Hey Vern! It's the Ultimate Guide to Ernest P. Worrell

Hey Vern! It's the ultimate guide to Ernest P. Worrell, Jim Varney, his movies & his legacy!

In our current world of gritty reboots and cinematic universes that require a Ph.D. and a flowchart to understand, don't you ever miss when movies were just... goofy? When the hero's only real superpower was a bottomless well of well-meaning incompetence?

I do. Which is why I think we need to talk about a true American icon. A man in a denim vest and a khaki hat who just wanted to be our buddy. Yes, I’m talking about the one and only Ernest P. Worrell. This is your ultimate guide to the man, the movies, the advertisements and the enduring, goofy magic of a true one-of-a-kind original. KnowhutImean?

Before he was saving Christmas or going to jail, Ernest P. Worrell was a local celebrity, a familiar face beamed into living rooms across the country one market at a time. But the story doesn't start with a movie pitch; it starts with a struggling amusement park and a brilliant advertising workaround.

Who Was Jim Varney Before Ernest P. Worrell?

First, let's get one thing straight: Jim Varney was a serious, dedicated actor long before he ever donned a denim vest. He began performing in local theater as a child in Kentucky and as a teenager, was already winning state-level drama competitions. He formally studied Shakespeare at the prestigious Barter Theatre in Virginia. Before his fame as Ernest, he had a solid career in television, appearing on shows like Johnny Cash and Friends and the talk show parody Fernwood 2Night in the late 1970s. Varney was a working actor with real credentials.

Varney made a fateful connection in Nashville that would change his life forever.  While doing stand-up comedy and acting during his time in Nashville, he came across Carden & Cherry, an ad agency run by John Cherry and Jerry Carden. They first hired Varney for a different character entirely - a drill instructor named "Sgt. Glory" for a series of commercials for Purity Dairies. Varney’s talent for creating memorable, high-energy characters was immediately obvious to everyone involved.

Ernest, The Character, Was Built for One Ad Campaign Out of Necessity

The birth of Ernest P. Worrell was a stroke of genius born from a classic advertising problem. In 1980, Carden & Cherry were hired to promote Beech Bend Park, an amusement park in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The problem? The park was old and undergoing renovations, and frankly, it just wasn't ready for its close-up. Carden & Cherry needed to sell the sizzle without showing the steak, because the steak was still currently under construction.

Their solution was to create a character who could talk about the park without ever showing it. They needed someone who felt like a real person, an enthusiastic neighbor that you could trust. They turned to Jim Varney.

The concept was simple and effective: Varney, as Ernest, would talk directly to his neighbor "Vern," whose point of view was the camera lens. This allowed Ernest to look right at the audience, creating an intimate, one-on-one conversation. He could be anywhere - in his kitchen, leaning over a fence - and just talk about how great Beech Bend was. The viewer became Vern - the silent, unseen recipient of Ernest's endless, well meaning chatter. The gimmick was a massive success.

The Beech Bend campaign was so effective that other local and regional companies wanted in. Purity Dairies, who had used Varney as Sgt. Glory, saw the appeal of Ernest and commissioned new ads. Soon, the floodgates opened.

What made the Ernest model so unique was its flexibility. Varney and Carden & Cherry didn't tie Ernest to a single national brand. Instead, they created a pitchman-for-hire. They would shoot dozens of nearly identical commercials in a single day, simply swapping out the product name. In one market, Ernest was selling for a local car dealership; in another, a convenience store; in a third, a regional brand of milk.

Because this was before everyone had the internet and social media, a viewer in Nashville had no idea that a viewer in Texas was watching Ernest sell a completely different product. He became a grassroots phenomenon - a familiar, trusted face who felt like a local secret, even though that secret was being shared all over the country. He sold everything from Mello Yello and Coca-Cola to local TV news programs, becoming a household name and face long before Hollywood ever called him.

KnowhutImean? Hey Vern, It's My Family Album

The first direct to video entry in the Ernest franchise was KnowhutImean? Hey Vern, It's My Family Album, released in late 1985 and it was an immediate success. The video has Ernest telling stories about his family (whom he also plays), as well as a number of the Ernest commercials. With no promotion, the VHS was selling thousands of copies per month at $19.95 a piece. The success of KnowhutImean? Hey Vern, It's My Family Album led Varney and Cherry to brainstorm more ways to build the budding franchise. 

The Ernest Film Festival (Ernest's Greatest Hits Volume 1)

The second direct to video entry in the Ernest franchise was titled The Ernest Film Festival and was released August 19, 1986. Due to the proliferation of bootleg tapes of Ernest commercials being sold, Varney and Carden & Cherry decided to sell them themselves. This volume includes over 100 local Ernest commercials as well as 10 minutes of bloopers from those commercial shoots. The title was later changed to Ernest's Greatest Hits, Volume 1.

It's The Ernest P. Worrell Book of Knawledge

With the growing success of Ernest P. Worrell, Varney released a book that was modeled after a fanzine. It's The Ernest P. Worrell Book of Knawledge is a 97 page book that featured essays, history, jokes, fan mail and Q&A's from Ernest himself. 

The Transition from Commercials to Movies

The move to the big screen happened for one simple reason: Ernest had proven his commercial viability. He could sell products, so the logical next step was to see if he could sell movie tickets.

Carden & Cherry had released a feature film, Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam, self financing the film which released July 19, 1985. While Ernest made a cameo in the film, the focus was more on Jim Varney and a host of characters he created and played in the independent film. But that gave them a taste of the movie business.

The tipping point for an Ernest movie famously came in 1986 when Michael Eisner, then the CEO of Disney, was at the Indianapolis 500. During a parade, Jim Varney (in character as Ernest) shared a parade car with Mickey Mouse. The crowd went wild for Ernest, giving him a bigger and louder reception than Disney's own iconic mascot.

Seeing this overwhelming, real-world popularity firsthand, Eisner and Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg realized the character's potential for something bigger. They set up a meeting with John Cherry and his producing partner Coke Sams. Disney’s Touchstone Pictures, their label for more adult-oriented comedies, signed a four-picture deal and the Ernest film franchise was born. The first film under this deal was Ernest Goes to Camp (1987), which was made on a small budget of around $3.5 million and grossed over $23 million - a massive success for a low budget film that cemented Ernest as a bankable movie star.

Ernest Goes to Camp

Released May 22, 1987, Ernest Goes to Camp is the quintessential 80s summer camp movie, full of slapstick, bullies, and a surprisingly touching story about Ernest mentoring a group of misfit kids. It even has a genuinely heartfelt and catchy song, "Gee I'm Glad It's Raining." It set the template for the masses that Ernest's heart was always bigger than his brain. Grossing over $23 million and with positive word of mouth, Ernest Goes to Camp cemented Ernest P. Worrell and Jim Varney into pop culture history.