Rare, canceled Beavis and Butt-Head arcade game surfaces in Chicago-area arcade

One of what is believed to be only a dozen remaining cabinets of a canceled Beavis and Butt-Head arcade game has been repaired and is playable in a Chicago-area aracde.

Galloping Ghost Arcade, a curator of very rare units in Brookfield, Ill., says it restored unit No. 9 of Beavis and Butt-Head this week. While MTV had been given a cabinet for posterity, and it has been seen regularly at gaming expos, running across one in the wild like this is a rarity indeed. It may be the only one that is playable by the public in an arcade.

Beavis and Butt-Head was a beat-em-up developed by Atari in 1996 but never finished. After focus groups gave it a thumbs down, Atari scrapped plans for the game and that was that. Beavis and Butt-Head Do America premiered in December 1996, but interest in the series waned soon after and its original run ended in November 1997.

Arcade Heroes notes that the cabinet, strangely enough, was built on a 3DO platform meant to power another canceled Atari game. That required Galloping Ghost to find and buy an old 3DO console to get the parts necessary to bring the game back online.

An old video of gameplay in Beavis and Butt-Head is below but, warning, in addition to the shakycam footage, the constant exposure changes may make some eyes twitch.

For those in the Chicago area or visiting it, Galloping Ghost Arcade is located at 9415 Ogden Ave. in Brookfield.

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