In late 2022, comedian Bill Engvall—best known for his “Here’s your sign” jokes, and for being part of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour—announced his retirement.
That lasted about two years. Engvall is back onstage with his unique brand of clean, redneck-tinged humor, and at 8 p.m., Friday, Feb. 21, the comedian will bring “Here’s your sign” jokes and more to The Show at the Agua Caliente Rancho Mirage.
During a recent phone interview, Engvall admitted that his retirement announcement sort of resembled a “Here’s your sign” moment.
“In hindsight, I probably should have just taken a break and not made a big announcement,” Engvall said. “I did get bored. I found that I really missed the performing. I missed the fans, and I missed the venues I get to go to, like Agua Caliente there. I think what happened was I just got where I was doing too many shows. I’ve been doing this for almost 45 years, and I think I just kind of got burnt.
“By the way, musicians and comedians are really the only people who ever come out of retirement. You never hear about the 65-year-old garbage man who says, ‘I just missed it.’”
He said he and his wife, Gail, spent a lot of time together and played a fair amount of golf.
“When you both suck, it’s fun, but when one starts getting better, then it’s not so much fun,” Engvall said. “I’m not kidding you: In 12 months, my wife got three hole-in-ones. The first one was all like, ‘Hey, that’s great; we’ll go to the bar. We’ll celebrate.’ Then she got another one, and I’m like, ‘All right, you really got it going on,’ but when the third one hit, I called my agent and said, ‘Get me back out on the road.’
“It sounds hokey, but I really did miss it. I missed the juice of walking onstage. I’m just doing a real limited tour, maybe 20 to 25 shows a year, so that it’s not too much, and it still stays fun.”
Engvall said his current standup routine will satisfy fans of his famous material.
“It’s going to be a mixture of new material and some of the classic ones that people liked, because I always figured if we went to see Aerosmith on the way over, not one of us is going to go, ‘I hope they play all new stuff,’” he said. “It’s going to be a blast, and the audience won’t know any difference, even though I tell them, ‘Hey, if I seem like I’m stumbling around a little bit, just hang with me.’ As soon as you get that first laugh, you kind of settle in.”
Beyond golf, Engvall’s short-lived retirement included volunteering fails and precious moments with his grandchildren.
“I never really found anything that just turned me on,” Engvall said. “I thought maybe I’ll volunteer, but we spend half the year in Scottsdale (Ariz.) and half the year in Park City, Utah, so it’s hard to get into a volunteering position when you’re like, ‘Hey, I would love to help you out, but we’re leaving in two weeks.’ We’ve got the grandkids now, which is great. That takes up a lot of our time when we go see them up in Denver. I think what we stumbled on here is the perfect existence: I’ll still get to play golf and still go see my grandkids, and I’ll still get to come out on the road and do shows for people.”
The comedian’s material has changed with age, but clean, self-deprecating humor about family life will always be a constant in Engvall’s act.
“As I’ve gotten older, one of the bits I’m working on is that I really worry about humanity,” he said. “I was scrolling through my social media, and some guy posted, ‘Did you know that the word dog spelled backwards is god?’ And he did an emoji of a mind blown. I go, ‘Is this it? Is this what we’re doing? This is our peak?’ That, and the fact that apparently, we can’t be sold something unless there’s some kind of animated cartoon character. We’ve got a lizard that sells us insurance. We’ve got a walking, talking box that tells me when to get my colon checked, and a ball of snot that tells me what I need to buy cough medicine. What happened to us? I blame it on the breakfast-cereal people. They made it OK for us to associate Captain Crunch and Count Chocula with a sugar buzz that would blow most of the endorphins out the back of our head.”
Another Engvall comedy constant is relatability.
“One of the big lessons I learned from Blue Collar was you’ve got to keep the material relatable to the audience,” Engvall said. “If all of a sudden, I go, ‘We made $15 million on this; I guess my tax bracket is going up,’ they don’t want to hear that. They want to know you’re just like they are, and that’s been one of the keys to my success. … I say this with all due humility: I’m one of those guys you could see sitting at a bar or sitting at a restaurant, and people will feel free to walk over and say, ‘Hey, how are you doing, man? Love your stuff.’ The Blue Collar guys and I never took for granted where our bread was buttered, and it’s with the fans. We actually had talked about it—that when fans stop feeling like you’re one of them, they’re going to go find somebody else.”
“One of the big lessons I learned from Blue Collar was you’ve got to keep the material relatable to the audience. If all of a sudden, I go, ‘We made $15 million on this; I guess my tax bracket is going up,’ they don’t want to hear that.”
Bill Engvall
While Engvall praises modern comics and their digital resources, he questions their staying power.
“God bless Nate Bargatze and Matt Rife,” Engvall said. “What I wouldn’t have given to have YouTube when we were coming up. The way you got known when I was coming up was you just banged it on the road for years, and hopefully you got a following. Nothing against these guys—they’re using the tools that are available to them—but … they get so big, so fast, is there any staying power? Can you keep doing this for 40 years? Some of them will. There are some really good comedians out there.”
Engvall compared viral comedians to one-hit wonder bands and musicians.
“You could put a video together in your basement, but can you back it up?” Engvall said. “Somebody gets one hit on YouTube or TikTok or whatever, but what do you have to follow that up with? I know that when I go onstage, I have a new joke that’s great, but also, I can back it up with 75 to 90 more minutes of just-as-good stuff. I remember one time, years ago, my little sister wanted to go see John Denver. The opening act was Starland Vocal Band. Their big hit was ‘Afternoon Delight,’ and they must have played it five times.”
Engvall also issued a warning regarding comedy’s newest online trend: forced crowd work. Because comedians have gained viral attention due to short clips of them interacting with the audience, some comedians have started fishing for audience interjections during their act.
“Whatever you have to do to get your name going,” Engvall said. “Whether I agree with it or not is irrelevant. I just feel like if I was an audience member, and I paid 40 to 50 bucks a ticket to come watch your comedy show, I don’t want to sit there and watch you talk to a guy. I don’t care about that guy. It’s also a can of worms, and if you open it, you’d better be careful, because there are people out in that audience who are funnier than you. If you happen to land on that guy who’s hip and funny, and you look like an idiot, you know you’re done.”
BilBill Engvall will perform at 8 p.m., Friday, Feb. 21, at The Show at Agua Caliente Rancho Mirage, at 32250 Bob Hope Drive, in Rancho Mirage. Tickets are $84.50 to $199.50. For tickets or more information, call 800-514-3849, or visit aguacalientecasinos.com.
