Bill Engvall

William Ray Engvall Jr. (born July 27, 1957) was a U. S. Navy doctor, who then went into private practice. His mother Jeanne (née Shinkle; 1936–2023) was a histotechnologist and realtor. During his childhood, he lived in Winslow, Arizona and Dallas (middle school years). He went to Richardson High School in Richardson, Texas and chose to play trombone when the teacher gave him the choice of either that or tuba, leading him to join the jazz marching band, After graduating, he attended Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, intending to earn a bachelor's degree and become a teacher. While at Southwestern, he was a member of Xi chapter of the Kappa Alpha Order.

Bill Engvall left college without graduating and worked a series of jobs including being a tour guide at Inner Space Cavern in Georgetown and disc jockey in a Dallas nightclub. While being a club DJ, he ventured into stand-up comedy at amateur and open mic nights around Dallas.

Career

In 1990, Bill Engvall moved to Southern California to dedicate himself full-time to comedy. Early recognition came from hosting the cable show A Pair of Jokers with Rosie O'Donnell and an appearance on The Golden Palace where he played Blanche's son Matthew, a stockbroker turned aspiring comic. Other early appearances included hosting A&E Networks An Evening at The Improv as well as stand-up routines on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and the Late Show with David Letterman. Engvall released two more albums by the end of the 1990s: Dorkfish in 1998 and Here's Your Christmas Album in 1999. The latter featured narrations by Engvall, as well as songs he co-wrote sung by session musicians. One of the original compositions, "Here's Your Sign Christmas", also made the country charts in both 1998 and 1999. Like most of the albums before it, this included two tracks that merged stand-up lines from the album with a musical track. The title track featured guest vocals from T. Graham Brown, Tracy Byrd, and Neal McCoy, while "Shoulda Shut Up" featured Julie Reeves. He posted a video on YouTube confirming his retirement on December 30, 2022. His final performance was at the Eccles Theater in Salt Lake City the next day. In 2025, Engvall came out of retirement from comedy when he announced a show to be performed at the Treasure Island Resort and Casino in Welch, Minnesota, in September 2025.

Blue Collar Comedy Tour

In 2000, Jeff Foxworthy and Engvall launched the first of six Blue Collar Comedy Tours. The tours also featured Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy and were largely responsible for their breakout success. Each of the six years of the tour was very successful and spawned three films, a satellite radio show, and a television series titled Blue Collar TV on The WB Network.

The Bill Engvall Show

In 2007, Engvall starred in his own sitcom where he played himself as a family counselor. The show lasted three seasons.

Game show host

On June 6, 2011, Engvall took over as host of Lingo on Game Show Network. According to an interview in American Profile magazine, he said that he jumped at the chance to host the show, citing the fun that his friend Foxworthy had hosting Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Engvall had been a fan of Lingo when it aired a few years previously before ending in 2007, admitting that his wife always beat him to the answers. When asked if there were any plans to have buddies Foxworthy or Larry the Cable Guy appear on Lingo, he replied, "You never know! I would love to have them on the show because it would be a blast. I would really dig that."

Dancing with the Stars

In 2013, Engvall was announced as a contestant on the 17th season of Dancing with the Stars paired with professional dancer Emma Slater. In the first week, he danced a foxtrot and received a score of 18. The second week was Latin week and he received some higher scores from the judges receiving a 21 for his jive. In the third week of competition, he received his highest score of 24 with a Paso Doble to the Lone Ranger theme song. Throughout the rest of the show, the judges usually placed Engvall and Slater at the bottom of the leaderboard, but an enormous fan base kept them in the competition, resulting in higher-scoring contestants, e.g. Christina Milian, Snooki, Brant Daugherty, Elizabeth Berkley, and Leah Remini being voted out instead. On November 18, Engvall and Slater made it to the finals, along with Amber Riley, Jack Osbourne, and Corbin Bleu. The two finished in fourth place.

Comedic style

Engvall's most well-known routine is "here's your sign". In this routine, he offers "signs" to people whom he considers lacking in intellect. These jokes typically take the form of another person asking him a "stupid question", to which Engvall typically responds with a sarcastic response before telling the person "here's your sign". Other jokes in his routine include anecdotes about his life as a father and husband, typically in the form of self-deprecation. He is an ordained minister and graduated with a degree in Christian Studies from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix in 2021.

Discography

Albums

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

! rowspan="2" style="width:18em;"| Title

! rowspan="2" style="width:20em;"| Album details

! colspan="3"| Peak chart positions

! rowspan="2"| Certifications (sales thresholds)

|- style="font-size:smaller;"

! width="45"| U.S. Country

! width="45"| U.S.

! width="45"| U.S. Comedy

! scope="row"| Here's Your Sign[[#endnote A|[A]]]

Release date: August 28, 1995
Label: Warner Records

| 5

| 50

| —

U.S.: Platinum

! scope="row"| Dorkfish

Release date: October 13, 1998
Label: Warner Records

| 16

| 119

| —

U.S.: Gold

! scope="row"| Here's Your Christmas Album[[#endnote B|[B]]]

Release date: September 28, 1999
Label: Warner Records

| 44

| —

! scope="row"| Now That's Awesome

Release date: August 22, 2000
Label: BNA Records

| 14

| 133

| —

! scope="row"| Cheap Drunk: An Autobiography

Release date: September 24, 2002
Label: Warner Records

| 37

| —

! scope="row"| Here's Your Sign Reloaded

Release date: November 11, 2003
Label: Warner Records

| 37

| —

| 12

! scope="row"| A Decade of Laughs

Release date: October 26, 2004
Label: Warner Records

| 27

| 183

| 1 [[#endnote C|[C]]]

! scope="row"| 15° Off Cool

Release date: February 27, 2007
Label: Warner Records

| 16

| 93

| 1

! scope="row"| Aged and Confused

Release date: October 6, 2009
Label: Warner Records

| 29

| 159

| 2

! scope="row"| Them Idiots Whirled Tour (with Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy)

Release date: March 13, 2012
Label: Warner Records

| 45

| —

| 1

! scope="row"| Ultimate Laughs

Release date: March 9, 2014
Label: Warner Records

| —

| colspan="6" style="font-size:8pt"| "—" denotes releases that did not chart

;Notes

A ^ Here's Your Sign also peaked at number 3 on Top Heatseekers.
B ^ Here's Your Christmas Album also peaked at number 33 on Top Holiday Albums. It was re-released in 2005.
C ^ A Decade of Laughs was the second number 1 album upon the 2004 debut of the Billboard "Top Comedy Albums" chart, after Lord, I Apologize by fellow Blue Collar Comedy star Larry the Cable Guy.

Singles

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

! rowspan="2"| Year

! rowspan="2" style="width:24em;"| Single

! colspan="3"| Peak chart positions

! rowspan="2"| Album

|- style="font-size:smaller;"

! width="45"| U.S. Country

! width="45"| U.S.

! width="45"| CAN Country

| rowspan="2"| 1997

! scope="row"| "Here's Your Sign (Get the Picture)"

| 29

| 43

| 72

| rowspan="3" align="left"

! scope="row"| "Warning Signs"

| 56

| —

| rowspan="3"| 1998

! scope="row"| "It's Hard to Be a Parent"

| 72

| —

! scope="row"| "I'm a Cowboy"

| 60

| —

| rowspan="2" align="left"| Dorkfish

! scope="row"| "Here's Your Sign Christmas"

| 50

| —

| 1999

! scope="row"| "Hollywood Indian Guides"

| 72

| —

| align="left"

| rowspan="3"| 2000

! scope="row"| "Blue Collar Dollar"

| 63

| —

| align="left"| Blue Collar Comedy Tour

! scope="row"| "Now That's Awesome"

| 59

| —

| rowspan="2" align="left"| Now That's Awesome

! scope="row"| "Shoulda Shut Up"

| 71

| —

| colspan="6" style="font-size:8pt"| "—" denotes releases that did not chart

Other charted songs

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"

! rowspan="2"| Year

! rowspan="2" style="width:24em;"| Single

! colspan="1"| Peak positions

! rowspan="2"| Album

|- style="font-size:smaller;"

! width="65"| U.S. Country

| 1999

! scope="row"| "Here's Your Sign Christmas" (re-entry)

| align="center"| 39

| rowspan="2"| Here's Your Christmas Album

| 2000

! scope="row"| "Here's Your Sign Christmas" (re-entry)

| align="center"| 46

Music videos

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"

! Year

! style="width:24em;"| Video

! Director

| rowspan="2"| 1997

! scope="row"| "Here's Your Sign (Get the Picture)" (with Travis Tritt)

| Jim Yukich

! scope="row"| "Warning Signs" (with John Michael Montgomery)

| rowspan="4"| Peter Zavadil

| rowspan="2"| 1998

! scope="row"| "I'm a Cowboy"

! scope="row"| "Here's Your Sign Christmas"

| 1999

! scope="row"| "Hollywood Indian Guides"

| rowspan="2"| 2000

! scope="row"| "Blue Collar Dollar" (with Jeff Foxworthy and Marty Stuart)

| Thomas Smugala

! scope="row"| "Now That's Awesome"

| Peter Zavadil

List of works

Bibliography

You Don't Have to Be Dumb to Be Stupid (with David G. Brown); Longstreet Press, 1997;
Here's Your Sign!; Thomas Nelson, 2005;
Just a Guy: Notes from a Blue Collar Life; St. Martin's Press, 2007;

Filmography

{| class="wikitable"

!Year

!Title

!Role

!Notes

|1982

|Split Image

|Student

|1984

|Not for Publication

|Second photographer

|1990

|Designing Women

|Bill

|Episode: "Tough Enough"

|1992–1993

|Delta

|Buck Overton

|17 episodes

|1993

|The Golden Palace

|Matthew Devereaux

|Episode: "Say Goodbye, Rose"

|1996–1997

|The Jeff Foxworthy Show

|Bill Pelton

|14 episodes

|2003

|Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie

|2004

|Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again

|2004

|Here's Your Sign Live

|Live

|2004–2006

|Blue Collar TV

|Various

|47 episodes

|2005

|Mobile Home Disaster

|2006

|Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One For the Road

|2006–2009

|Country Fried Home Videos

|Host

|2007

|Family Guy

|Duke Dillon (voice)

|Episode: "Boys Do Cry"

|2007

|Delta Farce

|Bill Little

|2007–2009

|The Bill Engvall Show

|Bill Pearson

|30 episodes

|2008

|Country Fried Planet

|2008, 2015

|Celebrity Family Feud

|2008

|Bait Shop

|Bill Dugan

|Video

|2009

|Strawberry Wine

|2009

|Cowboy Dreams

|Bill

|Short

|2009

|All's Faire in Love

|Mr. Mendelson

| 2009

|CMT Music Awards

|Host

|2010

|Leverage

|Duke Penzer

|Episode: "The Boost Job"

|2010

|Bed & Breakfast: Love is a Happy Accident

|Pete Sullivan

|2011

|Lingo

|Host

|2011

|Hawthorne

|Det. James 'Jimmy' Dupree

|3 episodes

|2012

|Them Idiots: Whirled Tour

|2012

|Kiss at Pine Lake

|Frank McDowell

|TV movie

|2013

|Bounty Hunters

|Bill

|12 episodes

|2013

|Dancing with the Stars

|competition reality show

|2014

|Do It Yourself

|Dale

|TV movie

|2015

|Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

|2015

|Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!

|Gary Martin Hays

|TV movie

|2015

|Catching Faith

|Coach Z

|2015–2016

|Celebrity Name Game

|Himself / Celebrity Player

|Three episodes with Nicole Sullivan

|2016

|Hell's Kitchen

|Himself / Restaurant Patron

|Episode: "8 Chefs Compete"

|2016

|The Neighbor

|Troy

|2016

|Wish For Christmas

|Santa

|2016

|Just Sell Him For Parts

|Himself

|Stand-up

|2016-2021

|Last Man Standing

|Reverend Paul

|8 episodes

|2017-2019

|Funny You Should Ask

|Himself

|64 episodes

|2018

|Mr. Invincible

|Eddie King

|2019

|Catching Faith 2: The Homecoming

|Coach Z

|2022

|Outsiders

|Tim

|2024

|Barmageddon

|Himself

|Episode: "Bill Engvall vs. A. J. McCarron"

Career

Blue Collar Comedy Tour

The Bill Engvall Show

Game show host

Dancing with the Stars

Comedic style

Discography

Albums

Singles

Other charted songs

Music videos

List of works

Bibliography

Filmography

References

External links