Funny man Bill Engvall is known for his family-friendly brand of humor. With a new movie on the shelves and his hit TBS comedy picked up for another season, it’s safe to say Bill Engvall is at the top of his game.

The Northern Star spoke with the comedian earlier this week.

Northern Star: How did you begin your career as a comedian?

Bill Engvall: While I was living in Texas, I worked as a disc jockey. I was in a local nightclub one time and gave stand-up a try. It worked, obviously, and I moved to L.A. and started working towards television.

NS: How did you develop your famed catch phrase “Here’s your sign”?

BE: You know, it originally started as “Stupid people should be slapped.” Then my wife told me that I just don’t look like the type of person that would slap someone, so I changed it to handing people a sign that said stupid.

NS: You recently filmed a new comedy entitled “Bait Shop” with Billy Ray Cyrus, which was just released on DVD. What is the film about and what was the filming process like?

BE: The film was written by myself and another comedian named Tom Ryan, and we wrote it a few years back just to see if we could write a movie. After we showed it to our managers, they made a few changes to it. After Billy Ray got ahold of it and decided he liked it because it was a family friendly film, we began shooting.

The storyline of the film is really family friendly, which has always kind of been my thing.

It’s about a small town guy who owns a bait shop but is going to lose it because he’s made some poor financial decisions.

So in order to keep the bait shop open, he enters a pro fishing tournament against Billy Ray Cyrus who’s the “hot shot” fisherman. The story of the film that seems more compelling to me, though, was the story of a father trying to reconnect with his son who has always been more interested in technology. It’s a project that I’m really proud of.

NS: Who would you say is your favorite comedian?

BE: I’m an easy target, so there are a lot of guys that can make me laugh. For comedians though, since we’ve heard pretty much everything on stage, we judge by how funny someone is off stage. So I’d have to say Chris Rock gets me laughing pretty hard. Some of the older guys still get me like Bob Newhart and [Bill] Cosby and I’d have to say Cosby is the king. He’s great. And of course, [Jeff] Foxworthy is always good for a laugh.

NS: You’re known for being incredibly family-oriented, and your show is all about family. Would you say your television show mirrors your real family life at all?

BE: A little bit, but of course, it’s expounded on and fabricated a bit. A lot of the ideas and the storylines, though, come from things I’ve experienced in my life or with my family. I think that’s the key to why my show has been picked up season after season, because people can easily relate to it.

NS: What was it like working side-by-side on your show with Tim Meadows, who is very popular from Saturday Night Live?

BE: Tim is a great guy. It’s never been intimidating or anything like that, because he would never want to put you in a situation like that. I think that’s what makes the show so great is that we are both incredibly confident in our abilities. We love to do a little improv here and there on the show. What we do is we film the scene two times as it’s written and then the director will say, “Okay, you guys go have fun with it!” Funny thing is, that’s the one they usually end up using.

NS: When you’re not spending time with family, filming “The Bill Engvall Show” or touring, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

BE: I love anything outdoors. Whether it’s golf, fly-fishing or hunting, I generally want to do anything outside. When I spend most of my time in theaters and on planes, I just really want to get outside.

NS: Are we going to be seeing another Blue Collar Comedy Tour anytime soon?

BE: You know, I never say never, but nothing is in the works as of right now. I’d love to do another tour with the guys, but the subject hasn’t been approached yet. We just never want to become those guys where everyone says they should have stopped while they were ahead.