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We have the experience and pleasure of providing comedian T. Bubba Bechtol for special events. Whether determined by the pound or in the number of times he's tickled America's funny bone over the past few months when laughter was most needed, comedian T. Bubba has proven to be worth his weight in gold. This larger than life comedian has emerged at the ideal time with his personal credo that laughter brings healing. His good natured jabs on the bubbas of America leaves the finger he's pointing allowing for three more aimed back at himself. "I am the source of most of my material," T. Bubba recently told a reporter. "I'm a professional people-watcher, and a great observer of the world, and what makes it turn. My spin is usually to find the humor in the simple everyday things that most people take at only face value. There's usually a laugh right below the surface in any given thing that happens in life if you just have the insight to find it." And it's clean, not a foul word in the hour and a half one man show, unusual nowadays! |
An unashamed life-long patriot, Bubba turned his sights on the political arena, which led to a brief career in politics. In the '80s he moved to D.C. to join the Reagan White House as a fundraiser director. He worked for two years in the camp as a speechwriter, opting to become a candidate for Congress in Florida's Congressional District 1. Had he won, America might have lost out on a truly great comedic talent.
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"Everyone had a great time and a good laugh. People in our office are still talking about how much fun they had listening to you. The things you say are so real life that everyone can relate.! "
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"You kept your promise....and had them rolling in the aisles. You truly deserved the standing ovations that you received throughout the evening."
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“Being Bubba is like being Jewish, it is both a culture and a religion. This line totally explained Bubba. The rest was pure Bubba at his best."
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“If you listen carefully you will hear a real message in almost every one liner. T. Bubba's comedy is a mix of the old and new that kept the theater laughing from start to finish. It was Will Rogers on speed!"
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What’s a Bubba?
According to MCA Nashville comic/recording artist T. Bubba, “Bubba is not a Redneck.”
“Bubba is a guy whose ancestors were probably Rednecks, but he’s gone on to Junior College, works in a bank and likes to hunt and fish on the weekends,” Bechtol observes. “He wears the uniform of the South, but it’s not T-shirts and overalls, like on ‘Hee Haw’. He’s probably wearing a white, starched Oxford-cloth shirt with a stiff collar, a blue blazer, khaki pants, penny loafers and no socks, like I do. He’s a loveable ‘galoot,’ that big, roly-poly kind of guy with a heart of gold that’s in your family. And he’s not just from the South. John Wayne was the biggest Bubba that ever lived. John Belushi. John Candy. John Goodman is now carrying the banner for Bubbas everywhere.”
And so is T. Bubba.
The comic from Pensacola, Fla. has become one of the nation’s funniest observers of basic Bubba nature simply by calling it like he sees it. Whether it’s entertaining audiences on television talk shows, performing as an opening act in concert halls or doing his standup routine at the Grand Ole Opry, T. Bubba has earned a reputation as a down-to-earth humorist whose quick wit crosses all regional, gender, generational and class lines. His debut CD on MCA Nashville, I’m Confused , (recorded live at the Pensacola Little Theater during two sold-out nights in July 2001) captures his ability to meld a Southern accent with humorous insights that make everyone – regardless of where they call home -- laugh. T. Bubba’s routine draws as much from the comedic insights of Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Cosby as Minnie Pearl.
On Bill Clinton: “He was no Bubba. Clinton jogged. He paid $200 for a haircut. He showed up at the White House with a cat. Bubba don’t do that.”
On Ronald Reagan: “Now Reagan was a Bubba. When Moammar Khaddafi got out of hand, he didn’t just bomb his airbase. He bombed his house.”
On diets: “The doctor put me on a diet two months ago. It didn’t have much food in it, so I had to go on two diets to get enough to eat.”
On sushi: “I like my sushi fried!”
On SEC football: “People say football is a religion here. Naw, it’s way more important than that.”
On exercise: “I jogged once. April 4, 1984. Jogged a half-mile. It was the worst three hours of my life.”
On political correctness: “PC is choking me to death. I went to the beach and stepped on a Portuguese Person-O-War.”
T. Bubba started out in life as James Terryl Bechtol, a baby boomer raised in the tiny fishing village of Fountainbleau in the heart of Mississippi’s Cajun country. “We lived so far in the woods we had to walk towards town to hunt,” he quips. His mother, a Marine veteran, provided tough love, guidance and a sense of humor. His grandfather, a circuit-riding Southern Baptist minister, exposed Bechtol to oral tradition. At 10, Bechtol was preaching himself at tent revivals up and down the Gulf Coast. “I broke away from that once I discovered cheerleaders,” he says.
A star athlete in his high school years, Bechtol received a scholarship to play football at Perkinston Junior College in Wiggins, Mississippi. After an injury, he transferred to the University of Southern Mississippi his junior year. However, he says there was one course he was looking for that wasn’t in the curriculum catalog: “How to make money.”
Bechtol left formal education to pursue a career in direct sales. He found his natural sense of humor gave him the ability to talk to anybody about anything, whether it was selling home fire alarm systems or tanning beds. (Yes, Bechtol was the guy who first imported Wolf Tanning Systems from Germany to the South). His career skyrocketed, enabling the young entrepreneur to sell his business and retire by his 30th birthday. Along the way, he built a national network of contacts that remembered his leadership skills as well as his laughs. In 1980, he was elected President of the United States Jaycees, the first Southerner to hold the job in decades.
The stint led to a brief career in politics. In the ‘80s, Bechtol moved to Washington D.C. to join the Ronald Reagan camp as a fundraising director. He worked for two years in the Reagan White House as a speechwriter, and then ran for office himself as a candidate for congressman in Florida’s Congressional District 1. He won the primary, but lost the general election.
Looking at the crossroads of his future, Bechtol heard his phone start to ring. People were calling to see if he would serve as a speaker at various functions. Soon, the one-time salesman-turned-politician found himself in high demand as a motivational speaker at conferences, conventions, and industrial events. One quality made him stand out from most on the rubber-chicken-dinner circuit: Bechtol was funny. Side-splittingly funny.
At this time, he began reflecting on a job he had as a teenager he calls “the greatest influence on my comedy career.” In those summers back on the Gulf Coast, Bechtol worked as a driver for the brashly-outrageous standup comic “Brother” Dave Gardner. Gardner, whose regional schtick included jokes about RC Colas and Moon Pies, had gone from regional clubs to frequent appearances on “The Tonight Show.” Bechtol spent a great deal of time with the comedian, driving him around town during gigs in Biloxi.
“What makes people laugh has fascinated me my whole life,” he says. “I was buying comedy tapes when kids my age were buying music. Brother Dave made me realize I could do it as a profession.”
On the speaking circuit, Bechtol developed a friendship with another humorist, syndicated columnist Lewis Grizzard. Taken with Bechtol’s bluntly-transparent view of life, Grizzard began writing about “T. Bubba” in his books and columns in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. When Grizzard’s health problems became severe, he asked Bechtol to serve as a substitute for personal appearances he was not able to make. “He was a huge influence on me,” Bechtol says of the late writer. “He gave us all permission to be smart – and be Southern.”
With a growing reputation as a standup comic, Bechtol was taken under the wing of Grizzard’s management company, which began booking him on comedy dates. He was spotted by former talk show hosts Charlie Chase and Lorianne Crook, who booked him on The Nashville Network’s “Music City Tonight.” In his first year on the program, Bechtol appeared more than two dozen times and became immensely popular with country music audiences. Impressed with his talents, Opryland Productions recruited Bechtol to host a musical review called “Boots, Boogie & Blues” at the Governor’s Theater in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. He made his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry on Oct. 24, 1998, and has performed regularly ever since.
In the summer of 2001, Bechtol became one of the few standup comics in the nation to receive a major recording contract when he was signed to MCA Nashville.
Though he still calls Pensacola home and loves living “30 yards from the Gulf of Mexico,” Bechtol is gearing up for a very busy year. Television and personal appearances will keep him on the road much of the time, as well as an upcoming tour of radio stations across the country. He calls his act “Understanding Bubba.”
What does he consider the key to his appeal?
“I can be funny without having to use words or actions other comics resort to,” he says. “You can repeat my jokes at work on Monday in front of anyone, even at church. Besides, I’ve had to keep my comedy clean, because my momma’s still alive. If I didn’t, she’d whoop me good still today!”
Comedian T. Bubba Bechtol is available for appearances at your next corporate event or conference. Contact us today to get started.