Jeff Foxworthy has been leading the comedy scene for more than 20 years and on Aug. 26, he released a new Netflix special, We’ve Been Thinking, with longtime friend and comedy partner Larry the Cable Guy. (The two also released the audio-only We’ve Been Thinking album on Sept. 29).
Taste of Country had the chance to talk to Foxworthy about the new material and learned six funny facts about the comedy pioneer.
6. It’s a conscious decision to eat Cap’n Crunch!
“Cap’n Crunch is the most time intensive cereal,” Foxworthy tells Taste of Country. “You eat it too soon after you pour the milk on and you will rip the roof of your mouth to shreds. Wait too long and the Cap’n will put a film on your teeth a wire brush can’t get rid of.”
Foxworthy’s full explanation is in his “Facts of Life” segment on We’ve Been Thinking. Before he started using the joke live, he thought, “Am i the only one who’s ever thought this?” According to the laughs he gets from the audience, he’s not.
5. Country music stars have it so easy.
“I tell my country music friends, here’s the difference between what we do,” notes Foxworthy. “If you’re a singer or songwriter, you write four hits, you’re playing until you’re 90. People will listen to the new stuff and may love the new stuff but they really pay to hear those hits, whereas a comic, if you make an album or do a special, people are like, that’s funny, what do you have that’s new? Unfortunately, there’s no shortcut.”
4. He and Larry the Cable Guy snuck into Braves spring training.
Foxworthy met Larry the Cable Guy in 1986. That same year, they started sneaking into Atlanta Braves spring training games together.
“I grew up in Atlanta and I’m a lifetime Braves fan,” Foxworthy says. “Back then, the Braves used to do spring training in West Palm Beach (Fla.), so I booked myself in a little club there called Comedy Corner, so I could go during the day and watch spring training games. Larry was kind of the house M.C. at that little club and we just hit it off the first night. He’s like, what are you doing tomorrow? I said, I’m getting up to watch the Braves’ spring training. He goes, I go everyday! So we went together, but we didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket. Now back then, security wasn’t what it is now, so we’d go early and they would open the gates and the players would walk in and we just kind of put our heads down and walked in with the players (laughs). We walked into the stands and we’d sit there until the game started and we just kept moving anytime we were in somebody’s seats. We’d sit there and make each other laugh all day, so we just became friends.”
3. You’ll laugh, but his jokes aren’t always jokes!
In Foxworthy’s “Common Sense” segment on We’ve Been Thinking, he goes on about, as Foxoworthy calls it, “dog poo.”
“No more picking up dog poo,” Foxworthy says on the track. “It’s embarrassing. We are the top of the food chain!” However, though the audience laughs consistently through his routine, Foxworthy notes it’s not a joke they’re laughing at here, it’s the shared experience.
“There is no joke,” says Foxworthy. “All I’m doing is describing how to get dog poo off your shoe. People are like, beating the seats, but it’s that shared experience. It’s that, oh my God, I’ve done that; that’s the laugh. We all like to think we’re unique and to me, that’s one of the fun things about comedy. It’s like no, everybody thinks about that.”
2. You might be a redneck if …
“Every room in your house is a mud room,” chuckles Foxworthy. Though he considers his comedy more of a storytelling style, his one-liner redneck jokes are what put him on the map, and it all started in a Michigan bowling alley.
“When I did the first redneck joke, it was just a response to someone calling me a redneck,” Foxworthy says. “We were at a club in Michigan; the club was attached to a bowling alley that had valet parking and I said, you don’t think you have rednecks in Michigan? Look out the window, people are valet parking at the bowling alley. So I go back to the hotel and I said, I know I’m a redneck but apparently a lot of people don’t know they’re one and I wrote 10 ways to tell (if you’re a redneck). I went back the next night, not thinking this is going to be a hook or a book, I’m just trying to come up with standup. But then people not only laughed, they were pointing at each other, so I thought there might be something here.”
The jokes eventually led to Foxworthy’s Redneck Dictionary one, two and three, which are all bestsellers.
1. Laughter is the best medicine (aww!).
“Comedy is like the release valve that keeps the boiler from exploding,” Foxworthy says. “When I’m onstage, I try to think that everybody in that audience and everybody on the stage is going through a struggle. It might be economic, might be physical, might be love life. Everybody’s going through a struggle and the ability to laugh, it doesn’t make the problem go away, but it kind of recharges your battery, like I can deal with this again.”
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This Article Was Originally Posted at www.TasteofCountry.com
