Jeff Foxworthy pulls back the curtain on comedy’s creative process for what could be his last special

For what he says may be his last stand-up special, comedy icon Jeff Foxworthy is bringing back some of the material audiences know best while showing fans a side of his act they have never seen.

Foxworthy’s new streaming special, “The Joke’s On Me,” now available on Fox Nation, is not a traditional hour of stand-up. The veteran comedian told Fox News Digital he wanted the project to pull back the curtain on the craft, following him as he tests jokes in clubs and showing the work that goes into composing an hour of comedy.

Talking to “Fox & Friends” on Monday, the comic hinted about his new special’s possible finality: “I’m not saying I would quit doing stand-up. It’s just a lot of work to do a special. And I’d rather hang out with my grandkids.”

MARK NORMAND SAYS LATE NIGHT IS ‘DYING’ — HOW THE STAND-UP COMIC KEEPS UP IN A CHANGING COMEDY SCENE

A love letter to stand-up

The legendary comic said he wasn’t interested in doing another special unless he could showcase the intensive process that results in the polished hour audiences see on television. He said he was shocked when Fox Nation agreed and delighted to bring his act back to smaller clubs.

“There’s just something about that beer smell. I spent so many years in them,” Foxworthy said. “And it’s when I’m working on new stuff — I never do it in a big place. It’s always a little place. Because stand-up is intimate.”

He told Fox News Digital he loves receiving live feedback from spectators. They seemed to have fun shaping his routine, too.

“I want the audience actively involved in it,” Foxworthy said. “I’m talking to them, ‘Is that funny? Is it not funny?’ And I’ve had a lot of people that were there for one of those nights that said later, ‘This was probably my favorite night of stand-up, because I got to be a part of it.'”

“I wasn’t just receiving,” he continued. “I’m watching you thinking, ‘How do I make this better?'”

The idea came to him while watching a Beatles documentary that showed the band working through songs before performing them. Rather than cheapening the reveal of the final product, Foxworthy found that following the creative evolution actually “enriched it.”

“I got teary-eyed,” he said, and realized he had never seen something like it in the realm of comedy, which takes more work than many viewers realize. He wanted to show “what goes on behind the curtain,” warts and all.

“I have loved this craft so much. I want this to be a love letter to stand-up comics,” he said.

FROM SOUTHERN CLUBS TO NETFLIX: HOW CLEAN COMIC DERRICK STROUP IS STOPPING AUDIENCES IN THEIR TRACKS

A shiny new special starts with writing

The comedic process is less glamorous than it may seem, according to Foxworthy.

“If you do it well, it looks like you just walked on stage and thought of it that day. Which works in the break room when you have shared experience and history with each other, but when you’re on stage, you’re in front of strangers.

“You don’t have that. You have to work it. You have to be efficient at it.”

The funnyman’s most famous joke helped him hone those skills.

Foxworthy is known for his “You might be a redneck if…” jokes, which have led to dozens of books and innumerable laughs. He estimates he has written more than 9,000 of them, he previously told Fox News.

“The redneck jokes helped me to be efficient as a writer because I had to create an entire joke in one sentence, because they were one-liners,” which Foxworthy described as a lost art.

They taught him which words are important and which are extraneous, helping him to hone his delivery, he said.

“It all starts with the writing, right? I never think about the performance part of it, but I always think about the writing part.”

JERRY SEINFELD REVEALS HOW ‘CLEAN’ COMEDY FORCES HIM TO BE A MORE ‘ELEGANT,’ FUNNIER WRITER

The punchline under your own roof

When it comes to ideation, Foxworthy said he finds material in his own backyard — or his living room, or his kitchen, or his bedroom.

He realized that if his own family said or did something peculiar others were likely thinking and doing the same things.

“We’re not as unique as we think we are,” he said, adding that he enjoys hearing from audiences who find his act relatable.

For Foxworthy, hearing audience members say, “It’s like you’ve been in our house!” is the highest compliment.

Over time, he’s tuned his brain to “grab” funny situations, which he jots down on a few notecards he keeps in his back pocket or in his phone.

He still writes all his material longhand, he told Fox News Digital, because “there’s something in the creative process.” He read long ago that you retain information better by writing it down than by typing it on a keyboard.

But what’s “fascinating” to Foxworthy is that, even after a storied career, he still can’t predict exactly what will land with an audience.

“I just trust the audience is right. They’re going to tell you what’s funny, and that’s part of what keeps it interesting, is trying to figure that out.”

WITH 10 KIDS AT HOME, COMEDIAN KOUNTRY WAYNE SAYS REAL LIFE WRITES THE JOKES

Finding common ground at center stage

Foxworthy has sold millions of copies of books, launched a board game called “Relative Insanity,” and hosted the beloved game show, “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” The proud Georgian is a veritable titan in his industry.

He has enjoyed the challenges of bringing his humor to different mediums, including television, radio, print and now streaming. But Foxworthy is clear about which passion is his greatest.

“If you ever held a gun in my head and said, ‘You can’t do but one thing,’ it would be stand-up.”

“It’s me and a microphone, and can I find these things that are relatable enough to this room full of strangers that they are going to have a good time, that they are going to laugh — hopefully at themselves before it’s over.”

That connection with audiences is what keeps Foxworthy in the game, he said, along with comedy’s power to remind people what they have in common.

“Through stand-up, I’ve been to just about every part of all 50 states. And what I’ve learned is, no matter where you sit politically, if you sat people down, and you just said, ‘Hey, what do you want out of life?’ I bet we would agree on 85% of the same things,” Foxworthy said.

He said Americans often focus too much on what divides them instead of the things they share.

“You don’t want everybody to be alike. How boring would that be? But hell, let’s celebrate the things that we have in common,” Foxworthy said.

“It’s that common humanity that makes us respond well in times of trouble, right?” he added. “And when you get to know people, even from different cultures of different cities and states, you find out, oh, hell, we’re not as different as I thought we were.”