Beavis, Butthead AND Cohen

The bookshelves of Dunster E-51 are stocked with commentaries on the Talmud, Yiddish folk tales and modern Hebrew texts. Clothes are strewn all over the floor.

Etan J. Cohen '97, a Near Eastern Languages and Cultures concentrator and the room's inhabitant, fidgets upon his bed. An orthodox Jew who tries to attend services three times a day, Cohen is soft-spoken and studious.

The books demonstrate Cohen's passionate interest in religion and Yiddish literature. But his dresser, complete with a baseball cap adorned with two familiar cartoon characters, reveals another side of him.

Cohen is a writer for the MTV show "Beavis and Butthead."

The cartoon, which debuted as a series three years ago this month, has become a huge cult favorite among teens, twentysomethings and particularly college students.

Created by Mike Judge, the show has been MTV's largest money-making series, and is tied for the second-highest rating among MTV's shows.

Cohen, 21, is the youngest writer the show has ever had.

The Lampoon Connection

Cohen first heard of an opportunity to intern with MTV through the Harvard Lampoon. Cohen got his start with the network as an unpaid intern in New York during the summer after his first year at Harvard. There, he developed new ideas for a short-lived late night show, the "VJ Kennedy Show."

It was during these summer weeks in 1994 that Cohen met fellow intern Jeff Goldstone, who had written and sold some episodes to "Beavis and Butthead."

Cohen did not have cable in his house and had never heard of "Beavis and Butthead," but was impressed.

"It sounded like fun, so I took a shot," Cohen says.

He began to watch the show and write down some ideas. Through Goldstone, Cohen contacted Kristofor S. Brown, the show's co-producer and head writer, and sent him some of his ideas later that summer while he was in Israel.

"They hated them," Cohen says.

Brown agrees that some of Cohen's initial ideas didn't work.

"He really missed the boat on his first premises," Brown says. "A couple of them were lame."

But Brown says he saw some promise in one of Cohen's story summaries.

"It's a treat when you see a writer who has something really funny that you've never seen before," Brown says.

The story that caught Brown's attention was "Womyn," which Cohen faxed to MTV from his grandmother's house in Jerusalem and was his first script to be aired.

"'Womyn' was original--it struck a chord with me," Brown said.

In "Womyn," Beavis and Butthead go to a feminist rally to pick up "chicks." It was this show that got Cohen a foot in the door to becoming a regular freelance writer.

Cohen wrote "Womyn" and "Green Thumbs," which he sold in the fall, "on spec," meaning that MTV pays the writer only if the network plans to use the material.

"Beavis and Butthead" does not have any full-time writers other than Judge and Brown. Instead, the network relies on about a dozen freelance authors, according to Brown.

Brown says most of the show's freelance writers come to him through connections but are selected purely on the basis of skill. Brown says the show receives hundreds of story pitches and rejects than 75 percent of them.

"We don't put out an open notice for writers," Brown says. "There would just be too many."

The show used to have three other full-time writers, but they were phased out recently during the making of the "Beavis and Butthead" motion picture, due to be released in December, Brown says.

The Internship

Last summer, Cohen applied to be an intern working directly under Brown. According to Brown, no one had ever asked to be a writing intern before, and he did not have much for Cohen to do.

"He couldn't have gotten an easier internship," Brown says.

When Cohen asked to be his intern, Brown says (in Butthead's voice), "I was like, 'Uh, okay.'"

Brown says he was surprised because Cohen offered such a slick package, including a formal letter on Lampoon stationary and one-page summaries of some of his story ideas.

"It seemed like he was deliberately trying to impress me," Brown says of the stationary.

But Brown was impressed by Cohen's ideas.

"He knew how I like a pitch," Brown says.

Often, according to Brown, people will send in entire scripts, which take too much time to read and aren't flexible when it comes to revisions.

Brown says he and Judge typically prefer a one-page plot summary describing each of the show's four segments and explaining where the jokes are.

Entire scripts are more difficult to adjust to the show.

"It's like trying to sell Judge and myself a house and never selling us a blueprint," Brown says.

When Cohen first met Brown in New York last summer, Brown says he was surprised to see Cohen wearing a yarmulke. And although Brown says Cohen's religion is not a problem, "it seems to be a contradiction."

"This show is not known for its religious and high values," he says. "No one has ever worn a yarmulke into the Beavis and Butthead office before [Cohen]."

In some ways, though, Cohen's dual passions for creativity and religion were bound to cross. Both were present from the time Cohen was a young boy: his parents got him his first typewriter when he was three years old, shortly after the family moved to the Boston area from Israel.

And Cohen's family did not get a television until Cohen was in the second grade, according to the Harvard junior.

Instead of watching television Cohen would read books and write short stories.

The Lure of the Lampy

Cohen came to Harvard with his love of writing very much intact. He read the Lampoon as a student at Boston-area Maimonides High School and wrote on his Harvard application that he wanted to write for the humor magazine. During his first year, he comped both The Crimson and the Lampoon, and is now a Crimson editor and Lampoon ibis, the second-highest position in the organization.

Although Cohen did not successfully comp the Lampoon until the second semester of his first year, he says he loved the humor magazine so much that he used to sleep there during his first two years at Harvard.

"I didn't want to leave," Cohen says.

Cohen's girlfriend, Emily J. Bowen '97 was also on the Lampoon her first year. A visual and environmental studies concentrator, Bowen joined the Lampoon as an artist.

Bowen also comped the Lampoon during her first year at Harvard, and the two met second semester at a cocktail party. Bowen was on the staff by then, but Cohen was still comping.

"I would say it was love at first sight," Bowen says of her meeting with Cohen.

Bowen and Cohen decided last summer that they would both work at MTV, and Bowen was just down the hall from her boyfriend as he interned under Brown at "Beavis and Butthead."

Indeed, Bowen says Cohen's affiliation with the raunchy, controversial show has only helped their relationship.

"Who isn't a viewer of 'Beavis and Butthead?'" Bowen says. "I like it even more now."

The Cohen family is not nearly so enthusiastic. Cohen says his parents are uncomfortable when Cohen's 12 year-old sister, Tamar, views the show.

"I'm not crazy about my sister watching it," Cohen says. "I definitely don't think ['Beavis and Butthead'] is a kids' show."

Cohen admits that he is concerned about children watching the show.

"It's true that [Beavis and Butthead] are kind of sick-minded," he says. "If a kid doesn't see that that's being made fun of, that's kind of dangerous."

Yet, even with his parents' restrictions on their daughter's viewing "Beavis and Butthead," Cohen's mother, Beth B. Cohen, says she and her husband are supportive of their son's work for the show.

His mother says she trusts her son and is not concerned about his writing at all.

"I'm very proud of his accomplishments and always have been," she says.

Cohen's brother Rami, 16, says the entire family is proud of Etan and that his friends were impressed when they heard his brother writes for "Beavis and Butthead."

"I was excited and shocked when I first heard that [my older brother] was writing for the show," Rami says.

Cohen says he plans to continue writing for "Beavis and Butthead" and is amazed that his writing actually goes on the air.

"I still can't get over how it's possible that so many people could be seeing something I wrote," Cohen says. "I'll continue writing for as long as I can from wherever I can."

And, according to Brown, he will be welcome at "Beavis and Butthead."

"I like working with Etan a lot," Brown says. "He can write for us as long as I'm the [head writer]."

Cohen's roommates have also been supportive of his efforts. Ari K. Tuchman '97, who has been Cohen's roommate in Dunster House since last year, says he used to read Cohen's plots before the writer would send them to MTV.

Cohen plans to continue writing while at Harvard and beyond. This past fall he hired an agent, and says he has started receiving calls from other agents interested in his work.

Ideally, Cohen says he would like to write for "The Simpsons," his favorite show for six years and the cartoon he says has the best writers.

Cohen's voice will be featured in an episode of "Beavis and Butthead" this summer called "A Great Day."

According to Brown, "Etan is the weasely guy who gets beat up by Todd."