Trivia / Cledus T. Judd

• Approval of God: Many of his parodies' targets have approved of his takes on their songs. For instance:
  • Shania Twain apparently liked "Any Gal of Mine" (based on her own "Any Man of Mine"), as she made cameos in some of his later videos.
  • Toby Keith liked Cledus' parodies of "How Do You Like Me Now?!" and "Who's Your Daddy?" ("How Do You Milk a Cow" and "Where's Your Mommy") enough to write "Starkissed" for him and sing duet vocals on "I Love NASCAR" (a takeoff of his own "I Love This Bar").
  • Luke Bryan tweeted that he enjoyed the late-2014 ribbing of him in "Luke Bryan" (a parody of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines").
  • CJ Solar, one of the writers of Morgan Wallen's "Up Down", liked Judd's parody "(Weight's Goin') Up Down, Up Down".
• Artist Disillusionment: According to this Billboard article, Cledus wanted to quit and focus on his radio career because "I'm tired of the traveling, and I just don't know if I'm funny anymore." Then his seven-year-old daughter told him, "Dad, here's the deal. If you quit being funny, then I'm not going to be happy anymore…You're funny, and you'll always be my daddy. So, you just keep singing, and wherever you're at, I'll just come and sit in the front row, and cheer you on."
• Chart Displacement: His highest-charting single is "I Love NASCAR" from 2004, well after his peak success. That song wasn't nearly as famous in the long run as the likes of "Any Gal of Mine" or "She's Got a Butt Bigger Than the Beatles", which didn't chart at all.
• Creator Couple: His first wife, Kim Winters, sang female vocals on some of his albums. After they divorced, he was briefly married to singer Julie Reeves.
• Development Hell:
  • According to a 2000 article, his next album after Juddmental was supposed to be titled Songs to Eat By. He was also in talks to publish an autobiography, release a cover of Andy Griffith's "What It Was, Was Football", and record a duet with "Weird Al" Yankovic, but none of this happened.
  • Boogity, Boogity was originally supposed to be released in 2005. His then-label Koch Records closed before he could release it, so it ended up moving to Curb in 2007.
• Executive Meddling: Averted. Garth Brooks originally didn't want him to parody the Trisha Yearwood duet "In Another's Eyes" as "In Another Size", but Garth later changed his mind.
• Hitless Hit Album: I Stoled This Record went gold even though none of its singles charted.
• In Memoriam: The video for "Every Light in the House Is Blown" ("Every Light in the House" by Trace Adkins) ends with "Cledus and Trace wish to recognize the late Kent Robbins, the songwriter for 'Every Light in the House Is On.'[sic] Kent, we miss you."
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • "Grandpa Got Runned Over by a John Deere" had a non-album single on the B-side: "I Hate It, So Shove It", a parody of Tim McGraw's "I Like It, I Love It" about the O. J. Simpson trials. The only proof this B-side even exists is a single column in Billboard.
  • In 1999, he released a parody of Baz Luhrmann's "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen" titled "Everybody's Free (To Get Sunburned)" which was never put on an album.
  • The two extended plays in 2003 had limited runs, so most of the songs from them are hard to find. Particularly A Six Pack of Judd, since it was issued right before Monument Records closed its Nashville branch.
  • Three later songs, "Illegals" (2005), "Tiger by the Tail (The Tale of Tiger Woods)" (2009 parody of Buck Owens' "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail"), and "Redneck Christmas" (2010 duet with Deborah Allen) — were also never put on an album. No trace of "Illegals" existed anywhere on the Internet (except a cover by one of the writers) until someone uploaded the video in 2018.
• No-Hit Wonder: His highest charting song ("I Love NASCAR") only got to #48, but he's had a two-decade career regardless.
• Working Title: Bipolar and Proud was originally supposed to be titled Cledus Gone Wild. This explains the cover art, which features Judd flashing his chest.

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