When the animated short “Peace, Love and Understanding” premiered theatrically in 1992, the world got its first look at a bearded hippie musician named David Van Driessen. Seconds later, a truck crushed him flat.

Two obscure glue-sniffing kids, watching this unfold at a monster-truck rally, celebrated heavy-metal-style: head-banging, devil horns, air guitar. Their names were Beavis and Butt-Head. When MTV turned this double act from Mike Judge into a series, Van Driessen became reanimated (in two senses) as the quintessential hippie teacher, which has since evolved into a comic archetype.

Imagine, however, an alternative universe where instead of singing about environmentalism at that rally (know your audience, dude!), Van Driessen loses his seemingly eternal patience, jumps into the driver’s seat and sadistically runs over Beavis and Butt-Head. Then you have some idea of the inspired lunacy of Brad Neely’s “China, IL,” a gleefully deranged animated series set in a college town that is constantly destroyed by the faculty.

It’s the first new cartoon in years truly to live up to the renegade spirit of the golden era of Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twisted Animation Festival. That touring festival provided a subversive alternative to Saturday morning cartoons, giving an early home to emerging artists like John Lasseter (of Pixar), Trey Parker and Matt Stone (“South Park”), Nick Park (“Wallace & Gromit”) and Mr. Judge.