"Redneck" Lands New Gig
Country-fried comic Jeff Foxworthy is still successfully workin' his white-trash shtick. In the mid-'90s, the You Might Be a Redneck If... author had a self-titled Fox series, which lasted two seasons. Now, he's taking another shot at television in WB's Blue Collar TV (debuting tonight at 9:30 pm/ET).
The family-friendly sketchcom is based on Foxworthy's popular Blue Collar Comedy tour, which he did for about three years. He plans to keep his down-home flavor by shooting the show in his native Atlanta, rather than on a Los Angeles soundstage. "I was a little bit concerned about [doing TV] from the sitcom experience," he admits. "Initially, when I did it, I didn't have a lot of freedom to do what I wanted to do.
"[WB's execs] have been so great," he says. "I think they were the only network that understood what was going on on the Blue Collar tour. I love doing sketch. I thought I didn't like acting because I always had to be Jeff Foxworthy [on my old series]. And with this, I can go in and say, 'I want to be 300 pounds and bald and have a weird accent.' And they say, 'Great, let's try it!' This has honestly been a ball."
While much of his humor is based in Southern and rural stereotypes, Foxworthy resists being labeled. "You know what, God bless the word redneck — It's been a blessing and a curse for me," he says. "Jerry Seinfeld never gets labeled 'the Northern comedy of Jerry Seinfeld.' Because I've got this accent, everything I do, it's always Southern comedy. And I never thought of myself as a Southern comedian. I love the South. That's where I live. I don't want to live anywhere else, but I just think I'm a comedian."
