Jeff Foxworthy has amused the world for years with his standup comedy, infamous “You Might Be A Redneck” jokes, and well-known Redneck Dictionary. “He is the largest selling comedy-recording artist in history, a multiple Grammy Award nominee and best selling author of 11 books” (“About Jeff“). However, this does not sum up his comical career at all. Not only is he extremely successful and talented, he has also helped and motivated many other comedians. Jeff Foxworthy is, by far, the most influential contributor to Blue Collar Comedy and has the greatest impact on the other comedians.
Jeff Foxworthy was born on September 6, 1958 in Atlanta, Georgia (“Jeff Foxworthy“). In high school, he was actually captain of the football team, in which he was a “123-pound safety” (McEntegart, Kennedy and Deitsch). After high school, Foxworthy attended Georgia Tech to major in computer technology. However, while working at IBM, he quickly learned that he enjoyed making people laugh far more than working on computers (“Jeff Foxworthy“). With that said, it did not take Foxworthy long to recognize that he had an extremely strong passion for comedy.
Jeff Foxworthy has had an amazingly successful career as a stand up comedian. Not only has he opened for remarkable country music artists such as Garth Brooks, all the books he has written have each sold over a million copies. He also broke Eddie Murphy’s record for a comedy recording in the 1980s when his first recording of “You Might Be A Redneck” went double platinum (“Jeff Foxworthy“). During the entirety of his career, Foxworthy has “sold a record of fifteen million comedy albums, more than twice as many as Steve Martin and Richard Pryor combined“ (Friend). His Blue Collar Comedy Tour masterpiece...
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...Comedy and the other comedians’ careers.
Works Cited
“About Jeff.” Jeff Foxworthy. Club Red, Inc. 22 March 2012.
“All About Larry.” Larry the Cable Guy. Git-R-Done Productions. 22 March 2012.
Ernst, Erik. “Bill Engvall Talks About Blue Collar Comedy Life.” Journal Sentinel, Inc. 22 March 2012.
Friend, Tad. “Blue-Collar Gold.” New Yorker 82.21 (2006): 74-83. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 March 2012.
"Jeff Foxworthy." Bio. True Story. A+E Television Networks, LLC. 22 Mar 2012.
McEntegart, Pete, Kostya Kennedy, and Richard Deitsch. “Q+A Jeff Foxworthy.” Sports Illustrated 98.2 (2003): 21. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 March 2012.
Michael, Shayne. “Shayne-Michael COMedy: Comedy Links.” Shayne-Michael COMedy. 22 March 2012.
Spong, John. “Ron White Gets The Last Laugh.” Texas Monthly 34.12 (2006): 164-254. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 March 2012.
The Mark Twain Prize for humor is awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for performing Arts every year since 1998. This award is given to leading actor/comedian in the American industry. In 2011 Will Ferrell received the Mark Twain Comedy award. This is an analysis of the speech acceptance speech that he gave.
Brett was born in a small town called Kiln, Mississippi, on October 10, 1969. He
Sinbad grew up as the son of a minister in Benton Harbor, MI and went to a respectable high school where he excelled in basketball. He attained a scholarship to the University of Denver in hopes that it would open up some doors for him but he was cut off when he suffered a career ending knee injury. In 1983, he embarked on his self-subsidized “Poverty Tour” of comedy clubs across the U.S. His career started to take off, when he made several appearances on the talent show “Star Search”. He then landed a few small parts on T.V. show’s eventually catching the eye of Bill Cosby who put him on his new show “A Different World” in which he played a kind dorm director at an all black college. This led him into a few starring and co-starring roles in major motion pictures and made the name Sinbad, a household name across the country.
John Belushi was a well-known comedian, but was hiding a troubling life. Belushi first began his career as a comedian in 1971 when he joined The Second City comedy group in Chicago. In 1973, Belushi began airing on The National Lampoon Radio Hour which was a half-hour comedy program played across the United States. Belushi achieved national fame for his work on Saturday Night Live. Once he turned 30, Animal House was the number one film in the United States, The Blues Brothers: Briefcase Full of Blues was the number one album, and Saturday Night Live was the highest rated late night television program. Even with all his success and fame, Belushi had a different lifestyle and behavior that was not seen by the people watching his shows (Peele 2011).
Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg Manitoba on July 28 1958 Terry was raised in port Coquintlam, British Columbia. He was very athletic from a young age. When he was in grade eight Terry was rated nineteen out of nineteen on his basketball team. For that first season he was on the court for approximately one minute. This did not affect Terry and did not let it get to him, fore just two years later Terry was the starring player on his team. By the time he graduated he became one of two athletes to receive the schools highest athletic award.
Richard Pryor has a key influence on many modern comedians because he took standup comedy to greater heights. Pryor is well-known for his colorful language and his efforts to knock down the racial barrier. He was such a shock to the world because he said things that no one dared.
Bill Cosby has a starred in a long list of funny movies. His recent television series, Cosby, has not been very successful. His movie, Leonard Part 6, was a big disappointment, also. Bill Cosby continues to work hard to entertain us with quality humor. He has more successful shows to his credit than disappointments.
"When I leave the stage, I will be the most talked about man in America."
Although Cosby has had a university education and received many honorary degrees, which few achieve, nonetheless, he is associated more as a successful entertainer than a scholarly educator. Interestingly, Cosby has self-described himself more of a class clown than an academician during schooling. Cosby started his entertainment career as a stand-up comedian doing performances across America during his younger years. Comedians have a notorious talent for stirring up crowds and encouraging clamor from the audience. They compose jokes that anyone can relate to and, thus, reach broad demographics during their performances. The talent has remained with Cosby to present and is manifested within the tone of his speeches as well.
Analysis of Dave Chappelle's For What It's Worth Stand-Up Comedy Dave Chappelle’s stand-up comedy can be raunchy, grotesque, and
Some people are born to become legends, Bruce Springsteen is one of them. From the second he was born and through his younger years everyone knew he was destined for something bigger than a regular nine to five life, they just didn’t realize the magnitude of what was to come. Born into a all around food middle-class family, no on in that house hold even Bruce, didn’t realize that within fifty years he would reach living legend status. Also have a title of one of the best musicians to every live. After working hard at what he loves, Bruce has become known as a musical hero and inspiration to his fans and fellow musicians. With his deep lyrics, amazing stage presence, incredible guitar skills, and his passion, he is an untouchable force in the music industry. Using his lyrics to vent his emotions and past, but to also add awareness to social issues around the world. Bruce and his love for music affected him his whole life, and has shaped into what he is today. His music now affects the world. His music has truly changed the world (musically and socially) forever.
Social stratification as defined by Brinkerhoff et al. is “an institutionalized pattern of inequality in which social statuses are ranked on the basis of their access to scarce resources” (Brinkerhoff et al. 152). By scarce resources, many people have to deal with poverty and having a lack of money to buy the things they need in their lives. Social class is defined as “a category of people who share roughly the same class, status, and power and who have a sense of identification with each other” (Brinkerhoff et al. 155). Your social class has to do with your socioeconomic status along with the power and connections you have. Social mobility on the other hand is “the process of changing one’s social class” (Brinkerhoff et al. 153).
The study with Race, Ethnicity and Intercultural Communication takes place within Canada. Although it takes place in Canada, one can still see just how much this information is valuable within race and ethnicity and public health. Faiza Hirji, the author of this article, studies how the issue of humor and race fall within race and ethnicity. He looks at the comedian Russell Peters as an outlet for humor within racism. During both of my interviews, they did not mention humor and comedies, but I feel as if this would have been a good topic to see their views and see whether or not they would believe this as a form of communication in racism. “Comedians who incorporate race and ethnicity into their acts can be alternately popular and offensive” (Hirji, 2009, pg 544). Who would have ever thought that comedians would incorporate race and ethnicity in their comedy routines? It just shows how communication in different forms such as comedy will still get their points across when it comes to race and
Before analyzing the comedic content in question, it is important when drawing on a variety of sentiments from comedians to understand that many performers use a character or parody for their humor. Others choose to voice opinions and views contrary to their own, in the hopes of receiving a certain reaction from a specific audience. In referring to the material of writers and comedians, one must respond to the beliefs they promote (which can be known), rather than those they espouse, which cannot.
The nature of comedy has always left it somewhat resistant to critical analysis, and to some extent the same can be said for comedic actors. The class-clowns of Hollywood like Will Ferrell are often times constructed as being nothing more than amusing, so they seem lik...