Jim Varney

James Albert Varney Jr. (June 15, 1949 – February 10, 2000) was an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his broadly comedic role as Ernest P. Worrell, for which he won a Daytime Emmy Award, as well as appearing in films and numerous television commercial advertising campaigns. He played Jed Clampett in a film adaptation of ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' (1993) and performed the voice of Slinky Dog in the first two films of the ''Toy Story'' franchise (1995–1999). He died at age 50 of lung cancer on February 10, 2000, leaving two posthumous releases, of '' Daddy and Them'' and ''Atlantis: The Lost Empire''.

Early life

Varney was born in Lexington, Kentucky. As a child, he displayed the ability to memorize long poems and significant portions of the material from books, which he used to entertain family and friends. When Varney was a boy, his mother would turn on cartoons for him to watch. His mother discovered that Varney quickly began to imitate the cartoon characters, so she started him in children's theater when he was eight years old. Varney began his interest in theater as a teenager, winning state titles in drama competitions while a student at Lafayette High School (class of 1968) in Lexington.

At the age of 15, he portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in a local theater production; by 17, he was performing professionally in nightclubs and coffee houses. Varney studied Shakespeare at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, and performed in an Opryland folk show in its first year of operation, in the 1970s. He listed a former teacher, Thelma Beeler, as being a mentor in his becoming an actor. When he was 24, Varney was an actor at the Pioneer Playhouse in Danville, Kentucky. The theater was adjacent to an Old West-themed village, and before the show, the audience would tour the village where apprentices would play townsfolk. Varney and the company usually played in the outdoor theater to audiences of only a few dozen people. He entertained the young apprentices by throwing knives into trees. He performed in ''Blithe Spirit'', ''Boeing 707'' and an original musical, ''Fire on the Mountain''. He once jokingly threatened a long-haired apprentice, John Lino Ponzini, that he would take him up to Hazard, Kentucky, where "you onziniwouldn't make it down Main Street without the townsfolk giving you a crewcut".

Career

Early career

Varney had an established acting career before his fame as Ernest. In 1976, Varney was a regular cast member of the television show ''Johnny Cash and Friends''. He also played a recurring guest on the faux late-night talk show '' Fernwood 2 Night''. From 1977 to 1979, Varney was cast as Seaman "Doom & Gloom" Broom in the television version of ''Operation Petticoat''. Just prior to his stint as Ernest, he was a cast member on the notorious television flop '' Pink Lady and Jeff''. In 1978, Varney played Milo Skinner on the TV show ''Alice''.

Varney also toured as a stand-up comic. His specialty was character comedy: he would impersonate numerous characters with elaborate backstories, many of which would find their way into his later films and television commercials.

Work for Carden and Cherry

Varney's best-known character is Ernest P. Worrell, who would address the camera as if speaking to a friend, using his trademarked catchphrase "KnoWhutImean, Vern?" In 1980, the first commercial featuring the character advertised an appearance by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders at Beech Bend Park, an amusement park located near Bowling Green, Kentucky. The character was franchised for use in markets all over the country and was often used by dairies to advertise milk products. For example, the dairy bar and hamburger chain Braum's ran several advertisements featuring Ernest; Purity Dairies, based in Nashville, Pine State Dairy in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Oakhurst Dairy in Maine ran commercials that were nearly identical, but with the dairy name changed.

For the same agency, Varney created a different character, Sgt. Glory, a humorless drill instructor who harangued cows of the client dairy into producing better milk. In another spot, Sgt. Glory's home was shown as he had a date, which was so heavily decorated with the products of the sponsor and advertising specialty items that it was essentially devoid of any other decor. The Sgt. Glory character also appeared in an advertisement for a Southern grocery chain, Pruett's Food Town, in which he drilled the checkout clerks on proper behavior: "Bread on top. Repeat: Bread on top." He approaches one of them at the end of the commercial with a look of menace and says, "You're not smilin'." The checkout bagger gives a very nervous and forced smile.

Varney also starred as Ernest in a series of commercials that ran in the New Orleans