JEFF FOXWORTHY and Ritch Shydner, comedy, Huntsman Center, University of Utah, May 9, 8 p.m.
So what do you use as a back scratcher? If your answer was a toilet brush, then you might be a redneck. At least, that's what Jeff Foxworthy said to an audience of 5,000 at the Huntsman Center Friday night.And he should know. He's the king of redneck humor.
"I live this stuff," Foxworthy said in his Georgia drawl while on stage. "I mean, this is my family."
Here are some other ways to tell if you're a redneck: You've got a complete salad bowl collection that have the words "Cool Whip" on the sides; you lie through your tooth; the biggest city you've been in is Wal-Mart; you think a quarterhorse is the ride in front of K-Mart; you use your ironing board as a buffet table and you see a dead raccoon as dinner and a hat.
But redneck jokes were only a smidgen of the show. Foxworthy also zeroed in on families and kids.
"If you start thinking you live in one of the most dysfunctional families on the face of the Earth, just take a trip to the county fair," Foxworthy advised. "Within five minutes I guarantee you'll feel like your family is normal."
"Kids are smarter than we were at that age," Foxworthy said. "I didn't know four boxes of raisins could fit into a cassette player of my jeep."
Then he turned the focus on himself.
"I don't know how Jell-O works," he said drawing the crowd in. "Any other liquid that's put in the fridge or freezer and becomes a solid returns to a liquid when it's out for a while.
"Jell-O don't," he said. "Unless you put it in your mouth and (swish it around)."
While Foxworthy is one of the cleanest comedians around these days, his suggestive jokes got the big laughs, especially the ones about sex.
He dabbled in jokes about bachelor parties, porn shops and the differences between men and women.
The funny-man also touched on communication: "Women have a four-lane highway the connects the right and left side of the brain," he deadpanned. "Men have a dirt path."
He then went to hair: "When men hear these next four words from their wives, they might as well face the fact that they won't be going out tonight - `I hate my hair.
"Men are different," Foxworthy continued. "As long as our hair's still there, we like it."
And keeping with the relationship theme, he heckled a couple near the front row who had been married for only six weeks.
"You better start taking notes," Foxworthy told the groom, Brian. "You'll find that one of your duties as a husband is killing bugs.
"Bugs come in different sizes," the comedian said. "There's Kleenex bugs, paper towel bugs, rolled up magazine bugs and tennis shoe bugs. Now a tennis-shoe bug is one bad a-- bug!"
Foxworthy had a good time slamming on his southern redneck roots. And the audience, which was mostly composed of boot-sporting folks, didn't seem to mind the comedian's jabs at them either.