Mike Judge

The creator, the show-runner and the star of Silicon Valley talk about putting together the HBO comedy about the insular start-up tech world.

One of writer-director Mike Judge's favorite themes is American stupidity. His popular animated series Beavis and Butt-Head featured two brainless 15 year-olds obsessed with MTV. His 2007 film, Idiocracy, envisions a not-so-utopian American future in which evolution has bred the intelligence out of humanity. Judge's latest comedy, Extract, now out on DVD, revisits a second favorite subject — the American workplace. Where his cult classic Office Space pitted disgruntled office employees against their incompetent bosses, Extract focuses Judge's satirical eye on management.

Actor Gary Cole who plays a political consultant and polling expert with no people skills on the HBO show Veep, and he played an smarmy boss on the cult hit Office Space discusses his work.