WWTW interview: ‘Extract’ writer/director Mike Judge

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Mike Judge set his new comedy in a vanilla extract plant, but the story’s inspiration came from a company producing a totally different product.

Butt-head, to be precise.

“There were some similarities from when I worked in a factory, but I probably got more inspiration from working on ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ where I felt like I was running a factory and having to deal with all its employees,” Judge says. “It was a Butt-Head factory, basically.”

“Extract,” out on DVD and Blu-ray Dec. 22, follows a frazzled extract company owner (Jason Bateman) trying to deal with an injured employee, a disinterested wife and a new employee out to swindle his modest company.

Judge may have made a name for himself by creating “Beavis and Butt-head,” but his workplace comedy “Office Space” remains his cinematic calling card.

Few directors captured the mundane nature of cubicle life quite like Judge, and it’s hardly an accident. He worked some of those jobs before hitting it big as a well respected animator (“Beavis,” “King of the Hill”) and film director (“Idiocracy.”).

He’s expert at finding the humor in the workplace, but he’s less than eager to insult the men and women stuffed inside cubicles for 40-plus hours a week.

“I remember feeling like Hollywood was sometimes out of touch with us, and always appreciating it when it felt like a movie or TV show got something right — like there was someone out there in Hollywood who understood what most of us go through,” says Judge during a recent virtual roundtable to promote the DVD/Blu-ray release of “Extract.” “Finding the humor while still having some dignity to the characters is something that is also important to me.”

Judge has spent most of his life living in the suburbs, so it’s only natural to set so much of his humor there. It makes sense to him, but he says it also sets him apart from his peers.

“I think that a lot of writers in film and TV in the past have tended to come from NY or big east-coast cities, and there have also been great stuff written about really small hick towns, and so I feel like I can maybe bring a different perspective on things with a suburban setting,” he says.

Tomorrow: Judge reveals his thoughts on a possible “Office Space” sequel and the recent rise in R-rated comedies.