Jeff Foxworthy was working for IBM in Atlanta when, on a dare, he did a few minutes of standup at a local comedy club.  Soon after that he quit his white collar job and took to the road as a comedian.  He toured for years, playing club across the country and making appearances on talk shows.  Then in 1989, Rodney Dangerfield gave Jeff some exposure on an HBO special that he put together.  Relatively soon after that Jeff landed a Showtime comedy special that was very well received.  So Showtime let him do it again.  The strength of these two Showtime events convinced television executives that Foxworthy had the screen personality and following to hold his own series, and launched The Jeff Foxworthy Show which ran for two years.  Now Image has released the two Showtime specials that helped turn Jeff Foxworthy into a household name on one DVD.

You Might be a Redneck if…

In this first special Foxworthy did for Showtime, he gets into his trademark routine right off.  "If you've ever taken a beer to a job interview, you might be a redneck."  After that he talks about the dangers of going out with a girl who doesn't let you know that she has a boyfriend.  He also covers some standard comic material like how long it takes women to get ready, and how woman are able to manipulate men.  A very funny show.

Check Your Neck:

This show, taped in Dallas, has Jeff talking about the way people talk in the south.  He talks about his newborn daughter and the problems associated with young kids.  ("You have to change those diapers EVERY day. When those directions on the side of the Pampers box say, 'holds 6-12 pounds' they're not kidding! They won't hold any more than that.")  The longest bit is when he observes how everyone's first apartment looks the same.  Two bricks and a board is considered an entertainment center.  You sit on "a beanbag chair with duct tape on in," and next to that, the $9,000 stereo.  "We're going hungry but we got tunes."

Both of these half hour shows are amusing, if a little bit dated.  They were taped in 1991 and 1992 respectively, and a year later these two shows were put together on and released on a CD.  That album went triple platinum and is the best selling comedy album of all time. The upshot is, you'll probably recognize many of the jokes, especially the "You might be a redneck if…" shtick.  They have all been repeated over the water coolers and e-mailed around for years and years.  But even if you've heard some of this stuff before, there are still a lot of good jokes and I caught myself laughing out loud several times.  With a very reasonable retail price, this DVD is sure to please Jeff's fans.
 

The two channel mono soundtrack was appropriate for the material.  It's easy to hear the dialog, and the audience is mixed at a good level.  There are some of the defects common in live audio; booming sounds when Jeff gets the microphone too close to his mouth, and slightly slurred 's' sounds.  Besides that the DVD is easy to listen to.

Video:

The video quality was average for a taped stand up routine.  The image was clear is a little soft.  There is a good amount of edge enhancement in these shows, giving Jeff an outline most of the time.  Digital defects were at a minimum, just a little aliasing in a couple of background scenes.

The Extras:

There are no extras on this DVD.  That's too bad because Foxworthy has done numerous TV appearances and it would have been nice to see an early interview.

Final Thoughts:

These are two funny shows, even if they are only half an hour each.  Though most people have probably heard the material before, it is still amusing after all these years.  A good pair of shows at a reasonable MSRP.  Recommended.