Austin Messner Controversy

Comedians is the first episode of Season 3 of mh:besttvshows: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 burned his family's trailer home down and killed his 2-year old sister, as he was believed to have been inspired by this episode.

Background
On October 6, 1993, a 5-year old boy named Austin Messner 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. Luckily, his mother 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.

Aftermath
MTV announced it would move the cartoon to 10:30 P.M. and delete any references to starting fires from MTV's animated shows. 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. "Comedians" was also never aired on television again after the incident.

In 2008, Austin Messner himself had this to say 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".[citation needed]

Videos
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