Larry the Cable Guy watches the History Channel?

By Allison Duck

Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 | 1:48 p.m.

Speaking on the phone with Daniel Lawrence Whitney, it's hard to imagine that he's same man who's had three gold comedy albums and been the voice of Mater in Cars and Cars 2. When his unassuming voice shifted to the trademark Southern twang of his better-known alter ego, Larry the Cable Guy, it seemed like the comedian might be suffering from multiple personality disorder.

After getting his start making funny phone calls on the radio, Whitney came to embrace the redneck character he had created and decided to run with the Larry the Cable Guy act. Who wouldn't want to wear cut off T-shirts and jeans to work?

"I got to dress how I wanted to dress instead of wearing Z. Cavariccis and polo shirts, which I never wore in my life before I did stand-up," Whitney said. Catch the comedian this Friday at the Star of the Desert Arena in Primm.

How did you first get started with the Larry character when you had been doing regular stand-up for years?

From the minute you start, it takes a good eight to 10 years to actually find out what works for you. I always did Larry the Cable Guy in my act. I started doing that in the late '80s. I didn't start doing it onstage until about '95, when a guy billed me as Larry the Cable Guy. It wasn't really much different than my normal act, except I put the accent on. It started taking over more and more of my act until I decided to start touring as Larry the Cable Guy. I found what worked for me.

Do you base your comedy off of actual events that occur with you and your family?

Everything in stand-up starts out as a little bit of truth and then goes into the absurdity. Everything starts out as something that actually happened. I just wrote a joke the other day. My mom was actually sitting on the couch wearing a Snuggie, and I find the Snuggie hilarious because I feel if you're too stupid to operate a blanket then maybe you deserve to be cold. That joke derived from my mom actually sitting on the couch in her Snuggie. Then that joke evolved into her farting and setting her Snuggie on fire.

I've heard you faced a lot of criticism for not really being as "redneck" as your act. How did you deal with that?

When I first came on the scene, whenever anyone starts moving up the ladder, you become a target for criticism. One of the criticisms of me was that I wasn't real. They made it sound like I woke up one day and decided I wanted to make a lot of money so I would start acting like a redneck, which is far from the truth. I grew up on a pig farm in Nebraska and I've always been a country kid. Any time I talk about four-wheeling and riding horses and running hogs or loading cattle trucks — whatever I talk about, I talk about because I've lived the life. The reason I do the accent is because when I first started with Jeff [Foxworthy], that's how we would speak to each other. I defy anybody to move to the South and not start talking with a Southern accent within a week. You just pick it up. The reason Larry the Cable Guy has a Southern accent is because that's where he was born. I created the character down here out of friends I knew. Also it's funny.

What can you tell me about your upcoming History Channel show?

I have a show coming up on the History Channel called My America with Larry the Cable Guy. I'm just going to cities and towns that have something that's unique to that area like a tourist attraction and we get the history on it. Like Civil War re-enactments. We'll cover who started them, how far back do they go, who participates in them. We start filming in March and it will come out in September. I think they wanted to bring another audience into what they do at the History Channel. I think there's a real misconception about me and my fans. Some critics seem to think it's a bunch of trailer trash who come to my show, but believe it or not, a lot of my fans like to watch Biography and the History Channel. I know I do. I would say if we're not watching the news or sports, we're watching the History Channel or the Smithsonian Channel.

Do you have any suits or shirts with sleeves in your closet?

Right now I'm wearing a sleeveless T-shirt that says Stinky's House of Fish. I split time between Nebraska and Florida, so everywhere I am is hot. I never really wear sleeves unless I'm going out to eat. I do have a couple of sleeved shirts because I'm trying to learn how to play golf. The golf course I go to in Lincoln, Nebraska, lets me take my sleeves off my collared shirts. They let me golf sleeveless, but I have to have a collar.

— Originally posted on LasVegasWeekly.com