Dairy Farmer Milking Laughs at Northern Lights Theater

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“I’m not the most intellectual guy you ever interviewed!” Tim The Dairy Farmer apologizes at the onset of our exchange to promote the bi-vocational comedian’s Milwaukee show. He’s performing 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday, July 13, at Potawatomi Hotel & Casino’s Northern Lights Theater. But he need not make excuses for his blunt force attacks on the funny bones of rural and urban dwellers alike. Sometimes, there’s not all that much to process when a punchline hits you just so.

Besides, there are times when he, born Tim Moffett, has plenty to process while he’s milking laughs from his listeners. “I’m proud to say that I am probably the only comedian who has performed comedy in a pig barn at a fair while the port-a-john truck was sucking out the contents of 15 port-a-johns less than 20 feet away!” boasts the man whose monthly e-newsletter is entitled The Manure Spreader.

Thankfully for him and his audiences, most of his shows aren’t so fraught. Nor is his audience comprised of comedy lovers who share his specific background. “I may be a dairy farmer, but I speak to all types of agricultural groups: Pigs, corn, rice, asparagus, Christmas trees, fish, potatoes, cows, fertilizer, bankers, insurance, churches, fairs, any and all of rural America. That’s what I do.”

He purposefully speaks in the present tense of his occupation when not on stage. “My brother and I have a 200-acre grass-fed dairy operation, and we milk around 200 head.” Were he forced to choose, however, he would continue down the path that’s taking him to Northern Lights. Of picking comedy over farming, he cites the good he does in helping people cope. “I can always visit a farm if I want to get dirty. Everyone is going through something. It might be physical, financial or emotional. We all have worries and uncertainty. It is physically impossible to laugh and worry at the same time. I feel like my job, even if only for an hour or so, is to make people forget about worrying and let them laugh.”

For the good he’s doing now by incorporating agriculture and comedy, it took him a while to arrive at that golden combination. “In the beginning, I was doing typical open mic jokes about everything under the sun. One night on stage, I told a true story about how a neighboring farm's cows had eaten a bunch of marijuana plants some employees had planted in the woods. I explained how hard it was to get the cows to come to the barn to be milked to a bunch of city folk. As the patrons were leaving the show everyone referred to me not as Tim but as that farmer guy. That became the first of Tim the Dairy Farmer when I realized I could make the farm funny.”

Nor is he the first to find the mirth in his other profession. “I grew up on ‘Hee Haw’ and Jerry Clower,” he recalls. “I’ve always been intrigued with how Clower could tell a story. Storytelling has not been one of my strong skills, but I do aspire to be like Clower in that area.” Tim also has ties to a more recent crop of rurally minded funny guys, “Early in my comedy career, I had the chance to open for both Larry the Cable Guy and Ron White before the Blue Collar Comedy Tour took off. I have to say they are all genuinely down to Earth, great guys! They are all hilarious and big-hearted people. This last year, Larry started his own record label called Git-R-Done Records and I was lucky enough to be the first person he chose to be on his record label.” Git-R Done has issued Tim riotous debut album, Farm Raised.

Mr. Moffett is assured enough in his ability to get a crowd roaring that he claims, “I can guarantee if you come to my show and don't laugh that you probably had issues long before I got on stage! Try the buffet!” But before you dig in either on Potawatomi's fare or Tim's performance there, here's a sample of the latter wherein he takes on vegans, his hearty appetite and how being “put to sleep” can be a good or bad thing...