Crackin’ Wise

It's an act that's not really an act, and the man on the other end of the line only knows how to play the role by playing himself.

He introduces himself as Dan, his real name, though few people know him by it.

The accent -- think Foghorn Leghorn without the stutter -- is gone.

Tomorrow, he'll be onstage, cracking wise, arms jutting out of a sleeveless shirt with the girth of a couple of railroad ties.

But today, he's just Dad, tending to his kids, who fuss about in the background.

"My wife has gone running around doing errands, so I'm sitting here feeding my 2-year-old some soup. My little 1-year-old's about to cry because she doesn't have a cracker," says Larry the Cable Guy, whose given name is Dan Whitney, from his farm in Nebraska. "They're watching Yogi Bear on the TV."

Of course, Larry has never really been a cable guy, but he is a dude who still shops at Wal-Mart, enjoys spending his free time with livestock and has made a handsome living telling jokes about his farting grandma.

His routine revolves around certain pearls of wisdom -- "A day without sunshine is like night" -- astute observations -- "I believe the crippled stool is the Cadillac of the poopin' stools" -- and assorted barbs at liberals like Barbra Streisand and Rosie O'Donnell.

In a way, it's a modernization of the slapstick rural humor of a show like "Hee-Haw," Red State comedy with a blue bent, done by a guy who looks like he repairs carburetors for a living.

And it's not for everyone.

Larry's been called racially insensitive for some of his bits, like when he once criticized the saying of a Muslin prayer at the Republican Convention -- "Ya wanna pray to Allah? Then drag yer flea-infested ass over to where they pray to Allah at" -- and his repertoire is decidedly un-P.C., with its share of jokes aimed at gays and the mentally challenged, though it's far less acerbic than what you'd hear from a put-down humorist like, say, Don Rickles.

Delivered in a slightly dazed Southern drawl, it's a self-deprecating caricature, a knowing send-up and a warm embrace of country living all at once.

"There's some people who think that this is all a put-on, that I grew up in an apartment in New York City somewhere and I just decided to be a redneck and capitalize on the whole blue collar thing, which isn't the case at all," Larry says. "I grew up on a pig farm in Southeast Nebraska. I buy cattle and I send them to market with a guy from the Tulsa stockyards. I bought part of a sale barn down here because I like loading and unloading cattle trucks. I figured if I bought part of a sale barn, I could go down there and do it and nobody could tell me to get the hell out of there."

Unlike many comedians, there's no pathos in Larry's life that drive his comedy, no sadness from the past that he attempts to drown out with laughter.

He fondly reflects on his childhood, the bygone origins of his life in comedy.

"My dad was a minister. There was a lot of serious times around the house. Ever since I was a little kid, I knew how to get out of tense situations, and that was by making somebody laugh," he recalls. "My dad, he'd preach at two churches every Sunday, but once a month, he'd go to the old folks home. I remember I always used to go there and talk to the elderly people and cheer them up, make them feel good and crack jokes."

In the mid-'80s, Larry would first make a name for himself by calling various radio shows across the country in Cable Guy mode, which soon became his defining trademark.

"I'll be honest with you, it started out as a complete radio character," Larry says of his comedic alter ego. "But then when I actually started doing it onstage, people put the face with the voice. It's kind of like a small part of me magnified, but it's evolved throughout the years, because when I first started, I wasn't married, I didn't have kids and I basically made up every family member I had. It's still a character, but I've imported so much of myself into the act to make it more and more realistic."

These days, Larry the Cable Guy is one of the top-drawing comedy acts around, notching a slew of gold albums and regularly packing arenas.

He's become a fixture in Vegas this time of year during the National Finals Rodeo, and even has his own rodeo team.

"I'm a huge rodeo fan," he says.

"They gotta stay on for eight seconds," he notes of the bullriders with a chuckle. "I gotta stay on for 90 minutes. My job's a lot harder."

As he speaks, even without the Southern twang, some of the parallels between Larry the Cable and Dan Whitney the husband and dad subtly emerge.

He may be goofing on a rural archetype, but he's also goofing on himself.

"Look, if I thought I was making fun of the people who I grew up with, I would get out of the business. I'm one of them, too," he says. "I have to know what I'm talking about to do jokes like I do. I try and put a little bit of truth in everything. It's a strange career, I gotta tell you."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.