Mr. Judge (Photo: Hypemedia)

The highly anticipated Silicon Valley comedy from the mind of Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge has been picked up by HBO for a full season, according to Deadline. The show doesn't have a title yet, but we already know it opens on "the shit-brown hills of Mountainview," and stars Martin Starr of Freaks and Geeks and Party Down fame.

The plot of the pilot, as outlined by a script published by Quartz, is a tantalizing glimpse of what's to come:

“… six programmers are living together in East Palo Alto, each working on software they hope will make them rich, from a system for policing music copyrights to an app that ‘gives you the location of a woman with erect nipples.’”

Give us a sweaty, screaming Steve Ballmer or a Jack Dorsey lookalike raving about his artisanal wheat grass enema by the end of the pilot and we'll be hooked for the whole season.

Man on the street. (Photo: screencap)

Get excited! Mike Judge's much-anticipated (by Betabeat, at least) comedy about Silicon Valley has begun filming a pilot in downtown Palo Alto. So the local news hounds at KPIX San Francisco sallied forth to take in the action on University Avenue and explain the show for locals:

"It's a comedy about six programmers trying to create software that will earn them big bucks. That's not really a comedy, that's what people do down here all the time."

Oh, it's a comedy, alright.

There's shit in them hills.

Have we told you how mind-numbingly excited Betabeat is for HBO's forthcoming comedy, Silicon Valley? That the network's inspired decision to hire the creators of Beavis and Butthead to write a TV show about startups thrust us into a fit of giggling anticipation?

So, now we have. And we're happy to report that reading snippets of the script for the show's pilot episode has only served to increase our high hopes.

According to Quartz, the opening credits begin like so: "We see shot after shot of things that pass for exciting in Silicon Valley," including the "shit brown colored hills of Mountainview," "Steve Ballmer ranting on stage," and "Elon Musk with a Rocket."

There is a character named Peter Gregory, who is a venture capitalist and apparently a dead giveaway for Peter Thiel.

And there is the plot, which goes a little something like this:

"... six programmers are living together in East Palo Alto, each working on software they hope will make them rich, from a system for policing music copyrights to an app that 'gives you the location of a woman with erect nipples.'"

It's just about exactly how we'd write it. Only in our telling, the staff of Betabeat gets hired to write the second season.

Hermione Way with a strap-on. Not pictured: investors from Gramercy Ventures. (Photo: Business Insider)

On last night's episode of "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley," the close-knit (like real close) brother-sister duo Ben Way and Hermione Way claimed to raise a $500,000 seed round for their health and wellness app Ignite--from respected angel investor Esther Dyson and Gramercy Ventures, no less.

(By email, Ms. Dyson confirmed that she invested $25,000. "I  guess I would say the tech industry takes itself way too seriously....and anything that gets the public interested in either tech developments or a healthy lifestyle contributes some value to the world," she said in response to questions about the perception of the show. We've reached out to Gramercy to confirm the size of  its investment. But it's worth noting that Gramercy managing partner Michael Gale delivered the good news shortly after saying, "I care about looking stupid"--perhaps in reference to the party he attended where Ms. Way pranced around in her birthday present, a strap-on.)

UPDATE: By email, Mr. Gale confirmed that Gramercy is an investor in Ignite, although not the size of the round. In an email to Betabeat, he wrote:

"We tried to ignore the whole reality TV aspect in making our investment decision and not be swayed too much by that. So we followed a fairly typical review process and made our decision. It is true however that within the context of reviewing the opportunity we did factor into consideration the TV show as a way to increase downloads of the app and that is an important part of the strategy. When the show was being filmed we had no idea what the response to the show would be nor what it would look like so we had no feel for pubic response to the show.

The company is off to a great start and we are very excited to be involved. We think there is a magnificent opportunity in this space and Ben and Hermione are very talented entrepreneurs."

UPDATE II: Mr. Gale confirmed that Ignite raised a $500,000 round with $475,000 from Gramercy Ventures.

So after some deeply embarrassing, amateur hour attempts to pitch Dave McClure and Jeff Clavier, which involved napping under the conference room table and wondering if the firm would decide within the hour, it seems the Ways managed to make a semi-convincing case for their Wii Fit/Withings scale/Fitbit-like combo, sans prototype. A good thing since Mr. Way floated the possibility of stiffing their design company on camera.

The chance that viewers noticed the company's big break? Pretty slim since Bravo tweeted out yesterday that the show would now be aired at 7pm Eastern/6pm Central on Tuesdays.

#SiliconValley is all new and on at a new time: 7/6c! Watch a clip: bravo.ly/S6hf1D

— Bravotv (@Bravotv) December 11, 2012

And that's after already moving the show's plum 10pm Monday slot, right after the capitalist screetch-fest "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills." As an earlier email from cast member David Murray seems to indicate, this latest change was not planned.

Bravo reps declined to comment, but it seems clear the blame lies with abysmal ratings. According to Futon Critic, the total audience for the November 27th episode, at its original time slot, was 512,000, down from 634,000 for the premiere. "Bravo is a big cable channel. 500K in prime time would not be good," one ratings expert told Betabeat. "LOLWork," the show about the Ben Huh and ICanHasCheezburger, appears to be faring even worse, the season finale is scheduled to air at 1.30am.

It seems all that hysteria that Randi Zuckerberg would bring barbarians to Silicon Valley's gates may have been for naught. But cable execs with startup shows in the works--from the MTV show rumored to be produced by a Reddit cofounder to Mike Judge's version of the Valley--might want to take better care not to put recappers to sleep.

As for the Ways' app Ignite, since the startup's name competes with a New York lecture series, a Texas power company, and a social media firm, you'll have to trek over to the unfortunate URL signup.goignite.it to find it. The current version of the app holds a two-star rating on iTunes and some scathing user commentary: "Sorry but bravo won't help you succeed. Looks like this app was made by some kid over night."

(Photo: MTV)

If the sunny, overblown drama of Bravo's Start-Ups: Silicon Valley has left you aching for a bleaker take on Valley culture, then we have some wonderful news for you. Deadline reports that HBO has just greenlit a new pilot called Silicon Valley, produced by cult comedy icon Mike Judge.

The show will be a single-camera affair, offering a dark take on the "high tech gold rush of modern Silicon Valley, where the people most qualified to succeed are the least capable of handling success." You know what that means: hoodies!

Mr. Judge has been responsible for such iconic works as Office Space, Idiocracy and--of course--Beavis and Butt-head, so we're confident that he'll be able to supply the Valley with the healthy dose of comedic cynicism it so desperately needs. He'll be directing the project, which is slated to begin filming in the spring. King of the Hill producers John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky are also on board.

But what of the Valley's pristine reputation? Will it be sullied by HBO? Area bloggers who clutched their pearls over Start-Ups believe that because Silicon Valley is labeled as fiction up front, it can't do "actual harm." With Mr. Judge’s take, at least we won’t have to worry our pretty little heads over how to separate fact from fiction.