Judge’s ‘Silicon Valley’ takes dead aim at world of dot-com start-ups

Mike Judge describes himself on Twitter as “The ‘Beavis & Butt-Head,’ ‘King of the Hill,’ ‘Office Space,’ ‘Idiocracy’ guy.”

He may soon have to cram “Silicon Valley” into his Twitter resume. The new comedy, which takes dead aim at the big money world of dot-com start-ups, premieres Sunday, April 6 on HBO Canada following the fourth-season return of “Game of Thrones.”

The 51-year-old executive producer has a knack for taking the madness of the modern world and feeding it through a comedy shredder. He has a Texan’s way of telling it like it is, as with this recent tweet:

“What we really need to save the environment are more ill-informed self-aggrandizing celebrities. The more washed up the better.”

Judge doesn’t need to tweet (and, in fact, rarely does). Instead of venting on social media like the rest of us, he can mock society’s foibles to millions through his movies and TV shows.

His latest project allows him to goof on Twitter, Google, Facebook, Apple and all the other high tech giants from an insider’s perspective. “Silicon Valley” is about a group of twenty-something computer programmers living together in a so-called “hacker hostel” in the Silicon Valley region of Palo Alto, Calif.

Thomas Middleditch (“The Office”) plays Richard, a 26-year-old programmer who has come up with a nifty new high speed compression algorithm that is the envy of the industry. Together with his best pal Big Head (Josh Brener) and fellow brainy misfits Gilfoyle and Dinesh (Martin Starr, Kumail Nanjiani) — as well as Erlich (T.J. Miller), the deluded dot-com millionaire who lets them all crash at his house — each member of the gang plots to become the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Besides Judge, the series was created by John Altschuler, Dave Krinsky (“King of the Hill”) and Alec Berg (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”). Toronto-born Michael Rotenberg (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”) and Tom Lassally (“The Good Family”) are also executive producers.

Judge didn’t have to Google these sitcom characters. As he told TV critics gathered earlier this year in Pasadena, Calif., he was one of them. When he was 23, the physics major worked as a test engineer in Palo Alto.

“This is boring stuff for most of you,” said Judge in his familiar drawl (halfway between two animated characters he created and voiced — Hank Hill from “King of the Hill” and Butt-Head). He explained how he put in a little over a year testing automatic systems for F-18 fighters as well as interfaces for early high-def screens.

“I was programming a little bit back then,” he downplays. “I didn’t follow it that much. Now that I’m doing the show I’ve gotten back into it.”

His dealings brought him into contact with some of the big tech players he lampoons on the series.

“We’ve both known some tech billionaires,” he says, speaking also for Berg, whose father was a physics professor and whose brother worked for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

In the pilot, two billionaire venture capitalists (played by Christopher Evan Welch and Matt Ross) compete to seize Richard’s zippy new algorithm. Berg insists they’re not based on anyone in particular, although he admits that, after researching this dot-com business world, “the craziest stuff that you can think of is not half as crazy as the real stuff you’re finding.”

Judge says there’s a “billionaire vibe” they just tapped into, suggesting these industry leaders fall into two categories, “a kind of Aspergery-type” or an “uber-competitive guy.”

Sadly, one of the two actors, Welch, died before the eight-episode first season was completed.

“We had to write around that,” as well as cope with it on a personal level said Berg. “He was an amazing guy and super talented and incredibly enthusiastic.”

Being on HBO allows Judge and the other writer/producers a little more freedom to just let it rip, content-wise, although much of “Silicon Valley” could play as is on a traditional broadcaster. “It’s not like I’m a person who is always looking to be edgy or outrageous or whatever,” says the man behind “Beavis & Butt-head.”

He does, however, warn viewers that there is one joke in the first season about a certain part of the male anatomy “which might be one of the most complicated” such jokes ever told.

In Judge’s world, just because the target is high tech, doesn’t mean you can’t go low brow.

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Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.