First of all, hear what Mr. Las Vegas himself - Wayne Newton - has to say about Joe Bob:
"If Joe Bob Briggs were a song in my show, it would have to be "Dixie". Not the "Dixie" of rabble-rousers and Southern rednecks, but the "Dixie" sung by people who love their roots and the land they came out of. I'm from Virginia, so I understand Joe Bob. He makes me laugh and, although he wouldn't want anyone to know this, he is really not as snide as people think. He's simply "Texan."

And now, from the other end of the spectrum, we have Gary Alan Crowdus, the founder and editor of Cineaste magazine..you know, one of those intellectual-political-sociological film mags that can find Marxism symbolism in even a drive-in flick like The Plague of the Zombies!

Gary says "Joe Bob is a man who knows and enjoys his drive-in movies, and although he tends to be a generous critic, he is stingy with his 4-star ratings and works hard to distinguish superior sleaze from average, run-of-the-mill sleaze. His highest praise is reserved for those few films that really deliver the goods, whether it's breast counts or body counts, the kind of film in which there's "absolutely no plot to get in the way."

To give you a perfect example of Joe Bob's penetrating insight and superior film savvy, look at the way he sums up Lana Clarkson's performance in Barbarian Queen:

"Lana has arms like a couple of No. 2 Faber pencils, but that's cause all the beef isconcentrated somewhere else, if you know what I mean and I think you do. Lana was discovered by the King of the Drive-in, Roger Corman, producer of more than 200 drive-in movies, who's been down in Argentina saying, "Hey, gimme 10 pesos and I'll let you be a piece of furniture in my movie." The result, as weall know, is Barbarian Queen."

Or how about this stunning observation of the mise-en-scene in Maximum Overdrive from first time director Stephen King?

"Emilio Estevez and Laura Harrington do this pathetic little kissing scene, and a couple of scenes later they start makin' the sign of the four-legged spouting walrus, and you know what that adds up to? A Perry Como music video. The flick sorta hunkers down after that, while we wait on the eighteen-wheelers to stop trying to take over the world and let some special-effects man blow em all up, but it takes forever cause we got about 20 minutes too much plot in here."

Okay, enough PR! Here's the lowdown.

Joe Bob Briggs hails from Grapevine, Texas.
Somewhere along the way, he saw a LOT of drive-in movies and became an expert on this particular type of film.
In fact, he began to write about the films he saw, starting with his review of The Grim Reaper, which first appeared in the Dallas Times Herald on January 15, 1982 under the column title, "Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-in". Voila, a legend was born.

Joe Bob's column became an overnight sensation and soon it was being syndicated in more than fifty newspapers around the country. Besides delighting many readers, Joe Bob also offended some with his satiric views which were taken WAY TOO SERIOUSLY by certain groups - animal rights activists, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, college professors, feminists (At one point, he publicly challenged the president of the Dallas chapter of the National Organization for Women to a nude mud-wrestling match) and...well, the list could go on and on. But so could the list that includes fans of Joe Bob!

To make a long story short, Joe Bob's stint with the Dallas Times Herald came to an end in 1985 after his spoof of the anthem, "We Are The World". Joe Bob's version of the song, "We Are the Weird", featured drive-in movie stars like Pia Zadora and Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Swamp Thing. After a massive protest was led against the Times Herald office, the editor caved into pressure and cancelled Joe Bob's column. But there's a happy ending. Joe Bob promptly went out and sold his column to The Dallas Observer. Not only that but Joe Bob started his own line of video releases. You can see him introduce such gems as Nude on the Moon, Suburban Roulette, and other drive-in classics at your local video store. And if that's not enough to keep him busy, Joe Bob has got another poker in the fire. He's an actor! In fact, you can check him out in Great Balls of Fire, Stephen King's The Stand, Martin Scorsese's Casino (he plays an incompetent casino dealer), and most recently in Face/Off starring Nicholas Cage and John Travolta.