WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 568 - Mike Judge

Episode Date: January 14, 2015

Mike Judge and Marc have a lot to talk about. First of all, they both grew up in Albuquerque. Then there's Mike's groundbreaking animated work, which began on a whim and wound up birthing Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill and Office Space. There's also Mike's cult classic Idiocracy and his latest show Silicon Valley, which Marc loves. We're going to need a little extra time for this one. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day.

They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what the fuck stirs i am mark maron this is wtf mike judge is on the show today i've always wanted to talk to mike judge because i always knew he come from my hometown albuquerque New Mexico, and I figured we could talk about that for a while.

Like, I literally believe that we have friends in common, that we didn't go to the same high school, but we're around the same age. So there's a bit of that in this conversation, connecting about Albuquerque. I've been very nostalgic lately. I don't know if it's, i don't like to call it nostalgia but i'm sort of trying to sort things out i kind of go on these missions into my memories to try to you know kind of target where it went wrong i'm on i'm on these stealth missions into my memories and i just stand there i'm, look at what's going on here. This might be something.

Why are you in that hotel room? I think that's a problem. And I pull out. Then I kind of regroup and I'm like, we're going back in. Let's go back in. Let's go back to that hotel room. All right. So this looks like sophomore year of high school. You're in a hotel room. That's your buddy, Dave. That's Chris. Chris, that's Chris. Oh, you oh you got I remember this you guys had just taken a handful of yellow jackets and those two guys yep they're both making out with girls on both beds and you're just standing there like an asshole because your girl split

and now yep there you yep that's yep you're going to break those two giant bottles those glass Sprite bottles that we're using to mix with and make a scene and ruin the party. All right, let's pull out. I'm out. I'm out.

Yeah, those are the memories. Albuquerque, New Mexico. Datsun B210. First car. Got it as a gift from my parents right after I finished my classes at McGinnis Driver's School. McGinnis Driver's Ed. McGinnis Driver's Ed. Drove around that car. Wrecked it the first month.

Combing my hair in the rear view. Car, put that car through a lot. A lot of driving. A lot of drinking and driving at age 15. Hanging out in front of liquor stores. Dude, get us a pint of Southern, six of Heine's. Get us a pint of Southern, six of Miller's. Dude, can you get me a pint of southern six heinies get us a pint of southern six of millers dude can you give me a half pint of jack six of millers dude can you get us a pint of southern

who are the people that got us that stuff i think we were kids i was 15 driving around there was gunplay albuquerque was exciting. Driving out with my buddy Dave. He's dead now. Me and Dave in a 73 Firebird with the Holley double pumper. Bored out cylinder heads, whatever that means. Fast fucking car. His dad owned a stereo store, so he always had a good stereo.

Me, Dave, Bob,, Chris Damon, some combination of that, running around drinking booze driving around in the car, then Dave he's always having problems with the firebirds, we got a Scirocco Volkswagen Scirocco then someone we just cruise around, cruise around the McDonald's

let's go to Highland High McDonald's, I go to Highland High we all got our own McDonald's let's go by the McDonald's, Let's go to Highland High McDonald's. I go to Highland High. We all got our own McDonald's. Let's go by the McDonald's. He was hanging out. Cruising to McDonald's. Dave and Andy were out cruising some other McDonald's up by Eastdale.

Some guy shot a bullet right into his car. Right into Dave's car. Shot a bullet. Never got along with Andy. Don't know what happened to that guy. Dave is dead mentioned that right all right let's go let's go down the memory hole here we go all right i'm driving i'm driving my car i got a pint of jack because that's what i drink i drink pint of jack and i drink it fast don't like beer it's too filling damon's with me i think pete's in the back pete came hey he wasn't

really he didn't hang out with us too much, but we went by his house. That's right. It was me and Damon, and we went by Pete's house because we were going to drive up to Santa Fe. There was a game. It was a game between Santa Fe and Highland. I didn't care about football, but I wanted to hang out. That's what I was about. Let's hang out.

What's everyone doing? Yeah, I'll drive. I'll drive, and we'll go to the football game. So I'm driving. We go by Pete's house, and I remember we got like a fifth of passport scotch we stole like a fifth of passport scotch from pete's dad's liquor cabinet and that's what i was drinking because i didn't want to drink beer so i'm pouring passport scotch into soda coca-cola we drive to santa fe right we drive to to Santa Fe to the football game.

I kind of remember that. It's an hour away. Kind of remember that. I remember walking into the game. I remember looking up at the stands and a lot of my high school was in the stands. It was cold out and I was shit face. And I remember dropping to my knees in front of everybody in my high school and laughing hysterically and then I was walked up the bleachers by a couple of friends probably Pete and maybe Damon and they sat me in the bleachers and then I don't know what happened all I know is that I was laying in the bleachers and then and then the next thing I know uh there was some like I remember being cold and then I remember waking up and for a quick moment and Damon's holding his hand up and it's all bloody

his fist is all bloody and we're driving and then the next thing I know I wake up in Albuquerque at the McDonald's and I'm alone and I'm in a booth and I got my head in my hands and I wake up and I don't know where my car is.

I don't know where Damon is. I don't know nothing. And all of a sudden people start coming in from the game. All the cheerleaders and the jocks and all the people I didn't like. But were around because I wanted to hang around with people. No idea what happened. Then some kid comes up to me and he goes, Dude, you were on your back and the bleachers

throwing up on you like a fountain like a fountain you were just throwing up look like a fountain i'm like what and then some girl i had a crush on after he went to go get a milkshake or something she walked up to me and i was like hey how's it going trying to be cool not knowing the history of my evening because of a blackout and she goes why do you have rice in your hair yeah that's how that night ended then damon came with my car he'd gotten into a fight that's what happened drove somebody home and i got in my car and went home high school albuquerque new mexico before i committed my life to the art department those are the trying days of trying to be accepted by the cool kids and then i went to the art department and became a uh a high school artist anyways mike judge is here we went to high school in the same city

in different high schools i just remember something uh senior prom i'd like can i just maybe it was junior prom i'd just like to put it out i just want to apologize to cam cam mccullough that was a bad night and i was rude i apologize apologize. I just remembered that. Yeah, high school, man. There's so many stories. So many stories that revolve around vomit, around coming in my pants, around bad grades, around long car rides that don't end well.

I do remember one time me and Dead Dave drove to Santa Fe and I don't know what we did up there, but we were driving back. It was night. It was late at night. And we were driving back on old Highway 14

that runs behind the mountains, behind the Sandias, through Madrid, The ghost town. But it was night. And the moon was big. And it was bright. And we were stoned. And we listened to Pink Floyd animals.

In its entirety. Driving on a dead highway. Just me and Dave. Moving through the night. Following the moon. Listening to Pink Floyd Animals. And when Pigs on a Wing came on, what song is that with the guitar solo, man? Ba-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-dow- Oh, I just got chills. I just got chills.

We're going to talk to Albuquerque's own Mike Judge here in a minute. That's how I see him. The guy from Albuquerque. Let's talk to him now. Mike Judge. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA,

a city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead

courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5pm in Rock City at torontorock.com Gudge. St. Pius High School. So you're a year ahead of me. Yeah, I graduated when I was 17, though, so... My brother went to Pius.

Really? Yeah. But he's two and a half years younger than me, so I don't know that you would have known him. My sister would have known him. What's his name? Craig Marin. Wow.

He was a tennis guy i don't remember i got i knew some people that went oh we must know a ton of the same people we must have common friends i always wondered that yeah if um i'm trying to think i went to albuquerque high one semester and i know a lot of those people but um i had a couple friends who went to albuquerque high devin jackson was about him you do or i did in junior high i knew him really yeah devin jackson ty montague ty montague dude he ended up going to wait are we on yeah oh cool okay yeah ty montague ended up um it's a big advertising guy dude yeah in new york yeah when it was fun when beavis and butthead was happening i was when it was first getting going i was in uh this guy's office at MTV,

Abby Tercouli, and he said, oh, yeah, tell Ty Montague I'll call him back. And I thought, you know, I'm in Manhattan, and I'm like, how many Ty Montagues are there? And I said, is he from Albuquerque? He said, oh, I don't know. He works at Chiat Day or whatever. Yeah. And I said, ask him if he's from Albuquerque.

And he's like, all right. And it turned out he was the Ty Montague that I do when I was in, like, seventh grade. Yeah. But him and Devin Jackson were friends, right? Yeah. Devin got into writing, didn't he? Yeah. Devin, you know, he was a ball player probably when you knew him, basketball.

His dad. Yeah, he played basketball. Right. Yeah, he did. He wrote a book, and, you know, he's still a writer. He lives out in Santa Fe, and he's got a kid and an ex-wife and, you know, the regular stuff. Like all of us. Yeah.

I don't have the kid, but I got a couple ex-wives. Yeah, and his dad was friends with my dad. His dad used to be the physician over at the University Health Clinic. Oh, right. I remember that. Den Jackson. I've been talking about, do you remember Captain Billy? Oh, hell yeah.

Like, you know, he got shot. Yeah, I remember. Did you go on the Captain Billy show? No. I went on, like, on your birthday, you would go on and sit in the bleachers. Yeah, yeah. My uncle worked at that station and knew him. Where was he, on KOB?

He was on KOAT, wasn't he? Okay, KOAT, Channel 7? The competing, there was Uncle Roy and Captain Billy were the competing children's show guys. And I don't know how it came down for you, but I remember my mom, like I'd heard that he'd been shot. Right. And that he was with some guy's wife. Right. That's what my dad said.

My dad's a doctor and he was at the hospital when they brought him in. Oh, he was. Right. And that's the information I got. Then I recently went back and did some research on it because I've been talking about it on stage about childhood memories. And the angle of the bit was that, you know, my father came home, you know, and I was like seven or however old we were.

Yeah, that's about. Yeah. Right. And he said, you know, someone shot Captain Billy. And in my brain, I'm like, oh, you know what? Yeah. I mean, you watch Captain Billy. That's how I saw cartoons for the first time.

Really? Yeah. And like, I couldn't even but my dad being as inappropriate as he was I said why would anyone shoot Captain Billy's like well some guy comes screwing his wife and in the joke is in retrospect that's really the most important thing I learned from Captain Billy yeah it's so weird like that's that was my, I mean, I watched Captain Billy every morning. And, yeah, I remember first hearing maybe from one of the neighborhood kids that Captain Billy, well, I'd heard he'd been murdered and that he was screwing somebody's wife. And then I remember asking my mom about it.

This is kind of, she was trying to soft pedal it to me, I guess. And she goes, she said, well, it could be that he was just sort of giving her a friendly pat on the back. And it was misinterpreted. I was trying to not tarnish Captain Billy for me. Or make you understand what it could possibly mean to be fucking some guy's wife. It is such a dark, typical of Albuquerque. You're just a local childhood guy. But then I remember years later, my uncle worked at that station.

He was saying that he thought Captain Billy was gay. Well, here's what I heard. I went and did some research on it. And somebody had set out to clear Captain Billy's name and said that it was a lunatic. A lunatic. Like, he was doing a pledge drive or something on TV. And this guy's wife was on the show on the you know one of the phone bank people and captain billy came and like put

his arm around or something what my mom said may have been partially true right and it wasn't the guy was paranoid delusional right right and he had had you know he had been on the inside in a mental hospital before and it was uh there was more to the story it would not help my joke so like yeah like the information i got was the information i got and i don't need that i i need to retroactively make your joke well just sort of like if there's any people that are related to captain billy or need to know the story and do like a sort of an addendum to my act yeah but it was right i think I first saw like Heckle and Jekyll and he used to run some of those old cartoons.

Yeah. All the Tex Avery stuff and, you know, Roadrunners. They'd play all the old Warner Brothers stuff. Right. And it was, I mean, that's where I first saw that stuff. And you remember that. Oh, yeah. You were obsessed with cartoons at that point?

Yeah. Yeah, I would have. In fact, I had, it's another Albuquerque thing i had one of the first weird cartoon dreams i had remember this ed black's chevrolet and yeah that crow yeah it was it was really weird drawing of a crow right just facing camera you usually draw a crow from the side because that's just like these the crow yeah the beak part it was just a circle face weird or oval um you had a dream that that crow was like 200 feet tall, and it was like going through the streets with a pitchfork stabbing people.

But it was animated. It was like kind of a cartoon. Ed Black's Chevrolet. Ed Black's Chevrolet. There was Ed Black's. There was Gallus. It's so funny that it's such a specific landscape. It's weird because I'm making up for something here.

I had Bryan Cranston in here, you know, and they shoot all that in our hometown in Albuquerque. That show is one of the first to really, because they shoot so much stuff there. But when I watch Breaking Bad, that really feels like Albuquerque. Right. They use that octopus car wash or whatever the hell it was. Oh, yeah. That's like a landmark to me. And in the Albuquerque bank

building they even that's in the no country for old men too they that they say that's shot in texas but in that shootout scene at the end of no country for old men you see the first national bank building right there and anyone who's lived in albuquerque yeah yeah they shot it right there like central and what is that san mateo in one of those hotels right there was that and then there was yeah kistler collister kistler collister right there. Yeah, there was that, and then there was, yeah, Kistler-Collister. Kistler-Collister, right, with the department store over on, that was on San Mateo. Lomas, yeah.

But that hasn't been Kistler-Collister forever. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what the hell that is now. There's so many weird memories that happen when you grow up a place. Like, I remember walking to that foodway. I remember the first time I got, you know, dragged home by some guy, not in a bad way but like i remember one time me and my butt my kid brother were going down to i think it was called foodway

yeah i don't think they exist anymore but we decided for some fucked up reason we were going to crawl across san pedro to and some guy decided he would you know walk us home and tell my parents about that like i don't know what's wrong with your kids but they decided they're going to crawl on the street but i remember like well cranston was in here and i i was so nervous about the interview i completely forgot to even make albuquerque a point of reference and i knew places he was eating like there's one scene where they ate at a place called taco sals which is like way up on like eubank or want a bow and it's in a strip mall but it's a great mexican place the only reason i knew about it is because my buddy Dave's

dad owned a store up there that we worked at and we went and ate there. I met Vince Gilligan and we talked to Albuquerque for a while. You know, yeah,

it's just a lot of the same, well, Frontier Restaurant. That was so important to me, man. Yeah. I mean, I spent so much time,

I spent a lot of high school in Frontier. Yeah, high school, yeah, that was, and one of my best friends worked there, and it was just... That's still there.

It's still good. It's really good, yeah. Well, one of my mentors early on was Gus Blaisdell, and he used to own the Living Batch Bookstore, which was right next door to Frontier for a while. Bearded dude. Was a real smart guy. I worked at the Posh Bagel across from Yale Park when I was in high school. Like, yeah, when I was going to Highland, right there, there was a bagel place.

Didn't last long. It was next to the guitar shop, and there was Budget Records. Oh, by Highland High School? No, right across from the university, right on Central. Oh, right there, yeah. Right around the corner from the General Store,

and Natural Sound was on Harvard. Oh, totally, yeah. And then the guitar shop had that wooden front to it, like right there. Did you ever go in there? Yeah, I used to go to to those because my dad was a professor for a long time he was archaeology professor at unm really yeah and an archaeologist like he uh but but yeah i used to i used to go over there um i was also in the albuquerque youth

symphony and we would uh so pope joy hall was right there and then yeah saturdays we'd wander around yeah those places right after rehearsal what'd you play i played trombone back then i played upright bass also but but when i in the youth symphony i was playing trombone so you started playing music really young yeah like fifth grade trombone so you can read music and you can do all that yeah trombone but that's a hell of an instrument. It's a hell of an instrument. I got a bass when I was in high school and started doing that,

and then upright bass. But yeah, trombone, it's one of those things like violin, you have to stay on it. Yeah. Your lip, like for me to play now, I would have to take a long time to get back in.

To work out with whatever you call it. The mouthpiece. Yeah. Well, trombone's one of those ones where you can't sort of like, I'm just going to hang out at home and jam. Yeah, that's the other problem. Probably bass is like that too. It's not.

But you can go on runs. Yeah, you can still. But yeah, trombone, you kind of want to play with people or in a horn section. Was that the original idea, musician? Yeah, I thought about it. I mean, I guess I took to it pretty naturally, and I did, you know, I was, yeah, I was going to, I just didn't, maybe when I was really young, but no, I mean, by the time I was in high school, it was just, you know, you had to go into science was the idea.

Was that the idea that you grew up with? I mean, I don't even know, like an archaeologist, what kind of digs did your dad do? What was his focus? The Anasazi was his thing. He was at Chaco Canyon. Oh, yeah. Well, he started when I was really little.

He was basically the Anasazi in the pre-Columbian, before Columbus. So your dad was on digs, was is he like a preeminent anastasi guy yeah he's pretty i mean in in that world yeah he um uh this this author jared diamond who wrote guns germs and steel like pulitzer prize guy he i was meeting with him when i was doing the movie idiocracy and at some point he uh why were you meeting with him for that movie that fox had said okay you know let's hire a futurist. And I was just, you know, I'd read Guns, Germs of Steel and Collapse. And I was like, can you hook me up with Jared Diamond?

I just kind of was a big fan of his writing. And I just thought I'll use this to try to meet him. And his kids were huge Beavis and Butthead fans. He has these twin sons who are super genius. But at the time, they were like 13. Yeah. He has these twin sons who are super genius, but at the time they were like 13. Yeah.

And so anyway, he – at some point, like during the interview, I said my dad was an archaeologist. And then I got an email from him the next day, and he said, is your dad the Jim Judge? Maybe the only person who would ever say this. Like the guy who did – and there's something in his book i think collapse about just pack rat shit that preserves itself and like my dad had something to do with and he's cited in in in a jared diamond book like his further reading about the anasazi oh really one of my dad's books yeah so that must like he's no it's really cool actually i mean he's and he's he's been in documentaries and national geographic articles and things like that. And he's still around?

Uh-huh. He's retired. What's your mom do? Actually, she was a teacher at Highland for a while. Come on. Yeah, Spanish. Really? She taught Spanish and French, and then she became an elementary school librarian.

She got tired of the high school teaching. I don't know how the hell high school teachers do it. I have no fucking idea. Especially in Albuquerque, it was rough. Yeah. And at the time we grew up, it was rougher.

It seemed like it was pretty, like I remember. I think it was rougher. It seems like it, yeah. No, definitely. I mean, there was a time where it was like one of the second most violent cities

in the country. Albuquerque, yeah. I think in the 70s, there was a couple years in a row where it was the highest per capita violent crime. Right. Cities in the country.

I don't remember really seeing that, but I do remember the great thing about growing up in New Mexico is you could get your driver's license when you're like 15. It was a while, 14 and nine months. You get your learner's permit. I remember a friend in my high school hadn't gone through puberty yet and had his driver's license. He looked like a little eight-year-old driving around. He'd get pulled over all the time. Did you get your permanent at 14, nine months? 15.

Where'd you go from Albuquerque? UC San Diego. Oh, really? Which was kind of, it wasn't my first choice. I'd actually, I wanted to go to UT Austin and something got, I ended up getting accepted, but something got screwed up with, I don't know, my application or the acceptance letter i didn't get it or i found out uh too late as i recall and then it i don't know i really don't know why i went to ucsd it's just kind of i told my guidance counselor i wanted to just go somewhere in the

southwest and she just put that on the list and i applied and i was saying engineering and music stuff and that just came up. And what did you end up studying? Physics. Got a physics degree. Did you do well? I did well considering I hardly went to class. I was kind of known for just like I would start going to class,

and then I would just realize I'm not paying attention. I'm just learning everything from the book anyway. And then I discovered, you know, now with the Internet, I think you can educate yourself. Back then I discovered I could just go to the engineering library and just get better books on the same topic. And it seemed like they always picked the worst books for some of these, like, some of these classes. And so I ended up, I did, I got straight Bs. Yeah. And. Well, they're trying to get a lot into those textbooks, I guess,

and they might not explain it as fully as they could. Yeah, and some physics textbooks, they almost pride themselves, engineer types in physics, almost pride themselves on not explaining it very well. Sure. Like, oh, you don't get it? Yeah. And you could find these other books that would have better explanations and tons of practice problems.

That break the code. Yeah. It's like philosophy, too. It's like you've got to speak the language, but it's English. Yeah. I mean, you can't. Why does everyone have to have a different definition than what it really is? Yeah, there's a lot of that in the academic world.

Yeah. Well, that's how it sustains itself. Yeah. You need us to decode it. Job security, yeah. Well, what were you thinking with physics? I mean, what was the plan? I started out in engineering, and I just gonna i was gonna get an engineering job that's i was uh you know a lot

of people talk about what a big nerd they are when i was in high school i had a ham radio license when i was 12 so i was kind of an electronics guy and i thought okay i'll just be an engineer and get a job and then you know back then they'd, oh, if you get a science degree, they'll just people be handing you jobs like it's in. Here's some money. Yeah, and it's just not true. But I was in engineering and then just realized physics, fewer class requirements.

So it was a practical thing. Believe it or not, it was a little easier for me to get a physics degree. I think I'm better at the conceptual stuff than the – I mean, maybe I'm not explaining that right, but just stuff that's more pure math and physics rather than just here's 20 engineering problems or 40 engineering problems. You have to be able to wrap your brain around the abstract to get physics, correct? Yeah, I think so and and i was i could i i was i guess better at that but and also i you know you can i realized you could still supposedly get engineering jobs with a physics degree and

what is it i never i'm never clear what that means what's an engineering job it can be be a lot of different stuff so right my first job was actually the F-18 fighter jet. All the electronics that test itself and the software that tests itself. Now it's very common in cars. Everything, you know, you got to, gives you a, you got the, your rear flasher is off, is broken or whatever. The F-18, it was just all its self-test stuff. Yeah. And I was working

for a company that did that really that made the plane or just that panel no they just they just did the test software for the so you were you're already proficient at computers that something else you learned i did i'd done yeah i'd done some programming but this was actually this job that i was on we were going through all their software and trying to find, and the schematics, and trying to find failures that the software wouldn't catch. And so we were evaluating. But this was like 85, and the F-18 was all over the news because of Top Gun, I guess. But it was really not working very well at the time. Like they would fly, like when they bombed Gaddafi.

Yeah. I remember like at the at the office like because we were on cornado island and they were like saying you know the f-18s just flew on it on that mission for publicity and for for uh for using their radar i guess oh right so the bombs were dropped by whatever those oh they couldn't trust yeah they couldn't trust the F-18 to do the bombing. But now the public likes the F-18. Yeah, but now F-18, I mean, they had worked out the kinks. So you were just working for a military contractor? Yeah.

And you just got that job out of college? Yeah, I got just sending resumes around. And you were just in a room full of guys? So I picture it like the right stuff. No, it wasn't. It was literally cubicles. I kind of modeled a lot of office space after my first two jobs. And it was just gray cubicles with schematics on them and piles of software and a computer.

And it wasn't glamorous at all. No guys sitting around with models of things? No. I mean, occasionally I would have to go on base and you'd get to go look at an f-18 and in the distance oh there's an aircraft carrier but that was going i was going to look up like if a part was obsolete or something just going to a counter with a guy do you know if this part still exists but occasionally like if i don't know if i look at my wikipedia page or something and it's true as like technically i worked on the-18, but I wasn't out on an F-18 on a carrier giving a thumbs up to somebody.

Yeah, it was a few removed. Yeah. Yeah. So you worked there for a while, and then what happened? I lasted about a year there, and then I moved up to – well, I was actually playing music the whole time. I was playing like three nights a week with this kind of George Thorogood type guy, this sort of drunken slide blues player.

And I was actually paying pretty good, and then I moved up to the Bay Area. Who was that? What guy was that? His name was Blonde Bruce. Yeah? Is he your blues guy? Yeah, this was a long time ago. Are you a blues guy? I mean, that's just what I got. I started playing that and got more blues gigs, and I played upright bass, too, so it

was sort of like... Could you slap bass? Yeah, I did the slap rockabilly thing. I always wanted to play more rockabilly country, but all the gigs I would be blues was that the music you liked in high school i went through a phase where i was really yeah i was really into like elmore james and all right me too man really like yeah brownie mcgee sunny terry all these like old blues guys yeah so you got the blues brain i do too man yeah i saw a lot of these guys too i saw i saw Brownie McGee. Really? Yeah.

Where? I saw him in San Diego at the Belly Up. Oh, really? When you were in college? Yeah, I was like 19. It's weird because- Fake ID. How'd you get your fake ID? The first one, actually, I don't know if you ever did this in Albuquerque.

A friend of mine- I hope to get- You would make a giant poster, right? Yes! Did it look- Yeah, I got the same ID. id to cut out yeah stick your head you do a color card and you put your head and then you'd cut it right you'd cut it out i'd you'd sign the name with a big sharpie so it looked like a when it was reduced down to size right yeah but the weird thing about the board i got is that the guy

couldn't change the information on the board so me and my buddies all got fake ids but they all had the same fucking name here yeah my friend i won won't say his name, but he got a... His brother worked at the airport and he had the binder. So he took a picture of a Wyoming driver's license. Right. Blew it up with an overhead projector. Traced it all out. So whatever the fake name was...

In fact, he even put his three-year-old nephew up there and gave him a fake ID. And he was 21 just for fun. I remember my name. My name was Tom Bynes. It'd be so hilarious if it was your buddy who was making those. Because we did it at a party or something. So just everybody stepped up. Yeah, people who wanted to buy it could buy it.

Yeah. Well, that was the amazing thing. And also, we'll get back to where you went. But the thing about Beards and Butthead and the thing that, like, obviously the entire world responded to it. But it felt very familiar to me because there was a certain, well, I don't know. Maybe it was because you were from Albuquerque and I knew that. But there's a weird thing that happens when you can drive at 15, but you can't drink until you're 21. Because it's sort of weird and dangerous.

But, like, everyone's going to get booze. And most of us, when we grew up like that, we were driving around with six packs and going up to the rocks and, you know, hanging on the mountain. But all you did in Albuquerque was drink and drive around. Right. There was nowhere to go. Yeah. Yeah. You would get like, I mean, we, it's, it's, it's crazy like how lawless it seemed.

Like I remember getting in, coming out of a movie and my friend, like a bunch of us get in the back of his pickup truck, and he just, it was over kind of by where St. Pius was, that theater, and there was a big vacant lot. The one rock? He just like, yeah. Louisiana? Coronado or Winona? Yeah. And he just like, yes, same area, he just like jumps a divider, jumps a curve, and just starts doing donuts in this vacant lot. And just right out there, you could see it from Lomas. And just no one ever seemed to get pulled over by the cops.

Yeah, it was funny because I've been in that car. Let's just fucking go do donuts. We used to get shopping carts in the mall parking lot at Wenrock. Like we'd drink all night driving around. Then we'd get shopping carts and put them in front of my buddy's Firebird and just get them going about 40 or 50 miles an hour and just let them destroy themselves on the curbs. And that was like a big night. But there was something about that weird frustration, having access to a car and access to liquor.

Yeah, and nowhere to go. And no girls. And you couldn't go to, like, no one owned a house, so you could, you know. Yeah. You had to drink outside somewhere. Yeah, maybe someone's parents would be out of town, but you're just. Destroy that place. Destroy the place with no parents. Yeah, maybe someone's parents would be out of town, but you're just... Destroy that place. Destroy the place with no parents.

Yeah, it's really... Yeah, you could have a license. We had a pickup truck that a guy had left for my dad. It was a Datsun. Before anyone knew about Datsun, it was like a 59 Datsun. You could actually crank start it if the starter motor didn't work. They've been around that long time? Yeah, but you hardly ever see these because somehow this guy had one.

Right. And to avoid the draft, went to Canada. Yeah. And then I guess he ended up, he couldn't come back. And then I think he ended up dying or something. But we just inherited this truck that was, we learned to fix engines on it. But we could, could like if there were three of us we could each pitch in a dollar and have enough gas to drive you know you learned how

to work all night long and yeah on on that car mostly and you know my dad and my brother did but that was your first car kind of yeah we sort of nobody really owned it how many brothers you got uh just one and then one sister yeah well i and also there was a lot of guns around yeah that's like i saw several guns in high school yeah some guy pulling you aside going check this out like holy shit oh yeah we got shot at once outside out one night you know oh i mean i so i worked at uh jack in the box and whataburger which whataburger uh the one i don't know if it's there anymore, it was on, it was kind of down in Martinistown

on Lomas, but downtown. But that was real grand? Yeah, and I remember there was a Navajo Indian guy, Jonathan, and this other guy,

Larry, who was sort of, you know how like Native Americans and rednecks kind of hung out? Yeah. There's a flannel.

It's in the country. But he used to say, he'd go like, he'd go, yeah, you know, me and Larry, you know, sometimes, you you know we just go out on the west mesa you know just shoot at cars it's like fuck are you kidding me i was this is my first job i think i was 16 i mean not my first job i'd worked other jobs but like at a and then he uh one day he goes uh he goes hey man you want to go out after work with me and larry he's like oh what are you gonna do he goes, hey, man, you want to go out after work with me and Larry?

I was like, oh, what are you going to do? He goes, oh, we're just going to go roll queers. And I didn't know what that meant. I said, what do you mean? He goes, you know, kick their ass, take their money. I was just like, oh, yeah, I can't tonight. I was such a gringo. Yeah, no, I don't think I'm going to go beat up fags with you guys.

It does sound fun. But, oh, God. Well, that's the weird thing is that, like, when we grew up, it had to be 60 or 70% Latino. Easily. Yeah, it always felt like. Yeah. I mean. We were the ones that were, you know.

Yeah. At Jefferson Junior High, I felt like I was the minority, you know. Oh, yeah. Even at St. Pius. It was more mellow, I suppose. I didn't feel. But I never got a sense of tension until like Cholo started happening. Like there was always, it was always more sort of disco oriented and platform shoes.

And then all of a sudden something happened. Yeah. Viva La Raza. Yeah. And the Chicano power movement. And it was kind of like, yeah, I distinctly remember a guy I used to ride the bus with, Richard Quintana. And he was, we were really good friends. And all of a sudden just at

some point like at certain age yeah he couldn't be seen with me right and then the gang started happening a bit yeah and then like the the flannel shirts right only buttoned at the top with the white shirt and the in the bandanas it just all changed suddenly got yeah yeah so after uh san diego you where'd you get the, this is when you got the job in Silicon Valley? Yeah, I went up there. My ex-wife, my girlfriend at the time, was from Palo Alto, and she'd gone back, and I thought I'd give it a go up there.

And, yeah, then I had an engineering job, and then I started playing music again. All through it, you played bass, huh? Yeah. And then after that, I played bass for a living for like five years almost until Beavis and Butthead. Really? Yeah, the engineering jobs up there, I had one that lasted like three or four months and another one two months. But did it give you a sense of, like, was it really the kernels of your understanding of Silicon Valley, or was it just another job?

Well, it was kind of the kernels of my understanding of it because I just, I mean, that was, the job in San Diego, military contractor, whatever, that was sort of like cubicle, dreary, whatever. But this was a whole different, they were like cults or something. It was very weird. I feel like it's still like that up there. And I just didn't fit in. A cult of product? A cult of? Just kind of believing in what we're doing

and we are the leaders of the world in Silicon Valley and we're, you know. And this is sort of pre-boom, right? A little bit. There was a boom back then, but this is definitely pre the boom now and it's another level now. But there was a bit of a boom going on.

Was it a personal computer boom or some other technology? Personal computer, I think. And just kind of computer in general boom was still going on. The second job I had there was actually for Galleon Kruger that makes bass amps and guitar amps. So what happened? So you played bass for five years before Beavis and Butthead. were you living then um then i moved to dallas dallas yeah you know what the fuck you were gonna do are you on any records uh yeah i'm on uh doyle bramhall seniors a couple of his albums and uh anson this guy anson funderberg and sam myers they were like a duo

yeah they were on a label called Blacktop that was in New Orleans. That was in the 80s. So I'm playing bass on those. And then other stuff here and there. There's Ray Benson, the Asleep at the Wheel guy. I'm on one of his things. I just got a bunch of big package from them. They pitched him as a guest, and I didn't really follow up on it.

But he's still at it. He's got amazing stories. Yeah, he's still at it he's got amazing stories he's uh yeah he's still at it and then um yeah so i'm but i didn't have any great i mean i was always just doing it because i didn't there's a way to not work in a cubicle and i was really trying to go into writing or comedy filmmaking not stand-up ever but just i knew i couldn't pull that off, but I started making animated films. I finished the first one in 90, but I bought a camera and started messing with it in 89. How did you learn how to do that? I actually just got books at the library.

For animating? Yeah. I kind of knew. I just always was interested in it, so I just kind of knew. What was the moment where you were like, it was doable? The moment was in Dallas at the Inwood Theater. They used to have a thing, the animation celebration, which was just every year they'd take the best animated shorts

from all over the world and put them together as a feature, and it would just play in indie movie theaters. And I would always go. I just thought it thought really cool stuff they'd have in there and um in the lobby they had cells on display of this guy paul claire hout who lived in dallas who had made a film and had gotten it in there and i was looking at these drawings and going shit there's a guy that lives in my town and he's doing this and because i always thought you had to have a ton of money or you had to buy all the equipment machine yeah and then i thought wait i bet you can just rent the equipment what why don't i and then i got books on it and then i just got this like animation fever i just decided i'm gonna do this i'm gonna and it's you know just wrote down

every idea i was i've never drawn yeah i'd always a little bit, but I never took a lot of pride in it. I would draw to just do something. I could sort of draw. Someone would get under my skin, like a professor or someone, like when I was a musician, like this guy that I was touring with, and I would draw them.

I'd get this urge to draw them, but I wasn't great. I can't draw landscapes and houses and trees, but I would just draw faces in a way that could make people laugh. Like Judas and Butthead? Yeah, you know, that was that sort of thing. And I would draw on notebooks and stuff. But I never took pride in, like, oh, look.

And I tried to do some panel cartoons a little bit, but I don't think they were ever that great. What, for print? Yeah. But I was, that kind of wasn't my thing either. I just,

but I had a hunch that I could make something funny if I could figure out how to put it together. But you always gravitated towards animation and it resonated with you.

There was something, what about it exactly? I don't know what it is. Like, well, stop motion was another thing I really wanted to do. I'm actually better at sculpting than I am drawing.

Uh-huh. Maybe not. So I always wanted to do Gumby stop motion stuff. Have you done that? Just a little bit when I first got, around the same time. And then I realized that involves just a lot of hardware and building sets and all that stuff. Too much work. As shitty as my drawings are, it was like that was a quicker path

to getting something done that could be funny. Right. So it wasn't the original stuff. So when did you make the first cartoon? The first, I bought a Bolex movie camera. It's a 16 millimeter little single frame. I did like a test. I tested some animation with it

and that was 89. Single frame kind of thing? Yeah, you just like, you get a peg bar, and the paper's punched, and you register it so it doesn't move. Right. I finished a test, and I got the film back, and I was like, oh my God, this actually looks like a cartoon.

I can really do this. It was like one of the most exciting. And I wasn't telling anybody. I told my wife. I showed her, and I'm like, look at this. I can make a cartoon. What'd she say? She thought it was really cool, actually.

And she was working an engineering job. She had been in physics, too. So she was in tech in Dallas. And anyway, so I... Is that why you ended up there? Sort of. Well, it was actually started because the Anon funderberg guy offered me a gig and then she was saying oh look i my company has a branch there you know you can do it you can play

bass and it was just so expensive to live in the bay area i just couldn't oh it's crazy yeah i lived there for a couple years but i um so you do this thing you do and then the first thing i finished with sound and everything like i timed the track out with a stopwatch. I didn't know if that was going to work either. And that was the first, it was called Office Space, and it was the character Milton and the boss coming and taking a stapler. Right. That's how that started.

Yeah, so that was the first animated thing I ever finished was called Office Space. And it was pre-Dilbert, and it was just the guy with his, you know, kind of short-sleeved guy with his coke bottle glasses at his desk it's a real basic yeah but uh that one got ended up you know i just had vhs copies i couldn't like i had i had one of those tascam four tracks with a cassette tape you know back then that so i did the soundtrack i did all the music and all the voices and the sound effects all as kind of a radio play and then i animated to that that's how you do it oh i see yeah time out every where every syllable is going to happen and you shoot it and i remember getting it back and put it in the projector and i just hit play

going fuck this is never going to work and just it sunk up perfectly and i was like holy shit this is really a cartoon i just made and then i and the atom was split yeah yeah i split the atom of yeah and then i sent out i called 411 literally like i felt so stupid as uh mtv like i just got names of anybody i could comedy central all these people and how many when you made calls, how many did you have in the can? Two. Two office space. I had one office space and then another one that was just this kind of fat,

dumpy guy watching a health food commercial. It wasn't great. Yeah. But I put them both on this tape. Yeah. And mailed out like 14 copies or something like that. And then I started getting calls. It was just like. Really? and mailed out like 14 copies or something like that. And then I started getting calls.

It was just like... Really? At this point, I think I was 27 or... Who were you getting calls from? I got a call from the kids in the hall, believe it or not. I got a call from a show called Night After Night with Alan Havey that ended up running... I remember that, yeah. Yeah, the audience of one.

Yeah, audience of one, yeah. I've interviewed him. Yeah, I ran into him recently in a bar in Santa Monica, and I was like, man, thanks for... Did he say something? You were the first guy to ever put me on TV. That's amazing. Yeah.

So he ran it as a piece on Night on on night after night on comedy central yeah and they actually flew me to new york which was amazing and and uh but they you know they said how many of these can you do how fast and you know i let them have that one for like i think they paid me like 1500 or something like that and that covered my cost a little bit more but for me to keep doing more of them at that price would have been i was just like i'm just gonna animate other stuff and so i ended up you know and i was getting stuff in festivals at that point but it's pretty work intensive the way you were doing it oh yeah it'd take me about six to eight weeks to do two minutes so that was i was

just like crazy you know if it's fifteen hundred dollars and i clear two hundred dollars and i'm making them you know i already got one on their show so it's like that's my you know right that was just a cool thing to and then what how what what happened so you do you get a little attention kids in the hall the but mtv didn't did they uh no not right away what they but then i just kept making them so i made one called is this character inbred jed that one wasn't very good and then the let's see and then the fourth one i did was beavis and butthead it was a short called frog baseball yeah and at this point my stuff was playing in this in this uh thing called sick and twisted animation festival yeah it was in the animation celebration where i'd first seen it right that one ended up i i got to go see that play in the same theater in Austin.

That's cool. Yeah, so then it was, and then there was a show on MTV called Liquid Television that licensed shorts. Yeah, so that's, they licensed four of my shorts and put them on there, so. Which ones? Well, I'd done, at that point I'd done two Beavis and Buttheads.

So they put both of those on, they put Office Space and they put the inbred Jed one. And these were how long usually? Around two minutes, most of them. The second Beavis and Butthead short was like four minutes, I think, or three or four. And then what happened?

Well, so then they... Did you do... Were they on Saturday Night Live too? Yeah. The first thing I ever animated, Office Space, after Night with Alan Havey, then it got on SNL actually. And they just, how'd they set it up?

They ran it, it was on the night that, last time Nirvana was on there was 93. So Beavis and Butthead had already started going by then. But, and then I did three more for SNL. And they weren't very good. The fourth one was pretty good. I was just kind of, it was sort of a weird, I was hiring a couple people myself to help,

and just the timing of them wasn't great, but that led to the movie. But you were still doing them at home. At that point, Beavis and Butthead was going, and I was in New York, but I was, so Beavis and Butthead was in full production, so I wasn't really doing them at home at that point beavis and butthead was going and i was in new york but i was so i was beavis and butthead was in full production so i wasn't really doing them at home but i sort of was with those ones it was me and two other guys in our spare time they worked on beavis and butthead and we were just animating like crazy to get these things for snl and like

lauren would call on a on a friday and say ask me if I could have one for tomorrow he'd call you directly yeah he'd call me directly and say you know we're a little short on material could you have one tomorrow and just say no they take with three of us it would take like two or three weeks you know and so so all this sort of kind of happened in a in a perfect storm within a year or so you know the the momentum of this thing of kind of happened in a in a perfect storm within a year or so you know the the momentum of this thing yeah i went for like 90 was when i finished the office space one 91 it was on comedy central and 92 beavis and bud had happened and and you did a deal with mtv for a series yeah and and that gave you a production schedule yeah and it seems to me

that if i'm not mistaken you sort of single-handedly saved MTV, the network, because they drifted into irrelevance, and no one gave a shit anymore. Yeah, they were in... It's funny. I didn't know what ratings meant. I mean, I knew what ratings were, but I didn't know what the numbers...

I wasn't even thinking about it going into this, and then after the first episode aired, the next day, Abbyby terculli kind of the exec on it uh comes in says we got a one and i said what's a one doesn't sound like a very high number to me but they said normally he said normally that time slot is 0.6 you know and then the next day it was point every day, which was just crazy. And the next day it was like 1.2. By the end of the week it was 1.8.

But this was such a train wreck. They were supposed to have something like 15 episodes by March 8th when it premiered. And I remember this guy they hired who didn't have an animation studio he was just uh I was just a train wreck and he um we had we ended up having just two episodes ready so what we did is took my two shorts and put videos in between them and cobbled together another one and they just were rerunning by the end of the week there was another one coming in so third so just three episodes airing over and over again but the ratings kept going up and then they finally did a smart thing

and just took it off the air and waited until we had more well that's that's interesting because that would have been you know the the the equivalent of viral now that like by word of mouth it actually probably helped you in the long run i think it did because it everyone was like what what happened that show where'd it go and then three months later or something like that it you got you got another 12 in the can and and the episodes were better and they started to get better and yeah so it was uh it and yeah in a weird way it ended up helping and the shorts had been on liquid television and we're getting a lot of buzz so so it's just like it changed uh it you changed everything not just for you but i think for america i i made america stupid

i was uh yeah and i was it was it was a crazy time i didn't really appreciate it at the time i mean i was married we had a my daughter was a year and a half old and I was just working 16 hour days. And we lived in a lousy condo way up in Portchester. And I was taking the train in and just kind of. Portchester? Yeah. You know where that is? Way up.

Up north. Yeah. It's up between Greenwich and Rye. But it was, it was an amazing time because i mean beavis and butt had literally there was something so it resonated with so many people so quickly and that you know it was just a matter of weeks it seemed before people were imitating them and you know showing their friends and it was so specifically i think what what registered to me and i i guess to everybody else is that it's a very specific american townie

experience and like that that i grew up with and that we grew up with you know i don't know if that is but i think just about anywhere i mean they everybody seemed to know that guy or know those guys or have gone to high school with those guys yeah definitely um i yeah, and that's what I heard from the get-go is, oh, I grew up with guys like this. And to me, it feels very Albuquerque. Yeah. I don't know, looking back on it, at the time, in a weird way, on one hand, I wasn't surprised that people would connect with it. Once I got it, I felt like the first two that aired were horrible, and a lot of the early ones weren't good. But I knew that once I got the good ones on, that it would at least, I felt like it would connect with some people. would at least i felt like it would connect with some people i didn't um i didn't really know it would uh be as you know get as big as it was or or piss as many people off also why did you oh all kinds of reasons i mean it was it it landed right in this pocket when

i guess the the i don't know the wall had gone down in Europe, you know, like the end of the Cold War and not a lot of news. And suddenly just right at this time, right before it came out, there was all of a sudden it was like violence on television and television corrupting the minds. And then, you know, here's this show called Beavis and Butthead that's a cartoon and everyone thought of cartoons as for kids. And so this was just you know our kids are watching this yeah and just and it was such a i wish i mean at the time it was there was such a just assault from the news media of just you know this horrible show what are what what's this world come to and and I wish I had pointed out more. It took me a while to get. This is cable TV.

You have to call up and order it. You have to pay your bill. You have to be there when the guy installs it. You have to take all these steps. And for these mothers to parents just like, my kids are watching. Look what my kids are watching. You need to change. It's like just you went and it's like going and buying Hustler and leaving it on your coffee table and say look what my children are looking at you know like but also

it's like you can lock it out it's so easy to do and the weird thing is is that where was the argument it's like well the three stooges were pretty violent oh yeah yeah i know you know it's not like how did why when in specifically animation it's like we're it's not real yeah it's not real and it's not i mean also just you know a typical roadrunner warner brothers cartoon you know tech savory stuff horrendous that coyote went through such shit banging people in the head with pans and coyote yeah so it's uh i mean now it's kind of i wish wish, John Crisfalusi, there was this thing that, like MTV's publicity department was always just breathing down my neck. Okay, when they ask you that, they were just running afraid, running scared from every attack on the show. But meanwhile, it's the greatest publicity the show could have.

It was good publicity. But I just remember it was some, I don't know, Access Hollywood or somebody doing a thing about, and they had me and John Crisfalusi, not together, but interviewed separately. And, you know, here I am just being like, like defending the show and being all serious. And then it cuts to John Crisfalusi saying, every cartoon needs a good beating. And he's just being funny, and it cuts to him like in front of this computer screen where there's one cartoon character bent over, and the other one's just punching him in the butt in the animation cycle. And I'm just thinking, why didn't I just embrace it and be funny like that? I feel like I was always taking these questions too seriously, you know,

instead of just going, hey, this is a comedy, fuck you. Well, you're a serious guy. Was it weighing on your conscience at all well there was a i mean actually to yeah i mean what happened was there was a couple controversies like there was a um there was a thing where somebody had this kid in a trailer park had set uh the trailer and he was five years old i think or four five yeah his mom left him alone with a and there was a one-year-old in a crib who ended up dying in the fire and when they were about to arrest this didn't come out in the news they're about to arrest him for i mean her for you know negligence

negligence and she said well he was watching beavis and butthead and that's why he said it on fire um not that he was five and then it blew up like it was it was the first story of every major network news that night and it was like dan rather i remember he he said this you know uh in ohio a uh child died after uh the you know this kid was watching beavis and butthead, and his opening statement of the news ended with him saying, leading us to ask ourselves, how did we ever get from Leave It to Beaver

to Beavis and Butthead? And it was a little scary because it was like everyone is blaming the show for the death of a kid. Well, it came out that they didn't even get Cable at that trailer park. She was just, there had been another story in the news about Beavis and butthead and somebody doing like a

some kid like with a lighter or something i don't know but but so so she just kind of was about to get arrested and blamed beavis and butthead and the cops bought it and but she wasn't home she went out on a date and left five years stomp. A five-year-old and a one-year-old. And then it turned out the kid had started another fire the year before, before Beavis and Butthead had ever gone on the air. Yeah, but it's so weird that they, like, And left matches, lighters, whatever, you know. But left the kid. He left the kid, yeah.

That wasn't the opening story was, like, how did we get from Beavis and Butthead to Beavis and Butthead? Now, like, where the fuck was this mother with a five-year-old in a trailer? That's what was, i look back on it and just say like why didn't mtv come out why didn't we just like they were just oh don't don't do any interviews don't do you know what i just wish i wish i wish that i had stood up for it more and not been so like oh shit a child died and then you did feel bad all these yeah you felt bad you don't want to be the guy who's going out and saying when a child just died you don't want

to be the one who's going out and saying hey man my show you know yeah where's the mother so it was you know yeah this yeah how come the mother i blame the mother like that's the it was a very odd time you didn't want to get you didn't want to enter the dialogue because that would have put you in dialogue with right yeah with yeah exactly i didn't so but you know looking back on it i don't know i wish i had um i wish that they had maybe stood up for a little more but i mean i kind of i don't know it seemed to have done all right it all worked out yeah but how but at that time so this is a this is a huge success then then you had to get management and everything else right yeah and because i think

we had the same we We were with three arts. Oh, that's right. You were with Rotenberg. I met you like in 95. Yeah, I was with Dave Becky. Yeah. And I don't know. Yeah, we did meet.

And I remembered I was sort of like, hey, we're from Albuquerque. Yeah. And you're like, yeah. You hardly ever meet showbiz people from Albuquerque. No, it's rare. I think David Hyde Pierce is from Albuquerque, isn't he? think david hyde pierce is from albuquerque yeah yeah that's right i didn't know him i think he's younger than we are i've met him once so once you get management once this thing takes off like it does i mean you know what was the plan i mean

because did i mean it didn't seem to me that you were calculating about having a career in show business necessarily no and it yeah i i uh i mean i always wanted I was always into filmmaking, and that's what I wanted to do, sketch comedy or something. And yeah, Michael Rotenberg, they signed me from the beginning. I didn't have a lawyer at all. I couldn't get lawyers to call me back. I threw a cartoonist that I met, I can't remember who, knew through the just newspaper cartoon, you know, world new Matt Groening's lawyer.

And I couldn't get her to call me back. I just probably sounded like some guy bullshitting. I've got a MTV wants to make this show, you know. So before it even started, you were trying to get some, yeah. And so I ended up doing, I got a music lawyer in Texasxas that kind of just said oh don't sign it and i ended up really negotiating a deal with them myself that wasn't a good deal but it was you know it's kind of like the i knew you know i read it i could you can you can read

a contract and kind of you know it's one of those things like physics though there's a word or two in there that yeah could everything could hinge on a word i mean i knew basically i mean i was but i was making two minute short films in my house i couldn't to take it to another level i would have to do a deal with a network and they're going to have to own it that's just the way it is especially when you're nobody and i didn't know it was going to be a hit i thought they were going to make some of those little mtv ids and i would get right twenty thousand dollars and i'd be happy. Did you end up getting screwed? Well, I sort of, yeah, the original deal was about as screwed as you would think. But in a way, I didn't.

Their lawyer had all the bad intentions of a good lawyer but wasn't a really good lawyer. So the contract, I think she didn't really understand that. I think she thought I was going to be doing all the animation myself and so there was a fee that was a per minute fee and then later years later when i was renegotiating that well also they needed me to make the show they realized they they didn't know what they were doing and just to i did the voices and yeah i just kind of had the whole vision and everything and i was you everything, and I was doing all the video. I mean, I was doing it all, so they realized they needed me, and then I was able to renegotiate based on all these kind of –

they realized if you went by the letter of the contract, they would owe me a lot even more money. So I ended up getting – I remember whatever year that was, finding out that I was getting paid more than Tabitha Soren. And I felt pretty good. So the second season you were able to really. Yeah, well, the second season came right away. I mean, the season was 30 to 35 episodes.

And we just, there was never a break. It would just do as many as you can because they were putting it on every day. Right. Which was just ridiculous for an animated show. So we did probably 80 in one year. But are 15 minute right how many total it's like total right around 200 wow i think what it was all in and how much ownership did you end up with uh ultimately now supposedly i've got a 50 50 deal almost with them but at the time i had almost no ownership i mean i sold them the characters just kind of after months of negotiating

and just going and having the deal done and then just sitting there in Dallas going, well, shit. I mean, might as well. It's not like I'm going to sit here and keep making these by myself and putting them in festivals. I'll just find something else to do. And so I just sold it to them thinking, just take some money for this and move on if they do something with it they do and not knowing it was going to go full-on series and that they uh withheld that information from me

until i sold it to him and were you working on a computer or still doing sales all sales i didn't even own a computer then i did it all on on film. And even when the first season was done in a really horrible digital ink and paint, except for the shorts that I had done. And from then on, it was all film. So not computer. Painted on cells. Yeah, never computer, other than those few episodes in the first season. Wow. And so now you're like sort of a, you've, like, it seems to me that without you, you get no, you don't really get South Park.

You know, like you broke open something. I might have, yeah, a little bit. I mean, The Simpsons was running, but that was a different thing. You know, this was. The Simpsons definitely opened the door for, I think, for everybody just about because, but yeah. And then, yeah, I mean, Beavis and Butthead, I distinctly remember when they were talking about doing a series with it, you know, of course they would say, well, they'd look at, you know, when the Simpsons did this and. But there was also this weird, almost DIY quality to it. You know, there was a roughness to the animation and to.

Yeah, I think I opened the doors for shitty drawings being on TV. I did not frame it that way no but but i i mean yeah i mean what i was trying to do i i was a big fan of national lampoon magazine and a lot of cartoonists that had really kind of cool like notebook style drawings that i and i always imagined how cool i wanted to see this stuff animated. And, in fact, at the same time that the Simpsons shorts were on the Tracy Ullman show, there was Mary Kay Brown, M.K. Brown, who I was a big fan of.

Great, great animator. Yeah, really, really great stuff in National Lampoon. And they animated some of her stuff for that same show. It was called Dr. Nagatu. It's about impossible to Google because she spelled it with an exclamation point in the last name. But it was really cool. I just love the way it looked and also the pacing of it. And so when I was doing the first Office Space Milton thing, I was kind of thinking of the way that stuff looked.

She also did weird kind of almost dark domestic panels. Yeah, like this weird woman who was teaching cooking. Yeah, right. Those were trippy, man. Yeah, really trippy, really funny stuff, too. And who else was in the back of the Lampoons when they had the color comics at the back? They had some S. Clay Wilson stuff in there sometimes.

S. Clay Wilson. There was a bunch of Mimi Pond, B.K. Taylor, all these really great stuff. Yeah. And Drew Friedman and Harvey Picard sometimes, I think, and Bill Griffith. I mean, that stuff to me, actually there was a guy named Mark Merrick,

and I mean, I could just, Buddy Hickerson, all these great people that had different, Linda Barry, like just really cool ways of drawing. And I'd never seen any of that animated. So I was trying to do that, just animate something that didn't look so slick. Yeah, yeah. And partly because I just can't draw that slick. And then how long before, like, when you chose to, like, I imagine that doing, you know, King of the Hill and conceiving of King of the Hill and having these, you know, characters with emotional depth was sort of the next evolution of you as a guy who, moving towards film. Yeah. And moving towards, you know, sort of exploring, you know, like, responsible adult themes and that kind of stuff.

you know sort of exploring you know like responsible adult themes and that kind of stuff yeah it was uh yeah i had one you know i was a big fan of just classic television like um leave it to beaver griffith show bob newhart especially i wanted to do something different than beavis and butthead and and also they wanted a show specifically to follow the simpsons so i didn't want it to be too much like The Simpsons. So that's a huge break for you. I mean, when that must have been offered to you, you must have been like, holy shit. Yeah, it was a little daunting. I tried not to think about that too much,

but I actually didn't think. Honestly, I did this overall deal with Fox, and I always just kept thinking I'm just going to retire and do weird little stuff for fun but but this I remember thinking well it was very daunting but then I thought you know what I'm just going to pitch a show that I want to do I'm not going to and if if it's not what they want to do they'll say no and that's that and right and I I sort of kept thinking they were going to say no it's like just these like the first drawing I had was four guys with their beers and then the family. And kind of based on the neighborhood I lived in outside of Dallas.

But I just kept – and actually in Albuquerque too. I lived in a – I had four different Fort Worth – people from Fort Worth living in my neighborhood. And I had a paper out that was... Texans are their own thing. Yeah, they seem to find each other in Albuquerque, too. My neighborhood was, they were all around us. I mean, the last neighborhood. We lived all over the place there.

But the last neighborhood I was in when I was in high school. So it was uniquely Texan in that way. It was really based on Texans. I think it's sort of the way, you know, you'll hear Canadian comedy people, a lot of them will say, you know, you're right next to the United States. You can kind of observe it as an outsider. Right. I kind of feel that way being in New Mexico, growing up there. And Texans, you know, they flood our campgrounds every three-day weekend.

Ski slopes. up there and texans you know they flood our campgrounds every three-day weekend and my dad would just he uh you know he grew up in montana and wyoming just wide open spaces and he he just hated crowds and and when there was these you know big three-day weekends and just texas licensed place he would just like be muttering just god damn texans everywhere and so i kind of grew up with this view of texans they think they're in their own country there is definitely this i was just there and there's definitely this feeling that like you know texas is texas yeah and whatever else is going on out there it's uh yeah that's someone else's business it's kind of like i mean and once i moved there i just loved it but but it's it is that winning it's the winning team that you like to hate unless you're on the team right like hey you know um but uh did you notice growing up in albuquerque it seemed like anytime there was a middle-aged male authority figure telling you to do something, they had a Texas accent.

Excuse me, boys. What are you boys doing? Move it along. Yeah. But everyone else talked like a cholo. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And their shirt were always tucked into like Western-style slacks. Yeah.

Yeah, and they had a tie usually. Yeah. I mean, you know, like in the 70s, they still had their 50s hairdos. Yeah, swift back. Yeah. Yeah, and they had a tie usually. Yeah, I mean, you know, like in the 70s, they still had their 50s hairdos. Yeah. Swicked back. Yeah, maybe longer sideburns. So King of the Hill ran for a long time. Did you, like, I know that, like, the guys who were writing with me on my show did some King of the Hills.

Oh, I forgot, yeah. Michael Jams. Those guys are great. Yeah, they're working with me, and they've been with me on the last two seasons of my show. Yeah, they're working with me, and they've been with me on the last two seasons of my show. But they told me that when you were in Texas, that you were actually doing the voices and sending them in. Yeah, by that point, yeah, we were just about everybody was doing the voices remotely towards the end there. Yeah, but you stand behind it all the way through?

Yeah, yeah, I was, I mean, you know's there were some some years some seasons better than others but um i was i started to back off being involved when uh john altschuler and dave krinsky took over because they were i just found that they were always kind of making whatever decisions i would have made and just the episodes got started to get really good and uh and who was running the show greg dan i know this was when john ultra and dave krinsky were oh they were running your show he was running it at the beginning i mean i was i was there a lot the first who was greg greg was yeah and uh he he left to do the office um the american office uh sometime i don't know i don't know what years those were happening but um yeah, and then a couple different people ran it,

and then John and Dave took over probably, I don't know, the last like six seasons or something like that. And how does that work? So you're the creator, and then it just sort of has its own life. Yeah, I mean, I was, first season, most of the episodes were either treatments that Greg or I had written. Yeah, and then... How'd you get to know him?

How'd you get paired up with him? Actually, three arts. I actually met him at the same comedy festival I met you at, I think, 95, Aspen Comedy Festival. Uh-huh, uh-huh. And he had been on The Simpsons. He was Conan O'Brien's writing partner, actually. Right. And then he...

I'd written the pilot and done the drawings and he I was going to work on the Beavis and Butthead movie. And, you know, they said, you need a showrunner. And Greg did a rewrite of the pilot. And he did. I had the Laotian neighbors moving in and the social worker coming all in the pilot. And he he took the Laotian neighbors moving in and had that be like second or third episode and then added the character Luann. I think he came up with – I did the drawing. And he rewrote it and then just – it was kind of a good fit because he had done – he'd been working on The Simpsons. Right. He knew how to oversee a lot of the, you know, animation stuff that's really going to be foreign to somebody who's only done live action. But it's interesting, too, that, like, given The Simpsons,

the license they take to do just about fucking anything, you know, at the drop of a dime, and even, you know, Family Guy to a certain extent, that King of the Hill still stays true to almost a sitcom format. Yeah. Without, like, you know, with animation, you can go to the moon in a frame if you want right yeah i mean in the simpsons did go going to outer space and and i love that stuff but i i don't know for for whatever reason from i guess because i was basing it sort of on neighbors i'd had and stuff like that i just kind of i just wanted to make it realistic.

And then also, I think that's the way maybe I tend to write, although Beavis and Butthead gets a little crazy sometimes. But I was also just wanted it to be, I remember saying to one of the executives on it, you know, I said, well, you know, I think we want to have it be different from The Simpsons and not just be just like The Simpsons. And he kind of looked at me like, hmm, that's an interesting thought.

I think executive, you never, I don't think anyone's ever gotten faulted for being exactly like something that was really hugely successful. Oh, no, of course not, because in their mind, what he's really thinking is, but The Simpsons makes a lot of money for us. Yeah, it's like, why do you not want to be? Yeah, you should be exactly like The Simpsons. And so I realized that wasn't a good thing to say, but I just kind of said, oh, it's an interesting thought. I'm not sure if it's a good idea.

But I mean, then I just made the – and Greg was on board for making it realistic and having the pace that I wanted. And yeah, so yeah, anyway, I think you were, I was very involved early on, and then at a certain point, what I would do is just, I'd be back in Austin, I would take the storyboards. You'd move to Austin by that point. Yeah, and do notes on the storyboards. They have a thing called an animatic,

and in some ways, you know, we were in Century City and Film Roman did the animation. They were way out in the valley and Film Roman did the animation. They were way out in the valley. And most of the time you were on video conference or the phone anyway, so might as well be in Austin. You liked Austin? Yeah. And you were there for how many years?

I still have my house there. Jeez, from 94 till, you know, a couple of years ago. So what was the, when, how did Office Space happen? Well, that same deal I'd done with Fox, Peter Chernin, who ran the whole thing at the time, had also at that same comedy festival. That's a good thing I went that year. He saw in a theater, we just ran a bunch of my stuff,

including the four Milton Office space shorts that had been done the original one this was at aspen 95 yeah same same year he had seen that and just he actually he wanted uh he said that there should be a movie this this could be a movie the milton character and uh i didn't see a whole movie in it well i wanted to go into live action actually for i just was always you know i mean when i first was doing the shorts, one of the things I was thinking of is trying to pitch myself as a Terry Gilliam animator to a sketch show. Yeah. You know, like the way he was to Monty Python. And.

That was your big plan. That was my plan. Yeah. And in fact, I actually, there was a show called The Edge with Julie Brown as a sketch show, almost all female on Fox. And Bill Plimpton had been doing animated anyway, so yeah, I'd been, you know, just kind of kicking around live action stuff. And yeah, they said, I said, I don't really see a whole movie in the Milton character. And they got some writers to try to pitch and nothing landed. And they said, well, what if it was, I'd had another idea just kind of based on my time as an engineer about something like that and they said well what if you just do a movie they pitched to me a movie like car wash

but the workplace is your office setting right you've got there and i said yeah i could i could try to do that and car wash was the 70s oh no i know but it's interesting i would never have thought that was the precedent i know that idea that would be the the good thing like how about car wash yeah i mean there was a there was a 50 50 chance you'd be like what movie car wash meets nothing that you've ever seen other than maybe nine to five or something you know yeah car wash was amazing was franklin ajay professor erwin cory was in it richard prior was in it remember that song johnny with i think uh well just yeah it was one person after another coming through and it wasn't so that's like when you know later when i, one of the criticisms was Office Space was maybe it wasn't strong on story, but I would say, well, they told me to do something like car wash.

But see, I think that's a misconception about story in general, that if you have a journey, you know, what the fuck do you need a story for? You know what I mean? Well, yeah, it is a little. I mean, what's the i think it's also a very easy thing for critics to pick apart going oh well it doesn't have the three-act structure or the what you know yeah i mean we in we're in the small experience i've had in writing television i mean you know there's you got to make choices like that but i've had there's been some success and you know if the if the sort of movement through the the scenes is strong

enough no one's going to be like nah it does it didn't make sense to me i mean you know whatever carries you through to right whatever carries you i mean you know jj abrams said an interesting thing when i i think i forget what script he used to i used to have him read stuff and we i used to know him back then but he he said you know you want to write – the way he said it, like, whether it's a screenplay or a cut of the movie, you want it to be – like, if you give it to someone to read and they're two pages in or 30 pages in, 50, if you take it away from them, you want them to say, wait, wait, no, give me back. I want to see what – Right. And you can accomplish that a lot of ways.

It can be, like, by wanting to find out what's going to happen to the kidnapped kid. Or it can just be, you know. Does that guy ever get his tape? We're back. Yeah. Or just like, this is reminding me of people I know. I want to see what's going to happen to them. You know, there's a lot of ways to get that.

And it's not necessarily always going to be this kind of, you know, simple. So how did the script end up? How did it end up? Did you write the whole script? Yeah, I wrote it, turned it in, and then to my surprise, they just kept, it's another thing where I just kept waiting for it to not happen. I started to get cold feet at one point. I was just, my producer, you you know i said well if we're gonna

do it we got to shoot it in austin my kids are in school i don't want to go live in la for whatever and and uh i remember going like okay just tell me when it's getting close to too late to back out because i may want to not do this i was just like i don't know if i want to put this pressure on myself because you're going to direct it yeah i was going to direct it and i was like also just thinking you know what if this i couldn't tell like you know what if i can't find the right cast what if it sucks i don't know i was just going through all that and yeah i remember pulling up to they had opened a production office and pulling up and seeing like an 18 wheeler and people constructing sets and going oh shit it's. This is really like those people are building those sets

so I can have my little play pretend with this stuff I wrote and just getting sick to my stomach. And then, oh, Jennifer Aniston's flying in, and there's going to be paparazzi. Oh, my God, what have I done here? Yeah. But one of the things that really tipped the scale, there was a few moments,

but when Gary Cole came in to read for the part of lomberg and i i was just going oh my god if nothing else if i can get this guy and he was kind of basing it on what i'd done in the cartoon but he was taking it to this other level that i was just i'd only seen him in a made for tv movie where he played a serial killer and i I just thought, you know, if I get nothing else but this guy in a movie doing that, then at least I got that. And Stephen Root doing Milton. And then it started to come around, and I just thought, okay, at least I know I have some scenes that me and my brother and my old roommates

and musician friends of mine will laugh at. Right. And then, you know, but that was a lot of stress I wasn't used to. But the characters were so defined, and the performances were fucking amazing. Yeah, I felt like, I remember rehearsing with Ron and Gary Cole, a scene where he's, you know, asking him to come in on Sunday, and it's just the three of us in these cubicles that sets had been built.

And I'm just laughing and thinking, this is great. And neither of them are laughing. Right. They're playing it straight. Am I just making something that... And Gary Cole actually hardly ever laughed through the whole thing except... And when I realized, I was thinking,

does this guy know that this is funny or maybe it's not funny? And why tell him either way? Yeah, and what he's doing just seemed like magic to me. And there's a dream sequence where he's having sex with what's supposed to be Jennifer Aniston. And so he has his shirt off, and we're about to shoot. And I come up, and I had gotten the idea at the last minute to have him have the coffee cup. And I come up with the coffee cup

I'm about to hand it to him and I'm so used to him not laughing and he just starts busting out laughing and I was like okay Gary gets the joke he's just so focused he's just such a focused actor and that's a hilarious beat that was just in the moment yeah yeah I thought you know he's had the coffee cup in every

single scene and now so did you make exactly the movie I thought, you know, he's had the coffee cup in every single scene. So did you make exactly the movie you wanted to make? Yeah. I mean, I'd say just about everything in it. There was some maybe like there's one thing I can think of. There's one. The studio is so up my ass about everything.

I mean, they didn't like the music I put in there. I fought them on that. I fought, they didn't like the cast. They fought me on almost every detail of it. So it was, and I won all of them. One thing I can think of, there's one, this is like petty, but there's one shot of Ron Livingstonston the main guy at the very end when the building's burning there's one shot of him smiling that i don't like and it was this is how much they were meddling it was it was down to the last final edit and we're mixing and and there's a shot where his

smile looks more natural right and not as big as that one and that one didn't and and they just fought me and i was like you know what it's like a two or three second shot let them have it and right now i look at him like ah fuck i should have i won every other battle why did i put that that was the one bone you threw them was it yeah and it's one of the last shots of him in the movie and i'm just like ah shit i should it still sticks with you yeah a little bit but i mean if i i can't believe I got all those Ghetto Boys songs and all those great, I mean, you know, when they're smashing the printer, that song, I had to fight tooth and nail to get that song in there. And damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

They didn't want that. They didn't. So I feel lucky that I got the movie. Well, the interesting thing about it, again, is that that movie, just over time and even now, still kind of builds this cult following. And it's a reference that almost everybody knows about. And people can watch it multiple times. Yeah, it's really nice. It's been really sweet for me to have people still like it.

Because on the release, how did it do on the release? It didn't do that well. I mean, it wasn't a huge disaster because it only cost 10 million but but over time over oh it's been a huge profit for them i mean they've made they still make money off it i'm sure it still airs on cable they still there it took them forever there's this the the red stapler yeah swingline didn't make red staplers. And I painted it, had them paint it that color so it would stand out in the cubicle. And so over the years when it started to catch on, people would call Swingline to try to get a red stapler. They didn't know what they were talking about. There was a Wall Street Journal article about this.

And then someone was selling red staplers on eBay illegally and making a bunch of money. And so Swingline just started making red staplers and it became their biggest selling stapler and it was i actually originally i think it was boston staple staplers was in the script and boston said no you can't even we don't want to yeah and swingline they didn't give us any money but they said yes right so uh so paid off for that. Boston Staplers. Yeah. Or whatever you're called.

Are they still selling red staplers? Yeah, they sell a lot of them. I think last time I checked, it was their biggest. That's amazing. So how many years between that and Idiocracy? So that was 99, Office Space came out. Idiocracy came out in 2006. So yeah, after Office Space, I just said, I'm not doing this anymore.

I'm just going to... Why? Was it too taxing, the experience of directing? You didn't like directing? Taxing. And also, I wanted to just be there for every one of my kids' games and recitals and just be around. I just didn't want to...

I was tired of always getting on a plane and flying to LA.a you made bank you could relax yeah yeah and king of the hill i could do from austin and so practical yeah i took it took it easy for a while and idiocracy like it because like in a distant like and also at this time i mean now south park's out and you know and and you are sort of this respected senior in a way. Did you? Elder statesman. An elder statesman. But also, like, you know, what I started to realize about these animations, about South Park and about Beavis and about, well, The Simpsons to a degree, is that, you know, there's an amazing freedom to animation.

Yeah. I mean, you can fucking, you know, say and do almost anything and imply almost anything and take on sacred cows or, or really turn things inside out. You know, when it's couched in animation, uh, it just seems like the freedom of it is amazing. And like, I don't know what your relationship is with those South Park guys, but I mean, once that started happening, you know, it had to be impressive. Oh yeah. No, I love South Park.

I know those guys. I've gotten to know them really well over the years actually. I love South Park. I know those guys. I've gotten to know them really well over the years, actually. And, in fact, I met them before South Park came out when they had done that short. The Brian Boyatano. Yeah, the Brian Boyatano thing.

And, in fact, they came to the – Were they Three Arts, too? Did you – I don't think they ever were. Yeah. Three Arts went after them, I'm sure. But they came to the Beavis and Butthead movie premiere, and that's where they met Isaac Hayes for the first time. He was playing because he did the opening song for the movie.

Oh, really? I don't know if that's how they ended up choosing him, but they did. That's where they met him the first time? Yeah, at the Beavis and Butthead premiere. I remember those guys being there. Yeah, they've, man man i mean that they're so talented that stuff is just smart and blowingly good it stays relevant and those characters again like to like i think that not that you created a playbook but to use sort of like um you know

kids with with demented points of view yeah you know the traction you can get from that is amazing yeah there's also something that's funny about animation. It didn't occur to me until I was well into doing it, but that, it's hard to explain. There's something kind of cowardly in a funny way about, you know, you're doing these, you know, you're doing these little drawings and you're making fun of people and you're hiding behind this, you know, you're not putting your face on the camera you're yeah but it also is a you're it makes it funny to me that that you're that it's cowardly for some reason but it's not it's not it's not cowardly it's actually the most reasonable and and and and and also the most accessible way

to explore the things that people think or feel but they aren't allowed to express yeah that's true you can you know uh you know there's a scene in in uh kill bill that quentin you know he went into animation for this awful thing where this the girl's mother's like killed on the right and and i remember him saying he was you know i thought it was great i thought it was a genius movie but that him saying that you know i didn't want to actually drip blood on a little kid and stuff, and he went into this Japanese... Was it anime? Yeah. Yeah, anime-style stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, you can do a lot of stuff that you wouldn't... Take license. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right, so you find... What was, you know, kind of boiling up in you that created the next movie? That, you know i had that i'd gotten the idea i guess i was just thinking about evolution or something when i'd gotten the

idea when i was writing the beavis and butted movie that um now that we don't have predators yeah what happened you know nobody's it just favors whoever has the most kids. And I was just thinking about that. And then I started thinking there could be something funny. I'd seen, well, the year 2001 was coming up, and I'd watched 2001 again and just thought, wouldn't that have been funny if that movie was just, you know, giant Walmarts and the Jerry Springer show instead of this clean future, high-tech future that everybody envisioned, everything's pristine and nice and it just doesn't seem to be going that way. And so I just thought, what if you just charted from the 60s to now

and just kept going out in that direction for another 500 years? I was also at Disneyland with my daughters in line at the teacup rides. And this kind of redneck mama behind me with her two little kids, like three and five years old, like mine were, I guess. Mine were a little older. And then a Mexican woman comes up. And I guess they had had an argument before. And this woman behind me starts going, yeah, say that to my face, bitch.

I'll kick your fucking ass, bitch. Come over here. And she's yelling back, and I'm just thinking Disneyland and the teacup rides, and this wasn't how Walt Disney imagined this being. And my daughters are with me, and I want to just turn around and say something to her. But it was kind of scary. Like, I thought a fight was going to break out.

Yeah. Anyway, I just, that was actually the instigating. I had written the treatment for it a while before that, but I thought, wow, I should really do something with this. That was the moment? Yeah, that was the moment. It's like moment there will come a time where everyone will talk like this yeah and i just broken my ankle surfing as i was on crutches and i i had a lot of time sitting down so i just started writing it then and then i put

it on a shelf for a while and then ethan cohen who worked on king of the hill yeah i had fox hire him and then we we went and actually wrote it over a period of, I don't know, two or three months. Just we'd get together. It was the first time I'd written like this, where we actually wrote it in the room together, the first draft. And then I went and did a rewrite later. But it was something I put on the shelf. We were looking at making it in 2002 and couldn't get anybody to be the lead in it. Nobody wanted to do it.

And then I went and did a full rewrite of it. Why didn't they want to do it? I think the script't it was good it was a good idea but it wasn't that great and then when i came back i rewrote it and maybe it was a little better but um i was i i still i mean one of the things about that movie it was sort of a bigger concept than it was a movie to to really it was such a i felt that big concept and it didn't i mean i could have it wasn't that's the the weakness of it i think it's it's a better idea than it was well no i think it's just also just this you need a big budget that's right so that that's what i read about because they're like it's it's pretty it's like a dystopian satire yeah you know like i i

think office space is you know is a workplace satire, but the things you were tackling logically were huge, and they were global, literally. Yeah, yeah. So you could feel that you had budgetary restraints, but that made you lean into the actual jokes that you had. I mean, the other thing, we were, well, I was a little afraid to make it just because it was very daunting. At some point when we tallied it up, I realized we had something like 65 speaking parts, which is not a good idea. Right. To find that many people who can play convincing dumbasses and ended up getting a lot of my friends actually in it but um but uh when luke wilson wanted to make it uh then that's when i thought okay this could be i'd sort of i remember thinking of him when we rewrote it and when it

actually that's kind of who the rewrite i did was imagining him doing it just sort of as sometimes it helps you write when you're thinking of a particular actor. And then he responded really well to it. And so, yeah, then we shot it in 2004, and then it didn't come out until 2006. Well, I'd never seen Dax before, and I thought he was genius in it. I thought he was great. I mean, I couldn't believe it.

As a comedic performance with this weird heart, I mean, he was great. Like, there was a part of him that just couldn't wrap his brain around the fact that he might have been human or more human. performance with with this weird heart i mean he was great like like there was a part of him that just just couldn't wrap his brain around the fact that he might have been human or human more human i loved what he it wasn't how i imagined that character and he i had known him he had done king of the hill and i'd met him he came in and read for that and it just i just loved it it kept it stuck with me and that was another one though that there was one guy who was the head of

I think marketing who got it in his head. The problem with the movie was Dax's voice and he wanted Dax to completely loop the entire movie in a different voice and I had him do a couple scenes just to say I tried and it just

it's always nice to hear that people like Dax in that movie because I loved it and I hear that a lot actually. But, you know, it's weird how one person in a studio can get in your head

and go like, shit, maybe he's right. I don't know. But I... After a certain point though, it's like you got to go like, who the fuck is that guy? Yeah.

Like, you know, it's weird that, you know... Someone can say something with authority and he made everybody else there believe it, too. Right. It's really, it's interesting because you can assign blame to an entity. But then when you realize it, it's like, it might just be one asshole.

Yeah. It's like, who the hell is that guy? Yeah. I mean, I just had this realization recently. Like, everyone who assigns blame to corporations or anything, I mean, obviously there's blame there. But it usually comes down to, like, this one douchebag yeah who's gonna you know but and then that douchebag keeps getting promoted usually of course yeah yeah so what happened with that movie ultimately you feel like you made the movie you could make or you wanted to make i mean that one i could i

could go well i wish this scene looked better there were, I felt like it was cursed from the beginning. It was, you know, it was supposed to take place during a drought. We shot it in Austin during one of the wettest summers ever, so we were constantly having to kill grass and put dirt down. I mean, it was a big undertaking. Yeah, and it was, I mean, I felt happy with what we had to work with, how fast it had to be done and everything. I felt like I did as good as I could have done.

I mean, like I say, I do feel like it was maybe a bigger concept than it was a movie, and that was tricky. But I think, I mean, we got it in on budget. There wasn't, you know, we had to cut a lot of, you know, I wish I could have spent a little more on special effects. I mean, I was getting so tired of, you know, we came in on budget, and they said, you know, you're going to be over on special effects, but don't worry about it.

Every movie's like that. And then we did a test screening where there was literally just drawings of stuff like the Washington Monument. No matter how much you prep an audience, it didn't go well. And so then they just started saying, and they had promised me, you know, oh, we won't use this test screening against you. This is just to see how it plays. And then they immediately said, this didn't score well.

We need to cut the effects budget. So I ended up having to, they dime nickel and diming me on effects so badly there was a point where i i just said look i'll i'll pay for this myself i'll pay 30 000 to not have another one of these meetings and i actually ended up uh without even telling them i robert rodriguez has in austin he you know he has his own special effects people, and he said, look, I'm in between movies. Because he finally got frustrated with effects companies and just said,

I'm going to hire my own people. He's got his whole operation down there. Yeah, and so they actually did a couple effects shots. Just to help out? For free, yeah. That's great. And they were as good as any we had gotten,

and we just put them in the movie. I think we gave them a special thanks i hope we did um you guys are friends yeah yeah because like you do voices in his in the spy kids movies right yeah yeah i'm in the i'm in a couple of those i'm in all three of uh the first what's the character donagan uh-huh yeah i don't know i think he uh i'm the missing agent in the first one so a lot of it's my picture. And I think he painted himself into a corner with that and had to have me in the other two. But it was really fun to –

I learned a lot being on – Those aren't animated. Not yet. They might be making an animated version, or maybe they have. So you actually – you're the guy. I'm actually in those things. Yeah. I'm in office space also.

I'm the manager talking about the pieces of flair. I'm always wearing a mustache. When it's the right thing, I mean, I think I'm happy with what I did in office space. But usually, like in the Spy Kids movies, I'm basically sort of a, I'm the asshole cop with a mustache type thing. And I think you could get better people than me to do that. Like, I was doing a lot of just kind of exposition and stuff. It was really fun to do, though, just because, you know, my kids were in that age group where they were watching those movies. Oh, so it's like, my dad.

Yeah. And also just watching Robert. Like, I learned a lot watching the way he works which is different than a lot of directors and then you're friends with the jackass guys apparently oh yeah yeah they're good guys knoxville's a great guy oh yeah i love that guy yeah he's great good spirit there's a good there's a good uh american spirit to those movies yes i really love those movies there's very few movies i've seen twice in the theater and i saw the first one twice in the theater and it still worked yeah oh god the the first time you see the first jackass that's like a big day yeah because you can't like right out of the gate you're like what the

fuck is happening and it's just pure funny the spirit of it is just so yeah it's like and it's all it's life it's there you know there's people risking their lives for your entertainment, literally, in the rawest way possible. Yeah. Now, I'll be honest with you. I did not see Extract. Oh, it's fine. No, I'm going to watch it. What happened?

That was just a little movie I made in a sort of a not great time in my life. It was very low budget. And there's some good stuff in it. I think Ben Affleck's amazing in it. A lot of good performances. What was the seed of the idea? That started with just a friend of mine talking about being married

and we were just hypothetically talking about a guy who wanted to get divorced and hires a gigolo to see if his wife will cheat on him. Right. But then also I had an idea about a guy. Adam's Extract was a – you'd see as you're driving south of Austin, they make extract. And I had a separate idea about just kind of a crazy kind of criminal girl who was really hot coming into the mix kind of based on something that had happened someone i'd known and and i just writing these scenes actually a while ago and just kind of combined them and i don't know i just had it lying around for a while

and just um put it together and jason bateman wanted to do it and uh i don't know i thought it was i i like it. It's not... It didn't do super well, but it also hardly cost anything. I mean, I think everyone... It was mostly private investors paid for it and then Miramax came in

at the end and... Everyone got their money back? Yeah, I think everyone did alright on it. It's still... It was last... A year ago? It was in the top 10 iTunes downloads. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I mean, it gets some traction here and there. Is it picking up a little cold following?

Yeah, it seems to be. I've got to watch it. I apologize for not- Oh, no. It's fine. I've done all I can. Yeah. I mean, I enjoy Silicon Valley a lot, I'm not easy and in some of the and some

of those guys like I have personal problems with as a comedian right you uh but a lot of them are well yeah you got well you what you've worked with Kumail right I've worked with Kumail I've worked with TJ and Josh Brenner is actually my assistant on my show that's right yeah and you got yeah yeah so he you know him and I actually have an on-screen relationship but like Kumail and I know I respect these guys and they're funny guys but like you know I'm a cantankerous fuck yeah and TJ Miller like sort of as a person has always sort of annoyed me but he's fucking he's great and I know him and I you know and I'm I'm a known

be annoying I'm a known cranky bastard but he's great in that and kumail's great and everybody's great and i just had um uh why martin star in here uh recently he said he yeah but the show's really funny i mean it's just purely funny and it's like the the world you created with those comic actors and the idea behind it it just it all equals great comedy to me. And I think people are responding to it that way. What was the evolution of that idea to screen? That started with a couple that John Altshuler and Dave Krinsky, who were on King of the Hill, had. John had talked about an idea with engineers.

And, you know, obviously, like, I had known that world. He was talking about doing something sort of like Falcon Crest or Dallas, but about tech money instead of oil or wine. Scott Rudin had pitched me

an idea about gamers. They had bought the rights to some story, I think. And I just know video games. I don't know enough about that. Right. And that's something, if you get it wrong, they're just going to just get yeah hated on on reddit yeah you'll be washed

up on reddit exactly yeah yeah so I so I said well what if you know would would you want to do something like this about startups in that world and um shot the pilot and then uh when it became series uh alec berg came on to co-run it with me i think that the casting is pretty uh yeah amazing that you know the the you know middle ditch is great tj is great i think they're i think that's such a great in the way they all well that i mean everything hinges on you know that that dynamic you know and they all seem to settle into their characters so beautifully and they're so you know, that dynamic, you know, and they all seem to settle into their characters so beautifully. And they're so, you know, the comedy doesn't seem like, you've created a world where you can go a bit over the top

because they all want to go over the top. The nature of their ostentatiousness is over the top. And these are people that don't really know how to do that. Yeah, that's what's interesting about the world is these people have so much there's absurd amounts of money going into into this world and they're people who don't quite know how to enjoy themselves right they they don't they wouldn't know how to flaunt it if they tried really and they they don't really want to and i mean, it's just, yeah, it's pretty crazy.

And, yeah, the cast, I think, I love the cast. And they actually, jeez, I think all of them, except all the main people you see on the poster, and then Josh, who wasn't on the poster, but is the main character in the show, plays Big Head. All of them read for TJ's part for Ehrlich. And then I went back and sort of, I i mean we had some other characters in there but you know we had a satanist and whatever but then like seeing each of them had certain qualities that i recognized in the world of engineer nerd types and

so i went back and kind of tailored just kind of wrote to the way they played it right and and it's just the way they all gelled i could tell right away shooting the pilot just when they all sat down they all sat down in that main room in the places basically that they are in the show like martin sat in the corner right and i just like yeah okay this works you two over there and tj kind of wandering around and um and i didn't realize they all had this. I didn't know. I knew Thomas and I'd worked with TJ, but I didn't know that they all had these.

I didn't know Kumail was a standup. I didn't know that they all knew each other from improv. From Chicago, I think, TJ and Kumail anyways. And Thomas, yeah, they go way back. And then Martin. And then actually Josh was in a, when he was, I don't know,

like 12 was cast in a movie that I was producing that didn't ended up having the plug pulled on it. But, um, really? And cause he's from Houston and it was a local. Oh, really? And he came up to me while we were shooting.

He goes, Hey, do you remember this movie? I think it was called El Camino love story. And yeah, what was like, yeah, I was,

I can't remember the character's names. I was just like, oh, my God, I totally remember you. But he was a kid then. Well, what's interesting about these characters is that the way their innate vulnerabilities as sort of overly intelligent, nerdy guys plays against their ego, like there's always going to be this weird, they're never going to be able to get rid of this inherent vulnerability that comes from their intelligence and their nerdiness. Yeah, you see it.

I mean, you see it all the time. I've met a lot of big tech billionaires, and they're still socially awkward, and some of them are even a little Asperger-y and uh this totally reminds me of what you know like the guys i knew in physics and in silicon valley who are just super smart to create a world where that can really work and and to have it be as and to have that type of character and not make fun of that type of character and that like you know martin starrarr, to have him be a Satanist and just sort of be matter of fact about it, it's just beautiful.

Usually that cast of characters are punchlines. And here they're driving the narrative and they all have a fully rounded human component to them that they're sympathetic, they're not punch lines and then they have an inner life and and and there's a vulnerability to all of them that's just great yeah that was that yeah that's uh that's what the goal was you know to make it yeah and like this satanist thing was you know every time i've met or heard of one they're not they're like science fiction club or something.

Yeah, and it's like, and even the head of the Satanist church, Anton LaVey, was like this huckster. He was a carny. He was a, you know, it was a goof.

But it's really just about like, sort of like, do whatever the fuck you want. Yeah. And it's, you know, some odd people joining a club. Well, it's funny because it's sort of like the, it's like what swingers really look like.

Yeah. Like, you know, you ever see like pictures of swinger parties? They're like, it's like a trailer park. Well, we had this book and there was a picture of a satanic baptism and just like fat, weird, unattractive people naked and just standing there with these cheap almost paper mache looking goat heads and stuff like that it's the human component like when when you'd hear about satanism in the 80s it was always like pat robertson or somebody talking about this dark evil force out there that we need to combat and when you really look at it it's just a

just a ragtag group of weirdos right Right. They want to fuck one in different places. Right. Well, great job, man. It was great talking to you. I appreciate you coming down. Yeah, thanks. This was fun. That's it.

That's the show. How cool was that? Talking to Mike Judge. Albuquerque, man. You know, I felt it, man. I felt the connection. I felt the connection,. Albuquerque, man. You know, I felt it, man. I felt the connection. I felt the connection, the Albuquerque connection

to the animation. I just wanted to say our theme music is by John Montagna. Other music on today's episode was by DJ Copley. Right now, we'll do some of my music.

Go to WTFpod.com and do what you gotta do. Get the free app, upgrade to premium, get some justcoffee.coop, pal. Check the wtfpod.com slash guide to see who's been on the show. You can do all that stuff, man.

You can do it. Boomer lives! You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now.

Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com.