Larry The Cable Guy On His New Comedy Special And The One Instance He Wishes He Was Credited As Dan Whitney

When Larry The Cable Guy calls in for an interview, he tends to greet you by saying, “It’s Dan. Larry the Cable Guy.” Why? Because Dan Whitney, who created his standup alter ego close to 30 years ago to do bits on radio shows like The Ron and Ron Show, knows that most people think of him as the guy who wears the sleeveless flannel shirts and says “Git-R-Done!”

And he’s mostly fine with that, and not just because Larry made Dan into one of the most popular comics in America. “I know all about the character. It’s not something that I am completely in a whole ‘nother world about it. I’ve enjoyed it, and I’m not sick of doing it. I make it fun,” he told Decider.

Dan spoke with Decider in early March BC (Before Corona) to talk about Larry The Cable Guy: Remain Seated, his first solo comedy special in over a decade. In the Comedy Dynamics-produced special, available on VOD on April 7, Larry does his usual set of one-off jokes about country life, but he also has extended riffs about the unusual people you see at Walmart or the country fair. He also talks about his family, something he couldn’t have possibly done 30 years ago. At the end of the special, he tells what he thinks is his first story-length joke, about how he got the job voicing Mater in the Pixar hit Cars.

DECIDER: When was the last time you did a special?

LARRY THE CABLE GUY: Oh man. [Jeff] Foxworthy and I just did one, I think, two years ago.

The press release said it had been more than a decade. So, was it more than a decade since you did one by yourself? Is that kind of what it was?

Yeah. One by myself, because I was always doing other projects. You know, me, Bill [Engvall] and Jeff did one, and Jeff and I did one, and you know, and then there was a couple of TV shows in there somewhere. So.

What was the thought, prompting you to go and do a solo special?

It was them calling and asking me if I wanted to do a special.

Just as simple as that. Okay.

I mean, I didn’t really seek it out. I mean, I do a lot of one liners and stuff, as you know. You saw the special. So it takes a while to get to those. We did one with me, and Bill, and Jeff and that took 35 minutes of material, and then, Jeff and I did one. That took another 35 minutes of material. So, then you got to go write more jokes. I mean, I’d been touring for a little bit, and so, I had enough material, and I guess they just called, and said, “Hey, you got enough for a new one?” “Well. Yeah, I do. You want to do one, I’ll do one.” I never really pursued it.

You know, I’m kind of in cruise control. I enjoy doing stand-up, but I don’t want to miss my kids growing up. So, I only do about 30 dates a year now. So, yeah. I just, kind of…it’s crazy how all that stuff works. It’s like when movies, and…I never asked for any of those things, either. They just, kind of, knocked on my door, and yeah, sure. I always tell people, “What would you do?”

The special was definitely a mix of the one-liners, with some more theme-based bits, and then some stories at the end. What do you have to do to build up that hour, considering it’s not, something that you can extend out for 15 minutes, and it has to be all these different short jokes that take 30 seconds or a minute each?

Well, it’s just pretty much like it always was. You know, you have your last special you did, then you have jokes that you didn’t do, but you did in your act, but you didn’t put on tape, and then, you know, you obviously write seven or eight more new things, and then three of them are on a different topic. So, then I go back in my notes, where I have jokes that I’ve never used, stored up from the late 90’s, and you go through it, and most of them, you’ve hashed through, but you go, “Oh. I could use this one. I could use this one. Maybe I can work this one in there.”

And then you just go up to the local comedy club here in Omaha, the Funny Bone, every now and then, and then; I always go up there and I’ll either do a pop-in, or if I want the whole weekend, we’ll just set up a weekend, and I do a show for a charity in the area, and we’ll go up and do that, and I can work on new stuff. And that’s pretty much how I do it. Just kind of keep building and building, like that. And it got to the point where, when I was going out on the road, I had plenty of stuff.

You know, I would have some of the stuff that I did from Jeff and ours last CD, but then I’ll look at it. I’ll go “Man, that’s good. I can throw that out, and now, I can throw that out, even though I throw those out.” Like, whenever I finish, I always ask how much time I did, and they’ll go “Man, you went like 12 minutes over,” and then I’ll go, “Great. That’s 12 minutes of stuff I can get rid of that’s old.” [Laughs]

I just kind of built it like that. I didn’t think I could write any more Walmart jokes, but there was a couple that I didn’t use, and then I actually was at Walmart, and I came up with the joke about the customer service. That was the one where I go, my impression of the hiring practices at Walmart, where he says, “Let me ask you this, have you ever cared about anything in your entire life? No? Okay. You start Tuesday.” [Laughs]

Now we got three more. So, I had that there. So, when I went out on the road, when I was doing my shows, I’d add those, and then I’d found another one in my notes that I could rework, and man, the next thing I know, I got another, you know, five and a half minutes of Walmart jokes.

It’s kind of like my fair routine, talking about going to the fairs, and they just kind of kept building up, and building up, and different topics, but all on the fair. You know, the fair’s the topic, and it’s got little sub-topics, what’s at the fair, and man, it just ended up growing, and growing. So, every time I went on stage, something else would pop in, or you know how sometimes you get on a roll, and you’re just creating on stage, and it’s like, “Oh man. That works. I got to write that down. I don’t want to forget it.” So, that’s pretty much how it works.

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I just always wondered, someone who is doing short jokes like you, has to do, you know, add them one at a time, basically. You know, if they build it differently, and I guess it’s the same routine as everybody else. You just go out and try it.

Yeah, and I’m not a storyteller. I’ve never been, really. Well, you know, I tell that thing about how I got Mater [my character in Cars]. That’s probably the first, long story-type deal that I’ve never done, because normally, you know, when if I do tell a story, I litter it with one-liners, and I always hate being on stage and not getting a laugh every few seconds, because I feel like I’m bombing. So, if I go literally 35, 40 seconds, and there’s no laugh, it’s like “Oh,” but that was a whole different thing. I wanted to tell that story about being on the ship and doing the voice of Mater’s, taking the captain’s microphone, and so, I wanted to tell that story. So, that’s really, out of everything I’ve done, that’s probably the longest story that I’ve ever done, that has the laugh at the very end.

Did that make you nervous trying it out there? Or had you tried it so much at that point you knew that that laugh at the end…

Yeah. I tried it so much, I knew it would work, but when I first did it, I always did it at the end of the night, so that when I was just kind of, casually, just talking to everybody about, “Thanks for coming out, it’s fun to laugh. Just thanks for being fans,” then, I wasn’t really telling jokes. So, I was comfortable to get into a story, and then once I found out that it got a great laugh at the end, I decided to kind of end with that, because I think it’s a good ending to the show.

I’ve seen previous interviews with you, and a lot of times you say the same thing: “I’m not trying to do anything but tell jokes. I’m just trying to make people laugh, and don’t read anymore into it than what it is.” But one of the things I’ve always noticed is that, you’re playing Larry the Cable Guy, but you’re making fun of Walmart. You’re making fun of the state fair. Has that always been the idea behind your routine? That you’re going to tell that unexpected joke that the character of Larry might not be expected to tell?

Well. I wouldn’t say that…you know, that’s how I grew up. I mean, I grew up in a small town, on a pig farm, and my jeans, up until the time I was 14, were Rustler jeans that we bought down at the feed store. And so, yeah. I think that everybody that loves going to Walmart, or anybody that loves going to the fair, we love it, but we get that there’s a lot of crazy stuff that goes on there. Like, “Well why is that guy coughing in the line like that? I don’t get this guy.” Yet, we still go to the fair, because we’ve always done it, and we love it, and it’s how we grew up.

So, I do do jokes, but I think that how I grew up, and the people that I grew up with, we understand that’s what it’s like, but we can laugh at ourselves. We can make jokes about it, because it’s true. That’s what it’s like, and we laugh at ourselves, and how crazy it is, and then we move on with our life, and don’t think too much about it. So, I wouldn’t say that I’m making fun of the people, really. I mean, I’m making fun of the places that we go, and do, but we’ve always done them. I think that we can take a joke, and self-deprecating humor about ourselves better than anybody else can, and we have our own little club, you know, and we can tell when we’re getting made fun of in a mean way, and we’re getting made fun of in a fun way.

Look, I do Walmart jokes, and I make fun of Walmart. I was just at Walmart yesterday getting some Levi Garrett. I was just at Walmart yesterday, and I said hi to like, nine people who were shopping at Walmart, and I didn’t think anything of it. Walmart sells my products. I’ve had a good relationship with Walmart, but I think even Walmart knows that they get people in Walmart that they can’t believe shop at Walmart, and it’s like “What the fuck?” You know? But it’s part of the fun of going, and I think, you know, so, yeah. I do those jokes, but I’m not making fun of that per se. I’m making fun of what’s happening in there.

There’s not one person that loves going to Walmart that doesn’t, every now and then, bitch about the customer service. We’re still going to go to Walmart. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to go.

Well. I was going to say, I live up in New Jersey, and I go into Walmart, and experience the exact same thing that you talked about. It’s like, who are these people? Where do they come from?

Well. It’s kind of like the joke I do about the midway at the fair, the people that work at the midway. I mean, that’s a sub-culture of people you don’t see 51 weeks a year, and then one week a year, there they are.

And they’re the ones who have your life in your hands. So, it’s, you know, you and your kids…they’re operating all the rides, which I thought was funny.

It’s levels of, you know…so, people at Walmart go to fairs, and people at Walmart make up who goes to the fairs, and who do the people that go to fairs make fun at the fair? The people that work in the midway.

You have those runs of jokes like the Walmart ones. And then you just have these one- or two-off jokes, how do you know where to put them, and how to arrange them? Is it kind of like, you have that order down by the time you get to the special, or is it just as it pops in your head, you’re doing it?

No. I have the order down by the time I get to the special, but there’s, you know, every now and then, you’ll think of something and go — and I’ll probably do them up front, just where it has no… like, I’m not going to just pull a joke out of nowhere, and stick it in the fair joke, if it doesn’t make any sense. That’s part of the puzzle that I got to do. I got to work those out. There’s jokes that I would write, and it would never work, and then you move it somewhere else. It’s like a batting line up. How come this guy is batting a .685 here, but he can’t get a hit up here. You know what I mean? That’s about what it’s like.

I never know where a certain joke’s going to get a laugh, but I try to put just the jokes that are just the one-liner jokes, that have nothing to do with anything that I’m talking about, I try to find a spot for those, where I’m not really on a topic yet. So, it kind of, just, a lot of times that’s in the beginning, you know, where I’ll do the jokes, like the one about where I go, “It’s a special day today. You know, they gave me the keys to the city in my hometown, and the anniversary. Tomorrow’s even more special, because it’s the 20-year anniversary of when they changed all the locks.”

That’s a stupid joke but it gets a great laugh. So, I mean, just kind of, stuff like that, you got to find a place. Like, I just wrote one the other day. This is one of those jokes. Like, where would I put it? So, I would find a place where the joke goes, “I’m good at Scrabble. I can get one of those letters in a trashcan, seated at 15 yards,” which I think is going to be a funny joke. I just got to find a spot, so it just comes. We’ll work it out.

Do you think, you know, fans that you’ve talked to, know what goes into it? Do you care that they know what goes into it?

I think some people do. I think, because we’re comedians, so, we think comedy all the time. So, we think everybody else does, too, but we don’t realize that they don’t. You know, some people just want to come out, hey, I’ve heard of this guy. I need a laugh. I don’t think they really look at the ins and outs of it.  And then I think that for fans that are really into comedy, they’ll look at how a joke is written, and they’ll go, “Man, just the timing is so good.”

I’ll read a couple of reviews, and I really like it when they talk about my timing, which is great, because one-liners are hard, and a lot of times, it’s not that the joke is that funny, it’s the timing of how the joke is told,that makes it funny, and so, people that actually see that. Some of my best [reviews] are, “You know I never liked this guy, never really liked his kind of comedy, but I have to be honest. His timing and the structure of his jokes are great.” That I like. I don’t care if they don’t like my act, as long as they can recognize that, wow, these are written really good, and the timing is so good, because I get it, that there’s…different people like different things, and they like different forms of comedy. That’s why we have so many different kinds of comedy, which is awesome.

So, I’m glad that people like, you know, the majority, obviously, because I’ve done well. I think for the most part, most people don’t live and breathe comedy, like comedians. They just want to go out for a night of entertainment, and they don’t give a shit about anything else.

Some of the other one-liner comedians have been famous over the decades, you know, from Rodney Dangerfield, Steven Wright, Mitch Hedberg, those kind of guys. Were any of them influences? Or did you have other influences?

Well. Yeah. I never really…you know, those guys came up, like Hedberg, he was great, man. He was a friend of mine. He always used to stop by the Comedy Corner in West Palm Beach, where I started, and he’d always hang out with us, and he’d stop in on his way to Lauderdale for something, and he’d do a set and he’d used to in like, twice a year. My buddy Tom Ryan used to have a great [nickname for him]; we used to call him Halley’s Comic. [Laughs] He’d stop in maybe once or twice a year. He’d pop in, say hi to everybody, hang out for 20 minutes, hop on stage, do a show, say goodbye, hug everybody, and gone.

I was more influenced by…I love the old-style comedy, really. I mean, obviously I was really…I loved Steve Martin. You know, Let’s Get Small, and Wild and Crazy Guy, and I loved that. I loved Howie Mandel on Make Me Laugh. Thought that was funny, but as far as my other… it was all Henny Youngman. It was all Charlie Callas. It was all guys like that, like everybody on the The Dean Martin Roast. I loved The Dean Martin Roast.

As far as TV shows, it was Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and Hee Haw. The cornfield part was my best. The jokes were corny, but they were so stupid, they made me laugh. Other than that, I never really got into Cosby. I mean, people liked him. He was okay, but I never really got into Cosby and none of those other guys, but it was always the old timers.

I’m sure you’ve been asked this before, but there’s video that’s been floating around for years of your old stand-up act, pre-Larry. At what point did you say, “Okay. I got to do something different, and I got to make a change?” And how did Larry kind of develop out of that?

I never said I had to do something different. It just happened. I was on stage doing characters, and I did Larry the Cable Guy as a character, and then a buddy of mine had a morning show. So, I started doing it on the morning show, and they got really popular, and I was working over in Sarasota. In the comedy club over there, Les McCurdy billed me as “Larry the Cable Guy aka Dan Whitney aka Larry the Cable Guy, from the Ron and Ron Show.”

I didn’t know he was going to do that at all, and I literally went in, I couldn’t find a place to park, and I asked him what was going on that night, and he said that he did that. Because it was all theater of the mind to me, it was all radio comedy, and I was little upset at him, until he told me that he sold out two shows in 35 minutes, and so, I went on stage, and they started yelling out “Git-R-Done!” and “What the hell is this, Russia?” I popped down into the character, and when I ended the show, and I’m signing autographs and taking pictures, and Les asked me if I could do my whole show like that, and I said “Yeah, it’s not hard to do.” I’m a country kid. I hang out with all the, you know. I was just at the country bar last night.

So, he took my real name down, and just left up “Larry the Cable Guy,” and I went on stage in what I drove over in, which was a pair of lace up ropers, blue jeans, a cutoff Nebraska shirt, a NASCAR hat. That’s when comedy clubs started dying out. It was oversaturated. You could find standup anywhere. But if you could sell tickets, you could make some money, and so, it was fun. So, I just got to thinking, “Man, if I can start doing this on more radio stations, I can do this on stage, because it’s fun to do.” So, that’s what I did. I just started getting more radio stations. I started writing, basically, still writing for me, but just adapting it into the character, and that’s how it started. It started completely organic, and it started like that. I didn’t plan it. It just happened.

Was it when you went on Blue Collar Tour that you saw what the potential could be, of playing big theatres, and arenas and things like that, or was it before that?

Oh. It was way before that. I mean, I think they said that Rich Jeni and I were two biggest comedy draws in the country, at the time, in comedy clubs, and I was only doing maybe, you know, 20 states. No, I knew then that we had something going, and it was fun to write for, and you know, I enjoyed writing for the character. Like Steve Martin said, it takes 10 years to really, from the time you first go on stage, to where things really start happening for you, it takes about 10 years for you to find out what you do, and who you are, and how you can do things, and be comfortable, and that’s about what it was. It was about 10 years. So, that was kind of the same time frame that it took me to do it. I’m just a comedian. I just was having a good time making people laugh.

Do you still have fun doing Larry? Do you still have fun writing for him? Is it different now than it was 20 years ago?

Oh. Man. It’s always fun. I enjoy it. You know, a lot of people seem to think I grew up in an apartment in New York or LA and I said “Hey I want to be famous, by being this country guy.” That ain’t what happened at all. You know, I grew up on a pig farm in southeast Nebraska, and when I moved to Florida I hung out with all the country kids, because that’s how I grew up. My goal in life was to be a cattle auctioneer. That’s what I wanted to do. Obviously, I didn’t do that, but I wanted to do that.

So, I mean, it’s not that I just make it all up. I mean, some of that stuff you had to have lived to be able to write the jokes about it. I know all about the character. It’s not something that I am completely in a whole ‘nother world about it. I’ve enjoyed it, and I’m not sick of doing it. I make it fun.

I don’t mind that people call me Larry. I mean, that’s not my name, but you know, people that know me, family members, people that I went to high school with, lifelong friends, people that matter, I mean, they call me Dan. They call me Danny. I’m not in character. People say I’m in character all the time. I’m not in character all the time. The people that say I’m in character all the time, are the people that only see me in character on TV or radio. I went to the basketball game the other day, completely myself. I went to the Walmart today completely by myself. The fact that people call me Larry, it doesn’t bother me. It’s just kind of like a nickname. You know, if I knew what was going to happen in my life, I probably would’ve done things a little different, but I mean, things the way they happen.

I’ve seen pictures of you and your family out on red carpets, and things like that, and you’re not wearing the flannel and you’re out there as the Whitney family. I kind of feel weird that people would expect you to be in character all the time.

No. I did [for] one part. I think I took a John Lasseter shirt, and cut the sleeves off, and wore it at a premiere, but that’s only because he asked me to do it.

When I was setting this up, I asked the publicist, “Am I going to be talking to Dan or am I going to talk to Larry?” She asked your manager, and he had an interesting statement: “Larry and Dan are ultimately the same person, so you don’t really need to make a distinction.” Do you agree with that and what do you think that means?

I think that starting out, we were two completely different people. I was never a crazy… Like, you see some of my early stuff. I would never [be like that]. That was all for the radio. I think Larry became more of myself when I got married and had kids, because I am bringing actual real experiences to the stage. Even though they’re one-liners, they stem from reality, at least some of them. Like, I’m married, and I have a couple of kids, and they’ve really changed my act. You know, I don’t do certain jokes anymore because now that I have kids, and a wife; you grow. You get older and you think about stuff, and you go, “Oh. I shouldn’t do that joke. I got kids.:”

When I was first starting out, I didn’t give a shit. It was me, and I had a crowd, and I was telling jokes, and I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have a wife. I’m making up girlfriends. I’m doing jokes about going to the titty bar, and you know, I’m making jokes about getting drunk on the weekends, and I’m you know, I’m not a drinker at all. So, everything was all theater of the mind, and made up, and then the older I got, and the longer that I’ve done this, and the more that I’ve incorporated my family into the routine, it’s kind of melded together a little bit.

Is that kind of what he means then by it’s like because all the changes, and just how long you’ve been with the character, it’s kind of gotten closer together?

No. I mean, it’s not like I’ve become the character. I think the character is more or less, less than it used to be. It’s kind of fading away. I don’t really…you know, before it was all complete character in the fact that everything about it was made up. Everything about it was made up. The stuff that I did, the relationships I had, the kids that I had, it was all made up. It was all for the stage. It was all, you know…and like I said, the longer I’ve done it, and the more that I incorporate my family into the routine, the more it becomes more real.

I don’t walk around all the time in blue jeans and flannel shirts, and a ball cap going, [in a high-pitched wail] “Weeeheee, wodadatboy!” You know? I don’t do that at all. When I go on stage, obviously, I flip a switch, and I turn my accent up, and there’s things that I can say on stage, that I would never say in real life. I would never be like that. However, I’ve brought a little bit of calmness to the act, because I’m talking about family and stuff like that. So, that’s all kind of real but it’s still a character, but I mean, I’ll be honest. I really don’t look into it that much.

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I know. In previous interviews, you’re like, the interviewers are looking into it more than you are.

Well, here’s the problem. It’s like, whenever I do something, when I’m in the Nebraska football guide, or whenever you look at anything Nebraska, it’s always “Larry the Cable Guy, real name Dan Whitney.” They can’t ever just put “Dan Whitney,” and I think if they put “Dan Whitney,” people would be like, “Who’s that?” So, it’s like they feel they have to put the “Larry the Cable Guy” down. I don’t ask them to put the “Larry the Cable Guy” down, but they just do.

I’ve just done the character for so long, that that’s just how I’m known, and I mean, it doesn’t bother me, but as far as you talking to me, who are you going to get, Larry and Dan are the same thing. Well, pretty much, because I created the character, and I made up the character. So, if you’re going to talk to me, obviously, you’re talking to the person that created the character. I mean, I can do interviews in character all day long, but I choose not to, sometimes.

Yeah, and I appreciate that we’re talking, you know, just person to person, instead of person to character. I appreciate that because I was definitely looking to talk to, you know, talk about the whole process, so, really…

You know, when I was coming up, when this thing all happened, I was coming through all this thing, I didn’t really…you know, I was just doing comedy, and I let my management take care of everything. And I think the one thing I wish I could have done different, is I wish could I have had my real name doing the Cars stuff, but I don’t know if they wanted the Larry the Cable Guy

because it was a name and had a good following. At the time, I’m selling out twelve thousand seaters. So, you know I’m doing twelve thousand people a night.

So, they probably wanted Larry the Cable Guy there, but I wanted, for other projects, other than standup, I wanted my real name. But I was told that I couldn’t do that because Larry the Cable Guy was becoming a brand, and you have to keep with the brand. You don’t want to go away from the brand. So, I said, all right. Whatever dude. You know I’m not on a bus, I’m making money; why do I give a shit?

That’s why everything is Larry the Cable Guy, Larry the Cable Guy. That’s why that is, and so, it is what it is, and I don’t think too much about. It is what it is, and I got a life to lead. So, I don’t really worry about it much.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.