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STUDIO: MTV
MSRP: $26.99
RATED: Not rated
RUNNING TIME: 260 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Bloopers
• Best Of Jeff’s Monologues
• Behind The Scenes
• The Homewreckers
• Fitness With The Cast
The Pitch
It’s Saturday Night Live… at the tractor pulls…
The Humans
Jeff Foxworthy, Shane Caldwell, Sara Erikson, Peter Oldring, Brooke Dillman, Kenny Rogers, Sara Evans, Trace Adkins, Hank Williams, Jr.
"If you’re the leader of the free world and you start the biggest bullshit war in history, surround yourself with incompetents and liars and pretty much prove yourself to be the biggest boob ever to sit in the Oval Office, you might be a redneck..."
The Nutshell
Jeff Foxworthy takes his Southern comedy style and applies it to the variety/sketch formula made popular by shows such as Saturday Night Live, Mad TV and In Living Color. He combines opening monologues with sketch comedy and musical performances from today’s biggest country stars including Trace Adkins, Sara Evans, Blake Shelton and the Wreckers.
The Lowdown
You can pretty much guess what Foxworthy’s Big Night Out is going to be before you even see it. It’s basically sketch comedy with a Southern lean to it. And considering that it’s broadcast on CMT, you can also guess that the musical acts every episode are going to be Country music artists. The formula is far from original, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a pretty funny show at times. First off, if you can’t stand Jeff Foxworthy’s comedy, you might as well forget this show, because he opens every show with one of his signature style monologues, usually introduced by the musical act of the evening. Later the musical act will perform a song or two and Foxworthy will have a sitdown with them at the end of the show or perform with them. They’re also included in some of the sketches.
"I’m Willy, and he’s Billy, and today we’ll be discussing Niels Bohr’s contribution to atomic structure and quantum physics in regards to how it shaped The Manhattan Project and, indirectly, NASCAR…
Some of the sketches include “Billy and Willy’s Celebrity Deer Hunting”, where any pretense that this isn’t a hillbilly show is tossed right out the window as Foxworthy and cast member Shane Caldwell portray a couple of hunting-obsessed, good-ole-boy talk show hosts sporting the thick Southern accents, the deer hunting camo, trucker hats, and any other Southern cliché you can think of. The musical act provides the celebrity part of the skit and they plug things from a double-double-double barreled shotgun, to deer jerky underwear, to semi-nuclear warhead-tipped crossbows. Usually they also have a segment involving something stinking to high heaven. Some segments with the show’s dancers, the Homewreckers, a quintet of honeys usually in Daisy Dukes and cowboy boots rounds out the entertainment.
Uh, you can sign me up for demolition…
Foxworthy’s Big Night Out has its moments and if you like sketch comedy, or Foxworthy, or both, you’ll probably enjoy it.
(Wow, I did an entire review of a Jeff Foxworthy how without using the word “redneck.” Oh shit, wait, I just used it there. Uh…nevermind.)
The Package
The show is shot on tape, but it looks pretty good, and there are some good performances from top tier music acts, including Kenny Rogers and Bocephus himself. The set features several special features, including Bloopers, outtakes of Foxworthy’s stand up called “Best Of Jeff’s Monologues,” “Behind The Scenes,” and quick meet-and-greets with the Homewreckers. There’s also a curiously worthless segment called “Fitness With The Cast” that looks like it was shot with a VHS camcorder dug up out of some basement. It features Caldwell and cast member Peter Oldring, as well as Sara Erikson and Brooke Dillman doing Pilates. Some humor is also attempted. Attempted that is.
"Okay, so a priest, a rabbi and Osama Bin Laden walk into a Skynyrd concert…"