Dusty Slay answers the question: Does America need a new generation of “Blue Collar Comedy,” and if so, why would Slay obviously be the Larry the Cable Guy of the group?
The Gist: Based in Nashville, Dusty Slay has made the proverbial late-night TV rounds to NYC and LA, but has kept it Tennessee when filming his Netflix specials. His first hour filmed in Knoxville; this time, he chose Chattanooga.
The title for this second hour plays off the concept of “dry heat” in the American Southwest. Tennessee, by contrast, is very much a wet heat state and state of mind.
Slays’s a clean comic with catchphrases and a distinctive look and voice. The hand might not wave hello as often, and he might not let us know “we’re having a good time” quite as many times this time around, but he doesn’t need to. His fan base already has bought in.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: As referenced earlier, he’s very much in the mold of a Larry the Cable Guy, but more laid back.
Memorable Jokes: Slay has fun mining the lyrics of Brooks & Dunn’s 1993 hit, “Hard Workin’ Man,” wondering why the protagonist needs to wear a helmet to hammer and paint, and not wondering at all why he’s having money troubles. The key to loving country music, perhaps? “A good country song can get you reminiscing about times you never had.”
Slay has even more fun with the concept of social awkwardness, because as he jokes, what are you supposed to do if you feel awkward when you’re alone? Awkwardness necessarily has a social component to it. And the comedian finds it in the elevator (needing to pee or fart), says it’s even more brutal as a comedian making small talk with a cashier, and will undoubtedly experience it upon visiting a hotel pool — no matter if it’s full of people or empty, but most especially when there’s only one person swimming in it already.
When it comes to real ailments, such as diabetes or vertigo, Slay sees humor in paradoxes. Candy could kill his sister or save her, depending upon her blood sugar levels. Kids love being dizzy, “but it’s devastating for an adult.” He relates the peculiar nature of trying to treat vertigo, which in his retelling, involves crystals and Q-tips.
Slay has made fun of his past mishaps involving alcohol, and gets into the proverbial weeds here telling a couple of stories where (don’t try this yourselves, folks) his drinking-and-driving almost got the best of him. He avoided both major injuries and indignities the time he flipped his car upside-down, but he’s wasn’t quite so lucky when he thought he only needed to burp while driving, only to projectile vomit into his windshield and car vents. While on a North Carolina interstate. If you happened to be driving on that same highway that same day, Slay would love to hear your eyewitness testimony.
Our Take: If you’ve seen Slay’s previous specials, then there’s a lot of going back to the comedy well here, pulling up more buckets of bits about country music lyrics and his past shenanigans back when he was drinking. In this respect, this special feels like a movie sequel, cashing in on the success of the first hit with more of the same, hoping fans will enjoy covering the same territory again without getting bored by it. Then again, I shouldn’t be too hard on Slay in this case, as he just put out his first Netflix hour last year. It’s not as if he gave himself a lot of time to develop or grow his comedy persona in new directions if he wanted to.
Does that excuse vast portions in the first half-hour that all feel like bits that’ve been done before and often by other comedians, whether it’s the idea of controlling your bodily functions in an elevator, or wondering about the origins of humans discovering the taste for animal milk? And why oh why are we hearing basic Jeffrey Dahmer jokes in 2025? Are his audiences so young they need a refresher?
To his credit, though, Slay does a masterful bit of tampering expectations of his joke-writing abilities, all to serve up greater laughs down the road when he calls back to it multiple times. How many times? Well over how many times, more like it.
In his first Netflix hour, Slay jokingly suggested he’d keep doing what works, but how long can he do this without feeling a bit trapped like anyone else with a catchphrase and a look, where the character become caricature? But that’s for him to decide, ultimately, whether he’s going to truly be like “Larry,” or be someone like Jim Gaffigan who was able to pivot from “Hot Pockets” and become known more for his comedy than for his signature slang.
Our Call: This is one of those hours where the second half is exceedingly more interesting and funnier than the first, but I’m not sure how many casual comedy fans will make it through the first 30 minutes before backing out into the vast Netflix algorithm. And for that, it’s a SKIP IT. Or at least skip ahead to the second half?
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.