The Redneck Comedy Bus Tour is fixin’ to come to this neck of the woods, with Chattanooga city tours launching Nov. 14 and local Christmas light tours starting Nov. 28.
The redneck-themed tour originated in Nashville, where it’s now in its 17th season, and the company also started offering tours in Pigeon Forge and Branson, Missouri, just after the pandemic.
“We’re growing and we’re thankful, but we’re not trying to take over every city that we can think of,” operations manager Dave Jones said as to why he and owner Richmond Ross chose to bring the tour to Chattanooga — which isn’t because the city has a redneck reputation. “We try to find cities where we know there’s some tourism opportunities and somewhere where we either know somebody or have a community connection to kinda find our little niche.”
Jones said he and Ross met while Ross was a sales manager for the Wyndham timeshare resort in Nashville, where Ross heard frequent complaints from resort guests about the city’s boring bus tours.
Ross thought he could offer something more fun, so he bought an old school bus, had it painted camouflage and mounted steer horns on the hood, Jones said.
“He came to me with this crazy idea and wanted to know if I would jump on board and work with him to launch this business, and I signed on to help him kick off the first year,” Jones said of the Nashville tour, which they started offering just on the weekends and have now expanded to two tours a day, seven days a week in Nashville, as well as Pigeon Forge and Branson.
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He said they will probably start out with four or five tours a week in Chattanooga, where they will launch the business with both daytime city tours and holiday light tours at night. The latter attracts both tourists and locals looking to celebrate the season, so it’s a good way to introduce the tour in a new city, Jones said.
A rotating crew of local comedians serve as tour guides and also help plan the tours in each city, Jones said, adding that three Chattanooga comedians have been hired and are in the process of planning the local routes. While most guests are adults, the tours are family friendly, he said.
“We’ll have a route where we combine a little bit of history and Chattanooga local landmarks and just have kind of a fun way of showing off the city,” Jones said of the tour, which boards on Riverfront Parkway at the same location as the Chattanooga Ducks tours. “Obviously, you want to show off what makes the city famous, what people are coming to see.”
Halfway through the two-hour tours, the bus will make a 20-25 minute “fun stop,” the location of which the organizers of the Chattanooga tour have yet to determine. The Pigeon Forge and Nashville tours both stop at Ole Smoky Distillery for a moonshine tasting, and the Chattanooga stop will likely be a place offering some type of tasting, hot cocoa or cider, he said.
All the company’s tour guides choose their own redneck nicknames and teach guests their own versions of Redneck 101, a crash course in redneck words and phrases and how to use them.
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“We joke that everybody has some redneck roots if you dig deep enough, and people getting on a big camouflage bus are only too ready to have fun and point out who in their party is the redneck of the bunch,” he said. “But before it’s all said and done, everybody kind of owns up to their own redneckisms, if you will.”
At the end of each tour, every guest takes a “redneck pledge” and becomes a “certified redneck.” Those are the only standard parts of the tour — otherwise, the individual comedians each have their own way of performing, interacting with the crowd and showing off the sights of the city, Jones said.
“We promote it as 50% comedy club on wheels, 50% sightseeing tour, and they get to build that round the route,” he said of the guides.
The Chattanooga tour guides are comic and barbecue pitmaster Ben “Smoky” Thompson, full-time touring comedian Janet “Memaw” Williams and Jerry “Critter” Harvey, who toured nationwide with comedian Southern Mama before retiring to operate one of the largest possum rescues in the nation.
“It’s going to be a great combination of history and sightseeing and good old Southern, family-friendly comedy,” Harvey said of the tour, which will take passengers by the Bluff View Art District, Tennessee Aquarium, downtown near the Read House and St. Elmo by the Incline Railway, among other attractions. “We’ve been mapping out the route, writing some of our jokes and developing our characters, so I think we’re going to start off with a bang.”
Jones said he’s surprised by the number of people who do the tour multiple times in the same city, and he credits the humor and the guides’ hospitality for the repeat customers.
“Everybody has a sense of humor and looking to laugh and have that be at least an element of their vacation, and we find people are really present in the laughter, which is interesting,” he said. “Everybody seems to put down their phones, look out the windows and engage with the tour guide, and by the time they’re at the break, they’re all joking with each other.”
For the Chattanooga daytime tour, tickets are $42.50 for ages 13-60, $37.50 for “old timers” (age 61 and older), $32.50 for kids 5-12 and free for kids 4 and younger. Christmas light tours are $44.95 for ages 13-60, $39.95 for old timers, 34.95 for kids 5-12 and free for kids 4 and younger.
The bus meets at 151 Riverfront Parkway and tickets can be purchased at theredneckbus.com. For more information, call 423-225-5077.
Contact business reporter Emily Crisman at ecrisman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6508.
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