Nonetheless, Ron White, also known by his prankster alias Tater Salad, became a household name while touring with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, the four-man comedy troupe favored by roughnecks and city slickers alike. Alongside Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvoll, and Dan Whitney (Larry the Cable Guy), the finely dressed White was the one famous for fumigating the stage with his habitual cigar.
Now a celebrated stand-up comedian, White is an observational funnyman with a knack for storytelling. But before the Blue Collar Comedy Tour became his springboard for success, it wasn't always that way.
"I knew I was good at one thing, but I couldn't pinpoint it," White said. "I was a no-trick-pony-looking-for-one-trick. I was from a little biddy town, dirt streets to this day, 700 people, a grain elevator, a traffic light, and a hamburger joint. Never really got praised for my smartass-ness."
Instead, his "smartass-ness" supposedly earned him the Tater Salad moniker at age 17. One night after being arrested for driving down the sidewalk under the influence, his lifelong neighbor who was also his local police officer arrested him. His neighbor asked if he had any aliases
White replied, "Yeah, they call me Tater Salad."
Early in his career White tried selling windows for awhile. Then after a stint in the Navy, and a stint with drug abuse, White found himself before the largest crowds of his life: the students of local middle and high schools. There he would tell his life story — and pinpoint his "one thing" — while warning youngsters about the dangers of substance abuse."The problem was, principals would pull me aside after my presentation and tell me, ‘We don't think drug abuse should be so hilarious.'"
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Ron White: Behavioral Problems Tour
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On their advice, he took the hilarity of his autobiography to the local comedy club. He found he was incredibly comfortable before a crowd after so many school presentations. He bounced around for years in his old Nissan pick-up, doing comedy gigs hither and yon, building a reputation, until one day his longtime friend and fellow comedian Jeff Foxworthy gave him a call. Foxworthy invited him to tour.
The Blue Collar Comedy Tour ended up being a flagrant success: the troupe performed to sold-out crowds in more than 90 cities, grossing 15 million dollars, and the recording of their tour, when televised on Comedy Central in 2003, earned the highest ratings in the channel's history.
"Even then, I always did my cleanest stuff," says White about his part on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.
Now touring on his own, his "Behavioral Problems Tour" ranked the number one stand-up performance in 2009 in terms of viewers, with 3.3 million people tuning in to watch it when it debuted on Comedy Central last April.
Ron White will be performing his "Behavioral Problems Tour" at the DeVos Performance Hall on April 23.
