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Ron White said he decided he was a comedian when he was 5 years old. He will perform Thursday, Nov. 8, at The Maryland Theatre in downtown Hagerstown. (Submitted photo / October 31, 2012) |
To millions of fans, Ron White is a cigar-smoking, Scotch-swilling comedian whose keen observations about finding the funny in everyday life has made him a bonafide star.
Away from the limelight, White is still a man who can make you laugh as he demonstrates early in the interview with a tale of his talking dog, Pearl.
But he's also a person who understands that it's taken a lot of hard work to get himself out of a small Texas town to unexpectedly be one of the top-paid comedians running.
White will be in Hagerstown for two nearly sold-out shows at 7 and 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, at The Maryland Theatre. As of presstime Wednesday, only a handful of tickets were still available for the 7 p.m. show. The shows are for mature audiences only.
His comedic beginnings
For White, 57, comedy started early.
"The first joke I told, I was 5, it was a knock-knock joke and it killed," he said during a telephone interview from his Montecito, Calf., home where he spends half of the time.
The joke, he said, was told to a roomful of adults: Knock-knock. Who's there? Madame. Madame who? Madame foot caught in the door.
"I heard that and I didn't know what that meant, but I thought I'd give it a wing at a little party my parents were having in their little 800-square-foot clapboard house," he recalls. "And it killed. It just killed. I guess I decided that when I was 5, I'd be a comedian."
But White said he never thought of being a comedian again. Growing up in "a little dirt town" in Texas, he said "they really never talk a lot about the arts at Career Day. It was about to get a job at the refinery. Outside of that, you were working in the oil patch."
For White, though it was a instead a stint in the Navy, a career that he calls "unheralded."
"The day I turned 18, was when I joined," he said. "I was kicked out high school. I had learning disabilities, but I still tested so I was a navigator. I was just a wild banshee kid. I'm able to make up for it now and I'm able to do raising money for wounded soldiers. I feel an obligation because my own military career sucked so bad."
And although he said the Navy didn't really help prepare him for comedy, it did give him the nickname "Tater Salad" because of his love of potato salad.
Blue Collar Comedy
Eventually, he found that comedy might be the best route for him. And it was his friendship with comedian Jeff Foxworthy that helped him go from a regular working comic to superstardom.
White said the first time he ever walked into a comedy club in Arlington, Texas, he met Foxworthy. White was doing his first set, which was four minutes, and went off the stage where Foxworthy, the headliner for the evening, was watching in the wings.
"He came up to me after my set and said to me, ‘Hey man, you're really funny, but you have to put the punchline at the end of the joke.' And I was like, 'Oh, wow, that's fascinating, how do you do that?'" White recalls.
White said Foxworthy's generosity to fellow comedians was prevalent even then.
"He sat down with a brand-new green comedian and with a pencil and paper and showed me how to restructure those sentences so that the punchlines were at the end," he said. "I've been doing it so long that I can't even remember how to do it wrong. Foxworthy's goal for a lot of years was to make me a famous comedian, and he truly sucked at it because it took him forever."
Away from the limelight, White is still a man who can make you laugh as he demonstrates early in the interview with a tale of his talking dog, Pearl.
But he's also a person who understands that it's taken a lot of hard work to get himself out of a small Texas town to unexpectedly be one of the top-paid comedians running.
White will be in Hagerstown for two nearly sold-out shows at 7 and 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, at The Maryland Theatre. As of presstime Wednesday, only a handful of tickets were still available for the 7 p.m. show. The shows are for mature audiences only.
His comedic beginnings
For White, 57, comedy started early.
"The first joke I told, I was 5, it was a knock-knock joke and it killed," he said during a telephone interview from his Montecito, Calf., home where he spends half of the time.
The joke, he said, was told to a roomful of adults: Knock-knock. Who's there? Madame. Madame who? Madame foot caught in the door.
"I heard that and I didn't know what that meant, but I thought I'd give it a wing at a little party my parents were having in their little 800-square-foot clapboard house," he recalls. "And it killed. It just killed. I guess I decided that when I was 5, I'd be a comedian."
But White said he never thought of being a comedian again. Growing up in "a little dirt town" in Texas, he said "they really never talk a lot about the arts at Career Day. It was about to get a job at the refinery. Outside of that, you were working in the oil patch."
For White, though it was a instead a stint in the Navy, a career that he calls "unheralded."
"The day I turned 18, was when I joined," he said. "I was kicked out high school. I had learning disabilities, but I still tested so I was a navigator. I was just a wild banshee kid. I'm able to make up for it now and I'm able to do raising money for wounded soldiers. I feel an obligation because my own military career sucked so bad."
And although he said the Navy didn't really help prepare him for comedy, it did give him the nickname "Tater Salad" because of his love of potato salad.
Blue Collar Comedy
Eventually, he found that comedy might be the best route for him. And it was his friendship with comedian Jeff Foxworthy that helped him go from a regular working comic to superstardom.
White said the first time he ever walked into a comedy club in Arlington, Texas, he met Foxworthy. White was doing his first set, which was four minutes, and went off the stage where Foxworthy, the headliner for the evening, was watching in the wings.
"He came up to me after my set and said to me, ‘Hey man, you're really funny, but you have to put the punchline at the end of the joke.' And I was like, 'Oh, wow, that's fascinating, how do you do that?'" White recalls.
White said Foxworthy's generosity to fellow comedians was prevalent even then.
"He sat down with a brand-new green comedian and with a pencil and paper and showed me how to restructure those sentences so that the punchlines were at the end," he said. "I've been doing it so long that I can't even remember how to do it wrong. Foxworthy's goal for a lot of years was to make me a famous comedian, and he truly sucked at it because it took him forever."
