The manliest man show (for girls, too)

INTERVIEW. On the unabashedly male-oriented cable network Spike, “The Factory” — a heavily improvised comedy about four blue-collar dudes slacking off and being, well, dudes while earning a paycheck at the ol’ town mill — is set to debut as the channel’s first original comedy series. But the series — unflinchingly frank about work, relationships and sex and very, very funny — is poised to woo more than a few female fans (cat-calls not even necessary). Creator and star Mitch Rouse explains.

How did you become the guy who created the first comedy series for Spike?
I had done a show years ago called “Exit 57” for Comedy Central [the network’s first sketch show], then did  “Strangers with Candy” [Comedy Central’s first half-hour scripted series], and both of those were under executive Doug Herzog. Doug went on to Fox, then over to Spike, so with him there it was sort of a nice place to do my show. They totally got what I was trying to do.

Fittingly for “the dudes’ network,” your show is all about guys being guys. Your men sure get raunchy and immature when they’re hanging out together.
I think anytime a group of people who have known each other for a while and get together — whether it’s guys, girls, or guys and girls — this little maturity factor drops and everyone becomes really juvenile for no reason. But also you have these little inside jokes and almost have your own dialogue, so that’s what this show is about. Here are these guys, and whenever they get together, they think they’re so cool, but they’re probably the most immature people you’d ever meet. It’s all about the shorthand you have with people you’ve known for a long time. I think that’s what’s key and what makes the show interesting.

The humor in those kinds of relationships works particularly well on your show because the female characters — the wives and girlfriends in particular — are just as vulgar and miserable as the guys.
It’s never interesting to me when you see a movie and there’s “the girl.” The actresses on this show are great improvisers who are responsible for what their characters are doing — 95 percent of this show is improvised. I wish I could say, “Oh, yeah, we wrote all that stuff, and it’s really great,” but they’re improvising. The only direction I gave them was don’t be predictable and to make their characters strong women who have points of view.

‘The Factory’ premieres Sunday at 10 p.m. on Spike.