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You know this guy.

He's the dude in line in front of you at the grocery store, buying cheap beer and not caring that he's making a buffoon of himself while he flirts with the cute cashier.

He's the guy in the jacked-up four-wheel-drive truck beside you at the red light, singing his guts out to Kenny Chesney, not caring that you're staring and giggling.

He's the guy who falls asleep in church and gets those around him snickering because he snores too loud; the guy telling off-color stories at the bait shop; the guy the cultured and intelligent secretly wish to befriend; the guy that blue-collar workers want at every barbecue, fish-fry and family reunion.

He's Larry the Cable Guy -- known off stage as Dan Whitney -- and he's the archetypical good ol' boy that finds humor in off-kilter observations of everyday America.

"He's just somebody that everybody knows," Whitney told The Daily Times this week, speaking openly about the character he's made famous. "He's a microcosm of everybody I've grown up with. Those kinds of people are good people. They're fun people. They're the sweetest people in the world, and they'd give you the shirt off their backs. It's just that sometimes when they try to make a point or say something, they just have a way of saying it that's really funny.

"By doing this, I'm paying homage to my friends over the years, because I would much rather hang around with my character on stage -- the kind of guy I grew up with -- than the wine-and-cheese crowd. I'm basically doing one guy who everybody knows and likes and wants to have at their party. It's just Larry, man, and he's a good guy."

Larry may exist only in Whitney's mind, but the latter is very protective of his creation, and rightly so -- it's not only a very lucrative career, it's the bread and butter of his existence. Larry keeps Whitney rooted to his small-town roots and to the fans who flock to his shows, tune in to his comedy specials and snatch up his albums. Larry is the guy who can speak his mind and not care what others think -- mostly because he's oblivious to criticism, but also because Larry believes what he believes and doesn't feel the need to justify those things.

For Whitney, it's a different story. Since finding fame, he's found himself on the defensive more than once, taking fire for portraying a redneck when he was actually born in the Midwest, and for contributing to negative stereotypes of blue-collar Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth, Whitney said.

He was born and spent his childhood in Nebraska, where his father was a small-town minister. For the first 16 years of his life, he worked with his hands -- it may not have been in Alabama or Georgia, but it was rural, and the only thing different from the Southern country folk with whom Larry is so closely associated is the accents.

"From the time I was 5 years old, I was going to hog sales and cattle sales," Whitney said. "I've done that kind of stuff my whole life, so I'm familiar with all of that. People, I've learned, are pretty much the same once you get out of a major city -- their accents are different, but they love the same stuff. The love 4-H shows and state fairs, and that's how I grew up.

"That's one thing that's always peeved me -- some people go on the Internet and say, 'He's a huge phony because he grew up someplace different.' Well, I didn't say that I was going to be a redneck or a country boy. I've lived the life! I've been offered TV show after TV show out of New York, and I've turned them down. Why? Because I don't want to live there. I'd rather live on my farm outside of Lincoln, Neb., where I'm surrounded by cornfields and hayfields."

When he was 16, Whitney's family moved to Palm Beach County, Fla., where his father took a job as a high school principal. Whitney himself worked in fast food until 1985, when he tried his hand at stand-up comedy around the West Palm Beach area. Gradually, he showed a knack for making people laugh, and by 1991, he was calling in to radio stations inventing different characters for on-air comedy routines.

One such character was Larry the Cable Guy. He quickly became a touchstone for rural Americans, a boisterous, occasionally slow-witted good ol' boy magnified ten-fold. He balanced his developing comedic career with stints as a disc jockey at various stations in Blue Springs, Mo.; Omaha, Neb.; and Orlando, Fla. On the side, Larry gradually became a popular character on a number of syndicated radio shows, and Whitney slowly honed Larry's personality and demeanor into a both a caricature and a homage to the American redneck.

"When I first started doing it, it was all theater of the mind -- I was on the radio, so people didn't see me," he said. "When I started doing it on stage, they could actually see me, so I would do him as a character but I would magnify a small part of myself into that character. Everything's made up, but there's so basis of truth to everything Larry says."

While Larry the Cable Guy enjoyed a growing stand-up career, another Southern comedian -- Jeff Foxworthy -- would bring Larry along to a whole new level. Along with Ron White, Foxworthy and Bill Engvall, Larry the Cable Guy became part of the "Blue Collar Comedy Tour" in 2000, which spawned a comedy film and a TV show on The WB (later picked up by Comedy Central).

"I was the only guy on the 'Blue Collar Tour' who was not born in the South, the only guy who had to 'acquire' a Southern accent, but I was really the only guy who had had anything to do with livestock," Whitney pointed out. "Growing up, I worked at a sale barn and a cattle barn; I'd loaded cattle trucks. So I knew what I was making jokes about."

The "Blue Collar Comedy" experience was a smash hit and opened all sorts of doors for Larry the Cable Guy -- comedy albums (three of which, 2001's "Lord, I Apologize," 2005's "The Right to Bare Arms" and last year's "Morning Constitutions," all rose to No. 1 on the Comedy Albums chart and were certified gold), films ("Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector," "Delta Farce" and "Witless Protection") and comedy specials. He's even spawned a national catchphrase -- "Git-R-Done," a send-off he's used for years, dating back to his radio days.

"The joke's on Hollywood and the critics, because they say I'm a bad actor, but I do a hell of a job doing this," he said. "I think it's because they actually think I'm that person on stage. If people would actually listen to what I'm saying, they'd realize that it's all one-line jokes. It's not like I'm making any political statement; I mean, every now and then I'll do a political joke, but if I don't get a laugh and it's not funny, I'm not going to do it."

Over the years, Whitney has gradually incorporated more of himself into Larry's routine -- he enjoys riding horses, bird hunting and belonging to the National Rifle Association, all things that Larry gives a thumbs-up to. Other parts of Larry's act, however, are so obviously juvenile, so over-the-top silly, that those who think he's serious and those who take offense might very well be dumber than the character he's supposed to be.

"Did I take a poop so big it lifted me off the stool? No! That kind of thing, it's just a stupid joke," Whitney said. "That's just how I do my show, because that's what I'm good at. I grew up around certain people who talk a certain way, and to me, it's hilarious. I'm not laughing at them; I'm laughing with them. I have a real soft spot in my heart for anybody like that, and I'd much rather hang out with my character than with anybody else's."

Of course, not everyone thinks he's funny. Whitney has a simple way of looking at it -- the ones who don't get what he does are the detractors, the ones who accuse him of poking fun at the South and its rural residents. Those rural residents, though, are the ones who get the jokes. They can laugh at themselves because they don't take themselves, or their lives, too seriously, so they certainly have no trouble laughing at Larry.

"It seems like everybody's just afraid to laugh at the wrong thing, but I believe people just want to laugh, so by God, I'm gonna make them laugh," Whitney said. "It's comedy -- it's a funny joke -- get over it. We're all Americans, and we've all been ribbed -- everybody's had a joke made about them. We're not 4 years old here.

"That's why all these people come to my shows -- they're like family reunions, except there's a roof and nobody's making out with my sister. It's just a blast, and everywhere I go is awesome."