Jeff Foxworthy • Up Close & Personal

Live comedy returns to Saginaw’s iconic Temple Theater in a big way with an always unpredictably illuminating evening with comedian Jeff Foxworthy, happening on Friday, June 20^th at 8:00 PM.  That Foxworthy is making his appearance one evening prior to the longest day of the year is only fitting, given the fact he also has one of the longest, certainly broadest, and definitely most popular careers in the history of American comedy.

Indeed, Foxworthy is one of the most respected and successful comedians in the country.  He is the largest selling comedy-recording artist in history, a multiple Grammy Award nominee and best-selling author of more than 26 books. In 2014, he was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.   Widely known for his redneck jokes, his act goes well beyond that to explore the humor in everyday family interactions and human nature, a style that has been compared to Mark Twain’s. 

As L.A. Times critic Kevin Thomas notes, He may define being redneck as possessing “a glorious lack of sophistication,” but the truth is that Foxworthy, for all his regular-guy image, is a decidedly sophisticated artist.” 

Jeff ‘s comedy special The Good Old Days, which features all new material, is now streaming on Netflix, and is his first solo special in 24 years.  He talks about the good old days, before cell phones diagnosed our illnesses, were used as cameras, kept us informed 24 hours a day, and before we had to have different passwords for everything.  He also discusses parenting (your children and your parents), texting, the joy of getting a butt dial, conversations with his wife and recalls a much simpler time (or was it really?).  He also has his own comedy channel Jeff and Larry’s Comedy Roundup on SIRIUSXM, which showcases the best in great American comedy.  

In advance of his June 20th  appearance at Saginaw's Temple Theatre, I had the good fortune to spend 25 minutes chatting with Foxworthy about his early experiences with comedy, his unprecedented successes, as well as his approach to finding humor in a deeply divided world, which I hope you find as informative as it was entertaining to discuss.

REVIEW: In reading your bio I never realized you’re the best-selling recorded comic of all time, surpassing even Bill Cosby, Robin Williams, and Steve Martin, which puts you in some pretty heady company.  I’m curious how that feels and whether it adds a lot of pressure, considering  your other side projects and books; or even uncertainty in the sense of that old adage everything that goes up must come down?

Jeff Foxworthy: It is pretty wild and also funny, because when you’re in the middle of it the achievement doesn’t even sink in. It’s only later that you look back and go, ‘Wow!’.

It’s funny because I can still remember when Warner Brothers came to me and said they wanted me to record a comedy album, because when I was a kid I would  save my allowance and  buy Flip Wilson, Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby records; and later when I was older getting headphones so my Mom couldn’t hear me playing the Richard Pryor and George Carlin albums. 

I remember sitting in this meeting with Warner Brothers and asking how many albums they thought I would sell, and one of the marketing guys said, “Hey, if we sell 100,000 of them we’ll all be throwing confetti around here.  And that first album sold almost 4 million copies.  I used to joke with them and say, ‘Well, I’m glad you don’t know anything more about the record business than I do!”

REVIEW: At what point did you realize you had a gift for humor and decide to pursue this professionally?

Foxworthy: I knew as a kid I could make people laugh, and I’m not gonna lie it’s addictive. It’s a power like wearing Superman’s belt when you’re young, because everybody likes the funny kid, right? But it never dawned on me to do this professionally, probably because I grew up in a little blue collar town and never knew I could actually do this as a living. It never dawned on me that I could do something creative and make a living doing it.

I worked at IBM for five years and a bunch of guys I worked with would go to the local comedy club, come back to work the next day, and say, “You’re funnier than these people.” So they entered me in a contest - and not an amateur contest - but the Great South-Easter  Laugh Off, which was eight weeks of elimination rounds.

Here I’m doing Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby bits and not even my own material, so I went and wrote five minutes of original material about my family and the first night on stage I won the contest.  I had really no idea what I was doing, but remember driving home, beating the steering wheel, going “I won, I won!” 

I knew at that moment I wanted more, and also thought it was crazy to quit a secure job, but that’s when I started thinking, could I do this for a living?

REVIEW: Obviously, there are different styles of comedy ranging from slapstick to shock comics to philosophers like George Carlin and Steven Wright.  How would you define your own brand or style of comedy?

Foxworthy: First of all, I think it takes a long time as a comic to get to the core of who you are. I remember telling Bob Newhart one time that he had such a gift for getting a laugh by saying nothing and doing it simply with a pause or a few facial expressions, and how I wish I had that gift in my toolbelt.

He chuckled and said to me, ‘Well, I stole that from Jack Benny.’ He went on to say, “Every comedian is like a magpie where we sit on the edge of the roof and watch to see if something glitters that we like so we can fly down and take it and put it in our belt,” which was so on the money!

Part of what I find fascinating about it is there’s no right or wrong with comedy. I remember sitting around one night at The Improv and Steven Wright had just gone on Johnny Carson and exploded, so I started wondering if my style was like Wright’s or too theatrical, and Jerry Seinfeld turned to me and said, “You know, I think you just do it every night for ten years and realize you have a style but don’t even know it.

"I look back on it now and think he’s right. I listen to myself onstage and think, ‘Why do I pause like that or accent this one word a certain way?  It takes long enough to be comfortable enough to give your perspective to an audience, and I was lucky because I found the template that works for me. If I say or think something my family said or did is funny, I’ve realized through developing my comedy that a lot of people are thinking and oing the same thing, so it’s a commonality of bonding with an audience.

REVIEW: They say timing is everything in comedy, as well as life, so do you feel your talent is natural and intuitive, or did it take practice & experimentation in front of live audiences to hone your abilities?

Foxworthy: I think it’s a natural gift. When you think about anything that is intuitive, you’re relying upon your instincts. Even you as a writer decide what word comes next when your composing something, so you’re really relying on your instincts, like a good chef or a stone mason.  You’re trusting your intuition.

Some people have a natural gift for taking care of old people, some as a doctor; but I also think there’s people out there that have this gift for comedy but don’t develop it. I think you have to summon a passion for realizing your natural gift and then work on how to develop and deliver it. 

REVIEW: You are well-known for your success with comedy, but what about failure - have you ever ‘bombed’ in front of a live audience, or experienced an audience that you couldn’t connect with?

Foxworthy: I’ve been fortunate, so not really. Part of the reason for that is I made a decision early on that with comedy I had a couple choices: I could park myself in New York or L.A. and hope to get on the stage a couple times each week, or I could go on the road and play obscure places but also get up on the stage for 30-minutes every evening of the week to cultivate an audience and hone my craft.

It’s that old Malcolm Gladwell thing: if you wanna become an expert at something do it 10,000 times. I had eight years in a row where I did over 500 shows a year and a lot of them wer ein Des Moines, Iowa, and Cedar Rapids, North Dakota, but I was also onstage every thing and from that I found what worked for me quickly. 

My goal when I started was to be on the Johnny Carson show, not The Tonight Show, because I knew Carson wasn’t going to do that show forever.  Everybody told me it was going to take 10 years to be good enough to be on Carson, so I set a 10-year goal but actually ended up doing it in five years and two months because I was out every night honing my act.

REVIEW:  In terms of your stand-up show, or any of your podcasts and ancillary projects, are there any topics you feel are ‘off limits'  when it comes to material for your comedy?

Foxworthy: Certain topics may be off limits for me, but necessarily for another comic. I mean, the things Ron White talks about I wouldn’t dare talk about, but you have to go by your own Mojo. 

I know what my audience won’t accept from me. If I get too sexual or controversial, I’m not comfortable with it and I know they won’t be either hearing it coming from me; an Lord knows there’s many times through the years I’ve thought of a joke and thought it was funny, but knew I couldn’t say it so I called Ron and gave it to him!  

REVIEW:    As one who believes a huge component of successful comedy centers upon how well it helps us understand the insanity around us, what are three things about contemporary culture that drive you the most insane, or that you find disturbing?

Foxworthy:  It’s probably because we’re living in the age of social media, but one of them would be people who feel like they have life all figured out.  They know about everything and they’re right about everything, and I hate that because if you’re right that means everybody else is wrong, and nobody wants to engage in that type of conversation.

I think the truth is that none of us have it figured out. Every day going through life we come to 100 forks in the road and make the best guess as to whether we turn left or right, so I hate people that think they know it all,  because you have to be open to the possibility that you are wrong. If you think about your own life, how many things would you have argued adamantly for or against when you were 20-years old. Then when you turn forty or 60 you look back and go, ‘Oh crap, I was dead wrong on that one!”

We become more educated and learn different perspectives as we get older, and then one day we go, “Oh wow, I’ve been wrong about that thing my entire life! I almost want to write a bit about that with the premise being how we were wrong about some things, but the truth is we’re probably wrong about a lot of somethings.

For stand-up comedy to work we have to be truth tellers and hold things up and ask why do we do this, or why do we accept that?    We hit a few years with such bizarre political correctness that it made writing stand-up comedy not fun at all, but I think we’re coming out of it.

We have to be truth tellers and ask things like, why is this okay, or why did we do a certain thing this old way that worked perfectly fine, but now we have to do it this new way?

An Evening with comedian Jeff Foxworthy happen on Friday, June 20th at 8:00 PM at Saginaw's Temple Theatre. You can purchase tickets by clicking this link.