You might be a redneck if you have an unhealthy interest in Bad TV Ponderings
Finally, the 21st century has its Hee Haw.
When I first saw commercials for Blue Collar TV, I knew it was just a matter of time before it made it on to the Bad TV Ponderings roster of distinction. As Marion Ravenwood once said, "Something made it inevitable." All that was left was for me to set aside 30 minutes one evening to strap myself into the Barcalounger, Clockwork Orange-style, and power through it. The other night my chance presented itself. I managed to lock myself out of the house and subsequently failed to take She Who Shall Not Be Named to her water babies class, what better time to go for the trifecta of personal failure?
BCTV features the sketch comedy stylings of Jeff "I Made a Career On a Joke That Wasn't Funny the First Time I Told It, Much Less the 10,000th" Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Larry the Cro-Mag Cable Guy, whom we'll discuss a little later. In overall quality, I'd put it just under the Simpsons Smile-Time Variety Hour and just over whacking your penis with a mallet to get all the congealed gonorrheal pus out. But only just.
Foxworthy opened the show I saw with what can charitably called "stand-up comedy," provided you're still a fan of "Baby on Board" jokes a mere 20 years after George Carlin used the same material. Then we go to the sketches. No sacred cow is left unmilked: from an adult playing a 12 year-old on steroids to three grown men dressed as babies in a prolonged backseat vomiting gag (it appears puking is used as a punchline at least once a show). You'll laugh harder than you did at the latest Ben Stiller movie, and then your own entrails will strangle you, for this is the closest thing to Vogon poetry I hope we as a species ever experience.
Almost everyone involved with this miserable exercise in comedy suicide deserves to be given a blanket party. I can almost, almost, cut Engvall some slack. I've heard his routine, and it isn't without entertainment value.
Larry the Cable Guy, on the other hand, makes me believe - if there is a god - he either abandoned his creation some time around the Pleistocene Era or is actually consciously evil, a la, Prince of Darkness. I first became aware of him on Sirius' uncensored comedy channel, where he's quite popular (probably because many Sirius subscribers are truck drivers who have consumed such insane quantities of crank they can no longer discern human speech from the incessant drone of their own engines). The majority of Larry's shtick is predicated on how women think differently than men and thinly veiled slurs against homos, which are immediately made better by his please for forgiveness from Jesus. Then he'll trot out the defense that the country has gotten "too P.C." for comedy, which is still the best refuge for the guy who wants the freedom to make jokes about "niggers" and "faggots."
There are three possibile explanations for the phenomenon that is Larry:
1) The redneck act is total bullshit. Not to say the dude is from Finland (he's actually from Nebraska, which makes the Stars and Bars cap a little suspect), but the only way his alleged "jokes" work at all are when they're delivered in conjunction with the sleeveless plaid shirt, trucker cap, and exaggerated moronic drawl. Played straight, his routine would get him booed from the stage at Bob's Country Bunker.
2) It's all an elaborate gag at his own expense. In other words, he's making himself the joke by presenting an outre image of the undereducated, ignorant American. Trouble is (and this one's a long shot), the vast majority of his audience aren't grasping the subtlety of the gag. You can make the argument that Andrew Dice Clay was attempting something similar with his "Diceman" persona, but his fans were overwhelmingly Iroc-driving mooks who shared Diceman's affection for the word "gash."
3) He's n a successful biological project financed by a joint venture between Clear Channel and NASCAR, who cloned him from genetic material collected from the port-o-johns of Talladega Superspeedway.
Whatever the answer, I'm clearly in the minority. He has the highest charting comedy album since 1978 (Steve Martin's A Wild and Crazy Guy) and his 2004 tour outgrossed Chris Rock's.
Meanwhile, Bill Hicks is still dead.
Came home the other night to find that the truck in the apartment parking lot with the plastic testicles now had shoepolish words all over the windows. They read: Just hitched! Git Her Done! many times . . .
So glad I'm moving . . .
Man, that last sentence just brought me down.
On the other hand, Ron White, who is genuinely funny, has managed to avoid appearing on the show more than a token time or two.
Depressing news about Savannah, GA. Ron Whites show was about three quarters full, Larry the Cable Guy had hawkers scalping tickets and making money the night of (on a side note, Clapton didn't sell out here, but Alabama does regularly).
Yeah, I'm moving.
From what I've heard, the Cable Guy has a degree in particle physics, or something similar. (And I have too much self respect to actually Google him and verify--I don't want our great Cyber Overlords linking me with his name--it's bad enough they know about my interests in tranny porn.)
I'll second that praise for Ron White. He's one hilarious guy, and I'll (shamefully) admit that I've seen the Blue Collar movies just to watch his set.
Option 4: we really are a nation comprised of at least 90% brain dead wastes of oxygen, and the same morons who made Jerry Springer a 15 year phenomenon also think this f*cking moronic schtick is funny.
Pete: Don't you remember that Larry used to call up the Stevens and Pruitt show on KLOL when he was a struggling comedian in Houston, always beginning his rants with "What is this... Communist Russia?" At the time, I thought it was a hilarious parody of some dumbshit cable guy from Jacinto City. Maybe not.
Well yee haw and kiss mah a**! I'm proud and very
glad to know that I fall into that 90% category
that likes moronic humor and that I DON'T identify with a bunch of stiff necked self - righteous better than thou snobs like you gents!
It must really stick in your throat everytime
you here "Get-r-done" all over TV and radio and
realize that you are doomed!!
Y'know, every time I HERE "Get-r-done"on TV I realize I am doomed....because when I HERE that millions of Americans think that's the funniest crap ever, I begin to understand that 90% of American children were in fact "left behind" educationally. This particular stiff necked self righteous better than thou snob is a bit repulsed when self described moronic humor captures the imagination of such a large percentage of the American public. That's when I realized I am doomed and it does stick in my throat. Sorry I can't identify with you, dude.
Yes, John, it does depress me when people who can't spell "hear" are given equal Constitutional privileges and are not forcibly re-inserted into the 5th grade classroom that they abandoned those many years ago.
Yep. We are doomed. Because "Yee Haw and Kiss my Ass" is now known as "The Bush Doctrine."
John, I here dat there maybe making new schools for people who are to stupid to spell correctly and to gutless to leave a real URL or website.
Also, we're not better-than-thou... just better than you.
Norbizness, Vestal Vespa and Curmie! That was one thorough clock cleaning! Thanks for the grins.
Have you seen the South Park episode that's a thinly veiled sarire of BCTV? Dear God, it's funnier than, "Git 'er done", ever was or will be.