Name: Mike Judge on the Legacy of Idiocracy
Uploaded: 2022-06-22T17:32:32.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Mike Judge on the Legacy of Idiocracy' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-06-22. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Mike Judge on the Legacy of Idiocracy' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-06-22. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan experience.
I watched Idiocracy this morning.
Oh, boy.
Dude, it fucking holds up.
It holds up.
Oh, my God, it's funny.
I've never saw the whole thing before.
It was one of those movies that I just--
for whatever reason, I just never saw the whole thing.
It was just--
Well, it kind of--
yeah, it didn't have much of a release, so--
It didn't?
No, it was--
I mean, to be fair, like,
it was a weird movie.
It was hard to mark it.
It's a funny fucking movie, man.
It's funny.
I mean, I watched it in the gym while I was working out.
I was cracking up.
Oh, nice to hear.
It was really good.
It was, like, surprisingly funny.
There was some great stuff about it.
When--
It shows the very smart couple that's holding off
and having children, and the dumb people keep fucking.
Yeah, that was--
I feel like I really made the whole movie just to make
that sequence.
That was one of those rare times.
Patrick and Darlene, the two actors,
that's the only time I think this has ever happened.
I think they were auditioning them in pairs,
and they auditioned,
and I kind of looked at, like, two or three more people,
and then said, "Okay, let's just cast them.
It's never gonna get better."
It's perfect.
That guy was so good.
Patrick Fisher, yeah.
It was such a good movie, man.
It's just like--
Oh, thanks.
And it's so interesting, like, looking at the world in 2022.
It's like, the only thing you missed was social media.
Yeah, I mean, I keep thinking about all the stuff I missed.
I--
Yeah, I feel-- that movie was-- I feel like it was cursed to begin with.
Everything that went wrong went wrong.
Everything that could go wrong went wrong, like--
And it was so many things.
Like, we shot it here in Austin.
It's supposed to take place in a drought,
and it was, like, the rainiest summer.
We had to keep killing grass, which feels really awful to do.
Oh, God.
But we--
How do you do that?
Oh, yeah.
You put, like, a giant piece of, like, tarp and cardboard over it
for, like, two nights or something.
Oh.
But then sometimes they have to put gasoline on it or something.
Oh.
It just feels horrible to kill grass.
Yeah, I don't know.
And then I feel like the curse of the movie kind of just spread out
into the world or something.
But I was just thinking about this, because I can't--
I have a hard time watching it, because it just brings back
so many stressful memories.
But the--
Because it was difficult to make?
Yeah, it was just-- we were, you know, barely--
had an impossible schedule.
And then in post, you know, they just cut--
We had a bad test screening.
And they just cut the effects budget down.
And--
But, I mean, you know, they did pay for the movie to get made.
So I appreciate it.
But, yeah, I was just thinking that--
So there was the wardrobe woman, whatever--
I don't know.
What are you-- Costume Designer is the official title.
And she--
You know, she had a limited budget also.
And for the shoes--
So this--
We shot it in 2004.
She goes--
She tells me, OK, there's a startup.
And it was Crocs.
But they weren't out in the world yet.
But it was a small company.
And she goes, look at these.
They're these horrible plastic shoes.
She said, we could really save a lot of money.
Just put everyone in these things.
And then I said, well, what if--
But what if--
By the time the movie comes out, what if everyone's--
What if these become popular and people are wearing them?
She said, oh, these are never going to become popular.
No one would ever wear these things.
They're horrible.
And then, yeah, there you go.
And then--
But then it took two years for the movie to come out.
Then everyone's--
But then people are going, oh, that's pretty funny that you put everyone in Crocs.
They did kind of become popular, right?
Yeah.
And then they're not around much anymore.
But they were really popular.
They're really popular right now.
Are they back?
They came back in the last two years all of a sudden.
What do you mean?
Who's wearing them?
Post Malone had a deal with them.
I think Justin Bieber did, too.
Really?
People are putting pins on them and stuff.
They're very popular right now.
Pins?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
They're literally like pins, yeah.
Oh, like shirt pins?
Yeah, yeah.
Huh.
I should stop talking shit.
I know people wear them-- a lot of guys wear them in camps.
You bring them to camp, like they're camp shoes.
Oh.
They wear Crocs around camp because they're light.
You know, if you're wearing like hiking boots all day and then you're camping,
you wear Crocs
at night when you're hanging around the campfire.
You get Lyme's disease.
Oh.
So this is a new thing?
I've only seen it popping up recently.
Because they were-- I'd heard they were-- they were in bankruptcy like five
years ago
or something.
Maybe I heard wrong.
Wow.
Maybe they were.
Maybe somebody came in with funding and--
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Took a distressed property and--
I don't get it.
I don't--
I was always confused.
Like, there's so many options for shoes.
Why would you ever buy those?
There's all kinds of slippers you could have.
Yeah.
I don't--
There's no need for those.
I don't get them for camping though.
Like, can't you-- you're gonna get like ticks all over your--
I don't know.
No, I think the idea is--
They put socks on?
Like, hunters wear them.
So like, when you're in the woods and you're hiking, you're wearing these like
very kind of rigid hiking boots.
And then when you're just around the campfire, they wear these little Crocs.
Okay.
They weigh nothing.
You know, they're very light.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, they are light, yeah.
And they provide you with protection from sticks and shit.
Oh, okay.
And they wear them like, you know, over socks.
I see.
So they're horrific looking.
Yeah.
They don't look good.
What is this?
That's why I wanted them in the movie.
What the fuck is this?
They're $600 Crocs.
These are fashion Crocs.
Cut the fucking shit.
I thought they were fake.
They are not fake.
Those are real?
These are real.
$600 Crocs with some kind of a heel.
What does the bottom of that heel look like?
Is it a peg?
Oh.
Like a peg.
Like a nail.
It's like a nail is going through.
That is so strange.
Oh, God.
You know what I don't get?
The strap.
What's the story with the strap at the top of the foot?
Oh, that's like sport mode.
When you need to really keep them on.
Do they all have straps?
Yeah.
The one thing about a slipper is when you need to run and you need to do some
action.
You ain't doing shit in those things.
Put it on your heel so it doesn't fall off.
Go sprinting.
Wait.
$600?
Is that how much?
Yeah.
They're real.
$600.
That's how dumb people are.
Put that in your new movie.
Yeah, I know.
I wish I could remake that.
What would you do different?
Well, like you said, I probably would have had more staring at phones and stuff.
Nobody saw that coming though.
Yeah.
Which is wild, right?
Because you filmed it.
It was released in what?
2005?
2006.
We filmed it in 2004, yeah.
So if you think about phones, back then it was all flip phones.
Yeah, they were starting to come out with a Nokia.
But yeah, the iPhone I don't think was there yet.
That was seven.
Yeah, it was about to come out.
Yeah.
And even then, like everybody thought that was kind of like a novelty.
Nobody ever thought it would be like almost a requirement for life.
Yeah, and also I wrote it in, I started writing it in 2001.
And then it's writer Eitan Cohen.
I wrote a draft with him.
I wrote an outline and then, so that was like 2002, I think, or 2003 that we
wrote it.
So it was like pretty far away from all this stuff happening.
That's the only thing you missed though.
I mean, the dumbing down of people you nailed.
Yeah, I was sort of, I was thinking of it like, so I had, I had the idea in the
90s.
But I remember when, in 2001, in the summer, I was with, well, it was the year
2001.
I'd seen the movie 2001 again and thought, wouldn't that be, wouldn't that have
been funny if that movie, instead of everything being pristine, advanced
civilization, it was like giant Walmarts and the Jerry Springer show.
And like, what if, what if that movie made in the 70s was actually that
accurate?
And I just kind of thought of a graph of like everything from, from whenever
that movie was made, like 71 to the year that it was, 2001, if you just kept
that progression going.
And just like more crass foul language in the mainstream, more like just
everybody getting dumber and dumber and just advertising everywhere.
I don't know, it was just, it was sort of a, I also wrote it, I owed Fox a
screenplay and I pitched two or three different things and they said, oh, that's
the commercial one.
That's one you should make.
And I didn't think they would make it.
I just, it was fun to write.
Why didn't you think they would make it?
It just seemed too weird.
But, you know, they saw it, you know, anything in the future sounds fun and
like a big, broad comedy.
But yeah, then they, it just, it was more fun to write than it was to make.
I mean, nothing against anybody involved.
It was just like a very difficult schedule and a lot of stuff went wrong, had
65 speaking parts in it.
Wow.
Which you don't even, when you're writing, you say, oh, and then there's this,
and it's like, oh yeah, you have to cast every one of those people.
You have to cast every one of those people.
You have to cast every one of those people.