Catching up with Jeff Foxworthy, taping final TV special in metro Atlanta
Atlanta’s own Jeff Foxworthy, now 67, has done everything he’s ever wanted in entertainment: touring theaters, helming his own sitcom, producing a sketch show and hosting a hit game show.
He has sold millions of albums of his various comedy specials along with related merch courtesy of his “You know you’re a redneck” jokes.
This week, the Brookhaven resident is taping his final TV special.
“I’m never going to announce I’m going to retire,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a recent interview. “This is the last special I’m ever going to do. At this point in my life, I love playing on the floor with my grandkids and working on my farm. I’m not willing to spend the time in clubs night after night working on new material.”
But Foxworthy said he is making this final special different.
After seeing the 2021 Disney+ “The Beatles: Get Back” behind-the-scenes documentary, he said he wanted to create a comedy version, pulling open the curtain behind the process of making a stand-up special.
“The audience doesn’t understand to do a 60-minute special takes at least a year of hard work to get enough good new material,” he said.
He hired a film crew to follow him around to small clubs around town, like the Punchline, testing out new jokes. Half the special will be the build-up, followed by the final stage show, he said.
Foxworthy said he never thought a streaming service would go for this idea. And he was feeling burned out after filming his 2022 Netflix special “The Good Old Days.”
“What happens is you have five seconds to enjoy your special after you walk off,” he said. “Then you think, ‘Oh no! The pantry is empty! I have to fill it back up again.’”
But a streaming service did say yes. (He can’t say which one yet.)
Foxworthy wanted this final special to be in his hometown. He considered shooting it at the Fox Theatre. He even stopped by the Fox when his buddy and fellow Blue Collar Comedy alum Ron White headlined a show earlier this year.
“I walked on stage unannounced,” he said. “The crowd stood up and gave me such a long standing ovation, I was about to cry. Then Ron poked me and said, ‘That’s enough!’ I was minding my own business and he asked me to come down here.”
The Fox, he said, “is like an old friend. It’s my favorite theater in the world. It’s a constant in my life. I have always said when I do my last show, it will be there.”
For this special, though, he decided to go more intimate: Duluth’s Gas South Theater, which fits just 708 people and is adjacent to the big arena. He spent this week taping three shows.
Though he made his name with “redneck” jokes, he stopped doing them in recent years — but is likely to roll a few out to end this special. “The other night for the first time in a couple of decades I tried new redneck jokes,” he said. “They killed!”
(He still writes fresh redneck jokes for a daily calendar that he’s been selling for 37 years. “That’s more than 12,000 redneck jokes,” he mused.)
In recent years, Foxworthy has dialed back his road schedule. “I’ll do 30 shows this year,” he said. “I did 40 shows last year. That’s enough to wet the whistle. I still love doing it … The value of the laugh is still greater than the pain of the grind.”
His fellow Blue Collar bud Bill Engvall recently told him Cozi TV had begun airing his short-lived sitcom “The Jeff Foxworthy Show”, which aired one season on ABC, then a second season on NBC three decades ago. “I had no idea,” he said. “But the 12 people who watched it the first time can get to see it again.”
But he still takes pride in having hosted “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” on Fox from 2007 to 2009 followed by a syndicated version from 2009 to 2011.
“People bring up ‘5th Grader’ all the time,” he said. “There’s a whole generation of kids who have no idea about my stand-up but knew me from that show, which is kind of weird.”
And now that he’s in elder statesman territory, he said he has no qualms mentoring younger stand-up comics when it comes to joke telling. But he said he’s useless in terms of modern promotional tools, primarily social media.
“I made my biggest money from albums, CDs and DVDs,” he said. “Now you have to do funny 30-second bits online. You have to lead with punch lines so they don’t scroll to the next thing. Some of my bits go on for 15 minutes. I’m not sure how 30-second videos translate to an entire special.”
On the bright side, Foxworthy said it’s a lot easier for more comics to sell out theaters because social media allows them to build audiences organically online. Road comics in the 1980s and 1990s had to compile mailing lists and visit small clubs multiple times to develop a fan base, then hope to get a spot on “The Tonight Show.”
“You can make a great living now with these splintered audiences,” he said. “There are more opportunities out there.”
Even at his age, Foxworthy worries that he’s not as funny as he used to be. But prepping for this special, he said, has been encouraging.
“I’ve been at the Punchline to film and I was shocked by how well the majority of the jokes worked right off the bat,” he said. “Figuring out what’s funny is like a woman you never completely figure out. No matter how long you’ve been with her, she surprises you. You’d think after 40 years, I’d know what works and what doesn’t. But the audience is always right.”
Away from the stage, Foxworthy is enjoying playing “fun grandpa” to two grandkids, ages 2 and 5.
“They think I’m the greatest human being on the planet,” he said. “At their house, they have rules. At my house, the answer is always yes.”
He added, jokingly, “If they end up screwed-up adults, I’ll be dead. It will be someone else’s problem.”
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
