Jeff Foxworthy: From Flunking College, to Mega Comedy Success | Full Documentary | Biography

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[playful music] ♪ ♪ - Thank y'all for doing this. I mean, because when I tell the story of my life, you guys are a big part of the story of my life. It's not like we've known each other for years. We've known each other for decades. We started out in this together. I mean-- - Well, I'm just glad you're not dead. When they were--when they said--I'm like, "Wait." - Wait, you thought I was dead? - Well, 'cause they were like, "For 'Biography.'" I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. "Those are-- those are dead people, aren't they, most of them?" I'm like, "I just was with Ron "for two days at my house. How could he not have said something?" - You didn't mention I was dead? - By the way-- - I didn't even say anything. - So it's really exciting that you're alive. - Please welcome Jeff Foxworthy! - Jeff Foxworthy. - Jeff Foxworthy! crowd: Yee-haw! - That's the official redneck noise right there. Yee! If you've ever stared at a can of orange juice because it said "concentrate," you might be a redneck. I never thought it was gonna be a hook or a book. I just was trying to do stand-up. - Jeff was killing. Oh, Jeff was murdering every time he walked onstage. - It's hard to be cool with a Southern accent. - His stand-up hit home with millions and millions of people. - Oh, he is the biggest seller of comedy albums in the world. - And to be honest, I guess none of us would want to hear our brain surgeon say... [exaggerated Southern accent] "A'ight, now, what we gon' do is..." - He's a normal guy with an abnormal ability. - We ask the question, "Are you smarter than a fifth grader?" - If he was doing comedy, he was completely committed. Fatherhood, completely committed. Marriage, completely committed. - He makes the world better just being a dude. He's a good dude. - Jeff roots for you. He's not jealous. He knows that if you do good, he does good. - See? You can't make this stuff up. It just never dawned on me this is a career option. Who's luckier than I am? ♪ ♪ I thought, "Why not get "three of my favorite comedians "to kind of go through my life, you know, and-- and talk about it?" Of course, Leno and Seinfeld and Chris Rock weren't available, so I called you guys. - [laughs] - Uh... - I was gonna say, who canceled? - [laughs] - Well, I think probably a lot of people would like to know that are watching this where it all started. I mean, where were you born? People always go, "Oh, he's not a real redneck. He lives in an apartment in New York." I think-- - I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, raised in a little town by the airport called Hapeville. [soft guitar music] Well, Hapeville is where I say I grew up, but actually, between first grade and graduating high school, I think I went to, like, 11 different schools, and--and I wonder sometimes if that's where part of the humor came from, because I was the new kid a lot. You know, I wasn't the biggest guy or the most intimidating guy, but people liked the funny kid. - Grew up in houses with dirt yards. - Had a dirt yard. - I remember we used to talk about that. - Had a dirt yard. - Made out of dirt--whole town was made out of dirt. - Our security system was, like, yucca plants under the windows, but it was a great place to grow-- and--and it was probably the impetus for the redneck stuff, 'cause I mean, you only know what you know. I didn't know we didn't have anything. [jaunty music] My family was funny. I mean, my dad was funny. I mean, he was one of those guys that knew every joke, and my mom's side was funny. I mean, like, if you had a zit on your forehead that you were embarrassed about, the first thing, somebody in the family would go, "Hey, Cyclops." - Right. - You know. I mean, they would just literally make fun of everything you did. But I was always fascinated by comedy. Like, I can remember, even being a kid, and I'd be in bed, and "The Tonight Show" would be on, and I would get out of bed when the comedians were on there. I didn't care about the singers or the actors. - Yeah. - My parents were very different. My mom sang in the church choir-- always go to church-- and my dad was 180. ♪ ♪ - Oh, my mom-- she's amazing. She's kind of our rock: very grounded, very supportive, very encouraging, great spiritual leader of the household. She was incredible. I mean, we were very blessed with who our mom was. - I often say that whatever is kind and good in me, I got from my mom. - You know, big Jim was, uh-- he was larger than life, fun, kind of life of the party. He was funny. He had some issues, um, in his own personal life, but--but as far as the kids, he--he always showed us love. - Well, my dad used to be a deacon in the church and then... got caught having an affair with the church organist, so he kind of went the other way, so I was-- I had a mom that was like this and a dad that was like this, and as a kid, you're trying to figure out, "Where do I fit in in all of this?" [pensive music] ♪ ♪ You know, it--it's funny. The only time I ever went to camp in my life, I think it was, like, church camp for a week, and when I came back, I came in the house, and half the furniture was gone, and nobody had told me in advance, "Hey, your dad's leaving," and I'm walking in the house, going "Where's the sofa? Where's the recliner?" "Oh, your dad moved out. He's gone," which I'm like, "Well, hell, I'm not going to camp anymore. Look what happens when I go to camp." ♪ ♪ More than anything, I felt betrayed. It was kind of like, "You know what? I trusted you. "I thought we were all in this together, and you got a girlfriend and left." ♪ ♪ As a kid, when your folks split up, no matter what anybody says to you, there's a thing within you that feels like, "I wasn't worth sticking around for," so I think because my dad had a really big sense of humor, I think that probably influenced me. Being funny was--I could make my dad laugh when I was around him, and so it made him like me more, probably. - Mm. ♪ ♪ Not long after that, school was out, and I remember driving to Atlanta, and I was going to live with my grandparents for the summer. That's when I met Larry Burns, you know, and you couldn't tell my life story without talking about Larry Burns. - You know, we probably met during some Little League baseball games in, I think, Mr. Long's class, and we walk in, and there is this skinny, bowlegged kid wearing, like, plaid bell-bottoms and an orange kind of plaid shirt. - And I just remember being that new kid and not knowing anybody and going, "I like that guy. "That guy's a good baseball player, and he's funny," and it was like a magnet and iron shavings. Boom. And 50-something years later, it's still that way. ♪ ♪ - And old Hapeville High School. There's the football field where-- - That's where the magic happened. - That's where the magic happened. - We didn't have school buses, 'cause everything was close enough to walk. - But that's part of what I loved about it. I mean, there really was a Mayberry quality about it. Literally, almost everybody knew everybody. - It was just a community, and when I say "community," I mean a real heartfelt, "look after each other" community. If you were out doing something you probably shouldn't be doing, by the time you got home, your parents usually knew about it. ♪ ♪ - I mean, I think it's complicated being a teenager in the best of circumstances, and, you know, for me, I'm living in bipolar worlds, you know, my conservative mom and my crazy, off-the-chain dad. - We would go to his dad's farm with his father's friends, and--and they were pretty wild and crude. - You know, he would have his buddies down there, and everybody would be drinking like crazy, and people would have their girlfriends and be sleeping together and, you know, cussing, and-- but then I'm going back to live back with my mom, and so, you know, I had to figure out a lot of things, like, morally. I had to work, so I went to the college closest to my house, and I didn't have a passion for what I was studying. I'm studying industrial management, so that's why I say it's the lost years. When I flunked out of college, I had no idea what I wanted to do, and it wasn't unique to me. I think it's so unfair to ask a kid in the 11th grade, "What--so what do you want to do?" Hell, I had no idea. I didn't know what was available. One of my dad's friends felt sorry for me, got me a job starting in dispatch at IBM, but I--I was the funny guy at work. I could do impersonations of the boss. I'd be in the break room, doing the impersonation, you'd turn around, the boss is in the doorway, and so, you know, I wasn't on the fast track to the--to the penthouse at IBM, but a bunch of guys I worked with would come here to The Punchline. They kept telling me, "You're as funny as the guys there. You need to go onstage." I never thought about being onstage. So they started getting people at IBM to call The Punchline and go, "Hey, is Jeff Foxworthy gonna be on next Tuesday?" And they were like, "No." "Oh, that's too bad, 'cause I wanted to make reservations for 20 people." - So he had several people do that, and then finally this guy called Jeff's buddy Rob back and said, "Hey, if you can get "all these people that have called there, then we'll let Jeff go." - And so I said, "Let me go watch one week, and I went and watched, and I thought, "A'ight," and I went home and I wrote five minutes of material about my family. The next week, it wasn't an amateur night. It was a contest called the Great Southeastern Laugh-Off. It was for working comics. - Please put your hands together for one of Atlanta's own, Mr. Jeff Foxworthy. - I go up the first night, so scared, I can't even look at people, and I won the contest. - That's crazy. That is crazy. - I remember driving down Roswell Road, beating the steering wheel, going, "I won! Stinking won." My cousin Sylvia there-- she's a psychic. Uh, she just filed for a divorce because her husband's gonna have an affair in October. Um... [laughter] - And he was better than just about everybody. I don't know that I thought a lot about it at the time, 'cause it just seemed so natural, so kind of Jeff-like. - How much was it? [muffled speech] Drive around, please. And I was lucky, 'cause I got laughs the first few times I did it, and so if they hadn't laughed the first night, I never would've done it again. I mean, I probably would've missed my shot at my career. But when they did laugh... [bright music] Oh, my gosh, it's just, like, nothing better. There's still nothing better. I--I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to do it. Thank you guys. Enjoy the rest of the show. I'm Jeff Foxworthy. [cheers and applause] - I also had my Uncle Earl there. Earl may be the biggest loser in the entire world. In fact, Earl just lost his job as a cook at the Waffle House due to his appearance. [laughter] - It was late May 1984, and stand-up comedy was huge, so we all went out that night, and it was at The Punchline in Atlanta, and Jeff went up. - I've been up north a couple of times. I'm gonna tell the rest of you, it's not that bad. In fact, I kind of like Tennessee. It was a, um... - You know, he was very funny, so I went up to talk to him at the end of the night. - Thank you guys. Enjoy the rest of the show. - And I don't even think he made eye contact with me. - She thought I was stuck up, but I was so nervous. Thank God there was another night there and she came back, and I thought, "Oh, my gosh, is this stinking girl cute." [playful music] You know, my dumb ass. I'm, like, holding a drink, and I spill it right down the front of her. - And he's, like, grabbing napkins, and he's--he's, like, blotting me and trying to wipe off my pants, and he looks at me and he said, "Now you'll never go out with me," and I said, "Well, you haven't asked." [laughs] ♪ ♪ - Yeah, she was there from the beginning, but how cool that she saw the very first night I ever did? Hell, in the South, we fall in love, we just spray-paint your name on an overpass. [laughter] This bowlegged kid with bad teeth and a mullet, and she actually went out with me. That's insane. [soft music] - I didn't think that Gregg was the one, because I really thought nobody in their right mind is gonna, you know, attach themselves to this guy as he kind of drags himself around the country. - Excuse me there, sir, could I see your license, please? No, sir, I don't need a cold beer. I don't think you do, either. [laughter] When Gregg and I first started dating, nobody else in my life was telling me, "You should quit IBM and be a comedian," but she was. - He quit December 31st. I went and got a sales job and said, "Okay, we're gonna make this work." - My name is Jeff Foxworthy. I did quit a job at IBM to do this in January, and my parents are very happy about that. [laughter] That was kind of a big leap, to quit a corporate job. I made, like, $32,000, $33,000, so it's great for a kid in his young 20s. [laughter] For my first year on the road, I did 460 shows and made $8,330, so my income was cut to 1/4. - Gregg was a driving force behind a lot of his success, and those early days on the road, I mean, she was with him and pushing him along. - I mean, it was a pivotal time. I mean, we were having fun. We didn't have any money, but we didn't really care at that point. ♪ ♪ - Gregg is my life. I--I wouldn't have a life if it wasn't for Gregg. ♪ ♪ - Speaking of traveling and going to all these places, you came down to Florida at the Comedy Corner, West Palm Beach. That's where we met. Do you remember how we met? - Yeah, I remember it. You were, like, one of the rotating house MCs down there... - Right. - And the first night we met, we found out we were both big Braves fans. - That's the first time we ever kissed. [laughs] - I remember that. I remember. - We would go sit around and write, and just sitting around that living room at 1:00 in the morning. - When did you start doing that, "You might be a redneck if you think..."? - It started--one night, I'm playing a club right outside Detroit. - And it was a bowling alley, right, or something? - Yeah, it was attached. The club--it was attached to the bowling alley, and they were kidding me about being a redneck. I said, "If you don't think you have rednecks in Michigan, look out the window." They had valet parking at the bowling alley. But people were laughing, and they were, like, pointing at each other, and I thought, "Okay, if I can write 10, "can I write 50? "If I can write 50, can I write 100?" Richard Belzer one time pulled me out on the street, and he goes, "The--drop the redneck stuff." - Really? - "That's not gonna work." - Good call. - Good career advice there. - So--well, every time I see him, he goes, "Thankfully, you didn't listen to me." [laughter] A lot of people don't know if they're a redneck or not, see, so I came up with a test to kind of help you out. - He was a unique storyteller. He--you know, he talked about stuff that I grew up with, stuff I could relate to. - If your family tree does not fork... If your wife's hairdo has ever been destroyed by a ceiling fan... If your mother keeps a spit can on the ironing board. - He knew where I was coming from, man. He's my people. [laughs] - You might be a redneck. You might be a redneck. You might be a redneck. [laughter] - Jeff was killing. Oh, Jeff was murdering every time he walked onstage. - If your richest relative buys a new house and you have to help take the wheels off of it... [laughter] It was kind of the thing with redneck. "Eh, well, that's kind of an insult." I said, "No, it's not, because this is who they are, and they don't want to be something else," which is kind of a lot cooler than people pretending to be something that they're not. [laughter] God bless you folks. You guys are [indistinct]. Thank you very much. [cheers and applause] - So, Kathleen, how did you and Jeff meet? - It was at the St. Louis Funny Bone, when I was just learning how to be a comic, but hanging out there and just watching him, and he was just nice and, like, there were so many temperamental people that came through, where you're like... - Hang out with them. - "I don't want to sit and have a beer with that person." Yeah, there's just-- there's something off, where it's like-- - Yeah, Jeff was always very approachable. You weren't cocky. You weren't-- You were just having fun. - You know, I might have been secretly cocky, 'cause when I started, my whole goal was to be on "Johnny Carson." That was all I wanted to do. I did year after year after year, 500 shows a year. I mean, I was onstage every night, some nights, two, three, four times, but I'm mailing tapes to "The Tonight Show," and they're mailing them back. They're not even opening them because I live in Smyrna, Georgia, and my wife kept saying, "You're never gonna know unless you go to LA," 'cause that was kind of the thing. You had to be in New York or LA. She said, "You're never gonna know." - Here's Johnny! - Johnny was the king. "The Tonight Show" was the show to do. One appearance on "The Tonight Show," and if you got asked to sit down on the couch with Johnny, well, that's what made all the difference. - Leno was kind of doing a lot of guest hosting for Johnny at that point. Johnny was still the host, but Jay would guest host a lot, and so I'm working in Atlantic City, and somebody from the kitchen comes out and goes, "Somebody's on the phone for you." "What? Okay. Hello." "Hey, hey, Jeff. It's Jay Leno," and I'm like, "What? Jay Leno?" And he was performing down the street, and he said, "Oh, yeah, when you get through, "come on. My show's-- Come on--come over..." And Jay just kind of became an advocate for me. - I thought he was a good comedian. It's not based on friendship, 'cause I have a lot of friends that don't have any talent. - Jay went back and told "The Tonight Show," "This guy's really funny. You need to put this guy on," and so, you know, I got to do "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. I never g-got nervous, but I remember they placed me behind the curtain and said, "Walk out and stand on the star," and I thought, "I can't do this. "I'm going to just walk away, and they'll have to stop the show and edit it." - Serious? - Being serious with that. And they told me-- they said, "You have to do six minutes. "That doesn't mean 5:50. That doesn't mean 6:05. That means six minutes." - Would you welcome Jeff Foxworthy? - Yeah. - And I walk out and I'm like, "Okay, just find the star," and, like, the third joke I tell gets a giant applause break. Spent the whole day, just cast and tug. [laughter] Cast and tug. [cheers and applause] Well, that doesn't happen in a comedy club. It only happens on TV. And my brain is going, "Oh, crap, this is messing the six minutes up," and I'm thinking, "Okay, two minutes from now, "I've got four jokes about my mother, "so I'm gonna go ahead and take out the third joke about my mother." I'm editing in my mind two minutes ahead of myself as I'm doing my six minutes, and then three jokes later, there's another applause break. "You're not wearing that, are you?" [laughter] "No, I ain't wearing this. Just what I'm wearing while you're getting ready." [laughter] [cheers and applause] I--it's mentally exhausting because the set that you've rehearsed over and over again, you gotta tell yourself, "Remember, don't do the third joke. Just do one, two, four." And I finish, and I look up, and it hits six minutes exactly. ♪ ♪ - And I was crying because it was the moment, and then Johnny called him over. - And then I get in the chair, and I sit, and I make him laugh, and to look over, and Johnny's got his mouth wide open, just laughing, and I got to do that. Who's luckier than I am? - He had arrived, and that was it. That was our dream. I mean, after that, it was like, "Yeah, this might work." ♪ ♪ - "The Tonight Show" was absolutely the top of the mountain. If Johnny liked you, it was like getting the Willy Wonka golden ticket to a career, I mean, because all of a sudden, you go from playing the comedy club in Las Vegas... Thanks very much, y'all. To having your name on the sign, and literally the next week, "Hey, Bally's wants you to headline. Showtime wants you to do a special." - Mr. Jeff Foxworthy. - There wasn't anybody else working any more than me at that time. You couldn't be doing more shows, and you couldn't have been writing more. I was writing like crazy. I mean, it was just like your whole career just--wow. ♪ ♪ I made Johnny laugh. Three or four weeks later, I won comedian of the year at the American Comedy Awards... - Oh, yeah, I remember that. - And then, like, a month later-- - You got People's Choice Awards. - JD Power Award. - [laughs] For customer reliability. - I mean... ♪ ♪ - He was very public before I realized it. We went to a Braves game one day, and everybody knew who he was-- like, literally everybody walking down the aisle-- and it was a shock to me. - At the time, I didn't think I wanted children, didn't think I'd ever be able to afford kids. You know, I figured I'd go to LA and try the whole acting thing out there, and I did start auditioning, and then I got pregnant. [soft music] After Jordan was born, that's when I feel like our real life began. ♪ ♪ - I was all in from the moment she took her first breath, and I'm like, "Okay, for the rest of my life, "I'm gonna protect you, kid, "and--and I'm gonna do it to the best of my ability." ♪ ♪ - Once you had kids, did your priorities switch from being a father first, comedian second? - Probably nothing in my life changed me as much as having kids, you know, and it may have been that whole thing of having a dad that left. - Right. - And I--and I didn't want my kids to ever feel that, that they weren't the most important thing to me. [bright music] [laughter] Jordan would go on the road with us. I mean, we would just travel, and I was starting to do concerts, and yeah, Jordan just went with us. If she gets kind of bothersome, I'm just gonna put her down on the stage, let her crawl around. - It was very hectic, because it's not just about us. We've got the baby. - You've got to get up and do morning TV and you got to do morning radio and then you got to go do this show and then somebody else wants to interview you for a newspaper, and so you just work, work, work, work, work. ♪ ♪ If you've ever been accused of lying through your tooth... Try to be home, try to be a husband, try to be a dad, and you're just exhausted. - With Jordan, we could still be mobile, with just one. Jordan's a very, very good roller. With a second... - [crying] [soft music] That kind of was the end of me hanging out in comedy clubs after the show, 'cause it was like, "I'll go do the show, "but as soon as it's over, I'm in the car and I'm going home." - Can you give her a kiss? Everything changed. My life was preschool and diapers, and when Jules came, Jeff was doing the sitcom. - The thing with the sitcom in the '90s was, once you pegged as a comic, you did a sitcom, because Roseanne was doing it. Seinfeld was doing it. Tim Allen was doing it. You know, that's what you did. - He was working those long sitcom days. In fact, I saw him less when he worked on the sitcom. - And out of everything I've ever done in my career, that's the only thing I didn't enjoy. I liked the people, but I got in it, and then week two, I'm going, "I don't want to do this." - "I don't want to do this." - And during the sitcom time, the girls were little. It was just hard. I wasn't seeing them, and I was putting in so much time. Say, "I love my daddy." - [laughs] - Say, "I love my daddy." - I love my daddy. - [laughs] - Such a smart child. - She is smart. - Oh! ♪ ♪ - He was exhausted, and he was still going out on weekends and doing stand-up. That was hard. That was a tough time. ♪ ♪ - And it was life-consuming. I would be getting up at 6:00, and I'd be there at 7:00, and then somebody would be griping about wardrobe, or they would be griping about catering, and when your name's on the wall, "The Jeff Foxworthy Show," you're the guy they come to. It was just all day long, people pissing and moaning about their problems, and then they didn't want me in the writing room, 'cause "Well, you're not a television writer." I'm like, "Yeah, I'm a writer. I know Jeff Foxworthy pretty good." And I think, in 1995, the "New York Post" voted me the worst actor on television. ♪ ♪ - When we all got out there, they told us all, just go audition for stuff, but I never thought about being an actor. They're gonna find out I don't know what I'm doing. But then I see him... - Who doesn't know what he's doing. - And I thought, "Well, he doesn't know what he's doing..." - Right. [laughs] Perfect. - "So-- "and they gave him the whole show, so--so maybe I can, uh, fake this." - The day they called me to tell me they had canceled it, I was trying so hard to work up some type of disappointment in my voice. - Right, some kind of angst. - I'm like... [insincerely] "Oh, really?" - [laughs] - Yeah. - And I'm, "Okay, well, it was great working with you. Yes! Yes!" - When they canceled the sitcom, now you're sitting in LA. Stay? - I knew from that experience I didn't care if I ever did another sitcom. I--I kind of thought I didn't want to do TV other than doing stand-up. I just want to be a comic, and I can do that as easy from Atlanta... - As anywhere. - As I can do it from anywhere. So I thought, "I'm moving back to Atlanta so my kids can grow up around their family." Professionally, I had a lot of people in the business telling me I was committing business suicide. They're like, "You don't leave LA and go live in Atlanta." [bright music] Thankfully, they were wrong. ♪ ♪ Being happy's more important than being rich and famous. - He needed woods, he needed hunting, he needed his family, and I said, "All right, so let's go," and it was a great decision. - You can't do it too long, 'cause you'll fall apart. ♪ ♪ You need time to recharge your battery and figure out, "What is it that I want to do next?" ♪ ♪ I needed that breath. ♪ ♪ [laughter] - Why did they give me a TV show? [laughter] - Okay, are we still rolling? - I had decided that as soon as the sitcom was over, my kids were gonna have a shot at having as normal a life as they could for having a dad that was on TV. They became the priority, and so, you know, I made the choice. I started leasing a plane, and I would fly home every night. - Every night. - I remember that. I remember doing a corporate gig with you... - Get up and take his kids to school. - And you said, "I'm--I--if we don't get "to say bye, I'm-- I'm getting out of here right after the show." I said, "Oh, where-- where you rushing off to?" You go, "Oh, I just--I like to drive my kids to school." - Yeah. ♪ ♪ - You're flying like a birdie, like an airplane. He'd come back after the show on Friday night, he'd be there on Saturday morning, hang out for the day, get on a plane, fly, and do a show wherever on Saturday night... - Y'all been great. God bless you. Enjoy the rest of the show. Take care. - Fly back after the show, and then go to church on Sunday morning. - As a little kid, I had no idea that that's what he did and the sacrifices he made, but now, looking at it, it just--it means everything. - The whole celebrity aspect didn't really come into our home. It kind of stopped at the door. All those, like, early memories when I look back-- there's never a gap where he's not there. - We knew what we didn't want to do as far as parenting goes, so that was almost an easier place from which to start. [dramatic music] - My dad was one of those people. When he was five years old, his dad went out to get a pack of cigarettes and never came back. 20 years later, they find him in another state, got another family. I look back and I realize, "Man, something bad happened to him when he was young." I know he loved me, but he didn't have the ability to stick around. ♪ ♪ I'm just thankful, for whatever reason, th-that my story was different than his. ♪ ♪ My dad died in a car wreck. Hit a water truck head-on on a back road in Alabama, and so it was very sudden. Wasn't like he had been sick. - I talked to my dad 20 minutes before he was killed in the accident. I got the call about two hours later. So I remember just that I had to let my brother know and my sister and my Aunt Rose. ♪ ♪ [sniffles] And, you know, it was just not a good day. ♪ ♪ Jeff was doing a radio show. I got in touch with Gregg, and, you know, there's no way to deliver that news, but it's like, "Dad-- my dad's been killed in a car accident." ♪ ♪ - You get up in the morning, you're eating a Pop-Tart, and that afternoon, you're picking out a coffin. ♪ ♪ And it was weird, because even with the complicated relationship that we had, I did like sharing things with him, and so there was quite a time after that that something would happen and I'd think, "Oh, I need to call Daddy "and tell him what-- Oh, I can't. Can't do that." - I remember one time, I was, uh, the headliner at Atlanta and your dad died in a car wreck and you were gonna bury him... - Yeah. - And I--I told 'em, "I gotta go to my buddy's dad's funeral," and, uh, they said, "You can't, 'cause you got radio," and I said, "Watch me." - Huh. - "I'm gonna go, 'cause, you know, I know it's gonna crush him," and, uh, probably one of the most important hugs I've ever given a man was to hug you that day we buried your dad. - Man, I just--remember just looking up and seeing you there and just-- I was doing pretty good at holding it together till then, but... - Yeah. - Yeah, thank you for that, and that's what friends do for each other. ♪ ♪ After he passed, some of the struggles that I had with him-- I kind of learned to do that and just let them go and forgive him for what he couldn't do, and yeah, sometimes it's just enough to know that somebody loves you and you love them, and hey, everybody's doing the best that they can. ♪ ♪ But you don't have a choice. You--you gotta keep going. I was reading the paper one day and it was when the Kings of Comedy came out, and it was a show for the urban, hip audience, and I'm like, "Why couldn't we do a show "called the Blue Collar Comedy Tour "that wasn't the urban, hip audience; it was everybody else?" I wanted people that would appeal to the same audience but were also not alike. Out of the four of us, Bill and I are the most alike, but for the other ones, it was like, "Okay, you-- they gotta be different." [upbeat music] - I'd kind of quit comedy, sort of, and moved to Mexico to make pottery. That's where I was heading. - If she... - But on the weekends, I would fly out, and Jeff was doing big shows, and so I would go out and do shows with him. Hey, man. Hey, man. If one of these engines fails, how far will the other one take us? All the way to the scene of the crash. - Ron didn't believe in himself. I believed in Ron more than Ron did, but I knew if you ever gave him the chance that he was gonna deliver. - He told me the whole idea, and I told him that doesn't even make sense. That--you don't need four comedians in a show. So that's what a visionary I am. I'm, like--I shot it down. I'm like, "No. That won't work." - I was filming a thing in Nashville, and I hadn't seen Dan in years, and I'm standing there on the side of the stage, watching him, and he is killing. - $24 for britches with holes in the crotch? Good--I got a whole drawer full of them at the house, for God's sake. He got to see me do Larry the Cable Guy. He'd never seen that before. He just remembers me as Dan. I bet I'm sitting on $15-- $200 worth of undershorts out there. Next thing I know, I'm sitting at home, and my manager called me up and says, "Hey, they're thinking about trying you out "for Blue Collar Comedy Tour they're doing. You want to go do a couple dates?" "Well, yeah. What am I, nuts?" - Lot of NASCAR fans don't like Jeff Gordon because Jeff Gordon enunciates. - Nobody was doing that. It was Southern but not Southern enough that it alienated people in other parts of the country. - I think Jeff figured it out. There was just that gap there which is probably 90% of America. - Next thing you know, pfft, you know, Learjets, limos, tour buses. - We kind of cleared out three months to do it, and by month two, we're filling arenas. I'm like, "Eh, this is gonna go on longer." Three months turned into three years. We would literally, at the end of the night, be taking our bows and look at each other, going, "Can you believe they're paying us to do this?" [soft music] - When it comes to talking about that particular thing... ♪ ♪ About, you know, what Jeff's generosity and guidance, the impact that had on my career-- I have no idea where I'd be without it, and I think I'd be somewhere, because I think I'm good, but I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be talking to you. ♪ ♪ - If we didn't know Jeff and he didn't take a liking to us and he wasn't the kind of comedian that he was-- I mean, he could've told us to piss off, you know, but he liked what we did, and, I mean, all of that is just from us riding your coattails, so-- - No, you weren't riding my coattails. You were good. - No, we were riding your coattails. - Yeah, we were riding coattails. - [laughs] They're here to tell you now, they think that-- - We were sewing stuff to your coattails, reinforcing it with duct tape. - But you were good. I knew you were gonna be famous, and--and looking back, you guys were doing, like, 15 minutes apiece, and I was doing-- - Ten. - You know, 10, and I was doing 45, but from the success of that, I remember when the second one came around and they said, "How would you like to do the second one?" and I said, "Everybody gets the same amount of time and everybody gets the same money," because to me, that's what we were, so it was fun to take your buddies and go, "All right, now w-- we're all on this ride." - And I remember, I literally went from making $3,500 a week to--to $1/2 million a week some weeks, and that was all because of your generosity and your ability to look at me and go, "You're worth this." - You were worth it. ♪ ♪ - One of the biggest joys of my career was being able to do something for people like Ron or Larry the way people like Leno and Rodney Dangerfield had helped to expose me to a bigger audience. - Here he is, Jeff Foxworthy, okay? Make him happy here. Jeff coming out, baby. All right. All right. - There's always this perception it's this horrible, backbiting, dog-eat-dog world, and maybe there's a little of that, but for the most part, comics do tend to help with other comedians. - Jeff roots for you. He's not jealous. He knows that if you do good, he does good. Blue Collar was a band of brothers, so if one guy did good, we knew the other guy was gonna do good. - Did you go buy anything, like, that you always wanted that you never could afford? - Those blue snake boots. [laughs] - Well... they were given to me. That's--my mother saw those and goes, "You've been on the road too long." I--I will tell you something I bought, something that was important to me. When I was a kid, my dad bought back the farm that he had when he was a kid, and I was just enamored with it, just fascinated w-- I walked through the woods all day, and then it got to the point, when I was about 18 or 19, where he had to sell it, and the day he told me he was gonna sell it, I c--I cri--I sobbed, just like somebody had died, just sobbed, and so I always wanted a--a farm. Then when I moved back to Atlanta, I was like--I went and saw this farm, and it was just gorgeous. People are like, "All right, when you're not working, what do you do?" I said, "I'm on my farm. "I'm on a tractor or I'm on a bulldozer, "and I'm as happy as I can be, "because I feel like when I go through that farm gate, I'm not Jeff Foxworthy. I'm just Jeff." [soft music] - To all my friends, you know, he was just like any other dad. It just wasn't a big deal, and then he started doing "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" - Tonight, we're gonna give grown-ups the chance to win $1 million by proving that they are smarter than a fifth grader. Let's go! I was the guy, if you were out with me at the gas station, people like, "Hey! Might be a redneck!" And I thought, "Well, that's gonna be my life," until I started hosting "Smarter Than a 5th Grader," and then people would tap me in the grocery store and go, "I'm not smarter than a fifth grader." I'm like, "Neither am I. They give me the answers. I don't know that stuff." Couple of years ago, I'm doing this thing, and this lady goes, "You do stand-up. You write books. You host game shows. Which one are you?" I said, "Those are all things that I do, "but who I am is, "I'm a dad, "and I'm a husband, "and I'm a person of this community, "and I'm a brother and a son "and a friend and a child of God, "and so what I do may change "many times in my life, "but hopefully, "who I--which one are you? Who I am stays the same." ♪ ♪ People that live out on the street don't have any hope, and so that's what we try to give them down here. And I had a guy one time invite me to go down to the homeless mission, and I'm thinking, "Well, he wants me to do a concert to raise money for him or something," and n--and he said, "These guys have never had, like, "a small-group Bible study. Would you lead one?" and I'm thinking, "There's 6 1/2 million people in Atlanta, "and you can't find anybody more qualified to do this than me?" - [laughs] - Seriously? - You might be a Bible believer... [laughs] - He thought we were crazy, asking him to lead a Bible study. Most didn't know he was a famous comedian. - We're made to encourage each other and walk with each other and...you know, learn from each other. - This guy gets it. You know, he knows that if-- if somebody wants to ask for time with him, give it. But they say, "Why are you proud? And it's like, not because he won this or he did this. He's kind. ♪ ♪ He's kind, and he's a good person. ♪ ♪ And--and we need-- we need a little more kindness now. ♪ ♪ - Whoo-hoo. How are you? I worked in the deli... - Uh-huh. - In this deli for many years. Multiple Band-Aids from cleaning the slicer in the deli. We didn't have-- that was olden days. We didn't have gloves. We had to walk uphill to school in the snow both ways too. - Mm-hmm? - We couldn't afford legs. We just had to roll everywhere we went. It was sad. - [laughs] - Good morning, Kroger's shoppers. In our deli today, we're featuring a special on boar's ham garlic bologna. This week, it's only $5.49 a pound. You starting to see, I got skills, don't I? - Yeah, you got skills. - You want me to make you a sandwich? I kind of got it down now. - Oh, no, sir. Thank you. [laughter] [harmonica music] [slow guitar music] - What do you say to the people that always say you can't call yourself a redneck anymore 'cause you made a lot of money? - When people say, "Oh, you don't live in a trailer," it's like, "Hell, dude, I'm still a redneck." I remember going to play baseball somewhere, and we had kind of older uniforms. They were kind of wool, and I remember getting off the bus and them making fun of our uniforms, 'cause we were from, you know, the poorer side of town. Then I become rich because of comedy, and people make assumptions the other way, but I'm the same kid that walked off of that bus in that shirt. - Right. - Same guy. Just it's a different shirt. [soft music] - I always say to Jeff, you know, you want to make show business money and lead a regular life. It makes him humble. It's what makes him-- it's what makes him a comedian, you know? - There are times, I feel like, where I-- I haven't accomplished anything, because I'd like to write a novel. I'd li--I got an idea for a play that I'd like-- - What's your idea for a play? - Well, I c-- I wouldn't say it, 'cause then somebody will go and do it. - It's that good? [laughter] - Jeff needs to be creative. Whether it's art, whether it's entertaining, he is constantly creating. He's a normal guy with an abnormal ability to do what he does. - Bowlegged... I think he'd want me to say yes, he's funny-- we all know that-- but he is just a-- a really great human. He makes the world, uh, better, being Jeff, not Jeff Foxworthy. Just being a dude. - He just is so good at staying grounded, and I think he's almost too humble about things. We're like, "You're allowed to get excited about this." He's like, "No, no, because this isn't what life's about. "You know, it's-- this isn't important. This--this goes away. This goes away." ♪ ♪ - He has a way of rooting for the underdog without making someone feel like they're the underdog. - I've been the underdog. There was probably a lot of people in New York 35 years ago that wouldn't bet on the little redneck kid in the pickup truck. - I'm just proud to be his brother. I mean, he was my brother before he was Jeff Foxworthy. ♪ ♪ - He is not vain. He is not egotistical. He is not manic or crazy. He's... the best man I've ever known in every regard. ♪ ♪ - I want to enjoy my kids. I want to enjoy my wife. I want to enjoy my farm. Still love being onstage. To this day, when the lights go down and the flashlight hits the floor, I go, "I got the coolest job in the world." ♪ ♪ Y'all have been terrific. God bless you. Thank you for coming out. You're the best. Thank you, folks. Thank you very much.

Info

Channel: Biography

Views: 474,498

Rating: 4.8860908 out of 5

Keywords: history, bio, biography, life story, jeff foxworthy, biography of jeff foxworthy, bio of jeff foxworthy, foxworthy, comedy, comedy special, mini biography, full biography, bio channel, biography channel, biography tv, celebrity, documentary, politics, american history, biography documentary channel, the biography channel, full episode, Mega Comedy Success, watch biography, biography new series, watch new series on biography, Jeff Foxworthy comedy, success stories, Mega Comedy

Id: zK-MdPm4CSo

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 43min 8sec (2588 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 12 2020