Name: The Origins of Beavis and Butthead w/Mike Judge
Uploaded: 2022-06-22T17:32:45.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Origins of Beavis and Butthead w/Mike Judge' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-06-22. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Origins of Beavis and Butthead w/Mike Judge' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-06-22. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- How did you guys wind up with Beavis and Butthead there?
- So I had, I was making these animated shorts
in my house and just mailing out VHS tapes of them
and there was a show called Liquid Television.
Well I had gotten, I made three shorts before,
Beavis and Butthead was the fourth one I'd made
and the first three had gotten,
like the first one I made was on a show on comedy,
it was called the Comedy Channel,
Night After Night with Alan Havy.
- Oh I remember Alan Havy.
- Yeah and so, and then I'd gotten in some animation festivals
and so people were starting,
there was a show called Liquid Television on MTV
that was on Sunday nights
and they would license animated shorts.
So I got like three or four of mine on there.
It all happened very quickly, like I had, they were gonna,
they asked me to send my first three and I said I have a new one
and it was Beavis and Butthead and then it, so it got on that show
and then there was a long, weird, cryptic negotiation where they said they want
to buy it
and I said what for and like, and then I negotiated with, it was Colossal
Pictures,
liquid, liquid, liquid television and then finally they said it's over.
Oh it was a long, ugly thing and then finally MTV came to me directly, I still
didn't know what they were gonna do with it.
I thought those little station IDs or something and I was elated, I was like
this is amazing.
I'm just making these things in my house outside of Dallas and it's gonna be on
MTV, that's amazing.
And then I sold it, I sold the whole thing to him for something like $18,000.
Really?
Yeah.
The whole property, everything?
Yeah, I mean I retained something that you'd never see any money from but I was
able to get it back later, years later.
How'd you do that?
Just 'cause they needed me to do it and I just, you know, but it was, yeah I
sold it.
But this was after months of negotiating and I'm like well it takes me, it
would, I was animating everything by myself,
it would take me like six to eight weeks to make two minutes and after two Beavis
and Butthead shorts I was kind of out of ideas anyway.
So I thought like, okay, I'll just, this will be my, you know, admission fee to
show business.
I'll just sell this off just to meet people and have them know about me and,
and I, you know, after, like I went to different lawyers and they're like,
there was a, this mob lawyer in Dallas who was just like, don't sign it.
And I said, well, then I just don't do this?
Like, I mean, I don't regret it 'cause I, I think they were ready to walk away.
Um, it'd been months, you know, like five or six months, which I guess in show
business isn't that long of a negotiation all the time.
But yeah, then they, and then they flew me up there and then they started
talking about we're going to do 65 episodes.
And, uh, saying, okay, am I going to be involved?
I don't like I did.
And they said, of course, it's your baby.
And, you know, um, but they didn't say any of that until they already owned it.
They didn't want to, maybe it was part of the, you know, the whole Pauly Shore
of it all.
And those people that had gotten out of there, but they did, they did, their
lawyer had all the
bad intentions of a good lawyer, but she wasn't all that great and didn't know
animation.
So there were some big, uh, holes in the contract that I was able to exploit.
Yeah.
Exploit later.
Yeah.
She thought that I was going to be doing the entire, all the animation myself.
So there was like a per minute fee that was like three seasons in my, I got my,
still my manager,
Michael Rotenberg is also a lawyer said, Hey, uh, this thing says they owe you
a ton of money.
So yeah, we had, we were able to, I was able to get it back and now I own it
like 50, 50 with them.
So, oh, okay.
That was after the movie and they wanted a sequel and all that stuff.
And so this movie that you got coming out, when did this start getting
developed?
Um, let's see.
I had the idea for it a long time ago.
It was really about three years ago.
And then, um, right before the lockdown, cause it was Friday the 13th, March,
2020.
I had lunch with, uh, the, um, Chris McCarthy and, uh, Kais Hill, Edgar, the
Paramount plus guys.
And, and just sealed the deal right then.
And then made the entire movie with everyone on zoom and ever cast.
So when you pitch a movie, like a Beavis and Butthead movie, are you pitching,
uh, are you just saying, look, I want to do a Beavis and Butthead movie?
Are you saying this is what happens with Beavis and Butthead?
Like what's the process?
Well, with this one, with the sequel, they've been wanting a sequel for years
and I've pitched different, usually.
When did you make the first one?
First one came out in 96.
So it was like a couple of years.
Was it like, so the show, the short first aired on in 92, the series started in
March of 93.
So the show had been on a while before the movie came out, like three years.
They wanted it sooner.
And when did they stop, when did you stop doing the television show?
Um, fall of 98.
Oh wow.
So, so it was off for a while.