The “blink-and-you-miss-it” Bill Engvall appearance in this week’s Designing Women episode gave us the perfect opportunity to cover a Southern Millennial comedy rite of passage - The Blue Collar Comedy Tour. If you’re already a fan, this segment may give you some fun trivia - at a minimum, we can almost GUARANTEE there’s a Designing Women crossover you weren’t even aware of. If you don’t even know if your collar is blue, there’s something in here for you, too.
In case you want to “Git’R’Done”, here are the sources we used for this segment:
A listing of the most blue collar-friendly states
An interview with Jeff Foxworthy, where he talks about the origins of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and an interesting read on fun facts about the Jeff Foxworthy Show
Some more info on Jeff Foxworthy’s service at the Atlanta Rescue Mission
A Fox News Digital interview with Bill Engvall about his retirement
Here’s some insider info into Larry the Cable Guy’s real accent (spoiler alert: it’s not real!)
Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
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Transcript
Nikki: Hello and welcome to this week's edition of extra sugar.
Salina: Hey, y'all.
Salina: Did I do that right?
Nikki: You did.
Nikki: It perfectly wonderful.
Nikki: So if you're of a certain generation, probably from the south and say, maybe elder millennials, for instance, my spidey sense tells me something in your brain started twitching when you saw Bill Ingval pop up on your screen.
Salina: So young and so blonde.
Nikki: I honestly did not recognize him on.
Salina: The first watch I showed Casey because I was like, do you know who Bill Ingval is?
Salina: And he had this look of disillusionment.
Salina: I don't what are you talking about?
Salina: A little bit, yeah.
Salina: And I was like, you know, blue comedy?
Salina: And he was like, my god, he's young there.
Nikki: I was like, yes, he's very young.
Salina: We all start out young.
Nikki: We do.
Salina: Not all young and blonde.
Nikki: That's true.
Nikki: So maybe you felt an urge to say, here's your son, or maybe you were a little less on the nose, thinking something like, you might be a redneck if or you can't fix stupid if anything like that banged around in your head.
Nikki: You were blue collared.
Nikki: Your brain subconsciously reminded you of one of the most successful comedy outings of the late 90s early aughts, the blue collar comedy tour.
Nikki: I thought in today's segment we could introduce the uninitiated listeners to the blue collar comedy circle and maybe end on a couple of my personal favorite jokes.
Nikki: This could go either way.
Nikki: This could be a real barn burner or in a good way or a real barn burner in a bad way.
Nikki: I might just burn everything down because I don't know that my delivery is going to be the same.
Nikki: So I tried to pick jokes that I feel like I could deliver.
Salina: Deliver the jokes?
Salina: Oh, yes.
Nikki: Well, I mean, I'm going to talk through them.
Nikki: I'm not a comic.
Nikki: My gosh, good.
Nikki: Let's see how this goes.
Nikki: Okay, so I'm going to call this segment blue collar chuckles sound good?
Salina: I like it.
Nikki: Perfect.
Salina: Hold on.
Nikki: Okay, let's get her done.
Nikki: That's your little appetizer for my jokes later.
Salina: That's good.
Nikki: That's why I say this could go either way.
Nikki: So let's talk about the history and the members first.
Nikki: So the very short version is that the blue collar comedy tour was a touring troupe of American comedians jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engall, Ron White, and Larry the cable guy.
Nikki: The troop toured together for six years, from January 2000 to 2006.
Nikki: Over the entire run, the show sold out shows in more than 90 cities and grossed more than $15 million.
Nikki: At the founding of the group, jeff Foxworthy, who is an Atlanta native, had already established a really successful career when he saw a review of the original kings of comedy.
Nikki: So that was a comedy show featuring Steve Harvey, DL.
Nikki: Hugley Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac.
Nikki: The review described the tour as perfect for, quote, urban, hip audience audiences.
Nikki: And he saw a gap for his normal, more rural audience.
Nikki: So real quick, for anyone who doesn't know what blue collar means, it refers basically to non office jobs, usually more labor oriented jobs.
Nikki: I think for Jeff, as he was conceptualizing this tour, it was almost code for like, rural or country.
Nikki: I think it's worth noting that this doesn't necessarily mean southern, although I think for some people the two concepts, southern and rural country, are synonymous, and then by extension, blue collar would be synonymous with southern.
Nikki: And certainly the blue collar comedy tour comedians skew that way.
Nikki: But to this point, I actually found a list of the most blue collar states which I'll link in the show notes, and only four of them are southern.
Nikki: So do it that way.
Nikki: You will.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And I will not be over here trying to think of those four states.
Salina: Go on.
Nikki: And I don't have them listed.
Nikki: So perfect.
Salina: Right?
Nikki: So Jeff started pulling this tour together because he thought that was a gap.
Nikki: So he recruited Bill Ingvall, who was an old friend of his from comic circles, as well as Ron White and eventually Larry the cable guy.
Nikki: The tour actually started with another comic, Craig Hawksley, who left after 26 shows.
Nikki: So when the tour started, larry and Ron would do 15 minutes sets, followed by Bill and Jeff both doing 30 minutes sets.
Nikki: Then all four would gather on stage to do various bits as an ensemble.
Nikki: Originally, Foxworthy always closed the show due to his popularity at the time, but the order actually shifted over time, most notably accommodating Larry the cable Guy as the closer toward the end of the tour, since we had that weird moment collectively as a society where we worshipped Larry the cable guy.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So by the end, regardless of order, all four had equal set lengths.
Nikki: Though through the years, they recorded three live albums and they made a full length feature movie, blue Collar Comedy Tour the Movie.
Salina: I do remember that I didn't, like, see it.
Nikki: I didn't see it either.
Nikki: And I was a pretty big blue collar comedy tour person.
Nikki: I really enjoy them.
Nikki: That came out in the spring of 2003.
Nikki: There was also a really short lived TV show on the WB called the blue Collar Comedy TV Show, which aired from 2004 to 2006.
Nikki: It was sort of a sketch comedy situation.
Nikki: Fun fact, I was at a taping of the show at the alliance theater here in Atlanta.
Nikki: I confirmed this with my parents a few weeks ago because there are a few adjacent shows that get really confusing for me.
Nikki: There was a Jeff Foxworthy show at one point in time.
Nikki: There was a Bill Ingvall show at one point in time.
Nikki: There was a blue collar comedy tour TV show.
Nikki: And we'll get into this with each one of the comics, but they all had TV shows, so I could not remember which one it was.
Nikki: But I confirmed with my parents that it was the Blue Collar comedy TV show.
Nikki: I was sitting literally right in front of the stage.
Nikki: Like, there were three aisles, if I remember correctly.
Nikki: My parents ended up on this far left aisle and they split us up and I went and sat literally in the center, right in front of the stage.
Nikki: You can see me on TV when they do the wide shots of Billy.
Nikki: You just have to find the episodes we were in.
Nikki: My stepdad said he's multiple episodes?
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: I think they filmed two the night we were there.
Nikki: He says his sister saw us on TV for the episode.
Nikki: I think he said it was called The Mistress.
Nikki: I couldn't find that.
Nikki: But he said that's what it was called.
Nikki: And you can actually see me on TV.
Nikki: We had it recorded on maybe tape.
Salina: That's what you need to drop in the show notes.
Nikki: I have to find it.
Nikki: I can't find it.
Salina: Well, just research for a couple of hours.
Nikki: Well, so the problem I can't even find that segment title.
Nikki: And so now I don't even know where to start.
Nikki: It was a short lived TV show, but I'm not sure I'm committed to watching the entire series to find myself.
Nikki: Yeah, I get it, but we'll see how I feel.
Nikki: So the guys got pretty famous because by 2006, all of them were too busy with their own careers.
Nikki: They couldn't maintain the tour, and they ended it, saying they were done with the Blue Collar tour.
Nikki: However, starting in 2011, Foxworthy, Ingval and Larry toured together under the title them Idiots World Tour.
Nikki: They said they weren't going back on their word with being done with the Blue Collar tour since Ron White is no longer a part of it.
Nikki: I'm going to talk about this AJC article, I think, a little bit later, but I'm going to link it in the show notes.
Nikki: He actually says, I couldn't figure out what happened, like why he wasn't ever part of the tour again.
Nikki: He says it was really because he felt like his material really is just too raunchy alongside theirs.
Nikki: And he said it was just sort of a noticeable gap.
Nikki: And it really is.
Nikki: If you watch one of their shows, his stuff is like out of pocket.
Salina: He's my favorite one.
Nikki: He's your favorite one.
Nikki: I think he's really funny.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I don't want to derail things, but I'll just quickly say that I really like a comic.
Salina: That is his style.
Salina: It's similar to Chappelle.
Salina: And they will sit there and they kind of dine out on the jokes.
Salina: And what I mean by that is they'll sit there and smoke or drink and take long pauses.
Salina: And that really works for me because it turns into more of like, storytelling, which is my favorite kind of comedy.
Nikki: I really like Ron White's delivery.
Nikki: I think his delivery is top notch.
Salina: Also, he's a really nice voice.
Nikki: Yeah, I think I tend toward I really appreciate clean comedy.
Nikki: We've talked about this before.
Nikki: Observational, humor.
Nikki: The Nate Bargatzi types really love them.
Salina: He's a phenom.
Salina: I'm totally on board with you on that, for sure.
Nikki: He's so good.
Nikki: But Ron sometimes is a little hard for me to watch.
Nikki: But his delivery is so charismatic.
Nikki: It's really hard to turn away from.
Salina: Even when he's being like a total chauvinist.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I'm like, well, this is kind of messed up, but dang it, you did that so well.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So let's briefly talk about each of the comics and we'll get to Ron White, and I welcome any thoughts you have along the way.
Nikki: I'm going to start with Jeff Foxworthy, though, because he's the guy that started it all.
Nikki: When the tour started, he was really the glue that held it all together.
Nikki: By 2000, he was hugely successful and so was the linchpin of the shows.
Nikki: He had started out in comedy clubs in the 80s.
Nikki: Most notably, he won the great Southeastern laugh off at Atlanta's Punchline Comedy Club in 1984.
Nikki: The Punchline opened here in Atlanta in 1982 and has hosted Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy and Dane Cook.
Nikki: Jeff Foxworthy is like atlanta.
Nikki: Atlanta.
Nikki: He graduated from Hateville High School and attended Georgia Tech.
Nikki: But he left before graduating.
Nikki: He worked for five years in mainframe computer maintenance at IBM.
Nikki: That just sounds very eighty s.
Nikki: No.
Nikki: And that's where his dad also worked.
Nikki: So it's actually his coworkers at IBM who encouraged him to apply to that comedy competition that he won in the early 80s.
Nikki: He released his first comedy album, You Might Be a Redneck, if that's his signature tagline and one liner joke series in 1993, which went gold by 1994.
Salina: Huge.
Nikki: Incredibly huge.
Salina: You could not get away from it.
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: Not that you wanted to, necessarily, but.
Nikki: I don't know if that is.
Nikki: I would love to know if that's because we're in the south or if other people around the country know that.
Salina: I think it was big.
Nikki: Well, by 96, it had gone triple platinum, meaning it sold 3 million copies.
Nikki: And that's kind of a lot for a comedy album like today.
Nikki: Really successful albums.
Nikki: And I know it's a digital world and whatever, but like, in the music world, like, a million copies is a lot.
Nikki: So 3 million.
Salina: Didn't we talk about the fact that he was inspired by Grizzard?
Nikki: Oh, we may have.
Nikki: I didn't come across that in any of my research.
Nikki: But you know what?
Nikki: Now that you say that, that sounds right.
Nikki: Over his career, his comedy has won at least five Grammys.
Nikki: I say at least because it just gets a little convoluted sometimes.
Nikki: Lots of Grammys beyond the live stage.
Nikki: He's also done quite a bit of television.
Nikki: So I mentioned a few minutes ago, in 1995, he starred in The Jeff Foxworthy Show, which was a sitcom created out of his stand up comedy persona.
Salina: That's why I think it was popular beyond us.
Salina: Oh, they gave him a show.
Nikki: It was on ABC.
Nikki: And so that's a good point.
Nikki: It was canceled after one season.
Nikki: He later shared that he felt like networks didn't really know how to market his humor.
Nikki: He thinks that his routine was really too Southern for a national network.
Nikki: And to that point, they based the first season of his sitcom in Bloomington, Indiana, which is just sort of random.
Nikki: The series later aired on Nick at Night and CMT in 2005 and 2006.
Nikki: Can you guess what young actor, so young in the mid 90s played his son?
Nikki: Do you know that?
Salina: I'm going to stop, because that's what I was doing, was looking it up.
Salina: I was like, whoever his son is went on to be famous, okay?
Nikki: You can't remember off the top of.
Salina: Your head, and I think I literally just heard about it recently again, so just tell me.
Nikki: He sees dead people.
Salina: Yes, Haley.
Nikki: Joel Osmos played his son.
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: But you know what Wikipedia didn't share about Jeff Foxworthy was that this wasn't his first attempt at a TV show.
Salina: Okay?
Nikki: I had to dig around a bit to find this one.
Nikki: But there was a 1992 CBS pilot, Banner Times, in which he played a reporter returning to his Georgia hometown I said, that weird.
Nikki: His Georgia hometown to run the local newspaper.
Nikki: David Nichols and Don Rhimer, writers for Evening Shade, which we've talked about here before, wrote the pilot.
Nikki: He described it as the Andy Griffith Show of the 90s.
Nikki: Apparently, the series didn't sell, but the concept became the second season premise for CBS's wait for it hearts of Fire, created by LBT in 1993.
Salina: All right.
Nikki: He's also written books, and he had a serious satellite and he has, I think, currently a serious satellite radio channel.
Nikki: On a personal note, he's been married to his wife, who he met at the Punchline the night he won that comedy contest, since 1985.
Nikki: They have two daughters, incidentally.
Nikki: My other Jeff Foxworthy tie, I'm pretty sure his kids went to high school right near my high school.
Nikki: My high school was not the high school his kids went to.
Nikki: My high school was the public version down the street.
Nikki: I'm pretty sure his kids went to Greater Atlanta Christian School.
Nikki: And the reason I think that is because QT, right across the street from Greater Atlanta Christian was my place to go after school.
Salina: Your QT?
Nikki: My QT.
Nikki: It was my QT.
Nikki: I would go before and after school.
Nikki: And one day I pulled up, probably not driving, probably a friend driving, but a giant Hummer pulled in next to us and out, I kid you not, steps.
Nikki: Jeff Foxworthy walked inside, got something, and came back out.
Nikki: I'm pretty sure he was picking his kids up from school.
Salina: It's kind of hard to picture that he just got oh, no, actually, I could totally picture him in a hunter in a Hummer.
Nikki: A Hummer?
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: That tracks.
Nikki: One other cool thing I read about Jeff, and I'm going to link to it in the show notes is that every Tuesday morning you can find him down at the Atlanta Rescue Mission, a shelter in downtown for people experiencing homelessness.
Nikki: He's been a small group leader there for more than a decade.
Nikki: So reading that article and reading his take on all of it is just like, really super Humbling.
Salina: I think my aunt has done work for them because I think she had me help with some stuff for there.
Nikki: Well, if you had been there on a Tuesday, you might have run into him.
Salina: Well, what are you going to do?
Nikki: Like I said, he's Atlanta.
Nikki: Atlanta.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So next up, I want to talk about Bill Ingvall.
Nikki: So he's the guy that was in this episode.
Nikki: He's a Texan from Galveston.
Nikki: He spent most of his childhood in Texas, either Galveston or near Dallas.
Nikki: He graduated high school in Richardson, Texas, which is near Dallas, and then attended Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.
Nikki: He meant to become a teacher after college.
Nikki: He really did.
Nikki: But he didn't graduate, so he didn't do that.
Nikki: He left college midway through and took a few OD jobs to pay the bills, including one job as a DJ, which is where he started playing with stand up.
Nikki: In 1990, he just straight up made the move to California to pursue comedy.
Nikki: One of his first jobs was as a host of the cable show A Pair of Jokers, which he co hosted with Rosie O'Donnell, of all people.
Nikki: During this time, he obviously appeared on Designing Women.
Nikki: He played Blanche's son Matthew on Golden Palace, which was the Golden Girls spin off.
Nikki: I didn't know that.
Nikki: Could you guess his first standing role as a series regular?
Salina: I want to say no.
Nikki: Probably the right answer.
Nikki: It was on the ABC show Delta, starring Delta Burke.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Nikki: As we've alluded to here before, though, the show only lasted a season, so he found himself back to stand up.
Nikki: That lasted till 1996 when he was cast on The Jeff Foxworthy Show.
Nikki: At this point, they'd met each other on the circuit and become friends.
Nikki: At this time, he also signed to Warner Records, where he released his signature album, here's Your Sign.
Nikki: The album was certified platinum and peaked at number five on the Billboard country album chart.
Nikki: Over the years, he released more albums.
Nikki: He, of course, toured with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.
Nikki: He performed on Dancing with the Stars, and he hosted a game show network Game.
Nikki: He also had his own namesake TV show, The Bill Ingball Show, on TBS, which lasted three seasons from 2007 to 2009.
Nikki: That was, like, late I know.
Salina: Compared to all these other ones.
Nikki: I know.
Nikki: Do you know which famous Academy Award winning actor got their start as his daughter on the show?
Salina: Yes, somewhere in the recesses of my mind.
Salina: Oh, my God.
Salina: Is it a fanning or something?
Salina: No.
Salina: Who is it?
Nikki: Jennifer Lawrence.
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: There you go.
Nikki: After an arguably hugely successful career in 2021, he announced his intention to retire from stand up comedy after his here's your sign.
Nikki: It's finally time.
Nikki: Farewell tour.
Nikki: That was hard to say.
Salina: That's a tongue twister.
Nikki: He posted.
Salina: They stopped.
Nikki: It's true.
Nikki: He posted a video on YouTube confirming his retirement on December 30, 2022.
Nikki: His final performance was at the Echols Theater in Salt Lake City the following day.
Salina: We missed it.
Nikki: We missed it.
Nikki: And before I forget, I want to note that his signature joke series on the tour was just that here's your sign.
Nikki: So we'll talk about that more in a few minutes.
Salina: I forgot that tagline.
Nikki: I love it.
Salina: Yeah, so you said it.
Nikki: On a personal front, he and his wife Gail have been married since 1982.
Nikki: They have two children, Emily and Travis, and Ingval is an ordained minister.
Nikki: He graduated with a degree in Christian studies in 2021.
Salina: Teacher, minister, comedian.
Salina: Well, no wonder his stuff's cleaner.
Nikki: This is what I'm saying.
Nikki: That's what I'm saying.
Nikki: And Jeff Foxworthy kids went to greater Atlanta.
Nikki: Christian his stuff's also cleaner.
Nikki: Next up is Ron White.
Nikki: I'd say it's pretty widely accepted that Ron is the colorful member of the blue collar crew.
Nikki: He was, by far as we mentioned a few minutes ago, the raunchiest member of the crew.
Nikki: He is a Texan as well.
Nikki: Born in Fritz, Texas.
Nikki: Two fun facts about his earlier life are that he joined the US.
Nikki: Navy at the age of 17, and that before pursuing comedy, he moved to Mexico and bought a pottery factory.
Salina: A pottery factory?
Salina: Okay, I didn't know there were pottery factories, but I know now.
Nikki: He only toured, as far as I could tell, with the rest of the group from 2000 to 2003.
Nikki: And remember, the full tour officially lasted through 2006.
Nikki: He did make seven guest appearances on the blue collar comedy TV show around this time.
Nikki: He also briefly launched The Ron White Show, which was a variety show on the WB network.
Salina: I remember that.
Nikki: Apparently, it was intended to be part of a blue collar comedy block on WB.
Nikki: Bill Ingvall at this time also had a TV show on the WB.
Nikki: It was like a home renovation, like a mobile home renovation show or something.
Nikki: But Ron's only lasted one episode.
Nikki: A couple of achievements I wanted to mention for Ron are, one, that April 27, 2009, was designated Ron White Day in Texas.
Nikki: And two, he received the Armed Force Foundation's Patriot Award in 2009 for his work raising money for wounded soldiers.
Nikki: Oh, I guess it was three facts, because he's also been Grammy nominated for Best Comedy Album twice.
Nikki: Once in 2007 and once in 2014.
Salina: Two facts.
Salina: Three facts.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: They're all good.
Salina: It's just the difference of one.
Nikki: That's true.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Sure.
Nikki: Thanks, Selena.
Salina: You're welcome.
Nikki: On a personal note, he's been married three times and he has one child.
Salina: Well, he's raunchy.
Nikki: That's what I'm saying.
Nikki: This is what I'm saying.
Nikki: We talked about this a minute ago.
Nikki: It's also part of his stick was drinking Scotch while he performs, but he actually stopped drinking in 2021.
Nikki: Apparently, he credits Hypnotherapy and some kind of, like, herbal psychedelic drink with helping him stop drinking.
Salina: So he started doing shrooms.
Nikki: I don't know, man.
Salina: Off the sauce.
Nikki: I started to look into it, and I was like, you know what?
Nikki: Whatever is making him happy is his thing.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: That's a very good point.
Nikki: I also read that at some point he bought an 11,000 square foot home in my neck of the woods off a golf course.
Nikki: Literally said he had a home in Suane, but he sold it in 2018 for over $2 million.
Salina: Do you buy it?
Nikki: Selena, don't give away my personal information.
Salina: I'm so sorry.
Nikki: I found a Fort Worth Star Telegram article from 2022 that said he decided to retire from touring and that he was to have his last performance on December 31, 2022.
Nikki: He clarified that he'd still like to do pop up shows, but he was tired of touring.
Salina: Will they make a pact or something?
Nikki: I think they might have.
Nikki: I think they all just sort of hit a certain age.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: He said there was a lot more in the article where he talked about how touring was just really exhausting.
Nikki: And he said, I did it for 35 years.
Nikki: I loved every minute of it, but I figure it's time to go out while I'm still a little bit on top.
Nikki: Like, he still is selling out shows.
Nikki: Every time he does one, he's like, I'd rather go out people wanting more than have overstayed my welcome.
Salina: That's what I want us to do.
Salina: We just got to get to the top first.
Salina: It's a high climb, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
Salina: And maybe with the scotch can you tell we've been doing this for a while?
Nikki: Yeah, I know.
Nikki: We're almost there.
Nikki: We're rounding the bend.
Nikki: So Larry the cable guy.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: He's the last one.
Salina: This is my mom's favorite.
Nikki: Go on.
Nikki: As I mentioned at the top of the segment, by the end of the tour, he was arguably the most popular.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: His birth name was not Larry the Cable Guy.
Salina: You don't say.
Salina: Was it even Larry?
Nikki: Close.
Salina: Lawrence.
Nikki: Hey, Daniel Lawrence.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Whitley?
Nikki: Whitney.
Nikki: Whitney.
Nikki: Sorry.
Nikki: Daniel Lawrence Whitney.
Nikki: He was actually born in Nebraska.
Nikki: He grew up on an 80 acre farm.
Nikki: His dad was a Christian minister.
Nikki: He spent some time in Florida as well.
Nikki: He attended high school in West Palm Beach.
Nikki: He went to college at Baptist University of America, which is apparently in Georgia.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: As well as the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
Nikki: He majored in drama and speech.
Nikki: That part was a little confusing to me.
Nikki: I don't quite know the journey, but he credits his roommates in Georgia, in part for his impression of a Southern accent.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: You know what?
Salina: Some of this is coming back to me now.
Nikki: You've heard some of this before.
Salina: My mom thought this was hilarious.
Salina: It was like a character stick.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: When you hear him switch voices, it's a little bit jarring.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Like when a British person is doing an American accent, and then they're Australian.
Nikki: And you're like, Whoa, what just happened?
Nikki: That happens a little bit.
Nikki: Okay, so he dropped out of college in his junior year to try stand up comedy.
Nikki: He tried comedy originally under his given name, but he didn't find success.
Nikki: So he adopted the Cable Guy persona and his Southern accent impression and found huge success.
Nikki: So his tagline, as I said at the top, is Get or done.
Nikki: All told, he's released seven comedy albums, three of which have been certified gold, which means they've shipped 500,000 copies.
Nikki: In addition to all the Blue Collar comedy Tour associated things, he also starred in Larry the Cable Guy, Health Inspector, and Witless Protection.
Nikki: Do you remember this movie?
Salina: I do.
Nikki: I did not see it either.
Nikki: I'm telling you, there was like a collective moment in time that was just real weird.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Most importantly for those of us with kids, he does the voice of Mater in the cars.
Salina: Oh, that's right.
Nikki: On a personal note, he and his wife Kara married in 2005.
Nikki: They have a son and a daughter, and they live in Nebraska on a 100 acre plus farm.
Nikki: He's a Christian.
Salina: Get a tinge of jealousy from that.
Nikki: Him living on a farm on a bunch of land.
Nikki: I do.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: 100 acres feels like a lot too much.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Probably more than minimize.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: He is a Christian and recommitted to his faith.
Nikki: In 2014, he has a street named after him in his hometown of Pawnee, Nebraska.
Nikki: And I bring up the Christian thing, actually, for a few reasons.
Nikki: So he said actually, that I think it was him who said this early in his career.
Nikki: He was probably a little unnecessarily raunchy at times, and when he had kids, he sort of wanted to, quote, unquote, clean up his act a little bit.
Salina: There are often times when I'll see big nudity scenes in a show or something, and I just think, if that's your only scene in a show, and then you have to be like, hey, Mom, dad, how do you bring that back?
Salina: Just because it's all weird.
Nikki: It's all weird.
Salina: You're naked.
Salina: I do a better job.
Nikki: Naked is weird.
Salina: Naked.
Salina: Naked.
Salina: Naked.
Nikki: Naked is weird.
Salina: We also initially bonded in this friendship when Nikki made fun of the way I say naked.
Nikki: Naked.
Nikki: And you just say it every time like that.
Nikki: It's not even like, an act.
Nikki: That's just how you say it.
Salina: No, it's not a Larry the cable guy act.
Salina: Selena from Henry County.
Salina: You know what I'm saying?
Nikki: Thanks for being authentic.
Nikki: So that's the tour.
Nikki: Before we wrap up today, I pulled out some funny jokes from the guys and I wanted to see if they make you laugh.
Nikki: Selena, I can't wait.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I'm so nervous.
Nikki: Don't.
Nikki: I'll do the few that I could find that were appropriate from Ron White first.
Salina: Okay, look, if you're not doing inappropriate jokes, like, why are we here?
Nikki: I don't know if I can even deliver it like him.
Salina: Okay, hold on.
Salina: I'm guessing which one I think you're going to do.
Salina: Okay, go on.
Nikki: Which joke I'm going to do.
Nikki: Okay, if you're ever walking down the beach and you see a girl dressed in a bikini made out of seashells and you pick her up and hold her to your ear, you can hear her scream, did I not deliver it?
Salina: Well, I don't think I understand.
Nikki: She's wearing a bikini out of seashells, and you pick her up and hold her up to your ear.
Nikki: You'll hear her scream.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Your accent confused.
Nikki: They confuse you.
Salina: It's not bad for someone without a southern accent.
Nikki: I have the right to remain silent, but I don't have the ability.
Nikki: I believe that a bad Super Bowl halftime show is still better than a soccer game.
Salina: Did Kyle approve of he didn't bet that one.
Nikki: He did not.
Nikki: We'll see if he hears it.
Nikki: I mean, I didn't make up the joke.
Salina: I'm just repeating you're just repeating the mean things.
Nikki: So next up is Larry the cable guy.
Salina: Hey, I thought you were going to do tater salad.
Nikki: You know what?
Nikki: I didn't find any very funny tater salad ones.
Nikki: If you have a favorite you want to Google over there real quick, feel free.
Salina: All I can remember is they call me tater salad.
Salina: That's literally all I can remember.
Nikki: So it's funny you bring that up.
Nikki: I probably should have mentioned this.
Nikki: That is his tagline.
Nikki: I think the reason I didn't mention it is because it's a little bit of it's one joke.
Nikki: I think it's one very long convoluted joke because he is a storyteller.
Nikki: You don't get a lot of one liner payoff.
Nikki: And I felt like telling a narrative joke wouldn't have I mean, you didn't laugh at any of those three I just told, so you wouldn't have laughed at the tater salad one.
Salina: You know, I don't think I need to tell you how hard it is to deliver a comedian's joke.
Salina: It's why typically you don't do it.
Nikki: But they're comedians that you're giving it.
Salina: A shot right now.
Nikki: I'm sweating straight through my shirt.
Nikki: He did say in that maybe in that AJC.
Nikki: Interview I read, ron White said that it has forever blown his mind that there is one joke he told very early in his career that has latched on the way people have latched on to tater salad.
Nikki: Everywhere he goes, he hears people.
Nikki: Call him tater salad.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Lock it up, folks.
Nikki: So next up, Larry the cable guy.
Nikki: I'm going to try to do this one.
Nikki: He's got a real thick it's a performance.
Nikki: Okay?
Nikki: I'm on that diet where you eat vegetables and drink wine.
Nikki: That's a good diet.
Nikki: I lost ten pounds and my driver's license.
Salina: That's pretty good.
Salina: They're also usually surrounded by other build up, so you're doing something real hard right now.
Salina: Let's recognize, all right?
Nikki: At a minimum, maybe you can pick out your favorite comic and go hear how they would deliver this.
Nikki: One more from him.
Nikki: This guy goes to his doctor one day, and the doctor says, I have bad news and worse news.
Nikki: He says, what's the bad news?
Nikki: The doctor says, you got 24 hours to live.
Nikki: He says, what's the worst news?
Nikki: Doctor says, I forgot to call you yesterday.
Salina: That's good.
Salina: I like that.
Nikki: All right, billingval got a couple from him.
Nikki: A truck driver was driving along the freeway.
Nikki: A sign comes up that reads, low Bridge Ahead.
Nikki: Before he knows it, the bridge is right ahead of him, and he gets stuck under the bridge.
Nikki: Cars are backed up for miles.
Nikki: Finally, a police car comes up.
Nikki: The cop gets out of his car, walks to the truck driver, puts his hands on his hips and says, Got stuck.
Nikki: The truck driver says, no, I was delivering this bridge, and I ran out of gas.
Salina: Oh, my.
Salina: That's a thinker.
Nikki: Okay, so Bill Ingval tease up the here's your sign series of jokes with stupid.
Nikki: People should have to wear signs that just say, I'm stupid.
Nikki: Then you wouldn't rely on them, would you?
Nikki: You wouldn't ask them anything.
Nikki: It would be like, Excuse me?
Salina: Oops.
Nikki: Never mind.
Nikki: I didn't see your sign telling you that, because here's a series of here's your sign jokes.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: It's like, before my wife and I moved, our house was full of boxes, and there was a U Haul truck in the driveway.
Nikki: My friend comes over and says, hey, you moving?
Nikki: No, we just pack up our stuff once a week just to see how many boxes it takes.
Nikki: Here's your son.
Salina: I can hear it in my head.
Salina: He has a very specific way of saying he does.
Nikki: Last time I had a flat tire, I pulled my truck into one of those side of the road gas stations.
Nikki: The attendant walks out, looks at my truck, looks at me, and says, Tire go flat.
Nikki: I couldn't resist.
Nikki: So I said, nope.
Nikki: I was driving around, and those other three just swelled right up on me.
Nikki: Here's your son.
Nikki: And then the last one.
Nikki: If this is really painful for folks, one day I locked my keys in the car, and as I was standing there with a coat hanger, halfway through the top of the window, a guy walks up and says, lock your keys in the car.
Nikki: Without missing a beat, I said, Nope, just washed it and was hanging it up to dry.
Nikki: Here's your son.
Nikki: So I'm going to end on my personal favorite series of jokes from these guys, jeff Foxworthies you might be a redneck series.
Nikki: I love these and I probably shouldn't love them as much as I do, but it's a very particular point in my life where these came up.
Nikki: He has a very unique delivery.
Nikki: He has a kind of a high pitched voice.
Nikki: You might be a redneck.
Nikki: If you spent more on your pickup truck than on your education.
Nikki: If you have a complete set of salad bowls and they all say cool whip on the side, you might be a redneck.
Nikki: If you've ever made change in the offering plate, you might be a redneck.
Nikki: If your work in television sits on top of your non work in television, you might be a redneck.
Nikki: That's it.
Nikki: Selena, you only chuckled a time or two.
Nikki: I loved it.
Nikki: Should I have risked the copyright infringement and just played them telling these jokes?
Nikki: Would that have been better?
Salina: I really just enjoyed hearing you do a southern accent.
Salina: That was good enough for me.
Nikki: There were like four versions of it.
Salina: Did you catch that?
Salina: Did someone listened and then retrained?
Salina: Your delivery was fine.
Salina: It's like those jokes that it's more.
Nikki: Like, yeah, I had this idea to do the jokes and then I started looking into them.
Nikki: I was like, I don't know that this is going to translate without the full context around it.
Nikki: Like if you've never heard a here's your sign joke, like, I don't know that it's really all that funny.
Nikki: I'm actually honestly not sure they're really that funny.
Nikki: Now if I watch them, I don't know.
Nikki: It's been so long since I've watched them.
Salina: Well, that's probably not a way to entice them on the show, but it's hilarious.
Salina: It's been a long time since I've heard any of those live.
Nikki: And actually, each one of the comics, I think, in different ways addressed the fact that you might be a redneck jokes.
Nikki: I think he stopped kind of doing them after a certain period like the mid 2000s.
Nikki: He kind of doesn't do them anymore.
Nikki: And he was sort of saying something similar to what Billingvall was saying about not billing vault ron White was saying about tater salad.
Nikki: Like, this is just what resonates with people and they bring it up all the time.
Nikki: And I haven't actually delivered one of these jokes in a decade, but it just, for whatever reason, really resonated with people and he just keeps hearing it his entire career.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Anyway, that brings us to the end of this week's extra sugar.
Nikki: As always, please remember you can follow along with us and engage Instagram and Facebook at sweet tea and TV TikTok at sweettvpod and our email address is sweettvpod@gmail.com.
Nikki: Our website is WW dot sweettv.com and you can find some of those references, some of those article I read about each one of the comics there.
Nikki: Come back next week for a brand new sweet TNTV take on Designing Women.
Nikki: This has been this week's extra sugar.