Jeff Foxworthy talks about CMT special: ‘Ten Years Of Blue Collar Comedy’

“There was a response to it,” he said by phone a few days ago. “People liked the DVDs and movies. And I guess when time passes and you get a little perspective, you realize it’s now part of the history of comedy. This was one of those cool little things, a little out of the ordinary.”

In reality, Foxworthy and his cohorts Ron White, Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy sold millions of concert tickets and nearly 10 million DVDs, not to mention a TV show and massive ratings on Comedy Central and CMT. CMT, in fact, is airing a two-part retrospective Saturday night on the tour's 10th anniversary.

A decade ago, Foxworthy recalled reading a story in the AJC about the Kings of Comedy tour featuring Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, the late Bernie Mac and D.L. Hughley (who is coincidentally in Atlanta this Saturday on the Royal Comedy Tour at the Atlanta Civic Center.).

“It said the show was for the urban hip audience,” Foxworthy said. “I thought, ‘This is leaving a lot of people out! A lot of people aren’t urban or hip.’ So we came up with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. We’d do it for four months. It ended up lasting three years the first time around.” (The last time they toured together was in 2006.)

Foxworthy was already a huge star by the year 2000 but Engvall, Larry the Cable Guy and White were not. They were simply friends of his who started in the business in the 1980s like he did. They were club headliners but not big enough to sell 3,000 seats by themselves. The tour propelled all three into the stratosphere, especially Larry, who ended up becoming one of the biggest comedy draws in the country. He could soon sell 10,000 tickets on his own.

“It was thrilling for me,” Foxworthy said. “They’ve all worked at their crafts for a long time. It was neat they got recognition.”

One day, a few years into the whole Blue Collar phenomenon, Foxworthy was down on his farm and he opened the door to a barn. Inside, he saw a huge tractor with a bow on it. The note said, “Thanks for all you’ve done for me. Larry.”

“Who buy someone a tractor!” Foxworthy exclaimed. “It was cool. I ride it every single week!”

He recalls the very first concert in Omaha, Nebraska in 2000.

“I remember the first time we met with the promoters,” he said. “They wanted a big ending. How could we do a grand finale. I remember as a little kid, I’d sit on my grandmother’s bed and watch Carol Burnett. “My favorite part is when they try to make each other laugh,” he said.

Each man did a solo gig, then would gather on stools at the end and throw jokes around. The stool portion was unrehearsed, just an open-ended effort by the four of them to goof around and be funny. After it was over, 9,100 people stood up and cheered. “Oh my God!” Foxworthy thought at the time. “It worked!”

“That’s what people talked about,” he said. “They could see we genuinely liked each other.”

In the end, all four guys were able to parlay Blue Collar into other gigs.  Larry the Cable Guy became a movie star, Engvall got his own TV show on TBS and White wrote a book and tours constantly. (White’s efforts to get a TV show himself didn’t pan out.).

Foxworthy, of course, became host of “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”"We’ve already gone four years,” he said. “For me and TV, that’s a lifetime.”

Three of the four guys (minus White, who said his material is too blue for Blue Collar Comedy) have reunited for some spot dates. So far, the reaction has been great, he said. “It’s kind of like riding a bicycle,” he said. He said the local date will be Philips Arena in January, 2011.

Foxworthy, after three decades in the business, said he is always coming up with new material but it gets tougher. “I don’t think the general public understands how hard it is to write stand up,” he said. Jay Leno, he recalled in 1984, told him that the goal should be to write one good minute of material a week. In a year, he said he might come up with 45 minutes of sold new material.

His comedy has always been observational and often about his own life. Over time, that has shifted from being single to dating to being married to having kids. Now that he’s past the age of 50, he said he has some great jokes about a colonoscopy.

On TV

“True Blue: Ten Years of Blue Collar Comedy,” 8 p.m. CMT. A retrospective on how the tour came about and what happened since then.

“Blue Collar Comedy: Ten Years of Funny,” 9 p.m. CMT. Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall and Jeff Foxworthy talk about the tour in front of a live audience.