I was in high school when I discovered Joe Bob Briggs, the then host of TMC’s Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater. Beginning in 1986, Joe Bob Briggs — dressed as a cowboy right off the screen — introduced viewers to films running the gamut from bad to worse. There were b-movies, cult classics, horror films, exploitation films, and movies that were just plain bad, but regardless of how terrible the movie might be, Briggs simultaneously praised and playfully poked them.
After a ten year run, Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater was cancelled and morphed into MonsterVision, which ran an additional four years on TNT. And while Briggs has remained busy (mostly writing) over the past two decades, his career experienced a recent resurgence after his thirteen-movie marathon The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs aired on Shudder (a horror-themed streaming service) in the summer of 2018. Response to the marathon was so positive that Briggs performed two additional specials (Dinners of Death over Thanksgiving and A Very Joe Bob Christmas) before Shudder signed him for an entire season’s worth of movie nights, a wise decision that introduced an army of new fans to Briggs’ humor and film knowledge while rekindling his original fan base (and, no doubt, adding a lot of Shudder subscribers in the process).
In How Rednecks Saved Hollywood, a one-man comedy lecture, Joe Bob Briggs stands before live crowds and, with some help from maps, movie posters, and lots of film clips, explains how a group of Scottish rednecks from Cumberland, England ended up in the Appalachian mountains, shaping the face of Hollywood in the process. Briggs performed his show in Oklahoma City at Rodeo Cinema last Sunday (November 10).
When you first see him, it’s easy to forget that underneath Joe Bob’s dyed-black hair and bolo tie is John Bloom, Vanderbilt University graduate and author of nine books with a long list of writing accolades. When he speaks about films, even ones as silly as 1967’s Hillbillys in a Haunted House, the words that come out are a combination of Bloom’s deep knowledge of films many people have never heard of mixed with Brigg’s “good ol’ boy” persona. For the most part this allows Briggs to both critique and champion films, although certain ones (1938’s Child Bride) get the needling they deserve.
How Rednecks Saved Hollywood is broken down into different “redneck rules,” which conveniently coincide with eras of films. During the performance’s nearly 2 1/2 hour run time, Briggs covered everything from Hicksploitation films to movies about bootlegging and hillbilly musicals. The show ends with longer looks at a few films, including Deliverance, Sling Blade, and Smokey and the Bandit.
And while the crash course in redneck cinema was as educational as it was entertaining, there’s no question that the star of the night was Briggs himself. Throughout the evening, Briggs was as entertaining as informative, and delivered with much more energy than his television performances. During the pre-show meet and greet, Briggs was on hand signing items and taking snapshots with fans. As each person came through the line, he asked them their name and where they were from — and not in a fake Hollywood way. They might be able to take the rednecks out of Hollywood someday, but they’ll never be able to take the south out of Joe Bob Briggs.
Link: JoeBobBriggs.net