By Shawn Smith
Making a comedy special can be no laughing matter.
That’s why funnyman Jeff Foxworthy’s new hour special JOKE’S ON ME takes you into the strenuous process of a comedy show.
“I’ve been thinking about for the last decade, you’ve seen things where you go behind the scenes with music and you see how songs are written and put together, whether in the Beatles thing or Billy Joel…but you’ve never seen behind the scenes with what goes on with a comic,” Foxworthy said, who came up with the premise of his new special after watching the documentary THE BEATLES: GET BACK.
“Well, people just think you walk up there and you open your mouth and talk about what happened to you that day. This is the easy part,” he went on to say. “The hard part is the writing and the grinding and the working and reworking, and always wanted to show that, and nobody’s ever allowed me to do that until Fox Nation.”
The special that the Georgia native calls “a love letter to stand-up comics” goes behind the scenes as he tests jokes in clubs culminating to the final show at Duluth’s Gas South Theater.
Despite all the hard work that goes into the writing and delivering the perfect jokes, for Foxworthy, the key to success is making it look effortless.
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“If you do it well, it looks like you just walked on stage and thought of it that day. Which works in the break room when you have shared experience and history with each other, but when you’re on stage, you’re in front of strangers,” the 67-year-old told FOX & FRIENDS.
The ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER? host who became famous for his “you might be a redneck” jokes has learned in his 40-plus career that the audience is always right.
“They’re going to tell you what’s funny, and that’s part of what keeps it interesting, is trying to figure that out,” Foxworthy said.
One aspect he loves about comedy is how it shows us how relatable our life experiences are, for example when an audience member comes up to him after a show and tells him, “‘It’s like you’ve been in our house!’” he said.
While he says he will never make an official announcement of retirement, the father of two said that it will be his last hour comedy special.
“At this point in my life, I love playing on the floor with my grandkids and working on my farm. I’m not willing to spend the time in clubs night after night working on new material,” he said.
Foxworthy might be in semi and unofficial retirement, but he still has great love for the craft of comedy.
“Laughter’s the release valve that keeps the boiler from exploding,” he said. “Because everybody’s going through some kind of physical struggle, financial struggle, mental struggle, but when you laugh, you forget about those things… and so to me it’s like a little respite, and you kind of recharge your battery, build your strength back up, and you go deal with what you have to deal with.”
JOKE’S ON ME is available to stream on Fox Nation.
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