America's Judge: The Creator of "Beavis and Butthead" Turns His Wit on Multicultural Liberalism (Culture) (Mike Judge‪)‬

WHATEVER THE TYPICAL background might be for an animator and film director, odds are Mike Judge's isn't it. The Ecuadorian-born auteur's searingly satirical insights about contemporary America are all the more remarkable for his life's journey, a winding road that took him from a physics degree at University of California, San Diego to a stint as an engineer then bar-band musician before he taught himself animation using library books. His rise from such improbable origins is even more notable given the intense resistance to his work, from grandstanding U.S. senators and his corporate patrons at Fox. Despite critical acclaim and commercial success, Judge has opted to live outside of paparazzi circles. The down-to-earth 45-year-old maintains a residence in Austin, Texas, where he conducts himself as a regular guy. A 2006 Esquire interview revealed a stoic, deliberately unassuming type who watches hunting instructional videos, walks around his neighborhood twice a day, frequents his local Starbucks, and "like[s] the suburbs." Like David Lynch, the famously Reaganophilic director of dark comedies such as "Blue Velvet" and "Twin Peaks," Mike Judge has a fundamentally localist, conservative bent imparted on the slant, increasingly in spite of the agendas of the corporate monoliths that release his work.