ANAHEIM, Calif. – Larry the Cable Guylikes to laugh. So naturally, he loves playing the wisecracking buck-toothed tow truck Mater in Disney/ Pixar’s Cars franchise.

“Me and Owen Wilson were just saying, ‘We’ve got a lot of new blood in this movie. I’m hoping for a four, five and six,’” he says of Cars 3, which opens this Friday.

Cars 3, which revolves around the cocky race car Lightning McQueen (voiced by Wilson), is the most, dare we say it, grown up film in the franchise. Coming 11 years after the original, McQueen faces forced retirement in the face of more high-tech competition from the likes of Jackson Storm (voiced by Armie Hammer).

Larry’s John Mater is there to provide the comic relief as McQueen faces a late-life crisis.

“When it starts getting too serious, I make a joke,” he laughs.

In addition to playing Mater in the Pixar films, Larry – a.k.a. Dan Whitney – is one of the most successful standup comedians working. Along with pal Jeff Foxworthy, he’s on the road right now with his We've Been Thinking Tour (which stops in at the Calgary Stampede July 16).

But he’s thankful that he gets to revisit Mater every four or five years.

“In my opinion, Cars 3 is more of a sequel to the first movie,” the 54-year-old Nebraska native says. “I think the second movie, which I love, didn’t have much to do with the first movie. This does... People who have grown up with these films and enjoyed the first one are going to feel satisfied with Cars 3 because it all comes together.”

Before walking the red carpet for the film’s world premiere, Larry spoke with the Sun about why the Cable Guy has endured for almost 30 years, shared his thoughts on Kathy Griffin’s Trump joke and told us how his famous catchphrase “Git-R-Done” came to be.

Cars is just the second franchise in Pixar history to get a third film. When you did the original back in 2006, did you think this was going to be a trilogy?

No, not at all. I didn’t think about it because I was so busy doing all kinds of stuff. But I never thought in a million years that it was going to become a trilogy.

Lightning McQueen has to deal with aging in a sport that values youth. You’ve been doing standup for over 20 years. How have you dealt with young comedians stealing some of your spotlight?

I don’t care if those young bucks are coming because I’ve done well and I’ve made my cash and I’m living large. So [to those up and comers], ‘Good luck. Have fun. Enjoy the press conferences.’

There’s always somebody coming up, but I think the better example would be in sport. You’re a baseball player, maybe a third baseman, and there’s another good third baseman coming up. You got to work hard and give it all you got. However, if you’re like McQueen, and you’re a third baseman who has already been in the limelight and already done well, at some point that new third baseman is going to take over your spot. I think this movie deals with how to handle that situation and turn it into a positive so people can learn a life lesson.

Kathy Griffin tried out a joke in which she posed with a fake bloodied, severed head of Donald Trump. As a standup comic, what did you make of that?

People laugh at all different things. Would I have done that? No, I think it was wrong and disrespectful. But I’m not going to tell any comedian what they can or can’t do — I believe in freedom of speech. If you want to do that joke, throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. To me, that wasn’t funny and apparently a lot of people didn’t think it was funny.

When did you come up with Git-R-Done?

It’s been there since at least 1990. I used to do radio in Florida and I was on 95ynf in 1990 and I used to sign off with, ‘Whatever you got to do, you better Git-R-Done.’ It was just a joke, but I ended up getting syndicated on 27 other stations and I got them saying ‘Git-R-Done’ in Florida in the early ‘90s and it spread. It’s pretty cool that it’s still going strong.

Away from the stage, you’re Dan Whitney, but you’ve been doing Larry the Cable Guy since the ‘90s. What’s his appeal?

I say stuff where people might be like, ‘You probably shouldn’t say that in public.’ But it’s a free country and people like that and I like that. Also, I’m a country kid. That has a mass appeal as well because you get anywhere out of the city and everyone is pretty much raised the same.

I always think this is funny. The Huffington Post did an article railing on me because I never come out of character. Then six months later, they did an article about Stephen Colbert and said the genius of his comedy is he doesn’t come out of character and I’m thinking, ‘That’s what I do. How come I’m an a—hole and he’s a genius.’

Twitter: @markhdaniell

MDaniell@postmedia.com