The Wrestling Episode is our cleverly-named feature wherein we watch non-wrestling shows with wrestling episodes and try to figure out what the hell’s going on in them. You’d be surprised how many there are. You can watch the show via Amazon here. If you have any suggestions on shows that need to be featured in The Wrestling Episode, let us know in our comments section below.
I’ve Never Heard Of The Jeff Foxworthy Show. What Is It?
Back in the glorious 1990s, any comedian with a hook and feathered hair could get their own sitcom. Few at the time were bigger than Jeff Foxworthy, who cut into that crucial Ray Stevens audience with his “you might be a redneck if” questionnaire. You see, there’s stuff you can do, and if you do it, you might be a redneck. You aren’t necessarily a redneck, but you might be.
Foxworthy started making Seinfeld dough from a middle-American audience who didn’t follow the New York and LA club scenes, so ABC was like, “here, have a show.” Then they were like, “we think your act is ‘too southern,’ so we’re gonna shy away from the redneck stuff and have your show take place in Indiana.” It was canceled after one season. NBC picked up the show for season 2, added another kid and moved the show to Georgia. Think Home Improvement if you replaced “tools” with “deciding whether or not someone’s a redneck.” It was canceled after one season, again.
And There’s A Wrestling Episode?
There is, and it joins Baywatch and Charmed in my favorite genre of wrestling episode: WCW stars being shoehorned into shows whether they belong or not. Can’t wait until we get to Friends and ‘The One With The Misfits In Action.’
Before we get too far into this, it’s important to note that The Jeff Foxworthy Show is more in the King of Queens style than Seinfeld, mostly meaning it’s a show about a stupid man-child husband who can’t take care of or make decisions for himself. He decides to do something to make himself happy, but then his wife finds out and shits all over him about it. So then, to prove he isn’t whipped (or whatever), he does what he wants anyway. Trouble ensues, and the show ends with the wife finger-wagging so hard she’s about to break her wrist. You’ve seen that episode of Sitcom Show at least 50 times.
So let’s apply that plot to this episode, ‘Wrestling Opera.’ With a title like that, I bet you can’t tell where it’s going!
Jeff and his friends want to go to the upcoming wrestling event in Atlanta, “Slam-bo-ree.” It’s spelled like that because despite Slamboree being a real, recurring WCW wrestling show and WCW stars appearing on the episode, I don’t think anyone thought to tell the people who wrote The Jeff Foxworthy Show. They entrust Jeff’s stupid friend Bill Engvall to get the tickets — the “here’s your sign” guy, bringing together two of the four Blue Collar Comedy infinity stones — and he accidentally buys Sally Jessy Raphael tickets from a scalper.
He’s sad to tell his oldest son, ghost-pressing youth Haley Joel Osment, that he’s not taking him to wrestling. As it turns out, HJO was supposed to go on a class field trip to the opera (?) that night anyway, and much to the delight of Jeff’s wife who hates everything but deeply cares about her family, Jeff can now take him THERE instead of wrestling. I should probably note the star power of the Foxworthy family here, as in addition to Jeff and the Secondhand Lion of Bulgaria Haley Joel, Jeff is married to third ranked Cusack sibling Anne and has a second son played by The Littlest Vampire Jonathan Lipnicki. A real murderer’s row.
If you ever wanted to see Haley Joel Osment throw a missile dropkick, here you go.
He’s doing it because it’s one of the Macho Man Randy Savage’s signature moves (?), which you can tell from the first lines. “‘Start praying, sucker!’ That’s what Macho Man says before he comes flying off the ropes for a missile dropkick! YAAAA!” So much wrong with that. I bet Haley Joel also likes it when Hulk Hogan yells “arrivederci, dorky!” before hitting a Blue Thunder Bomb. One of the b-plots of the episode is Mother Foxworthy feeling like her kids are growing up too fast and don’t need her anymore, so she responds with, “I’m really interested in this Macho missile kick thing. Is it good or bad?” I’m interested in hearing more about it too, lady.
They Totally Go To Wrestling Anyway, Right
When it turns out Jeff actually can get Slam-bo-ree tickets and decides to take his son to the show without his wife knowing (and instructs him to lie about it so they don’t get caught), comic mischief abounds.
The most notable thing about “Slam-bo-ree” is that it appears to be happening in that same high school lobby the World Wrestling Federation ran on That ’70s Show. The second most notable thing is that despite the episode featuring an actual pro wrestling legend (with a dope missile dropkick), the wrestler they want to see at Slam-bo-ree is “Spiderhead.” This 1980s VHS box art shot between his legs is the only time we see him. Jeff wistfully remembers, “Rumblethon ’93, that’s when Spiderhead spit on Miss Elizabeth!” I think it’s so much weirder when shows cram the real wrestling stuff and the made up wrestling stuff together instead of just picking one or the other.
Spiderhead’s opponent, possibly because of that spitting incident from a few years earlier, is the nWo’s Macho Man Randy Savage. Start praying, sucker!
Check out that Slam-bo-ree sign! They spared no expense!
Jeff’s friends heckle the Macho Man, because you might be a redneck if you heckle at wrestling shows, and Macho (being of sound mind) assumes Jeff did it. That gives us this glorious looping GIF documenting the time Savage threatened to give these hands to Handy Smurf and ended up eating his business card.
Does The Macho Man Win?
No idea. We never see it. This is as much wrestling as we get. There IS one more wrestling character cameo, though …
Is It Miss Elizabeth, Covered In Spittle?
Even better!
Calling the action for some reason is Eric Bischoff, wearing his signature leather jacket and nWo shirt. I don’t know why he’s doing live-PA commentary for this local ripoff version of Slamboree, but I’m gonna imagine The Jeff Foxworthy Show takes place in a world where WCW trusted Sting and quickly banished the nWo, forcing them to run local shows around Atlanta with bootleg WCW pay-per-view names in shame. Spiderhead is just Buff Bagwell with some Party City cobwebs on his head.
How Does The Mom Find Out What They Did?
Hey, don’t get ahead of me.
But yeah, no, a couple of days later Fox Mom is going through her son’s backpack and finds a failed pop quiz about the opera. “Did you take him to that wrestling game?” she asks, in the same tone Benjamin Bratt asks Halle Berry Catwoman about her “slam dunk shot.” The jig is up, and Mother is very disappointed in the both of them. She already feels like she’s not needed, and now she’s being outright lied to by her family. lol what a shrew am i right guys
This is made even worse for her by another b-story involving her other son, Jonathan Lipnicki, deciding to get married to a neighbor girl and moving her into the Foxworthy home. He’s like, six at best. Lipnicki is more savage than Randy when it comes to walking on screen and saying some cute shit, though. We’re talking prime “human head weighs eight pounds” Jerry Maguire Lipnicki here.
So They Get Divorced And That’s The End Of The Show
Not quite. Foxworthy sits down with Haley Joel Osment and tells him what his mom’s going through, and they learn a Very Special Lesson™. Foxy wants to read his kid a bed time story, 9-year old Osment is like, “it’s cool, I’m probably fine,” and then Foxworthy makes sad faces until he agrees. Brother Foxworthy out here abusing emotional leverage like Larry the Cable Guy abuses Prilosec.
Oh, and they agree to ACTUALLY go to the opera. And instead of the lesson being “trying new things can be fun and culture can make you smarter,” they take Bill Engvall and Additional Redneck Friend and they act like total turds about it. The bit ends with them being kicked out for screaming threats at the opera singers — like in wrestling! — and Engvall stashing his beer in a lady’s hat.
So, What Have We Learned?
- if you would rather go to a wrestling show than the opera, you might be a redneck
- if you pull your kid out of class trips to go to Slamboree and it’s not even actual Slamboree, you might be a redneck
- if your kid gets married when he’s six years old, you might be a redneck
- Brandon, did you order the The Jeff Foxworthy Show complete series on DVD just to get clear screencaps of one wrestling episode? “Nope! These are actually drawings, I’m just really good.” Here’s your sign.
- git ‘er done
