You might be a fan ... if you go see Jeff Foxworthy

Foxworthy and his comedy just regular awesome

By Jim Dail

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy is just like you and me, and that’s just the way he wants it. He goes to the grocery store, mows his lawn, sends his kids to college and tells funny stories and jokes.

The difference is he is one of the most successful comics in history, and it is well deserved.

“I’ve gotten away with this for a long time,” said Foxworthy during a recent telephone interview. “And you know, the crazy thing is I’m one of the luckiest guys on the planet. I mean hitting all the airports are old, but once at the venue I still love it. So, I went through a thing last year where I decided I’m going to go to clubs and small venues, and I realized that I can still do this.”

One such place is the Pechanga Showroom where Foxworthy will perform two shows Friday night.

Foxworthy is practically a household name. For more than two decades he has been making people laugh with his standup comedy, including three “Blue Collar Comedy Tours” with Bill Engvall, Larry the Cable Guy and Ron White, numerous television shows (“The Jeff Foxworthy Show” and “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader”), 26 books (“You Might Be a Redneck”), and a number of CDs, which make him the biggest selling comedian in history.

It’s a success story that started with a school joker and a lot of hard work.

“Every report card says ‘Jeff talks too much,’ but being funny was a way to fit in at school,” he said. “My grandfather had maybe three albums and they were Jerry Clower. I’d save my allowance and buy Bill Cosby and Flip Wilson records because I loved comedy. The first time I played the Fox Theater, I got a note backstage after the show from my high school principal who couldn’t believe he was shelling out money to listen to the stuff that he’d tried so hard to put a stop to in the past!”

He worked for five years for IBM, continually making his co-workers laugh and doing imitations of his boss – and his boss would invariably walk in.

“They entered me in a competition for working comedians, not amateurs, and I won,” he said. “I also met my wife that night too, so I got a career and a great marriage all on the same night.”

Fortunately for the millions of fans Foxworthy has entertained, she pushed him to use his talents,

“She told me that I had all this stuff inside me and to give it a try, but my parents were a little different,” he said. “They told me I can’t quit my job and that I was insane. When I first told my mom she said, ‘Are you on dope? I can get you help.’ Then a couple years later, I’m on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson and she tells me later, “why did you waste all that time at IBM?’”

But the key to it all was being a real person, talking about real people and real life.

“I was real lucky because early in my career I found what worked for me, and I decided that if I think it or my wife says it, surely we are not the only ones,” he said. “The biggest compliment to me was when some people told me back stage, ‘God, you have been in my house!’”

And it always seemed to Foxworthy that comedians were centered on Los Angeles and New York, but there’s a big part of the country between them.

“No matter where you are, we’ve got something in common,” he said. “The farm may not be the thing we have in common, but part of what I talk about now is when your kids are growing up and you get them to college. You think you have smooth sailing, but as soon as you stop taking care of your kids, now you have to take care of your parents. It’s like they swap in the driveway. That’s the thing. My audience has grown up with me and we have all these things in common. It’s kind of like, ‘Here’s what’s been going on in my life now.’”

And he wants – and has – that normal life, which of course includes family.

“It was always important to me to have a normal life,” he said. “I grew up in Georgia, lived in Los Angeles when I had the sitcom, now moved back where I have a farm south of Atlanta. I go to the grocery store, take my kids to school every day. When I first went to grocery store I did 30 pictures with people then in other visits 20 then 10 and now it’s just, ‘Hi Jeff.”

That said, there is still a lot of work involved.

“I think it’s one of those jobs if you do it right, it looks easy,” he said. “I remember when I was doing open mic nights and Jay Leno was the king of road comics, and he was so generous to the young guys. He told us that our goal should be to write one new minute a week. I did about 500 shows a year, wrote all the time and came up with maybe 25 minutes of material.”

The challenge is the fact that the audience is made up of a lot of different people.

“To come up with something that everyone is going to laugh at every single time is difficult,” he said. “I still write everything on a yellow note pad because I have to feel it. Much of what I do is trimming stuff out. There’s really no easy way to write. But I always have five note cards so I can grab an idea instantly.”

And he is still stunned by how long he has been able to be in the comic limelight.

“The fact is, when I started writing this new stuff, I told my wife that my fear in the beginning was that I didn’t want to stay too long at the dance,” he said. “There’s nothing like a comedian who is so bad because they just don’t have it anymore. Comics usually don’t have long careers. They may be popular for a few years, but then that’s it. That’s what I thought I would do, maybe get a couple years then have to go ask for my old job back.”

In talking with Foxworthy, it is clearly something he absolutely loves to do.

“I told my daughter that if I look back at the guys I started with, it was the hard workers like Leno or Jerry Seinfeld who made it,” he said. “We went to every state just pounding the pavement. And when it came to the material over time, I realized that if I had records that you could listen to when your aunt and uncle walked into the room, then it would broaden my audiences. You can talk about anything when you have that focus.”

And as for slowing down?

“I love this and love making people happy,” he said. “As I’ve said before, I thank my audience each night for letting me keep doing this and not have to go back and get a job.”