Gotta be able to laugh at yourself.
After Toby Keith passed away, his close friends and family rushed to share their memories of the legendary country artist. And there were a few things that everybody agreed on: He loved his country and his family, he was as generous as they come, and he had a great sense of humor.
That sense of humor was on full display back in 2009 when Toby Keith appeared as a guest on the Comedy Central Roast of Larry the Cable Guy. And during his speech, Toby even poked fun at his infamous feud with the Dixie Chicks.
One of the other guests on the show was Maureen McCormick, an actress best known for her role as Marcia Brady on the television show The Brady Bunch. But what you may not know is that McCormick had a short-lived career (if you want to call it that) as a country artist.
She released her first and only country album, When You Get A Little Lonely, back in 1995. The album received largely negative reviews, and her country music career was largely over before it really even got started. In fact, I doubt there’s really anybody who even remembers that brief chapter of her career.
But Toby Keith remembered.
During his time at the podium, Toby had some jokes about McCormick’s ill-fated country album:
“Her country music career was such a tragic event, I could’ve written three albums about it. Her music was so bad, I forgave the Dixie Chicks.”
The joke was, of course, a reference to his heated feud with the band now known simply as The Chicks, which started after Keith released “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue” in May 2002, Maines criticized the song in an interview with the Los Angeles Times:
“I hate it. It’s ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant. It targets an entire culture – and not just the bad people who did bad things. You’ve got to have some tact.
Anybody can write, ‘We’ll put a boot in your ass.’ But a lot of people agree with it. The kinds of songs I prefer on the subject are like Bruce Springsteen’s new songs.”
Keith responded by attacking Maines as a songwriter:
“She’s not a songwriter, so we can’t discuss the mechanics of the song.
Why don’t you just go down on Second Avenue and pick one of those homeless guys and ask him what he thinks about it? To me it’s the same.”
But that wasn’t the end of the Dixie Chicks/Toby Keith beef: After Maines made comments criticizing then-President George W. Bush during a show in London, Keith began displaying a doctored image of Maines and Saddam Hussein on the screen behind him at his shows.
Maines then wore a shirt that said “F.U.T.K.,” a not-so-subtle shot at the Big Dog Daddy, during her performance at the 2003 ACM Awards – a ceremony that ironically saw Toby take home the trophy for Entertainer of the Year.
The feud largely settled down after that, but Toby couldn’t help but joke about it during his roast appearance. That wasn’t the only great line he had though, including some zingers directed at Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy:
“Say what y’all want to about Jeff, but he’s the only clean comic on stage. And by that I mean he can pass a drug test. His urine is crystal clear, and according to Larry, a little bit salty. Larry’s been blowing Jeff so long they could be cousins.”
Gotta give him credit, that’s pretty good
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Of course when you’re on a roast you’re also going to have some jokes directed your way too, and Toby seemed to welcome the shots that his fellow stars had in store for him:
“Look at him, just sitting there waiting for a terrorist attack so he can write another song about it.”
Gotta be able to laugh at yourself.
