For anyone currently treading on 90s nostalgia train, there's no better example of the TV of the time than the MTV show, Beavis And Butt-head. The show was about two perennial laugh-plagued slackers that were most concerned with rocking out to Gwar music videos on TV, eating nachos, and playing baseball with some frogs. The show was a hit teens and made your parents worry about you for finding it so funny.
When we were kids, we always heard rumors about some kid somewhere in the some state you didn't live in (like Oklahoma) mimicking something from the show and getting profoundly hurt. Remember, this was pre-internet and only the largest of local news stories would make it headlines somewhere else in the nation. But, when the show starting showing up with a viewer warning at the top of the show into its run around the third season, it only poured gasoline onto the fire of our conspiracy theories.
Beavis And Butthead are not role models, they're not even human. They're cartoons. Some of the things they do would cause a person to get hurt, expelled, arrested, or possibly deported. To put it another way, don't try this at home.
Well it turns out that something did actually happen, and little girl died because of it.
On the first episode of the third season, the bit "Comedians" featured the duo trying stand-up comedy after seeing it could score them some women. So they head down to The Laugh Hole comedy club on Amateur Night to give joke telling a shot. After a juggling chainsaw performance Butt-head takes to the stage to tell some jokes. In what should be a surprise to no one, his partner Beavis is the only one that finds them funny. After being booed off the stage, Beavis then takes a stab at stand-up, effectively walking the room save for Butt-head in the crowd. Beavis ends his set with lighting flaming balls on fire to juggle them. The segment ends with the duo standing outside of the comedy club as it's burning to the ground, presumed that Beavis is responsible.
On October 6, 1993, a month after the show aired, a 5-year-old boy in Ohio named Austin Messner attempted to mimic what he saw on the show. Messner's mother stated that she found the boy playing with matches right after watching the episode. The boy would later set fire to his trailer with a lighter, the trailer burned to the ground and his family escaped save for his 2-year old sister died in the fire.
MTV reacted by beginning to run the disclaimer, moving the show to a 10:30pm timeslot and pulled the episode from the air.