No Shirt, No Shoes...No Problem!

May 15, 1996
Stand-up comedian Foxworthy has made a bundle with his brand of aw-shucks, low-brow humor. Some might call him folksy. Others might find him witty. Others might not: Roseanne Barr is folksy. Jerry Seinfeld is witty. In fact, in comparison, Beavis and Butthead are witty. But those who like jokes about marrying your kin or getting too drunk to fish will be sure to find this offering just the thing. Foxworthy honors us with his down-home takes on universal conditions such as growing up, relationships, work, marriage, and fatherhood, counterbalancing it with more earthy reminiscences of fishing, hunting, womanizing, drinking, and, of course, smoking, cussing, and chewing tobacco. He shares practical jokes, locker-room humor, and plenty of scatalogical banter. But his book is ultimately uninteresting, unoriginal, and unfunny. One nice thing can be said about Jeff Foxworthy, however: in the 12 years he's been married to Gregg (his wife), he has never farted in front of her. A multiplatinum CD, several best-selling trade paperbacks, among them "You Might Be a Redneck If" (1989), and a popular TV sitcom do not make Jeff Foxworthy's latest effort funny, but they do ensure plenty of demand. ((Reviewed May 15, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)