TCB Infomercial: Larry The Cable Guy

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on this episode of the commercial brick

people that like you grow old with you yes and so you really would like to catch the younger generation and do something for them, but it's so hard to really understand

the culture that they're in that they like because you're in your culture and you're in your environment.

But when Mader came along, it is so cool now to go places and

kids from five years old, four years old, all the way up into college, and people in their 30s.

I mean, they go,

it shows to me just how popular it was

the next episode of the commercial break starts now

Oh yeah cats and kittens welcome back to the commercial break i'm Brian Green.

This is nobody there's nobody sitting next to me Best to you out there in the podcast universe.

Chrissy continues her annual pilgrimage to the house that Jeff built, also known as Mempho.

Let's be honest.

It's probably mostly Chrissy because behind every good man, there's a good someone and that good someone is Chrissy.

My good someone is Astrid, and Astrid and Chrissy are the good someones behind the commercial break.

So it all, it's full circle here at TCB.

She'll be back next week.

There's nothing wrong.

She's fine.

She's healthy.

Everything's okay that I know of.

She's just doing this.

She does this every year, in case you haven't noticed.

And so this year,

the train continues to roll on with the help of Tina, and then I'm doing some interviews here by My Lonesome.

I sure do miss her, but she will be back soon enough.

All right, it's a TCB Infomercial Infomercial Tuesday with Mr.

Daniel Whitney, but you probably know him better by his surname, his Sirhan, Sirhan name, also called Larry the Cable Guy.

Now, I was just telling Astrid before I came in the studio to record this.

I know Larry the Cable Guy in two different ways.

I know him from my own young adulthood, as he became very famous as a stand-up comedian doing the blue-collar comedy tour, TVs, movies, get her done, which we have all heard a cabillion times.

You can hear it every time someone on TV swings a golf club, hits a bat, scores a basket.

Well, maybe not so much in the basketball games, but the NFL, you can hear it everywhere.

Why?

Because Larry is one of those few comedians, actors, actresses, musicians who has transcended the art form into a cultural phenomenon, into the fabric of pop culture.

And

so therefore, I'm excited to talk to him.

I know him now also from my children as Mader from the Pixar Smash mega success hit Cars.

As I watch these movies with my kids and I get a giggle and I see Mader running around being the heart and soul of the movie, you know, it's hard not to fall in love with the voice and that character.

And my understanding is that Pixar created the character specifically for Larry the Cable Guy.

And I'd like to ask him all about it.

So you'll indulge me for a few minutes while I go down the rabbit hole regarding Pixar and cars with Daniel.

Now, he also has a brand new special out.

And it's not brand new.

It's been out for a couple of months, but it is streaming currently.

I'd like to present you the link in the show notes.

Just open up the podcast app that you're listening to.

Scroll a little bit down this episode and you'll see a blue line.

That's called a hyperlink for those of you that are brand new to the internet.

You click on that, open up a new window, take you to the

special that he's got out.

Just do that after you get done with the episode.

Please do follow all the rules and regulations and listen to the episode all the way through, and we'll all get through it together.

You know what I'm saying?

All right.

Uh, he's also, I mean, there's too many specials and TV shows and appearances and all that to list every single thing he's done down in the show notes, but I'll put a few of the more popular and you know, the things that I think you need to know about Larry the Cable Guy and Daniel Whitney.

He has a very interesting history as to how he got into comedy, his time down in Florida running around radio stations.

I'd like to get into all of it, if you don't mind.

Let's have a nice long conversation with Larry the Cable Guy while we have him here.

While he

clearly...

Something went wrong with his agent and she allowed him, she or he allowed him to come on the show.

Let's have fun with it while we can.

So I'm going to do this.

I'm talking to you, the listener.

I'm going to take a short break.

But when I get back through the magic of the magic of telepodcasting, I'm going to have Larry the cable guy right here in the studio via that television screen right there.

And you can watch it too, youtube.com/slash the commercial break.

Get her done.

And we'll all have fun on this together.

Okay.

So I'll do that.

I'll take a break.

What do you say?

And we'll come back.

All right.

Sounds good.

Hey, it's Rachel, your new voice of God here on TCB.

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The legendary Larry, the cable guy, is with with me right now on the telepodcasting machine.

Thank you very much.

I'm really, I'm really grateful for your time.

As I was just mentioning, you know, I know you in a couple different ways.

I know you because I like you.

I like your comedy.

I think you're very, obviously you have a gift for being funny.

And then I see you through a whole different world, which is the Pixar world.

And, you know, my kids are just, they just think that Mader is the best thing ever.

Cars is the best thing ever.

Mader is the best thing ever.

But I'm more.

Yeah.

You're just like dumb without the ton.

Do you guys have a new

serialized show you're doing on Disney Plus?

Is that right?

Yeah, we have a brand new one.

I think it's going to be 60 episodes.

Holy.

But it's coming out on Disney Jr.

It's going to be on Disney Jr.?

Oh, my God.

My kids are going to fucking flip.

Yeah, it's going to be on Disney Jr.

I'm looking for the, we've had a ton of these.

You know, we used to do tales from radiator springs and then oh uh it's cars on the road again the last one was on Disney Plus and this one is on Disney Jr.

And the reason it's on Disney Jr.

is there's uh Mater's got a couple of new friends that I think everybody's gonna like on Disney Jr.

So I think is it I've talked to

a lot of people who have done voice work characters and they have been immortalized in these characters.

And now there's generations of children who have grown up.

And, you know, could you have ever imagined when you started reading, how did you get the job for Mader?

I never would imagine a million years.

I, you know, I was out on the road and I had just really started heavily touring, just jumping in between large theaters and arenas in 2002.

And I I got a fax.

Back when we had fax machines, I had a fax.

Kids, I'll explain that through the outro.

Yeah.

It's so weird.

You talk about a fax machine.

And you're thinking, you know.

But man, that was really in the past, a fax machine.

And it was just my manager said to go look at the fax machine.

And

it said it was a note from Pixar.

It was a very nice note talking about how they loved my stand-up.

And, but

my voice was the perfect voice.

And they said, we would love you to be the voice of our small town tow truck,

Zeb.

And his name at the time was Zeb.

That just doesn't fit.

No, it doesn't.

I told my manager, oh, what does this mean?

I go, and

I was already doing pretty good.

I just got a good footing and a stand-up and got all these dates and I'm busting it.

And I'm so excited because my stand-up career is kicking.

And I literally said, oh, I don't want to have, do I got to go all the way over there and audition?

Or what do I do?

Because I don't, we're, I mean, I'm never home.

I don't want to have to fly.

I mean, I'm very flattered, but what does this mean?

And he goes, well, you got the part.

I go, I got the part.

He goes, yeah, you don't have to audition.

They, they like your voice and you already got the part.

And I, and I'll be honest, I, my first thought was, man, I got to start watching Pixar movies.

I got to figure out what this shit's all about.

No, I know, I know about them, but I, I don't, you know, I didn't have any kids.

I was, let's see, in 1793.

Yeah, I mean, I was, in my late 30s and I wasn't married yet.

I had no kids.

so you know yeah why would you not

the pics pixar wasn't really in my movie interests you know

uh and so i went and i got some stuff and watched them i was so excited and that's how i got it and i went out there and just to give you a little brief of it i went out there well first of all um

i started tearing up and

shed a little tear there because I had been doing this character on radio for so long.

I did Larry the Cable Guy on radio stations

for 13 straight years,

a total of 25 to 27 radio stations every week, pushing Larry the Cable Guy as just a radio character.

And then of course I started breaking out as doing stand-up, doing the character.

But, you know, all those years of not getting paid and doing it, not knowing where it would lead, but it was fun to do.

And just

the fact that

all that work came to fruition of something that you would have never thought would have happened to it.

I was just so thankful.

I could not believe it.

And

I go out there and John Lasseter was so nice to me and all the Pixar crew.

As a matter of fact, when I went out for the weekend,

they the punchline in san francisco in the early twos

uh

they gave me the weekend so that i could uh make some money while i'm out there because you know so i just don't sit around doing nothing they said yeah come on out and work the club so i went out and worked the weekend at the punchline and uh man i just had a blast and and uh oh yeah interesting story about that i

i i'm not really up on like

computers and stuff like that i'm a i'm a 1963 model so um

so it takes it takes a minute it takes it's moves so fucking fast right now too and i i understand i understand i get it

and yeah and what's funny about that is when i went to college at a small baptist college in georgia i worked at radio shack 214 uh 214 or something candler road decatur georgia and i worked at radio shack down there, Mills Creek Road.

Anyway, that's where I am.

That's where I am.

I'm in Georgia.

Okay, yeah.

There you go.

My college was 2145 Candler Road.

I know where you're at.

Right up the road from a South DeCab Mall.

And I worked at that radio shack.

But it was really funny.

People were buying computers.

And

at the time, they sold a Tandy 2000 and a color 64-color computer.

And I was in charge of like selling things.

And so, what's the difference between these two?

And I go, well, this one's 2000.

This one's only 64.

So this has got more power.

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

It's got more zeros.

Yeah.

That's how I used to sell them.

But anyway, long story short.

I'm out there, and so I don't know anything about computers, but in the crowd that night, and I had no idea,

I finished my show, and I'm watching John Laster.

He's sitting with a guy, and they're just laughing their heads off.

I had such a great time, and I get done and shaking hands, saying hi, and thanks.

All the pigs, a lot of Pixar people came out.

And one of the waitress comes up and goes, Man, that is so cool that he came to your show.

I go, Yeah, John's awesome.

He goes, No, Steve Jobs, he never goes out.

I go, Steve Jobs, who's that?

Steve Jobs, man.

Whatever.

Oh, okay.

Cool, dude.

Yeah, Microsoft.

Who's that guy?

Apple, whatever.

But yeah, he was there.

And they said he never goes out.

And the fact that he came to your show, it was a big deal.

Like, to the way,

he never goes out.

So he was at the show.

It was just a really fun weekend.

And

I did,

I only had, I'll be honest with you, I only had maybe

20 lines, 15 lines, maybe.

Really?

Something like that.

And I got done.

There might have been more than that.

It seemed like only about 15.

There might have been 25, maybe.

But I get home and I had such a good time.

I get home and then I go out on the road.

So I'm heavily touring.

I come home for about 10 days from a six-month trip.

And I call my man.

I got to thinking.

I go, whatever happened to that cartoon?

I was

haven't heard anything.

And I joined it.

I didn't even saw me.

Whatever happened to that one.

I know.

honestly.

I thought they didn't like it, and so they just moved on.

They canned me or whatever.

And I told my manager, I go, Man, did they fire me?

Did they not like it?

Because I haven't heard from them in like six, seven months.

And he's like, Yeah, whatever did happen to that.

Yeah, let me call and find out what's going on.

And so now I'm worried.

So he calls back and he goes, Hey, are you sitting down right now?

And I go, Oh man, don't tell me.

I don't,

you know, and in my head, I'm going, well, at least I didn't tell a ton of people.

So I'm not going to embarrass myself.

I just told a few people.

And my wife knows.

And,

well, I wasn't married then.

She's my girlfriend at the time.

And

he goes, they

are rewriting some of the movie because.

They think Mader brings so much heart and soul into the movie.

They want to add more of Mader.

And right then, I could, yeah, I couldn't believe it.

I'm like, this is the coolest thing ever.

And so, after that, man, I went over for one, two, three, I think four sessions.

I flew to Emeryville and stayed the weekend and did like,

yeah, I signed the wall over there

between the first

two movies.

I signed the wall over there, I think, ten times.

This has got to be.

I talked to Pat and Oswald, who's Remy, right?

And I, in

these characters that will live on forever, they're freaking rides.

They're rides.

You go to the parks, and they're rides, and you're there.

Your character's there.

And this is all stems from, like, now that I'm hearing the story, this all stems from not some, can you fit in this box?

Can you do this voice?

It stems from, we wrote this character with you in mind.

Like, you are the character.

And that, to me, is a level of, I mean, just like the, the respect, the honor, all the work that you put in, like you said, to manifest itself in such an incredible way has got to be,

just must feel so awesome.

I can't think of any other word.

It really is.

I can't explain it.

I'm so happy that it turned out to be what it did because it is a really cool character and just kids of, I mean, it brought in a whole age group because, you know, like any rock and roll band, the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, we had our fans.

Yeah.

And our fans grow old with us, you know, and you have a certain amount of material.

that sometimes goes to the younger people because that you'll talk about things that they've been through as well.

But

my stuff was pretty much, I was a one-liner, no-nonsense kind of guy, but, and I had a crazy sense of humor.

You know, I grew up with Monty Python's Flying Circus and Benny Hill and Hee Haw and the Dean Martin Roasts and Johnny Carter.

So that was my kind of style of humor.

But like with any

entertainer, people that like you grow old with you.

Yes.

And so you really would like to catch the younger generation and do something for them, but it's so hard to really understand

the culture that they're in, that they like because you're in your culture and you're in your environment.

But when Mader came along, it is so cool now to go places and kids from five years old, four years old, all the way up into college and people in their 30s.

I mean, they go, they,

it shows me just how popular it was.

They come up to me all the time.

I did, I think it was, and to prove that was really crazy.

I got invited to do,

just come in and say a few words to all the University of Nebraska athletic department.

Very cool.

And just to kind of open it up and welcome everybody and do some jokes.

And I told my buddy Troy, who's the athletic director, I said, Troy, they don't know.

I mean, my comedy is really not for college.

You know, I'm not, you know, I'm not.

It's not my target demographic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, they're going to love you.

I said, okay.

So I came out.

I did a couple of riffs off Troy.

And then I did, I did, I opened up with a Willie Nelson pot joke.

You know, because one time I met Willie Nelson and the whole deal.

And so I do this joke.

I get nothing.

And now I'm dying.

Now I'm going.

You know what?

I'm dying.

I'm only up here for five minutes.

I've got maybe one laugh.

And so

I go, well, let's switch gears here in my head.

So I go, hey, does anybody

know

this?

Woo-hoo!

Hey, my name's Mader, like Tom Mader without the tongue.

They went nuts.

They raised their hands.

They're laughing.

They're like, it's Mader.

It's Mader.

And so for the next 15 minutes, all I did was Mader lines.

And they asked me, I said, you got any questions?

They threw out questions and I killed it.

They loved me.

And I'm like going, thank God for Mader, man.

He pulled me out of this situation.

It really is bizarre.

And then when I got done,

some girl, or Troy told me the next day, he goes, man, he goes, I got a lot of good words from the kids.

They loved it.

That was one of their favorite starts to the season.

And don't feel bad that first five minutes because one of the girls from the volleyball team or one of the girls from the softball team came out to me and said, Hey, tell Dan,

that's my real name, of course.

He says, Tell Dan he did, he was awesome.

And tell him not to worry about nobody laughing early on.

Because I'll be honest, I don't think anybody there knows who Willie Nelson is.

Oh my God, my God.

I thought he was internationally known.

Yeah,

he's a weed smoker.

If anything, you know, college kids smoke weed.

You got to know who fucking Willie Nelson is.

I should have used Kendrick Lamar.

Kendrick Lamar would have gotten him going.

I don't even know.

Maybe Kendrick Lamar is phased out.

It all moves so fast these days.

I can't keep up with it.

It goes quick.

But going back, not to talk too much, but going back to what I said about this.

This is why you're here.

Please.

I'm enjoying this immensely.

Please go on.

About

where they specifically like you for the character.

And

it's funny because when I first got in there, before I ever did my my first line, I just wanted to make sure I did good.

And so I said to John, hey, John,

real quick, is Mader,

do you envision Mader like really, is he a slower guy or do you want him more of a fast-paced type guy?

And he goes, well,

he's you.

He goes, he's you.

I just, that's why I hired you because you're Mader.

So you just, I'll tell you what, you just do what you do on stage and I'll be happy.

and i said okay so that's what i did i just i just took what i do on stage and did it as mater and he loved it and so yeah so when i think that's what made her really what made mater really endearing and successful was

uh

i basically he's me it's authentic to you yes it's you it's coming through

yeah he's me putting on an accent because i i really

feel like in real life, not on stage because my show was so wacky in one-linery.

But I feel like off stage, I'm kind of like Mader, you know?

So I felt like.

I put really a lot of my personality into the Mader character because, you know, Mader's like me.

He's, he's nice.

He likes people.

He's naive.

He doesn't know like trying to sign up today to get on this call.

I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

I figured it out.

So, yeah, so I think that's probably why that worked.

I think that, you know, in those movies,

and then we'll move on.

I didn't mean to bring you here just to talk about Mader because there's lots of stuff that you do.

I know.

Mader bought me this studio.

I'll talk about Mader all day.

Mader pays for everything, so I'll talk about Mader all day.

I think that's another thing that I'm enjoying about this conversation is how much you enjoy the arc of what happened at, you know, behind the scenes with Mader, how you became Mader.

And I think when you watch those movies, obviously Owen does a great job.

Like Lightning McQueen, you know, we all root for Lightning, right?

But one of the, I think that Mader pulls it together.

He is like the heart and soul.

He's the guy who's giving color commentary in the heart and soul of the movie.

And I believe that's probably what John saw when he went back and said six months later, we got to put, this has got to be like the connective tissue in these movies.

And what a brilliant choice.

I guess that's why Pixar has been so successful is because they know what the hell they're doing.

But then now, 23 years later, you're doing another 60 episodes of the character.

Are there plans to do another movie?

Has anybody talked about doing another movie?

Well,

here's now.

I don't know if they, this is, I mean, I don't know any part of that.

You know, they just have me do the voices, but I will say,

in my opinion,

I think that the

Cars on the Road that was on, I think that was Cars on the Road.

There's been so many of them, but the one that was on Disney Plus.

Yes, we watched it.

And it was Mader.

It was

Mader going to his sister's wedding.

Oh, yeah.

And McQueen and Mader went to it.

We're traveling across the country to get to his sister's wedding.

And that was nine 10-minute episodes, I believe it was.

And I kind of consider that that was probably would have been the fourth movie

because it was one continuous story.

Yes.

It was just, it was just nine different things that happened to them along the way.

So you pull out, you pull out the ending and just continue it.

That's a movie.

Yeah.

And I think

nowadays with the streaming services that the companies have, I think now it's more cost-efficient instead of this big, long production and then paying the cost to promote it and the whole

movie side of it.

I think it's more cost-productive, I think,

to put it on one of your streaming services, bump up your streaming services.

Everybody that's got kids and loves cars are going to want to see it.

They don't want to go to the theater.

So I think that's probably what you're going to see now, just like this thing on Disney Plus.

There's short episodes.

There's 60 of them.

And they're awesome.

I'm filming these.

And as I go filming these, I've never had more fun.

I mean, I have fun at all of them, but I don't think I've laughed as much.

as this new series because there's a lot of

really funny things that me and my my buddy chris that does all the sound and stuff up in Omaha, where we call in to pick our Emeryville.

I mean, we laugh.

I mean, there's some good stuff.

So I think they'll probably go in that route.

I doubt you're, I don't know.

You might, but I don't think you would see another movie.

I think the success now is just to keep it going with these small shorts.

And I think that's probably bring another.

You're bringing another generation in with that Disney Jr., too.

I mean, I have small kids and this is what they watch, right?

They watch Disney Jr.

and Disney Jr., it's a smart business.

it's a smart business model, but then it's also good television.

And I got to be honest, like, of all the channels we could watch,

I'm not arguing with Disney Jr.

like it's, I kind of like it, you know, they got bluey on there now.

Yeah, it's great.

It's great.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And

they're

definitely doing the smart way, you know.

And when I first saw that they were putting in

back in the day when I found out that there was a billion-dollar theme park going in, I said to myself,

I think there's probably going to be some more of this.

I mean, you got to put gas in the tank to get people going to the theme park.

Yes, you do.

And now I think they're planning another one at Disney Park.

You never pay to go to a Disney park, do you?

I'm sure you can walk in the front door.

That's a good thing.

When my kids were younger, that was definitely a really good perk.

I swear I made her.

I I swear I made her.

Checklist security.

Yeah, that's definitely a really good perk.

No doubt about it.

13 years you did 27, did I get that right?

Radio stations?

Were you doing this voice for free?

Tell me more about that.

Yeah.

Well, when I,

you know, when you're a stand-up comic and you're not popular, you're just trying to.

put butts in the seats, you look for other forms of income that can keep you out on the road and do stand-ups.

So

I had a buddy of mine that was on a rock and roll station.

And

I think he's got a show on series now, Ron Bennington.

He had a comedy club in Clearwater.

And Ron is so funny, man.

He's like one of the funniest guys on the planet.

Him and I got to be good friends.

And

so I would go over to his club as much as I could and do time and all that.

But he wanted to get off the road.

So he got on a morning show called 95 YNF over in Tampa.

And

I was doing characters on stage.

One of them was Larry the Cable Guy.

So he, oh, you got to call my radio station.

And that's a hilarious character.

So that's how I started.

I started doing

Larry the Cable Guy character.

And so I ended up acquiring around 27 stations across the country, mainly in the Midwest and the South.

There was a couple up in the Northeast, up in Albany, New York.

And

then I had like Arizona.

I had a couple in California,

where else?

I think that was Colorado, Denver.

So I would do these call-ins and only, I think only three or four stations paid me monthly to do it.

Now, the station in Orlando was where I was based out of.

So I would go in as part of the morning show.

Whenever I wasn't on the road, I was a morning show person.

So I was just a sidekick hanging out with Mark and Gloria on the morning show.

And then when I had to go on the road, they'd let me go on the road and I would just do my call-in commentary like normal.

They treated me really good.

It was awesome.

And it was in Orlando and central Florida.

It was and

Tampa, St.

Pete.

It was a really popular.

Larry the Cable guy got really popular.

I mean, they've been saying get her done down in central in Florida for since 91, since I was 92, since I was on the air.

And it was fun, but I didn't get paid by all of them.

Three or four stations paid me.

I made a really good extra living with the Orlando morning show, and then I'd go on the road.

But

when I first did Larry the Cable Guy on stage, it was in around 1995.

And a guy named Les McCurdy at the McCurdy's Comedy Club in Sarasota

billed me as Dan Whitney, a.k.a.

Larry the Cable Guy from the radio station.

And it sold out two shows in like 20 minutes.

No shit.

And

to be honest with you, I was kind of mad at him because at the time, Larry the Cable Guy was just a radio character.

Right.

It's just a bit you're doing.

You're like, I'm not going to go on stage and do the whole thing as Larry.

Yeah.

It was a bit that I was doing.

It was nothing close to my act.

My act was fast-paced, one-liners, goofy physical humor, just outrageous,

sane, stupid.

I mean, that's the kind of stuff that I like.

Yeah.

You know?

And so Larry, you know,

what am I going to do?

You know, they're going to, so I get on stage and they're yelling out, get her done.

Do some Larry.

We want to hear Larry.

So I dipped down into that and I basically just took my act and did it as the character I got done with that first show and I'm signing autographs and taking pictures and it was unbelievable so les came up to me and he said have you ever thought about doing your whole show like that and i said no not really it's so different les from what i do besides it's a radio character i i don't have any jokes for it he goes well just do your jokes just can you talk like can you talk like that for an hour?

I go, less, you know me.

All I do is hang out in country bars.

And I grew up at a pig farm in Nebraska.

I can, I, I went, my roommates were from Dalton, Georgia, and Beaumont, Texas.

I can talk like a freaking red knight, but the best of them.

All day long, yeah.

You know,

because it's like Foxworthy says in his act, because I is one, you know, and so I kind of consider myself one anyway.

You're an automatic.

I mean, I drove over.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I drove over in an 86 Transamb with T-tops with a big blue firebird on the hood.

So I think I qualified.

Yeah, I got this.

So I went and I changed and I put on what I drove over in.

I had a pair of lace-up roper horseride boots

and I had a pair of jeans, a cut-off Nebraska t-shirt

and a NASCAR hat.

That's what I drove over in.

Went on stage.

He took my name off, introduced me as Larry the Cable Guy.

And from that point on,

I had like three radio stations at the time or four maybe while I was doing it.

And a light bulb went off.

And I said, man, you know, if I can get more radio stations to get on, they could promote me at these comedy clubs and I could start selling some pretty good tickets.

And that's what I did.

And that's why I never asked for any pay.

I told, because radio stations would, when I'd I'd go into a comedy club,

they would say, boy, what's this thing you're doing on the radio?

They would always ask me because it was on Bitboard across the United States for these morning shows.

And I would tell them, well, you know, this is what I'm doing.

I said, I'll do it for you guys too if you want.

Well, we can't afford that.

You know, these radio, they're no charge.

And I said, you ain't got to pay.

Here's all I ask.

I guarantee you.

It will get popular in a couple of months.

And you can either pay me out of it.

You can get it sponsored.

You can pay me out of the sponsorship money, but you don't have to.

All I ask is when I come work to the comedy club again, make it a radio station promotion and just promote me as being at the club.

It's a win-win for everybody.

You promote it.

The comedy club doesn't have to spend as much money to promote it because you're already promoting it as a radio station event.

And that's how it worked.

And that's when I started getting radio stations.

And

within, man, three years, I think, Rich Jenny, who is a friend of mine, who is hilarious, I think him and I became the top two highest-paid comedy club draw comedians.

And I was only doing

Midwest, South, and a couple in the West.

Wow.

But that's how that started, that whole thing right there.

And then the voice.

So you're all shucks mater is not so awesh.

This is so incredibly smart of you.

You're thinking like, I mean, listen, I say this to some people

who have podcasts and, oh, you got ads.

And at some point,

you need to be compensated for what you're doing.

If you're creating and that's what you do for a living, then you have to be compensated.

But you also have to think like a business sometimes,

even while you're creating, right?

And that's

incredibly smart of you to say, have it for free, but on the comeback, we can figure out how we can help each other, right?

Yeah, Foxworthy, you know, Jeff and I have been friends since 1986, and

we would always talk comedy back in those days, you know, staying in the condo down there in West Palm Beach, Florida.

And him and Vic Henley would come down for Braves games and work the club.

And so we would have hang out for two weeks together.

But he always said to us,

what he learned about stand-up is it's show business.

And there's two words in show business.

There's show, which everybody loves, but then there's the business, which not everybody loves.

Yes.

And in order to have a good show,

you got to be good at the business end of it, or you're not going to get as much show.

That is a very smart.

That's a very smart.

Absolutely.

There's two words in there, show and business.

And you really do, you know, some people are good at the business part.

Some people aren't good at the business part.

Creative types often are known to not be so good at business and the numbers, but that's why there's a whole cottage industry called management and PR that can help you with that.

Absolutely.

But early on, you better be good at the business, at least to get up early in the morning and

work the phones and get some gigs.

And then

a manager come along, an agent, and you can really inquire some of those duties to them.

Did you and Jeff, so you've known Jeff since 86.

That's

a long time.

By the way, I live in Atlanta.

So and Jeff,

if you live in Atlanta, eventually, or you, I don't know if he still lives here now, but when I was in my 20s,

when I was in my 20s and 30s, at least where I was hanging out, occasionally you would see him.

He would come into restaurants that I worked at and stuff like that.

Extraordinarily nice human being, like just a really down-to-earth, really nice guy.

Tells no one to go away.

Shake everybody's hand.

Really good guy.

He's like my adopted older brother, man.

He's really helped me a lot and stuff.

And we have really good talks.

And yeah, Jeff is the man, man.

He still lives lives there and has his hunting property down there, I think, in Columbus.

And

of course, I lived there for three years going to college in Decatur and then

hung around a lot down in.

And you know, I'm telling the truth because I call it Mayretta.

Yeah.

That's where, that's close to where I'm at.

That's where I grew up.

That was where that was my hometown.

Well, I mean, I was growing up.

Born in Chicago, but I lived, I moved when I was 10 years old.

So

I'm as close to a native of Atlanta as you're ever going to get.

Awesome.

Down in May Red, down by the big chicken.

That's

still there to this day.

Did you, you and

I mean, the blue blue collar is like the biggest, it was the biggest thing since sliced bread for a minute there.

That was amazing.

How did that all come together?

That was crazy.

I was on the road, and this goes back to the show business thing we were talking about, about business.

I was kicking butt out on the road.

I was, you know, I was headlining all these comedy clubs, and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour already had done maybe 15 shows together

without me.

I'm like the ringo star of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.

But it was basically just Jeff and his opening act, Ron White, and Bill Ingva and his opening act, Craig Hoxley.

Rest his soul.

And I guess I don't know that part of the story because I was not a part of them.

But evidently,

Craig just wasn't blue-collar enough.

Yeah.

And I guess, I don't know, there was something going on there where they were just now, they're just looking for a replacement.

I have no, I don't know the story.

I really just know they were looking for a replacement.

And from what I heard, they just didn't find him blue-collar enough and the whole deal.

So, anyway,

I

just got home, and I had my first weekend off in like three months.

So

I'm out fishing with my buddy Greg

out in Lake Butler, down in Windermere, Florida.

And

I just get in the boat.

We're there an hour and a half, two hours.

It's,

what is it?

It's Friday afternoon.

And my manager calls me and says, hey, I don't know if you want to do this or not, but there's a show in Nashville called The History of Country Comics.

It's hosted by Andy Griffith and Jeff.

And

they got nine comedians.

They want 10.

So they got five on one show, five on the other, but they need one more.

And your name came up.

Well, we should get Larry the Cable guy on the show.

And this was before I was

famous everywhere, just comedy clubs at certain places.

And I'm like, ah, when is it?

Well, here's the problem.

It's tonight.

It's tonight and tomorrow.

How quick can you find an airport?

And you're the only, here's the thing, but here's the good, here's the cool thing.

It's at the Grand Old, the original mother church of country music, the Grand Old Opry.

And as a kid, a a country kid growing up those were the things that really got to me yeah you the opportunity to work at the mother church of country music the grand old opry i've never done it how cool would that be and i was the only one not getting paid because they didn't have the budget for me but um i already had a good you know i've already been doing pretty good so i had to buy my own plane ticket but they did put me up no i think they bought my plane ticket.

So

they'll get my plane ticket and put me up for two nights, but I wasn't going to get paid.

But my thought was to that was, man, I don't want to do it, but here's the deal.

It's the mother church of country music.

Yes.

And

I'll get to see Jeff because Jeff's been so busy.

I've not seen Jeff in person now in a couple of years, just talking on the phone, but I haven't seen him in a couple of years.

And, but the main incentive was the Grand O'Lopry.

And I, who knows who's going to be in the audience.

Because at the time I was I was loving it, but I was wanting to kind of get out of the comedy clubs, do some theater stuff.

But I was really wanting to be in the audience.

Somebody see me and maybe George Jones or one of these big Alan Jess, somebody will take me out on the road with those are opening that.

That was in my head.

So I went up and I did it and I freaking slayed it.

And that's the first time Jeff had ever saw me do Larry the Cable Guy.

And I get a call a couple of weeks later asking me if I wanted to try to be on this blue collar comedy tour.

Wow.

They would love to audition you if you would like to be a part of it.

And I'm like, yeah, absolutely.

You kidding me?

Travel around with Jeff and the guys.

Now, I didn't know Bill at all.

I never met Bill.

Ron, I met a couple of times.

And I liked Ron a lot.

Yeah.

And I liked Bill, but I didn't know Bill, but I'd heard of Bill.

And so I say, yeah.

So I remember my first audition.

They had me come up for a weekend and try it out.

First night was in Columbia, South Carolina, where I probably could have sold 2,000 tickets because I worked a comedy club there and I killed it.

And the other one was somewhere like that too, Virginia, somewhere where I was already on the air.

Sure.

And so

here's a great story about that.

Can I cuss on here?

Of course.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, excuse me for dropping this, but

that's the story.

And I can't.

So the two people that were, the two agents that were there, that were in charge of all the booking of blue collar, they were there.

And they were all watching me to see how well I did.

And I'm on stage.

First of all, there's getter-duns all over the place.

And so

I'm a one-liner guy.

And I only had 10 minutes.

You know, Ron and I each had 10 minutes.

Sure.

And so

there was,

I'm about

40 jokes into five minutes.

I'm just boom, boom.

I don't want to stop.

I'm boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And they said, Ron,

who would never really come up and watch the first act.

He just kind of hung out.

And then it was time to go up.

He'd go on, do his 10 leave.

Well, he came up to watch me.

And Ron's awesome, man.

I only hung out with him maybe three or four times, but Ron was freaking awesome.

I mean, how do you not like Ron Watson?

He's great.

And Ron just came up to watch me and just, you know, because he's part of the hiring process.

And one of the guys goes, he told me, he goes, we knew you had the job.

When you're five minutes in and you're about 40 jokes in, the crowd is dying.

Ron took out a cigarette, lit it, and went, ah, fuck.

It kind of, but Ron even, I think Ron, I heard an interview one time with him or with somebody that said it was really good for everybody because it kind of,

I guess, Ron had said he was kind of going through the motions and, you know, going up, getting off, and kind of lit a fire.

Lit a fire together.

Kind of lit a fire to go up.

And each act made every act better.

That was why Blue Collar was great.

Each act made the other act

lift it up even higher.

We all try.

We love, look, we all loved each other.

I still love it.

I miss those days.

I wish we could all travel again, but

it just worked.

You know, it just worked.

So that's the, so I left bass fishing.

If I wouldn't have done that show at the Ryman, I would have never got that audition and I would have never got on blue collar.

So

show business.

Show business.

Business.

That's what you got to remember.

Okay.

So I just want to mention one more thing.

I was watching the Ryder Cup.

And of course, I knew you came on.

I was watching the Ryder Cup over the weekend, the golf tournament.

And I,

at least on two occasions, heard, you know, someone takes back.

They switch, get her done.

I go, holy shit.

You know what?

Maybe even more crazy than the fact that you're made her and forever made her and there's rides and

people can hear you in 50 different theme parks is the fact that this tagline, these words that you have said, have now become part of the lexicon, the fabric of the American culture.

People love to scream that in almost any situation.

I mean, I've heard it thousands of times.

Well, it's good for anything.

Yeah, it's good for any occasion.

Get or done.

Whatever you got to do, get or done.

Give 110%.

Larry the Cable Guy has a brand new Amazon Prime special.

And we can see that on on Amazon.

I watched it over the weekend.

I thought it was very, very good.

I'll put links in the show notes.

I got to tell you, man, I have enjoyed this immensely.

I love hearing you tell stories.

I could do it for another hour.

So I'm going to request that at some point you come back on.

I know you, you know, I know that you're very busy and showing up on podcast interviews.

It's probably not on the top of your list.

I don't mind it.

I, I, I love, I love telling stories.

I, I, I, I loved, I love what I do.

I love life.

I love people.

And

I think it's cool that people are actually interested at all in stuff that I do.

I am a history of comedy buff.

You obviously are woven into that fabric also.

Thank you so much, Dan.

I really appreciate this.

And you're welcome back anytime.

Links in the show notes.

Make sure if you got small kids, you turn on that.

We need some people to pay attention to cars so it gets some success.

And maybe it'll have some legs.

That whole cars thing.

That whole car thing.

Yes.

Are you going to get in the dust, man?

Are you going to go back out on tour?

Are you going to do any more live shows?

Yeah, no, you know, what I do now is,

you know,

I did it the right way.

Jeff said, if you ever have a chance, don't miss anything your kids do.

Don't ever miss anything because you miss some stuff.

So

I started about five or six years ago.

I started going down to only about 24 shows a year.

Smart.

And that's still 12 weekends.

Yeah, that's a lot.

But I got to spend a lot of time at home.

And I was able to do it, though, very thankfully because of the Pixar stuff, because I'm always doing stuff there.

And Jeff and I have our own station on Sirius.

So there were other projects that I had where I could stay home.

But yeah, I don't travel as much as I used to, you know, but I still get to go out 12 weekends a year, play the star for the weekend,

try some jokes out.

And it's pretty fun.

So,

well, I'll put all those links in the show notes so people can catch up with you.

Uh, welcome back anytime.

I really appreciate your time today.

It's been this has been awesome.

This has been one of my favorite.

I've had hundreds of these conversations.

This has been one of my favorite.

Well, thanks for inviting me.

And let me ask you this before we go: what is

the names of your kids that like Mader?

Woo-hoo!

Hey, this is Mader, like Tomato without the tuh.

Boy, I tell you what, I'm happier than a tornado in the trailer park that your fans have made.

And shoot, I just got done talking to your daddy.

Woo-hoo!

We had a dad gum good time.

All right, then.

If you ever get to the Radiator Springs, we'll all do us some backward driving.

All right, don't forget, we's best friends.

See you later.

This is Mader.

I'm going to be the best dad ever.

That's incredible.

I love doing that.

Yeah, now play that for them.

They'll get a kick out of it.

I'm going to cut it right this second.

They're going to hear it the second they get home from school.

Thank you.

I welcome you back.

Please come back and tell me more stories.

You got it.

And thanks for having me.

Invite me on.

Thank you.

Of course.

We'll talk to you soon.

Thanks.

I appreciate it.

See ya.

Let me do something Brian has never done.

Be brief.

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You're welcome.

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What I don't know

is whether or not I'm going to leave a part of that episode in toward the end.

You'll know if you know, but if I didn't leave it in, because it's got some identifying information about my children, which I refuse to put on air.

But

before I tried to let Larry go, as I was trying to wrap it up, he said, can I please have your children's names?

And then in the voice of Mader, he gave them a very special message.

It was about a minute long, minute and a half long message to my kids.

And I can say there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

And I am the only one with two eyes in this room right now because I will be the best dad ever.

Holy shit.

What a nice guy.

Wow.

I'm taken aback.

I really am.

It's not often that I'm at a loss for words on this show, but

today will go down as one of those.

I mean, what a generous guy.

He didn't shy away from talking about cars.

As a matter of fact, I think we spent half the the episode talking about cars and Pixar and his time there.

And gracious with his time, gracious with his voice.

I understand he's gracious with his money and charities.

I'm going to leave it at that.

I was going to add a little commentary there, but I'm not going to.

I think at the end of the day, everyone on earth wants the same thing.

Time, attention, love, and shelter.

And if we can start there on that common ground, then anything else can be worked out.

All the other stuff is just details.

And details can always be worked out as long as we're doing it respectfully.

I really appreciated my conversation with Larry the Cable Guy.

That shoots to the top of the list for interviews on this show.

Thank you, Daniel.

Thank you for coming in.

Really appreciate it.

Okay,

all the links in the show notes.

I'll try and put some more, you know, some of his more popular stuff, the links to, and I'm definitely putting the links to the Cars movie.

So if you don't have Disney Plus, or you canceled Disney Plus, or you want Disney Plus, you can get it with ads.

It's cheap.

You can get it with ads.

I'll put a link to Cars.

I'll put a link to his brand new streaming special.

I'll put a link to any

show dates he's got coming up so you can buy tickets if he comes near you

and yeah what else is there to say that was an amazing conversation with a pretty cool human being.

So

there you go.

I'm still taking it back.

I'm just taking it back.

It just went what happened just now.

Mater from cars talking to my kids.

That's crazy.

That's crazy.

A lot of crazy shit has happened because of this show, but that certainly has got to top the list.

Got to top the list.

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That is all I can do for today.

I will tell you that I love you.

I will say best to you.

Until next time, I will say, I do say, and I must say, goodbye.

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to be

a baby.