Bill Engvall

Bill Engvall’s most famous routine, “Here’s Your Sign,” proves that you don’t have to be brilliant to rag on stupid people. The bit, which Travis Tritt adapted into a tackily boastful junk-country song, begins with Engvall knocking people for stating the obvious to start conversations, but no worries: If Engvall and his Blue Collar TV buddies Ron White and Larry The Cable Guy have taught us anything about the comedy business, it’s that unshakeable cockiness is much more than half the battle, fancy-dancey incisiveness be damned. It’s a shame, because there are hints of a likeable fellow under Engvall’s jerk-next-door demeanor. But redeeming bits, like his riff on the SkyMall catalogue, always come back to Engvall’s exhausted main theme: how big a loser someone is.

Updated 09/21/2010