Las Vegas signs up for Cable service

By Jerry Fink

Thursday, Dec. 12, 2002 | 8:32 a.m.

Larry the Cable Guy may be the funniest dad-gum comic to come out of the South since his buddy Jeff Foxworthy, the man who made the phrase "You might be a redneck if ..." famous.

Larry's catchphrase, "Git 'er done," is not as widely known at Foxworthy's schtick, but to his legion of fans it's the signature line for a comedian who's as funny as all git out.

"I have a real good underground following," said Larry, during a recent telephone interview from his home in Sanford, Fla. "It's a cultlike following. If anybody has great fans, it's me. If not for people liking what I do, I'd be digging a ditch or something."

Instead, the Cable Guy will be at the Monte Carlo tonight through Saturday. What he does is a comedy routine that uses blue-collar humor to poke fun at himself and society in general all done in a Southern accent so thick you'd thank he was from "Jawjuh," the state north of Florida.

"I'm from Nebraska," said Larry, his onstage accent toned down as to be almost imperceptible. "I acquired my accent hanging around my redneck friends."

Larry likes to keep folks ignert of his real name (Dan Whitney), as it ain't near as funny as the person known as The Cable Guy.

Larry has been a professional comedian for 17 years. He has been doing his Larry the Cable Guy schtick for the past 10 years, beginning in 1992 in Sarasota, Fla.

The Cable Guy can be heard on 17 radio stations around the country, making five-minute commentaries about the news of the day, sort of a corn-pone David Brenner.

Locally Larry can be heard on KXPT 97.1-FM at various times between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays during "The Point Morning Show with Byrd, Foxx and Steph." Larry is fond of saying he grew up on a pig farm in Nebraska.

"But we had things besides pigs," he said.

In addition to being a farmer, Larry's father was a school principal who moved the family from Pawnee City, Neb., to Sanford when Larry was a teenager.

"We moved down here when Dad got a job as principal of a school," Larry said. "I went to a Baptist college in Georgia and played baseball."

He had no idea what he was going to do with his life, so he became a bellhop at the Hyatt Regency in Tampa, Fla.

One night in 1985 Larry went to a local comedy club on a dare.

"It wasn't really a comedy club," he said. "It was just a bar that had comedy night one night a week. This was when the comedy-club boom hit in the late '80s."

Larry says he's a natural comedian, a cross between Henny Youngman and Archie Bunker.

"I knew I could make my friends laugh," he said. "So I went up there onstage and winged it."

Larry was a hit and soon began performing at the Comedy Corner in West Palm Beach, Fla., which at the time was one of the top comedy clubs in the country, featuring such comedians as Jerry Seinfeld and Judy Tenuta.

"Every night me and another guy worked the door at the club," Larry said. "We helped clear tables, picked up trash, did whatever."

He also was able to try out his material onstage, and to watch and learn from the best comedians around.

"I was still bellhopping while I was at the comedy club," Larry said.

As his reputation grew, he began getting gigs in and out of town.

"Finally, in May of '88, I had three or four weeks booked in a row and I left my job at the Hyatt," Larry said. "They gave me a leave of absence. I still haven't officially quit. Maybe they're still holding the job for me after 14 years."

Things were tough at first for the young comic.

"It wasn't smooth. There were a lot of one-nighters," Larry said. "But I got along with my parents, so I lived at home when I wasn't on the road. I never had to worry about making rent."

He became popular on the comedy-club circuit, but the circuit began to die out in the mid '90s.

Fortunately, he had developed his Larry the Cable Guy character in 1992, and it may have saved his career.

"One night onstage I started doing this cable guy deal and it just caught on," Larry said.

As The Cable Guy, Larry commented on politics and world affairs.

"Someone said I ought to call up and do my stuff on the radio," Larry said. "So I started calling this station in Sarasota to make my commentary, and everybody remembered it."

At first his commentary was free, but eventually the short segments became so popular stations began paying him.

"I went onstage as Larry the Cable Guy for the first time in '95 and all four shows sold out," he said.

That was when he realized his radio commentaries were a boost to his standup career.

He began getting bookings as Larry the Cable Guy, and his commentaries were getting picked up on stations around the country, most of them stations that played rock 'n' roll.

"It was really bizarre," Larry said. "I'm hardcore country, I love country music and rodeos, but my material was geared toward rock 'n' roll stations, because I could get away with more. Now, there is a great deal of crossover."

Larry said a lot of comedians don't like doing radio.

"I liked doing it," he said. "The more radio I did, the more seats I could pack. Radio is the heart and soul of what I do, now."

It keeps his name out in the public for his other gigs, such as his showroom dates and the "Blue Collar Comedy Tour" featuring himself, Foxworthy and Bill Engvall (whose catchphrase is "Here's your sign"). And his showroom dates.

"My shows are nothing like my commentaries," Larry said. "The first half of my act is snappy, quick one-liners. No joke is over eight seconds -- like, 'My mom has a mood ring. When she's in a bad mood it leaves a red mark on Dad's forehead.' "

The second half of his show delves into politics.

"But I still do a lot of jokes," Larry said. "I'm just a regular dude pointing out stupid things going on in the country. Basically, I'm staying stuff onstage people would like to say themselves, but they would get in trouble if they said it in their work environment.

"That's what I do. I say something and people in the audience think, 'Yeah, I feel the same way.' "

Sho 'nuff, Bubba.