Jeff Foxworthy

Redneck comedy secret No. 1: Jeff Foxworthy has written fart jokes for Larry the Cable Guy.

"I can write stuff for Larry that I could never say onstage," says Foxworthy, the most wholesome component of the "Blue Collar Comedy" titans. A couple of years ago, Larry told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that his fans switch to Foxworthy once they have kids, monitoring what's heard in the house or car.

"It's just all fart jokes and boob jokes. I could never say that, but it works perfectly for Larry," says Foxworthy. "It's kind of a fulfilment of a darker side of me. Or a more immature side of me."

Redneck comedy secret No. 2: He didn't give them all to Larry. There is, in a "secret drawer," he says, a "compilation of redneck jokes too blue to tell. (Bill) Engvall wants that to be the last redneck book. He says to go out with a bang."

Redneck comedy secret No. 3: Don't hold your breath waiting for that last "You might be a redneck" joke.

"It's 2009, and I'm still doing page-a-day calendars," Foxworthy says. He started them in 1990 or 1991, so long ago he can't recall exactly which. "I remember two years into it, thinking, 'There can't be 365 more of these.' It's just like the bottomless pit."

And over the years, he's seen "redneck" take a cultural shift, from that embarrassing family cousin to a Bristol Palin boyfriend boast. "It's been embraced now," he says. "It's gone from being an insult to a badge of honor."

Foxworthy plays the Orleans Arena on Saturday, returning for the first time since late 2006. It's an unusually long break for him, but he cut back on his stand-up schedule when he signed on to host Fox's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" in early 2007.

He also has written as many as two comedy or children's books a year. He admits the timing of the latest -- "How to Really Stink at Work" -- leaves a lot to be desired, but he wrote it long before the recession.

"In my mind, being away from home (in Georgia) is being away from home," he says of less time on the road. "I always loved what I did for a living, but it's what I do, it's not who I am. ... My (two) girls are now in high school. I don't have but a few more years with them. I'm gone enough days already. I don't want to add anymore."

Foxworthy's family-first attitude echoes that of Danny Gans, the late impressionist who for years devoted a generous portion of his act to Foxworthy and his redneck jokes.

"It always was kind of a weird thing," the comedian says now. When friends would tell him Gans was "hilarious," Foxworthy would reply, "He's not hilarious, I'm hilarious! I wrote the jokes!"

"I never said anything or did anything" to stop it, he adds, figuring it's no different than Gans' imitating a song written by a pop star. Plus, "Part of me always looked at it as, 'That's pretty cool that enough people know who you are that Danny Gans can do an impersonation of you.' I certainly never thought that would happen."

Part of the lasting appeal of the redneck gags, he explains, is that they are one-liners, easy to remember and "get a laugh from your buddies at the water cooler."

But one-liners are an old-school comedy form that began to fade away roughly the day George Carlin came along. Larry aside, it's the rare comedian who does them now. The rest of Foxworthy's act fits the modern model of comedians talking about their own lives.

Foxworthy says his comedy albums chart his life, from single guy to new father. And his family is still the litmus test for material.

"If I thought it, or my wife said it or my kids did it, surely we're not the only ones," he figures. "Then you throw it out there and you see everybody's laughing: 'OK, good. It's not just us.'

"I think everybody's family is totally insane. That's why I've had a job this long."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.