"Whoop it up with Jackass star Johnny Knoxville from the Hollywood hills and his first cousin—musical misfit Roger Alan Wade—in Chattanooga, TN, on this weekly trans-continental hoedown. It's one hell raisin' hour of hot pickin', finger sniffin', frog stickin' Outlaw mayhem!"
I have about an hour commute each way between home and work, but I don't mind the drive. It is mostly open-country, state route driving between West Chicago and Woodstock, Illinois. Pleasant enough most of the time to simply drive along with the windows down whenever the weather is nice enough. When the open road does not satisfy my mind, I have satellite radio to keep me entertained. I usually listen to SiriusXM's "Outlaw Country" station or "Willie Nelson's Roadhouse" in the mornings to soothe my nerves, as I am not a morning person.
In 2010 I found myself working a twelve-hour shift every other Saturday. Upon starting my way home one Saturday around 7PM, I discovered on the "Outlaw Country" channel, a radio show in progress co-hosted by Johnny Knoxville of MTV's Jackass fame and his cousin, country music singer-songwriter Rodger Alan Wade. I listened to their program, The Big Ass Happy Family Jubilee, all the way home, laughing my ass off most of the way.
The Big Ass Happy Family Jubilee follows a fairly typical FM radio program format. Knoxville and Wade engage in some witty banter for a bit and then play a few songs before returning for another bit of witty banter. It is this banter that is really the entertainment value of the show. The most obvious explanation would be, though I cannot confirm it, that Knoxville and Wade seem, baked off their asses. They are giggling and cracking up at each other chronically thoroughout the show as they attempt to adhere to each show's theme. The charm of the show is the natural familiar interaction between two cousins who share a well-developed and filthy-minded sense of humor.
Nearly every show has some sort of a theme, usually a dedication or tribute to something or someone bizarre, absurd, or just downright unconventional. Thorough out the show Knoxville and Wade crack each other up relating the details that their "research department" dug up about the featured dedication with plenty of blue humor and often segue into several obscure or off-the-wall news story or two, the sort that might be read in the Weekly World News. Some of my favorite tributes on The Big Ass Happy Family Jubilee have been to the Whiz-Bang Chicken Plucking Machine, the loosingest horse in racing history, the extremely raunchy early delta blues guitarist Bo Carter, and a stuttering pitch-man named DJ Showtime.
DJ Showtime is one of the few "regulars" on The Big Ass Family Jubilee. He often enough makes guest call-ins to converse with Wade and Knoxville on the show's topic and will make a plug for some aluminum siding company or some such thing. Whether or not a siding company is actually paying a man with a stutter to make a radio plug is beyond me! Apparently, despite his serious speech impairment, Showtime does all right. Showtime's stammer was the result of a stroke brought on by methamphetamine use, but he is clean and sober now.
Rodger Alan Wade is a bonafide country singer-songwriter of some renown. The opening segment of the show features Wade singing the show's self-titled theme song. Midway through every episode, usually after the second stretch of music, Wade plays guitar and sings a song of his own composition. He always makes a point of plugging whichever latest album that the song he is singing is off of, "which can be purchased wherever music can be purchased online."
Rodger Alan Wade also leads the "Joke-Time" segment in which Rodger Alan Wade implores us in song to, "Keep on the funny side of life." Then Wade tells a pretty dog-gone bad joke. The joke will tend to be a bit long winded and will just as likely be not-all-that-funny as it is tasteless. Frequent subjects of "Joke-Time" include, "The Two Old Whores From England" and "The Guy With A Mustache." Hell, some of the jokes don't make a lick of sense, but Wade and Knoxville are in stitches just in telling it, which is just infectious as hell, like getting a contact high through the radio. Then they play some more music.
The music that they play on The Big Ass Happy Family Jubilee is really not all that different from the typical programming on SiriusXM's "Outlaw Country" channel. They play a lot of Waylon Jennings and Rodger Miller and the like, but they will also throw in some more obscure and diverse tunes as well such as Robert Johnson, Barbra Streisand or The Pogues if the tune fits in well with the theme of the show.
Besides Knoxville and Wade and their engineer Scott Crynock, The Big Ass Family Jubilee's only other regular contributor is Wade's and Knoxville's nephew. This nephew is featured in the segment called "Is That a Titmouse, Bob?" Wade makes a bunch of animal noises and Knoxville makes a moose call and then Wade asks, "Is that a titmouse, Bob?" To which, the young nephew, who I do not think is really named Bob at all, replies, "No, that was a white speckled egg-snatcher," or some such thing. Then Wade and Knoxville whoop and holler. I really don't understand this segment, what its origins are, or how it evolved, yet I find it amusing. This usually occurs towards the end of the episode which by then has devolved from the theme into wherever Knoxville’s and Wade’s minds take their conversations.
Not every one of The Big Ass Happy Family Jubilee's episodes are all stoner humor and dick jokes. Following Jackass star Ryan Dunn's death in a car accident, Wade and Knoxville produced a tribute to their friend's life featuring Wade playing a song that he and Dunn co-wrote called "Shrooms and Moonshine" and a few X-rated David Allan Coe songs that Dunn was fond of. In other episodes, Wade and Knoxville give truly moving memorials to other people, often in country music, who have recently passed on. These uncommon, yet touching moments, really are heartfelt and reveal our hosts to be compassionate people with deep roots in the entertainment community.
The Big Ass Family Jubilee is some funny-ass shit. Unfortunately, SiriumXM does not keep an episode guide for the show. It would be be great to have had a complete listing to post, but Johnny Knoxville does have an incomplete listing of the episodes from late 2011 on his website, Dickhouse.tv. Each one of the episodes listed on that website has a synopsis, a podcast of the talking content, and a track listing of each song played in that episode. Oddly enough, none of the "Is that a titmouse, Bob?" segments seem to have been included in any of the available podcasts. Check it out on Dickhouse.tv. If you happen to own a SiruisXM subscription, check out the Big Ass Happy Family Jubilee Saturday night at 8:00pm EST or catch a re-play on Monday at 12:00pm EST, Wednesday at 8:00pm EST or Fridays at 12:00am EST.
for An August FactQuest
LINKS!
http://www.siriusxm.com/outlawcountry
http://www.dickhouse.tv/dickhouse/the-big-ass-happy-family-jubilee/
http://www.dickhouse.tv/dickhouse/2011/10/the-big-ass-happy-family-jubilee-now-on-facebook.html
http://www.dickhouse.tv/dickhouse/2011/07/the-big-ass-happy-family-jubilees-tribute-to-ryan-dunn.html
http://www.whosay.com/thebigasshappyfamilyjubilee