In 1986, Byrge began appearing alongside
Gailard Sartain in a series of "Me and My Brother Bobby" commercials, produced by the
Nashville advertising company Carden and Cherry, the same company responsible for the
Ernest P. Worrell commercials with
Jim Varney. Basic premise was Sartain and Byrge were, "Twin brothers who didn't look anything alike", while the shtick was loud-mouth Chuck (Sartain) would endorse a certain product, and in some cases, would bungle something in the process, while his quiet and collected twin brother Bobby (Byrge) would mostly agree with whatever Chuck's sentiments were with a simple, yet enthusiastic nod. Later in 1988, the actors would reprise their roles in their own recurring sketches on the Saturday morning children's show, ''
Hey Vern, It's Ernest!'', where, depending on the episode's specific theme, the brothers would usually get involved with whatever situation that Ernest was involving himself in, such as a bake sale or a talent show, for example. Later still, the characters were also featured in a number of the theatrical Ernest movies, in a variety of odd jobs, such as
Eastern Airlines cargo attendants in
Ernest Saves Christmas and security guards in
Ernest Goes to Jail; it is also revealed in the Ernest movies that Chuck and Bobby are Ernest's next-door neighbors. Afterwards, Sartain was absent from remaining Ernest films, but Byrge continued to portray Bobby, and was paired with somewhat similar characters, including a younger brother Tom (
Dallas native John Cadenhead) in
Ernest Scared Stupid, and alongside
Linda Kash's character Gerta in
Ernest Goes to School which was filmed in
Vancouver,
British Columbia. In the original commercials and Ernest TV series, Bobby never speaks, but will occasionally mouth what he is trying to say, or even hold up a sign with his thoughts written on it; in the following Ernest movies however, Bobby actually did speak, sometimes only a line or two.
Post-Ernest Byrge did little acting since the demise of the Ernest franchise; however, in later years, he did reprise his role as Bobby once again for an independent
DVD movie, alongside Billy Dee (who also is the webmaster of the official Ernest/Jim Varney fansite), entitled
Billy and Bobby the Wacky Duo On Vacation. In the movie, buddies Billy and Bobby go on roadtrip, but before they do, Billy needs to teach Bobby how to drive (which reflects Byrge's real-life lack of driving skills); Bobby also had a lot of dialogue in the movie as well. Byrge was also involved in a number of music videos and theater productions in his hometown of Nashville. ==Death==