dry (1992) and Rid of Me (1993) before the trio disbanded. As a solo artist Harvey has released six studio albums, including To Bring You My Love (1995), Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000) and Let England Shake (2011). She began recording her ninth studio album earlier this year. Harvey was born on October 9, 1969.
Maya Lin – No. 922
Maya Lin is an American designer and artist who is known for her work in sculpture and landscape art. She first came to fame at the age of 21 as the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982) in Washington, D.C. Her minimalist design aroused controversy but has become very popular with the public over the years. Lin is one of just 13 “groundbreaking Americans” featured in Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters, a children’s book by United States President Barack Obama. She was born on October 5, 1959.
Note: After checking the list of people featured in Obama’s children’s book, I realized that Maya Lin is character #13 of 13, thus completing my Of Thee I Sing 8-bit series. Mission accomplished.
Stuart the Minion (Despicable Me) – No. 927
Stuart is one of the minions from the Despicable Me franchise. Minions are small, yellow, cylindrical creatures with one or two eyes and metal goggles. One-eyed Stuart is the shortest minion in the first movie. He has a slim body with flat, center-parted hair. Stuart is among the most sincere and innocent of the minions. He is also always hungry and at one point attempted to eat minions Kevin and Bob by visualizing them as bananas. In another scene, while in a dark ventilation shaft, Stuart’s minion friend Jerry picks him up and cracks him, which turns him into a glow stick.
My two-year-old daughter Ramona has a small Stuart doll given to her by my dad. She’s never seen the movies and knows nothing about minions, but Stuart is among her favorite dolls and stuffed animals, which also include Pooh Bear, Margot, Lufkin, Domo-kun and Garfield.