Toledo Blade - Toledo, OH, USA - Stand-up comedian
Bill Engvall wasn't widely known until he teamed up with
Jeff Foxworthy and other fellow comics in 2000 as part of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, which proved to be quite a success, spawning a handful of movies and a spinoff TV sketch comedy series.
Engvall, along with his pal Foxworthy, has always been one of the more laid-back members of the Blue Collar crew. Their low-key humor is in stark contrast to the raunchier, over-the-top style of fellow members
Ron White and
Dan Whitney, better known as
Larry the Cable Guy.
Now Engvall becomes the second member of the group to get his own sitcom. (Foxworthy's attempts in the mid-1990s failed, largely, he says, because of network interference.) The
Bill Engvall Show premieres at 9 tonight on TBS.
As likeable as Engvall seems, it would be nice to report that his series is a breath of fresh air on summer TV. Unfortunately, it's not.
The program stars the comedian as
Bill Pearson, a family therapist in suburban Denver who works with dysfunctional people all day, than goes home to his wife and three kids. It's at this point, I suppose, that we're supposed to find that Bill's family is as hilariously messed up as the people he counsels - sort of an updated version of the dysfunctional Conner clan from Roseanne.
