Ernest P. Worrell
Ernest P. Worrell is a fictional character that was portrayed by American actor Jim Varney in a series of television commercials and then later in a television series and a series of feature films.
Ernest—created by Varney with the Nashville advertising agency Carden & Cherry—was used in various local television ad campaigns. The only national products the character promoted were The Coca-Cola Company's sodas, Chex cereals, and Taco John's. The first Ernest commercial, filmed in 1980, advertised an appearance by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders at Beech Bend Park, an amusement park near Bowling Green, Kentucky.
The format of the Ernest commercials seldom varied, most often scripted to be comedic and fast-paced. The rubber-faced, Southern-accented Ernest, almost always dressed in a denim vest and a baseball cap, appeared at the door or window of an unseen, unheard, and seemingly unwilling neighbor named Vernon, or "Vern" for short. The spots were structured in a way to allow the viewer to be "Vern", as Varney looked directly into the camera whenever Ernest addressed Vern. Ernest's seemingly pointless conversations with Vern - delivered essentially in monologue to an unresponsive listener - inevitably rambled around to a favorable description of the sponsor's product, followed by Ernest's signature close, "KnowhutImean?"
While Vern never has any spoken lines, it is implied that he finds Ernest to be an unwelcome pest as evidenced by Vern's occasionally trying to slam his door or window in Ernest's face. Vern also shakes his head "No" whenever Ernest invites him to do something. Ernest, despite having good intentions, is utterly oblivious to Vern's apparent distress about Ernest and about Ernest's regarding Vern as his closest buddy and confidant.
History
The Ernest ads were shot with a handheld film camera at the Nashville-area home of producer John Cherry III and Jerry Carden, beginning in 1980. As their number of clients increased, Varney sometimes did upwards of 25 different versions of a spot in a single day. Producer Coke Sams stated that Varney had a photographic memory and would read through the script one time then insert the various products' names on different takes. The commercials and the character had definite impact; children, especially, seemed to imitate Ernest and, "Knowwhatimean?", became a catchphrase.Carden & Cherry had begun receiving requests from major national companies to use Ernest, but were largely unable to agree to most of them because of conflicts with the exclusive rights local companies received when they had requested Ernest commercials. Carden & Cherry responded by transitioning the character to film and television. Ernest's first feature-film appearance was as one of Varney's numerous characters in the science fiction horror spoof Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam, which introduced several supporting actors who would reappear throughout the Ernest franchise, including Bill Byrge, Myke R. Mueller, and Jackie Welch.
A Saturday morning sketch comedy series, Hey Vern, It's Ernest!, followed shortly thereafter, which won Varney a Daytime Emmy Award for his performance. A series of five feature-length comedies starred Ernest between 1987 and 1993, followed by four more direct-to-video entries; all nine were directed by either John Cherry or Coke Sams. The movies were not critically well-received; however, they were produced on very low budgets and were quite profitable.
In the films, Ernest is apparently somewhat aware of his extreme resistance to harm, as in Ernest Rides Again, he seemed barely fazed by nails bending after being fired at his skull, remarking "Good thing they hit the hard end", he also commented that he would be dead "If I wasn't this close to being an actual cartoon." To allow Varney to act out his numerous other characters, Ernest is portrayed as a master of disguise, able to pose as one of any number of relatives to get out of a predicament. He also is impervious to electrocution, though it did inflict various comical side effects as seen in Ernest Goes to Jail. The film series portrays Ernest as a working-class bachelor holding various minimum-wage and blue-collar jobs, such as a gas station attendant, janitor, sanitation worker and construction worker.
In his Ernest role, Varney appeared in dozens of Cerritos Auto Square commercials for many years on Los Angeles area television stations; he also appeared in commercials for Audubon Chrysler Center in Henderson, Kentucky, John L. Sullivan auto dealerships in the Sacramento, California area, the Pontiac, Michigan-based electronics store ABC Warehouse, and the Oklahoma City-based Braum's Ice Cream and Dairy Store. In the Southeast, the Ernest character was the spokesman for Purity milk. In New Mexico, he appeared in commercials for Blake's Lotaburger. In northern Virginia Ernest appeared a series of commercials for Tyson's Toyota. In South Dakota, he appeared in commercials for Lewis Drug.
In Houston, he did commercials promoting Channel 2 News KPRC-TV. In 2005, five years after Varney's death, the Ernest P. Worrell character returned in new commercials as a CGI cartoon, created by an animation company called face2face and produced by Ernest originators Carden & Cherry. Ernest was voiced by John C. Hudgens, an advertising and broadcast producer from Little Rock, Arkansas, who also played an Ernest type character in some regional live action commercials.
Family
Ernest has a large family made up of people with similar traits to him, all of whom were portrayed by Jim Varney. Varney, as Worrell, mentioned that his family was from Kentucky when he hosted Happy New Year, America on CBS on December 31, 1988. Most of Worrell's family members had their appearance in either Hey Vern, It's My Family Album, Your World as I See It, or Varney's stand-up routine.; Edna Worrell
; Ace Worrell
; Astor Clement
; Bunny Jeannette Rogers
; Lloyd
; Auntie Nelda
; Coy Worrell
; Billy "Boogie" Worrell
; Davy Worrell
; Rhetch Worrell
; Pa Worrell
; Ma Worrell
; Reverend Phineas Worrell
Pets
Ernest also had several pets during the course of his career. They are listed below in order of appearance.; Shorty
; Pokey
; Ants
; Rover
; Rimshot
; Jake
Specials
- Hey Vern, It's My Family Album
- The Ernest Film Festival
- Hey Vern, Win $10,000...Or Just Count On Having Fun!
- Ernest Goes to Splash Mountain
- Ernest's Greatest Hits
- Your World As I See It
Films and television
; Films- 1985: Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam as Unnamed Cameo Role, Dr. Otto's Disguise
- 1987: Ernest Goes to Camp
- 1988: Ernest Saves Christmas
- 1990: Ernest Goes to Jail
- 1991: Ernest Scared Stupid
- 1993: Ernest Rides Again
- 1994: Ernest Goes to School
- 1995: Slam Dunk Ernest
- 1997: Ernest Goes to Africa
- 1998: Ernest in the Army
- 1988: ''Hey Vern, It's Ernest!''
Scrapped films
Soon after the release of Ernest Goes to Camp, several more films were being contemplated, including Ernest the Bellhop and Ernest in Paradise.
Sams said a script had been written for Ernest and the Voodoo Curse: "We went back to the Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein kind of thing. It had a really bad guy and happened on an island like Hawaii.... So we had Voodoo and a high priest. It was like the idiot version of Raiders of the Lost Ark. We had lines of zombies, Voodoo potions, and Ernest pretending to be a zombie. Ernest and the Voodoo Curse actually was pretty funny. There was a woman in it, who had one blue eye and one brown eye. She was supposed to be the woman of Ernest's dreams. Of course, she would have nothing to do with him."
Varney had been in consideration for a role in the 1999 film Pirates of the Plain.
Cancelled reboot
In October 2012, a reboot was announced tentatively titled Son of Ernest, following Ernest's long lost son. Dan Ewan was set to write the script with John Cherry, Coke Sams and Clarke Gallivan set to produce for Ruckusfilm. Kentucky comedian Billy Crank, who had often cosplayed as Ernest, was unofficially anointed by John Cherry himself to take over the role of Ernest's son in the film. The project was scrapped by September 2013.Commercials on home video
Most of Ernest's commercials were released on VHS tapes, and are also available on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment and Image Entertainment.Merchandise
A comedic paperback book titled Hey, Vern! It's the Ernest P. Worrell Book of Knowledge was published by Carden & Cherry in 1985, which was re-released with the title It's the Ernest P. Worrell Book of Knawledge in 1986. It was followed by the book Ask Ernest: What, When, Where, Why, Who Cares?, published by Rutledge Hill Press in 1993. Both books were designed as if Ernest had created his own homemade zine, featuring a varied collection of jokes, puns, musings, and art.A Ernest talking doll based on the TV series Hey Vern, It's Ernest! was produced by Kenner in 1989.