Well, yes, he’s average

“We are not here to change the world; we are here to make it a little more bearable, OK?” Jeff Foxworthy says at the top of his new sketch comedy show, “Blue Collar TV,” premiering tonight on the WB.

The television spinoff of a long-running concert tour, which has so far grossed $15 million and spawned a successful movie, CD and video -- all also brought to you by Warner Bros. -- it would seem to be some sort of a sure thing, notwithstanding the failure of its star’s previous TV venture, the twice-canceled sitcom (once by ABC, once by NBC) “The Jeff Foxworthy Show.” The audience, gathered in an Atlanta theater, howled all the way through, and I laughed a few times myself.

Abetted by a capable and well-credentialed supporting cast of players, Foxworthy and his independently successful costars -- Bill Engvall, who also appeared in Foxworthy’s previous series, and Larry the Cable Guy -- have a charming, matey quality that does not always overcome their material.

“Between New York and Los Angeles there are 200 million people,” Foxworthy said recently. “That’s what this country is. It really isn’t cutting-edge hip.” (Although Atlanta is not exactly Bug Tussle, and he’s guested on “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” which is as hip as it gets.) One gathers from the show’s title -- and the title sequence, with its images of a clock, a mower and a trailer -- that this is supposed to be some sort of regular-folks alternative to the sophisticated humor of the smarty-pants big-city elites (though, heaven knows, they must have been watching “Seinfeld” out in the sticks too, to generate those ratings). Something for the red staters, the NASCAR-ites, the country music fans, the beer drinkers, the people waiting for “Hee Haw” to return.

Foxworthy’s own empire -- which includes records, books, a weekly radio show, calendars, greeting cards and his own brand of barbecue sauce, in original, spicy and tangy mustard varieties -- is founded on the Mad-mag-like formulation, “You might be a redneck if ....”

“Our ancestors came to Georgia in 1721,” Foxworthy says of the Foxworthys in his opening monologue. “They never left. And they never bought any property! ... Our family coat of arms includes a hammock and a can of beer. That’s why I don’t believe in evolution -- because, if my family had started out as monkeys, they would still be monkeys.” In fact, his father was an IBM executive, and Foxworthy left a well-paying job with the same firm to try his hand at comedy.

There are three long sketches in the opening show. The first is a mock ad for the House of Gravy, where gravy is slathered over pasta, steamed vegetables, an ice cream sundae. It gushes from a fire hose, soaking everyone onstage. The second features an enormously fat family that regards dieting as a kind of substance abuse. Both these sketches seem to celebrate and defend what they critique and lampoon: Proud to be fat, proud to eat gravy, this is who we are.

In the third, the three stars play little children fighting in the back seat of an SUV, with the large Larry kitted out in a diaper. Although there are some nice line readings, the sketch is ultimately as annoying as the situation it lampoons. It finishes with an extended urination gag (resembling, oddly, the end of the gravy sketch).

Finally, Foxworthy, Engvall and Larry sit down together and trade inspirational homilies.

“I believe the color of the state flag of Alabama should be primer.... “ “I believe guns don’t kill people. Husbands that come home early do.... “ “I believe there should be an application process for anyone who wants to wear a thong.”

The show concludes with a masturbation joke. Welcome to the real America.

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‘Blue Collar TV’

Where: The WB

When: 8 tonight

Starring: Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Larry the Cable Guy

Rating: The network has rated this program TV-14 (may be inappropriate for children under the age of 14).

Executive producers: Fax Bahr, Adam Small, Jeff Foxworthy, J.P. Williams.