"Cars" - Disney movie . . . has "Larry the Cable Guy" tried to claim

[zbdent]

responsibility for some of its success? I mean, they did try to make his character cute . . . instead of the butt-ugly look he really goes for . . .

(comical aside about LtCG . . . I accidetally caught a clip of his routine the other night while Mrs. ZBDent was flipping through the channels . . . he pointed out that the "living dead" in the late-night shift at Wal-Mart looked like stuff from Monty Python's "Ministry of Silly Walks" . . . and the thought occurred to me . . . isn't this the guy who thought PBS was what women go through once a month? Who wrote that joke for him? Since "Monty Python" is on that publicly funded "culture" channel for the intellectual elite, of which he wants nothing to do with . . .)

[Caoimhe]

1. Larry the cable guy

is the symptom. Mass stupidity is the disease. I can't stand to watch that illiterate redneck turd bloviate.

[Jim Warren]

2. I agree...but

he's college educated yuppie spawn from the wealthy suburbs who just found a lucrative niche in the present 12 year-old level nascarization of modern adult popular culture.

[gatorboy]

4. Heh! So he was.....

"When he was sixteen, Whitney's family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida. He attended the Kings Academy in West Palm Beach, where his father worked as the principal of Kings Academy's elementary school. Whitney played an instrument in the pep band. As a teenager he worked at Wendy's. He attended college at Baptist University of America in Georgia, where he says that his roommates "frosted the dialect cake for me." In 1985, he began doing stand-up comedy at the Comedy Club in West Palm Beach on amateur nights at the encouragment of friends and coworkers; and, in 1991, he began doing radio comedy, where he would call into stations as fictional characters. The "Larry" character was created after his friend from a station asked him to call in as a cable installer."

[underpants]

6. I first heard him on a Baltimore station in '98

I thought he was supposed to be some tired old drunk crummudgeon not a "redneck". He was very political back then-of course at that time the winds told him to be against Clinton getting impeached over a .... well you know.

It wasn't until Foxworthy scooped him up that I was told to understand that he was supposed to be a heartland values guy, one of them good old boy redneck types.

[WoodrowFan]

7. WIYY?

98 Rock? On "Kirk, mark and Lopez"?? I used to listen to that show, until Lopez passed away. :( I always turned off Larry though. ugh.

[underpants]

9. Yep that was the one

Was Lopez the guy who had the early weekend morning politics show? Whoever it was was great at that.

I thought Larry was pretty damned funny but I could pretty much tell that it was someone doing a voice.

[gatorboy]

12. Someone mentioned while interviewing him for CARS,

that the drawl would come and go during the discussion....

For his audience it doesn't matter, though. It's the same group that still believes that Bush is a bonafide cowboy. :eyes:

[hootinholler]

21. Yep that was our beloved Lopez, may he rest in peace.

Gun totin liberal he was! My kinda guy.

I actually like the pieces LtCG did back then, at the time I thought they were done tounge in cheek, and he did come up with some funny lines. Started with "What the hell is this Russia?"

-Hoot

[Pithlet]

26. Aw, I didn't know Lopez died.

:( I lived in the Baltimore area in the 90s.

[WoodrowFan]

28. yes, last year

lung cancer spread, well, everywhere. I stopped listening to their morning show when he passed. Lopez was the best thing on that show and his page on their website was a hoot to read...

RIP Lopez. :(

[Bluzmann57]

3. I don't care for his act

but isn't that what it is, an act? I have never heard him interviewed or whatever so for all anyone knows, he may be a smart guy. I don't know, just sayin'.

[zbdent]

5. The other guys

(Foxworthy, White, Engvall) all say that Larry is not an act . . . that's the real guy . . .

[mcscajun]

13. And did they say that on or off-stage?

Just curious. 'Cause he did make up the character.

[zbdent]

15. Well, it's onstage . . . and they claim that he's that way . . .

now, maybe the "stupidity" is the act, but I heard that his politics sure do follow the mentality he portrays . . .

[mcscajun]

20. I'm sure his politics, such as they are, are genuinely his.

The stupidity is totally feigned, as is the redneck background.

[w4rma]

8. It's just a character he plays. (nt)

[EOTE]

10. If only he'd admit to it being an act...

The thing is, his 'act' is loaded with anti-intellectualism. He epitomizes the ignorant and proud crowd, and he vehemently defends his audience for keeping those same values. He fired some shots a while back at David Cross for his dead on comments in Rolling Stone about redneck comedy. You can read David's response here. It's both hilarious and extremely appropriate.

I saw Cars over the weekend, and as a car guy, I really liked it. It had a good message for kids and was entertaining for adults as well. Not as good as "The Incredibles", but still really good. As much as I detest LtCG, he wasn't unbearable in this movie, mostly because he didn't play himself and was far less obnoxious. His character was still ignorant, but more ignorant of his ignorance than proud of his ignorance.

[EOTE]

11. And what's up with the Wal-Mart diss?

Isn't that kind of his base?

[Initech]

14. Actually, it was Larry who took the first shot.

In his "autobiography" (written by someone else), he devotes an entire chapter to "PC-left" comedians, names David Cross specifically. Cross wrote the said letter back in retaliation, then made his comments about redneck humor in Rolling Stone.

[GarySeven]

16. Why do you folks praise Steven Colbert ...

for his dead-on satire of conservative talk-show blow hards then UTTERLY fail to see that LTCG is doing the same thing? His whole schtick (that's one o'them thar Yiddish words, based on Jewish comedians who used to satirize their audience) is based on an understanding between himself and his audience that this is SATIRE. Everyone in the audience is in on the joke, just as all you Northern intellectuals are in on Colbert's act.

But YOU DON'T GET IT.

And the reason WHY you don't get it is the biggest JOKE OF ALL. Because what LTCG and his whole audience is really doing is laughing at Northerners and your perception of the South. This is the highest tradition of Southern humor; a complicated Moebius strip of satirical comedy that twists back and forth upon itself. I think all of the comments on this topic are HILARIOUS; You folks sound just like the Freepers who aren't exactly sure that Colbert is on their side or not. You do not get the joke - and what's worse you can't even understand that you CAN'T get the joke.

Here it is in a nutshell: to you, rural people aren't funny; they can't be. They are sick, pathetic, knuckle-dragging buffoons. To you in the cities, the rest of the country exists only for your amusement. You are used to laughing at rural people, mocking them; deriding them at any and every opportunity. You are so wrapped up in this prejudice that you cannot see there is NO difference between Seinfeld's act and LTCG (it's just cruder.) Seinfeld makes fun of the "nothing" that obsesses city people and pathologizes their lives; LTCG does the exact same thing, with rural people as his focus.

I hardly ever visit this board any more; every time I do there is just another post like this in which Southerners are attacked and demeaned by people who don't understand us - and don't want to - and insist that we conform to your concepts, not only of how we should act and behave but also how closely we adhere to your politics. While you deride fundamentalism as backwards and anti-intellectual (which it is) you INSIST that Progressives and liberals down here adhere strictly to the agenda set by self-appointed liberal leaders in the north. There are liberals down here, you know, and there could be so much more political action down here if you northern liberals weren't always putting us down, ridiculing our beliefs, etc.

Your patronizing attitude toward the South - and by extension all the rural places of this country - makes growing Progressivism here difficult, to be sure. But what is worse is this: your insistence that everyone conform to your concept of liberalism is KILLING the movement.

[Xithras]

17. You're dead on about the satire.

I'll skip commenting on the political remarks since you're diatribe on Northern vs. Southern progressives doesn't involve this left coaster one way or the other :)

I know a LOT of genuine rednecks, and to a person they are beer-swilling shitkickers who put having a good time and taking care of their families ahead of any other personal, social, or political consideration (for those of you not educated in redneck ways, that last sentence was a complement). The thing is, not ONE of them has, or knows anyone, who has cars on blocks in their yard, has actually cow-tipped more than once, or has had sex in any building containing any farm implement or hay. It's a stereotype. Like all stereotypes, there's bound to be a small minority who actually fit it, but most rednecks are fairly intelligent, live in nice homes, and have sex in bed like normal people. To a person though, they all love LTCG and the BCCT in general. Why? Because they play up their stereotypes in a way that is funny TO THOSE BEING STEREOTYPED.

Rednecks know how the rest of the country perceives them, and generally rednecks think city people are a bunch of closed minded bigots when it comes to their acceptance of rural people and the rural lifestyle. They know that LTCG is the city-persons stereotype of what a rural person should be like, and understand that his act is mostly satirical comedy. It's the non-redneck city people who don't get it, because they see LTCG as some kind of glorification of that lifestyle. Since many of them already perceive LTCG to be the "Reality" in the countryside, it doesn't occur to them that the act is playing up a stereotype. They just see a typical redneck spouting bad jokes.

I grew up in a town with a population of about 1500 people, where half worked on the surrounding farms and the other half worked for companies that supported those farms. This was a town that closed on Sunday, and where one of the biggest local annual events was the yearly FFA competition and livestock auction. More than 90% of the people I went to school with still work those farms and farming companies today. Most people on this board would automatically assume that these people are uneducated, and that the town is backward and highly conservative. They would be wrong...most of the farmers hold at least a bachelors degree in the Ag Sciences, and half are Democrats. The stereotypical rural farming redneck is a myth.

Your analogy that LTCG is the Seinfeld of the rural set is pretty much dead on. Just as Seinfeld was a satirical parody of the big city New Yorker, LTCG is a satirical parody of the rural redneck.

[Touchdown]

19. Agree on the satire, disagree on the South.

You brought us grits, and think the rest of us like them.

for that, you will never be forgiven.:P

[Bluzmann57]

22. I have discussed this at length with people

I'm from the Midwest, used to live in a small town, and am sensitive to others characterization of us "rubes". I believe that the battle isn't really "Red States" and "Blue States", but rather, urban vs. rural. The Dems need to get a candidate who can relate to rural as well as urban people. I mean, the last two Democratic presidents have been Southerners and both came from relatively modest backgrounds and could relate to us "commoners." It's time for that again. Not neccesarily a Southern Governor, but at least someone who can relate to us out here in the great middle class. And I will make a confession, I used to be one who put down "dumb" Southerners, until I met several people from Alabama and Georgia who were charming and intelligent. They helped me see the error of my ways. Some very educated people like football, shooting guns, driving pickups, NASCAR, drinking an occasional basdeball, etc. Those types get put down in here a lot. I apologize for ever stereotyping Southerners. Y'all are good people.

[RoyGBiv]

24. Excellent post ...

Just excellent.

Nothing to add.

[zbdent]

27. Look, I am not attacking South. I just think that the potty references

only go so far. I enjoyed listening to Howard Stern, because once you got past embarassing the female guests who didn't get his humor, he was very intelligent and fairly funny. But then he could get very disgusting (I remember when they were parodying "Alive", and I about puked before I turned on a different station. How's that for "Northern" bias????)

Here's another aside. I used to be heavy into pro "rasslin." Okay? Growing up, all we had in the home area was WWF. After watching Hulk Hogan do exactly the same bit every match, and all the extremely cartoonish caricatures, I got fed up. The WWF was pandering to the kids who went home at intermission after they got to see Hogan.

Then, I got out of my home town and went to college. Found the NWA/Georgia Championship Wrestling (and later, Mid-Atlantic). Now, here was rasslin' with a bit more respect for the marks. Not a whole helluva lot more, but more. And blood, which you never saw after cartoon Hogan took over (and what they did with Rowdy Roddy Piper made me barf ... after reading about how psycho he was. An interview show? Losing to Mr. T.? That was more insulting)

Sounds like I'd be right up LtCG's alley, right? Well, let me tell you. Got me a cousin-in-law who's well into NASCAR. Never lived south of Summit County Ohio. But the "NASCAR" mentality fits right in with LtCG, right? But my cousin-in-law says that LtCG wears thin pretty damn quick, too.

Went to see Bill Engvall. Now, I had seen him on TV and the extended act. Liked him. But then he went on a 20 minute bit about his wife pooping. That got to me.

The basic thing is, I got real tired of the fart and poop humor of LtCG. And once I found out his political bent, it didn't help me.

Oh, by the way? I can take or leave listening to Al Franken, too. And though I like Bill Press and Ed Schultz, I don't have to agree with everything they say, either.

So don't take this as a diss on the south. Take it as a diss on a guy who decides that potty humor is the way to go. I'm not asking for Shakespaere either. But GEEZ, come on!

[ShaneGR]

18. It's a character, a comedic character at that....

I think he's hilarious. He's supposed to be funny, because it's an ACT!

[Frank Cannon]

23. I think Blue Collar TV is one of the edgiest shows today...

comedy-wise. It's about 500% funnier than anything that's been on Saturday Night Live in years.

They had a sketch on last year about a family whose TV was broken, and they just absolutely could not function. They were trying to eat TV dinners without staring at the set and they kept missing their mouths with their forks. My description doesn't do the sketch justice, but it was hilarious.

And yes, it is all a parody.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

25. I was going to say something.

But I don't have anything to say on the subject that David Cross hasn't already said.

http://www.bobanddavid.com/david.asp?artId=183