Joe Pantoliano plays Mayor M.T. Gunn in the new feature film "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector." Credit: Courtesy Lionsgate

Larry the Cable Guy has healthy dose of laughter

Health Inspector is comedian's new silver-screen foray

While it can take years for a successful comic to hone a unique stage persona, for Daniel Lawrence Whitney -- y'all may know him as Larry the Cable Guy -- the process was relatively easy. All he had to do was look in the mirror.

Born in Nebraska and raised in rural Florida, Larry is the epitome of a blue-collar guy in the cut-off flannel shirt and the fishing cap, chewing tobacco tucked in his lip, a beer gut, and a butt-crack that spills out anytime he bends over. But he's not going to apologize for it. He is that ingratiating comedian who can turn bad manners into comic gold.

SYNOPSIS Sporting a cut-off flannel shirt and armed with a truckload of one-liners, Larry the Cable Guy is America's reigning king of blue-collar comedy. Now, after two No. 1 comedy tours, two hit concert films, a best-selling book, two chart-topping comedy albums and a multi-platinum DVD special, Larry makes his feature film debut in the outrageous Lionsgate comedy, "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector."  Irreverent as ever, Larry plays a big city health inspector who's happy with his usual beat of greasy spoon diners and low-rent ethnic restaurants. But his easygoing life is turned upside-down when he's saddled with a straight-arrow rookie partner and assigned the biggest case of his career: investigating an outbreak of mysterious food poisonings at the city's swankiest restaurants. Infuriating restaurateurs with his bad manners, Larry still manages to charm a sweet, shy waitress into a budding romance. But when his unorthodox methods cost him his job, Larry has to go undercover to bring the conspirators to justice and 'Git-R-Done!  A hilarious comedy in the vein of "Something About Mary" and "Dumb and Dumber" and chock-full of Larry the Cable Guy's trademark, take-no-prisoners humor, "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector" marks the arrival of a new low-brow hero.  •   Official Movie Site

"The beauty of Larry is that he does and says what people think but are afraid to say," said Alan Blomquist, producer of the new comedy Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector. "He's willing to be the butt of his own jokes. He plays the fool but his humor is smart. He's dumb like a fox."

Larry trains his comic crosshairs on America's heartland, firing punch lines every few seconds. "I'm the guy who can crack jokes about old-timers, four-wheelers, mud-holes or chewing tobacco. You know, country things," he said.

"I'm not trying to be better than anyone else. I'm just laughing at the stuff I know and trying to be fun and silly about it."

His style, which is laid-back and self-deprecating, is winning for its lack of pretension. Instead of trying to appeal to the cynics at the back of the room, Larry prefers a populist, old-time approach. "I call myself a cross between four comedians: Milton Berle, Steve Martin, Jonathan Winters and Don Rickles," he said. The alchemic mixture works.

When director Trent Cooper attended one of Larry's shows in preparation for the shoot, he was stunned by the comic's reception. "The crowd goes wild for him," Cooper said. "You've got 12,000 people going nuts likes he's the Rolling Stones. He's their voice."

For Larry, however, the road to stardom was a long one, with some unexpected turns along the way. In 1985, he was working as a bellhop in Florida when a friend dared him to perform at an open-mic event at a local comedy club. That night marked the start of his love affair with stand-up; but Larry's career didn't take off until 1991, when he started calling in to radio stations pretending to be a cable guy.

While the calls began as a lark, Larry's satirical right-wing commentaries, which were delivered in a likable country drawl, garnered him a huge following. Eventually, he was syndicated in several cites and being paid to write radio editorials twice a week. At the end of every call, Larry would sign off saying, "Git-R-Done," a catchphrase that has since become his trademark slogan.

"I was calling around 27 stations on and off for about 12 years," Larry said. "I'd call in from everywhere: airports, hotels, convenience stores, the phones on airplane seats. That's what really started my career as a comic -- the radio exposure. I developed this underground audience of people who were coming to my live shows because they had heard me on the radio. They knew me as Larry the Cable Guy, so I kept the name."

In 2000, Larry joined comedians Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Ron White on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, which spawned a concert movie of the same name. The film's broadcast on Comedy Central led to a sequel, Blue Comedy Tour Rides Again, and the 2004 WB sketch comedy show, Blue Collar TV. In 2004 and '05, Larry was the highest-grossing comedy act in the country.

Two certified gold comedy albums have followed, the second of which, The Right to Bare Arms, debuted at No. 7 on SoundScan's Top 200 chart and became the first comedy album in history to debut at No. 1 on the Country chart. Larry's book, Git-R-Done, debuted at No. 26 on the New York Times Bestseller List and his DVD special of the same name went platinum.

With Larry's popularity skyrocketing, a feature film seemed like a logical next step.

"I never thought I would do a movie. But fans like to see you do other things," Larry said. "They get excited to see the character in different situations."

Blomquist, one of the minds behind the Blue Collar movies, had the idea of placing Larry within the pretentious world of fine dining. "It's a classic fish-out-of-water story," Blomquist said. "Larry plays a slob who of all things is a health inspector. It's a concept that we thought would really play to his strengths."

Blomquist and his producing partner, J.P. Williams, hired screenwriters Jonathan Bernstein and Jim Greer to flesh out the story and develop the food-poisoning mystery that drives the plot. They also were mindful of setting the story in the Midwest to keep Larry from being pigeonholed as a red-state, Southern character. "Larry has universal appeal," Blomquist said. "His fans come from all across the United States and cover a broad range of socio-economic backgrounds. We wanted the movie to reflect that."

Back to the Future: It's Biff Tannen! ... Tom Wilson plays the role of Bart Tatlock in "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector." Credit: Courtesy Lionsgate

"I'm really proud of the movie," Larry said. "It's goofy. It's slapsticky. It's right along the guidelines of my stand-up, but the material is all new. The whole point was to make a movie that would please the fans as well as the people who've never seen me before."

After meeting with several directors, Blomquist and Williams chose Cooper, a commercial director who also wrote and directed a comedic short starring Samuel L. Jackson called The Comeback, for the job.

As a Florida native who grew up listening to Larry on the radio, Cooper had a special appreciation for his work. "I would listen to him call a radio station in Tampa in the early 90s. I was a huge fan," Cooper said. "I just get Larry's comedy. I know the world he jokes about. Working with him was a really good fit."

As the production neared a summer shoot in Orlando, the filmmakers gathered a top-notch supporting cast of comedic stalwarts, including Tony Hale (Arrested Development), Tom Wilson (Freaks and Geeks), Joanna Cassidy (Six Feet Under), comedians Bruce Bruce and Lisa Lampanelli, plus Megan Pryce and Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos).

"We focused on casting more actors than comedians," Blomquist said. "Comedians often try to one-up each other in the scene and everything falls apart. We wanted actors who would play it straight and be in on the joke."

Despite the experienced cast, the co-starring role of Amy Butlin, Larry's by-the-book, rookie partner, was won by an unknown actress and comedian named Iris Bahr. "We were initially looking for someone with more of a name," Blomquist said. "But Iris came in to audition and blew us away. She's an incredible talent and she's perfect in the part."

The classic odd couple, Larry and Amy clash over everything from health inspector methodology to personal hygiene. By the story's end they earn each other's respect in unpredictable ways.

"It was a part I was dying to play," Bahr said. "I loved the buddy movie antics and especially the physical comedy. I could see all the potential there was for fun."

In a nod to his roots in the New York theater world, Cooper prepared for the lightning-fast 22-day shoot with a week's worth of rehearsal, during which the script was extensively work-shopped and punched up. Cooper's main concern was effectively translating Larry's unique character from stage to screen.

	Credit: Courtesy Lionsgate
	LARRY THE CABLE GUY •   Larry's official Web site •   imdb.com Larry's credits

"Larry is full of contradictions," Cooper said. "He plays this dumb, naïve character, yet his humor is very smart. He's sweet and lovable, yet he also has a backbone and a strong sense of pride. I wanted the movie to walk that fine line."

While Larry had experience in front of the camera from his sketch work on Blue Collar TV, the prospect of carrying an entire film was initially daunting. "It was a little bizarre," he said. "But once I saw that Joe Pantoliano had trouble memorizing his lines, I felt better."

Cooper was impressed by Larry's diligence and stamina, which was no doubt honed by years of touring. "I always treated him like an actor. I never gave him line readings," Cooper said. "I think he was a little scared by that at first, but he totally responded. He was surrounded by trained people with good chops and he more than held his own."

When asked about his nerves on set, Larry just shrugs. "I just didn't want to look fat," he said. He laughs, claiming his favorite part of the shoot was the catering.

"There's food there every minute of the day," he said. "I went from 227 pounds to 252 in 22 days. So if you play the movie backwards, I get thinner."