Blue collar comedy, but a bit less blue.

Byline: Matt Cooper The Register-Guard

Never heard of comedian Bill Engvall?

Here's your sign.

Engvall practices what's increasingly called "blue collar comedy," which means comedy for the rest of us - jokes about the wife being a back-seat driver, or the boy ogling a well-endowed woman or the three things that make a man tick: eating, sleeping and sex.

And "here's your sign"?

That's his calling card. It started with a joke about people saying such dumb things that they should carry a sign around reading: "I'm stupid." Now, when Engvall makes light of the stupid things that we all say and do, he simply ends the joke with a casual: "Here's your sign."

If you're still in the dark, put the book down and watch some TV.

Engvall stars in the new sketch comedy show, "Blue Collar TV," with an ensemble cast featuring better-known Jeff (`You might be a redneck if ...') Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy, a cult-classic character who has raised crassness to an art form.

The prime time show premiered in July on the WB network and immediately became the network's second-most watched show ever for the time period.

Engvall has appeared on "The Tonight Show" and the "Late Show With David Letterman." He has sold more than 2 million copies of a movie-length version of the "Blue Collar" comedy tour. And he cut a video with Travis Tritt, "Here's Your Sign"; the song of the same name claimed No. 1 on Billboard's country singles sales chart for a 10-week stretch.

Hot around the collar

Success has surprised the 47-year-old veteran comedian and actor. But Engvall said he and others like him have hit a previously untapped comedy vein.

The wealth of that mother lode is evidenced by the fact that the "Blue Collar" comedy concert tour - starring Engvall, Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy and Ron White - has grossed more than $15 million since it began in January 2000. Earlier this year, White and Larry the Cable Guy separately sold more than 2,000 seats each in the Hult Center's 2,466-seat Silva Concert Hall.

"I think everybody is blue collar," Engvall said recently in a telephone interview from his home in Manhattan Beach, Calif. "A CEO, if you give him an electronic farting machine, he's going to use it. We don't try to be hip, `I'll have a tofu latte with java soy milk.'

"We have shown the media, through the success of the 'Blue Collar Comedy Tour,' that there is a whole group of people who are underserved by the media," Engvall said. "Not everybody lives in Los Angeles and New York."

Engvall doesn't claim to have discovered the genre. In fact, he characterizes some of comedy's biggest names as blue collar comics: Jerry Seinfeld, George Carlin, Richard Pryor. But he said they might reject the label, and the "hick" or "country" connotation that comes with it.

"There's still a stigma, but I always tell people, 'Why don't you come see the show and tell me you don't laugh,' ' Engvall said. "TV is bringing in an audience we didn't have.

`Anymore, it's not just country people, it's everybody now."

Disc jockey to joke jockey

A native of Galveston, Texas, Engvall was working as a disc jockey in Dallas when he tried his hand at stand-up and found he had a knack for getting a laugh.

It was while working the clubs in the 1980s that Engvall stumbled upon the "here's your sign" routine.

"I used to say that stupid people should be slapped, and people laughed," Engvall said. "One night my wife said, 'You don't look like a guy who walks around slapping people' - and she's right. I came up with this idea about a sign that says, 'I'm stupid.'

"It started off with a one-joke deal: The tire goes flat, I go to a gas station and the guy says, 'Tire flat?' And I say, 'No, the other three just swelled right up on me.'

`To this day, there's people who don't know my name from Adam but they say 'here's your sign' guy. It's the 'where's the beef?' for the '90s."

Engvall moved to Los Angeles to pursue television, first landing a Showtime special, "A Pair of Jokers," with Rosie O'Donnell.

The big break came in 1991, when Engvall did "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson,' a year before the late-night king ended his 30-year run. A few minutes on Carson gave Engvall immeasurable credibility - once he had wrestled the butterflies into submission.

"It was a dream come true," Engvall said. "Thank god, a girl comic came by and said, 'Do yourself a favor - when they open those curtains and you walk out, look at Doc, look at Ed, look at Johnny, and then do your comedy - it is so over- whelming.'

"It was over in a second," Engvall said. "I was nervous, but it went great."

Keeping it PG-13

Nerves aren't apparent as Engvall works an audience these days, strolling the stage in jeans and a suit coat and expounding on topics such as dishwasher protocol, morning breath and beer.

The husband and father of two keeps his act clean and largely expletive-free, and the content isn't any stronger than your 13-year-old gets in the locker room.

Basically, it's the comedy of everyday life and love. Engvall says his main challenge is writing material that pokes as much fun at men as women.

"One of the secrets of my success is being able to tap that, 'I'm just a guy,' ' Engvall said. "It's not like I'm woman-bashing at all - it's just, this is what real life is, in my house. If it's in yours, you'll find it funny.

"I wouldn't say it's a hard process, but it's not an easy process. I see a lot of stuff, but to find that line that 99 percent of people can relate to, is hard."

Reach Matt Cooper at 338-2317 or [e-mail].

CONCERT PREVIEW

Bill Engvall

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Where: Silva Concert Hall, Hult Center, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street

Tickets: $28.75, call 682-5000

CAPTION(S):

Bill Engvall (left) made his name with blue collar partners Jeff Foxworthy (center) and Larry the Cable Guy.