(ANALYSIS) As a rule, Jeff Foxworthy never refuses autograph requests, but the redneck comedy legend hit a wall during a funeral home visitation for someone in his extended family.

“When you go to a funeral home, a lot of times there's more than one visitation going on,” said Foxworthy, reached by telephone. “Across the hall, there was another one ... and it was a rowdy bunch. In the break area they had coolers with cans of regular Budweiser. ...

“At some point in the evening, somebody over there recognized me, and they started coming into our side and wanting to get a picture made. You know, 'Can I get my picture with you?' ... And one turned into three and that turned into seven or eight.”

Then a woman arrived with a felt-tip marker and made a familiar request: “Can I ask you a favor? ... Can you sign my brother's tie?”

Seeking an escape door back to his family, Foxworthy said: “Where's your brother? And she said, ‘He's in here, in the casket.’ And that's the only time I have ever denied somebody an autograph. ... But asking me to climb up on the casket and autograph the guy's tie?”

The truth in this sobering parable is that humor often surfaces during life's big transitions, even when they involve sacred beliefs and traditions. That's one reason why Foxworthy has never written “You Might Be a Redneck Churchgoer If ...” jokes.

Yes, audiences would yowl with laughter, especially in ZIP codes defined by faith, family, food and fishing. But for some people, religion jokes would cut too close to the bone, said Foxworthy.

After four decades in comedy, he said that he reminds himself that “everybody I'm going to look at tonight is going through some kind of a struggle. It might be financial, it might be physical, it may be emotional. ... I'm like, 'Just be kind to people.' You know? Have grace. You don't know their story. And I don't think humor makes people's struggles go away. But I do think ... if you're able to laugh and set that burden down for a little bit, it almost, like, recharges you to where you can pick it back up and go deal with it.”

Foxworthy grew up Baptist with a strong, churchgoing mother — and a father who got married six times and was prone to smoking, drinking, cussing and hoarding Playboy magazines. Their divorce was painful, Foxworthy said, but his parents were both funny in very different ways.

The turn to comedy came after Foxworthy left an IBM job — he was a repairman in a business suit and toolbelt — arranged by his IBM-employed father. After years of absorbing comedy by Bob Newhart, Flip Wilson and others, the young Foxworthy won an Atlanta talent show. He then hit the road, doing 500 shows a year for half a decade before hitting “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.”

Since then, Foxworthy has topped sales charts with CDs, DVDs, board games, calendars, various television projects and more than 26 books, including “Dirt on My Shirt,” a New York Times bestseller offering poems for children.

The comic calls himself a “Jesus follower,” and he attends a small, intimate church with candles and old hymns. Foxworthy has also taught Bible studies for homeless men.

“I don't need to be entertained in church and, unfortunately, I think that's what a lot of it is now,” he said. “But I find it amazing that so many people go through their entire lives and never contemplate faith very much. I'm like, 'How could you not?' ... It's like they never get around to thinking about, 'Why am I here? Why was I created? What's after this?’”

While many ask if Foxworthy does "Christian comedy," he said he never considered that career path, since “if I do that, the only people I talk to are Christians.”

However, he stressed: “I do think humor is one of the attributes of God, and I don't know that a lot of people are freed up to see God in that light. ... A lot of people just see God as having His hand cocked back, ready to knock you down when you mess up. I don't see Him that way. So, I think there's a lot of humor in God.”

COPYRIGHT 2025 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.