The Honky Problem

The Honky Problem is a 1991 animated short film by Mike Judge.^[1][2] 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.

Like Mike Judge's early Beavis and Butt-head shorts, the film was funded by Spike and Mike and shown on MTV'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, which is now out of print.

Plot

The Honky Problem opens with Inbred Jed, a very emotional hillbilly and his band (consisting of an upright bass player, steel guitar player, and himself on guitar) playing a country music concert for a small group of similar white trash citizens. Jed introduces himself, 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. While the song is being performed, the narrator warns the viewers to check with their local "Mormon" (LDS) church before having children. He then claims that "Inbreeding is everybody's problem."

Notes

One character in the film, the one who yells, "Play some Skynyrd 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 logo with country-western music playing and Inbred Jed giving a somewhat evil hillbilly cackle.

References