For his first stand-up special since 2020’s Remain Seated, Larry the Cable Guy (aka Dan Whitney) has left Netflix for Amazon Prime Video. Larry is five years older, and jokes he’s a little bit larger than life now that he’s in his 60s, but perhaps he’s also a bit wiser now, too, as a comedian.
The Gist: The Larry the Cable Guy character we’ve all come to know and love over the past three decades emerged out of Florida morning radio in the 1990s, and the comedian filmed his new hour (and first for Amazon) at the Capitol Theater in Clearwater.
Wearing a black cut-off T-shirt with his “GIT-R-DONE” slogan on both front and back, and now 62 years old, the comedian jokingly wonders why he hasn’t won a Grammy, while simultaneously poking fun at himself for his age and his looks.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: In past interviews with Decider, the comedian cited old-school guys such as Henny Youngman as early influences, but I compare him a bit to Rodney Dangerfield, not only because both play characters onstage and specialize in one-liners, but also, at their hearts, both characters have played off the idea of respect and whether they had earned it.
Memorable Jokes: Perhaps more than in any other one of his specials, “Larry” is at his most self-deprecating here. He lifts his shirt multiple times to expose his gut and emphasize a gag about his weight. He makes fun of himself for buying his own pants back from Goodwill more than once after his wife had tried to get rid of them.
When he pokes fun at gender-reveal parties, it’s not to make fun of the would-be parents, but of his own misunderstandings about them.
He gets child-like giggles thinking of an Olympic ping-pong medalist named Dong Dong (fact check: no such winner, but there was a Chinese woman who medalled in past Olympics named Ding Ning, for what that’s worth). And he’s not ashamed to admit about his bathroom habits in the clubhouses at celebrity golf tournaments, or using COVID as an excuse to get out of doing favors and attending events.
And while he has fun describing the various senior living conditions of his mother (in assisted living) and his uncle (in The Villages, not far from Clearwater in Florida), he thinks it’s funnier to imagine a future generation of grandmothers named Chloe and Britney who all sport big fake breasts in their old age.
Our Take: Ultimately what stands out about the comedian at this point is his own elder status, grandfathered into an iconic phase of his comedy career where he could presumably keep touring for another decade or more without needing to write new jokes. He still has that deep of an adoring fan base.
And yet he knows who he is and where he’s found himself to lead with self-deprecation.
“The gun show must be next week,” he initially jokes, in a way to comfort himself as if he couldn’t compete for his audience’s attention. Later in the hour, he dismisses his whole act completely, claiming: “My show by the way is PG-13. Pretty good for 13 minutes.” And then again even later, he cagily admits about his jokes: “I’m hearing a lot of this for the first time myself.”
But he’s actually getting quite nostalgic. He jokingly suggests an alternate origin story for how he first encountered his long-time Blue Collar collaborator, Jeff Foxworthy, and encourages us to believe they used to go to Taco Bell on the road and then fart in the nearby furniture stores. “One time he sharted and made me buy the recliner!”
He also devotes a few minutes to reminiscing about the first time he heard two strangers using his “git-r-done” catchphrase out in the wild. Even then, in his story, he doesn’t emerge as a hero.
He might not be remembered as a comedy hero, but generations of kids will now remember him as the voice of Mater in three Cars movies for Disney/Pixar, and multiple Cars series, including another one on the way in 2027. And as a stand-up, he’s always been at his best as the comic relief to a straight man such as Foxworthy or the other Blue Collar stars who helped launch him into his own comedy stratosphere.
Our Call: STREAM IT. He’s like America’s Comedy Uncle. Best exemplified by a joke about lending money to Henry Winkler, only to realize he’d fallen victim to a Fonzie scheme. These aren’t bad dad jokes, but dad-adjacent. They’re crazy uncle jokes. Are they great? Nah. Will they make you laugh? Maybe. Usually maybe? Which is why he can wryly smile and declare: “I know! It’s a gift!”
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.