168 replies to this topic

[patroo]

[font="Arial Black"]Duck Dynasty is about a family-owned business that makes duck calls, marked under the name "Duck Commander," with a unique design that has been very successful. The primary character is CEO Willie Robertson, college grad and ramrod of the family industry.

Most apparent is that Gillette will not be buying commercial time on this show. There's more hair on the males than you'd find at a werewolf convention. Despite the usual contrived story lines associated with reality shows, it does look as though it would be fun to hang out with this family. In the first episode, one of them gets the idea that it would be nice to have some ducks around to use in testing each hand-made duck call.

The lowest area on the factory property is right at the loading dock, and after blocking the drain with a sheet of plywood, a rock and at least one other miscellaneous item, a hose is set to start flooding the pond-to-be. Another employee notes that this new project is underway and calls Willie at the Robertson family home, where he's helping his mother make a DVD about cooking frog legs. We saw the frog hunt earlier in the episode, and for those who might emulate it, you need a catcher, someone to drive the boat, and any available idiot to put them in the cooler and sit on the lid.

Willie drives up as the water is beginning to make a significant pond in front of the loading dock, and the new ducks (from the pet store) are trying it out. He scolds the other family members and employees, herding them back inside to actually work. While staring at them, all at their work stations as if they were in detention, he asks if the pond idea was any good. When it was explained that nobody had actually fully tested the idea, he decided to try it out.

I've never seen mallards at a pet shop, but in Louisiana, who knows. Maybe a farm store.

The episode wraps with the happy hillbillies sitting on the loading dock, blatting duck calls at the contented ducks. Will we see this pond again? Will they be wearing waders to put the garbage in the dumpster that is now an island in the stream?

Willie complains that the problem with hiring relatives is that you can't fire them. I suspect that the family attitude to some members is that, "yeah, he's an idiot...but he's OUR idiot."

I have no idea why hairy hillbillies are suddenly the darlings of all manner of reality TV shows. Maybe it's just that they're fun to hang out with, a new kind of zoo animal. This means we won't probably see comparable shows about lawyers and accountants because they just aren't as much fun. [/font]

[Nightmare Logic]

I am usually NOT a fan of reality television Candid Reality is sometimes the exception. This show looked interesting because it didn't look like the usual dreck of bad people acting like bad people. I honestly found these people entertaining and interesting. That being said, I am really not a fan of reality television and my tolerance for it is very very low so I may not keep up with it. However the family is at least relatable which is more then I can say for most of the people I see on reality television.

[millk]

This is an absolute hoot! I'm sure many of these guys could buy and sell a few of us over again but they come off as a bunch of good ol' boys.

I'm watching the episode were grandpa (who went from a backwoods guy with no money to a backwoods guy with money) is teaching the citified grandkids about skills they'd need to survive which they'll never use because they are now rich citified kids.

In terms of family job reality shows I like this better than Dog (sanctimonious blah blah) and Pawn Stars (fun guys but kinda smarmy) I'm sure we'll get the lowdown on these guys at some point but for now I'll just enjoy.

[Gabrielle Tracy]

I saw a preview for this show yesterday at the movie theater before "The Hunger Games" started. Those guys seem oddly, well, lovable! lol

[vvh3]

This show really entertains me. I love the competitiveness between Jase and Willie, and the paradigm shifts among generations. Also, the tug between "run the business" and "have fun". And they do seem to have fun.

[pdiddyduf]

This show is funny. I didn't think that millionaires would still eat squirrel, but I guess you learn something new everyday.

I'm watching the episode where they send Phill and Si to the career day at school, Oh My God!

This show is funny. I didn't think that millionaires would still eat squirrel, but I guess you learn something new everyday.

I'm watching the episode where they send Phill and Si to the career day at school, Oh My God!

[cosmic1]

OMG, this show is a riot. I could not stop laughing when Phil said he'd always wondered what a man would do if someone threw an opposum on them and then made fun of his son for getting soft living in the suburbs. Just too funny.

I also loved the neighbor saying that he'd rather have the squirrel than the extra $5.

LOL.

[caro51980]

I really like the Robertsons, but the staged storylines were kind of annoying to me.

I started to enjoy the show more when I read online that they were trying to make a show like an old-school sitcom hence the crazy family antics and silly situations.

[Bucktowner]

This show is hilarious.

It's contrived but good natured. Here are the "hi-jinks" so far:

• Flood the loading dock for a test pond.
• Lift an old trailer ten feet up to make the mother of all duck blinds
• Create a hand made hill-billy conveyer belt and send a guy on a kayak down it
• Get "arrested" catching frogs in a country club golf course pond
• Go house hunting with a city slicker real estate agent and ask him for dip cup.
• Record crazy Uncle Sy in the bath tub and use that as beaver call because beavers look for running water
• Burn down the Beaver Dam with a blow torch
• Send Phil and Sy to the school's career day, where Phil butchers a duck and Sy rambles on about "the war in Vee-It Namn"

The Robertsons have had TV shows before. "Duck Dynasty" is just the most recent one with a lot less emphasis on hunting.

Also, the Robertsons are a hairier, less fertile, and more heavily armed version of the Duggars. Just type in "Phil Robertson" on youtube and you'll see some serious fire and brimstone preaching from Granpa Robertson.

[stephf13]

I adore this show. The whole family is charming. The "dressing" of the animals I could do without, but other than that. Phil reminds me so much of my own grandfather, I just want to give him a hug. :)

[patroo]

Lift an old trailer ten feet up to make the mother of all duck blinds

If you look carefully at the before and after shots, the junker in the weeds was only suitable for destruction, and the finished duckblind has an interior layout that is different, plus gorgeous woodwork and decor that looks factory-fresh. There's also a professional paint job that is much better looking than we saw in the beginning. I am not sure why they just didn't write it into the story line since they aren't ashamed to spend money - "the old trailer was just too nasty, so I called the company and had a custom one built." Sure, one can restore old travel trailers, but it costs a lot and takes a lot of time. I think it's a lot likelier to just put a nice new trailer up in the tree.

It is a great idea - think how much fun it would be to have a weekend cabin in a tree.

I am not crazy about the invented storylines - I think this family is weird enough that their normal ought to provide plenty of strange for television fodder. Certainly they are not so foolish as to think a pair of goats could live in the house for any period of time (though I've had a house lamb before), and it isn't that hard to order panels from the feed store and have someone put them up to make a paddock. That's the result you get, though, when you are using Wiley Coyote for a role model.

[Roller Girl]

This show really cracks me up. As my husband said after the first airing, "I think I could hang out with these people."

From what we've read, it looks like the Robinson clan wasn't quite as backwoods as you'd think. If you noticed in the last episode, the dad said that out of all of his brothers and sister (I think he said there were 8?) Sy was the only one who didn't have a college degree. And he himself has a masters? in education, I believe... and actually taught for a while. And I'm pretty sure Willie and all of his brothers also have college educations.

I think the dad also played football and was drafted into the NFL? I'm not 100% sure on that one though.

Anyway, it's an interesting and funny show. I really had no desire to watch it, from the previews they played before it started, but it's really really funny. They seem like good people. I hope it stays that way.

[sereion]

OMG, I did not think I would like a show about rich rednecks, but color me hooked! I'm trying to get past the frog hunts as they make my skin crawl. The career day episode was hiliarious.

Edited by sereion, May 3, 2012 @ 9:38 AM.

[Jess Sayin]

I find these people endearing also! Cracked me up during the preview when the CEO dude yelled in exasperation, "I can't fire you 'cuz y'all are KIN to me!" And he kicks something on the ground. Love it!!

[walnutqueen]

What I like the most is how tongue-in-cheek this show is. They've found the perfect old-timey Beverly Hillbillies vibe, and play it to perfection. Phil's deadpan delivery and words of wisdom just crack me up. Jase runs a very close second - the resemblance is uncanny. And Miss Kaye is just plain adorable. Someone very clever (named Robertson, no doubt) is writing this script!

Phil (on not trusting mankind): "I love you - let me get into your britches."

Jase: "Willie is as wound up as a coon dog trying to pass a peach seed. When you see those dogs that have that, all their muscles are contracting, and they just walk around on their tiptoes all day. It's quite the show."

Jase (on teenage suitors): "Give them first base. When you try to take first base away, that's it - they go to another ballpark."

Oh, and I hate the killing of animals, even though I understand it - for food only. I have a lovely pair of wild ducks who have returned to my mostly emptied swimming pool/swamp every year since 2003 to honeymoon. They remind me of a childhood spent feeding the ducks and swans at Lost Lagoon, so I am particularly partial to the species, and hate to see them shot. But duck is definitely delicious!

[Dezdemona]

I'm not much of a fan of reality shows, but I LOVE this one! I don't mind if the story-lines occasionally feel contrived because the family is just plain fun to hang out with. I figure that having a weekly "plot" is just their way of turning the family's dynamic into a quasi sit-com. When the episode is over, I'm always left looking forward to next week's hi-jinks. I've found every episode entertaining so far, so I guess their formula works well for me.

[bellaoriley]

I think the dad also played football and was drafted into the NFL? I'm not 100% sure on that one though.

Phil was the starting QB at Louisiana Tech ahead of a guy named Terry Bradshaw. Phil quit football his senior year, because it interfered with duck season. Bradshaw wrote about him in his autobiography. I wonder what would have became of Bradshaw had Phil stuck it out.

[walnutqueen]

Phil was the starting QB at Louisiana Tech ahead of a guy named Terry Bradshaw. Phil quit football his senior year, because it interfered with duck season.

It just keeps getting better - ya just can't make this shit up!

[amelia7196]

does anyone know WHY all the men have these long beards?

[gryphon]

I am wondering if there is a place to find all of Si's quotes--I find him amusing. "Try to steal the ball from the other guy....when there's no ball."
I love that Si can sew and made that apron for Miss Kay. Didn't think I would find it as charming as it is.


I also think Martin is WAY smarter than he appears to be.

[ZoloftBlob]

does anyone know WHY all the men have these long beards?

I've probably missed the episode with the exact reason, but I recall Sy? Babbling to one of the women about how only city men shave or something. I think it looks nasty, and I hope the reasonably good looking grandsons break with family tradition on this point.

They seem like nice enough people but... its funny how underneath the heehaw, these people are shockingly judgemental about others and disrespectful to boot. I was watching one where for some, no doubt tv inspired reason, the grandma and granddad were househunting. Now, as a "city person", I find the house they're currently in to be a very nice well kept house... so why exactly is it cutesy fun for a Robertson to verbally shit on how other people live? I know these people are well read and have college educations and I know a lot of this is a put on ( I believe they love hunting and the outdoors and all that, but there's been any number of times that the "we's jus country folk livin' offa the land!" has been laid on a bit too thick) so after a while, having a bunch of millionaires shit on how the rest of us have to live gets a bit obnoxious.

[walnutqueen]

I am wondering if there is a place to find all of Si's quotes--I find him amusing.

gryphon, try this site.

[ChicksDigScars]

Okay, I just watched a mini-marathon of this show and spent the whole time rolling off the couch, cracking up.

Willie hands his daughter's 14 year old date a duck call and says, "If he's going to have his lips on something I made, I'd rather it be a duck call."

Jase on Uncle Si: "You can't spell 'stupid' without an 'S' and an 'I.'"

[cwreality]

I've probably missed the episode with the exact reason, but I recall Sy? Babbling to one of the women about how only city men shave or something. I think it looks nasty, and I hope the reasonably good looking grandsons break with family tradition on this point.

They seem like nice enough people but... its funny how underneath the heehaw, these people are shockingly judgemental about others and disrespectful to boot. I was watching one where for some, no doubt tv inspired reason, the grandma and granddad were househunting. Now, as a "city person", I find the house they're currently in to be a very nice well kept house... so why exactly is it cutesy fun for a Robertson to verbally shit on how other people live? I know these people are well read and have college educations and I know a lot of this is a put on ( I believe they love hunting and the outdoors and all that, but there's been any number of times that the "we's jus country folk livin' offa the land!" has been laid on a bit too thick) so after a while, having a bunch of millionaires shit on how the rest of us have to live gets a bit obnoxious.

I think the whole "city folk" thing is for the show. With the exception of Sy, they are all college-educated, I believe, so they obviously traveled to the "city" for a time. I will say, though, that their references to "city people" don't bother me. Coutless shows mock Southerners as toothless, racist inbreds and no one balks, so I'm fine that someone else is being derided for once. I do think they say them in jest, for show or otherwise. Heck, by their standards I am a city person, and I live in a pretty small place.

[walnutqueen]

The Robertsons are back! This makes me happy, happy, happy.

[gryphon]

Me too, walnutqueen! And thanks for the Si quote page. He still cracks me up.

The doll house/duck blind? Priceless!

[LLC]

Si is hilarious. would leave my entire family for Jase. Just sayin'...

Edited by LLC, Oct 12, 2012 @ 11:57 AM.

[patroo]

The best episode for me was when the men were babysitting granddaughters, and Grandpa wanted nothing much to do with the girls, but Si visited their tea party, had his beard braided, and wore a feather boa. Sure, it was staged for TV, but we can hope that Si is as much fun in real life as he is on TV. He will be a memorable character for all those children. After all, he is a Redneck Renaissance Man, able to do anything at the drop of a hat, whether it's sewing or cooking squirrels.

Don't you think that if one visited their factory, you'd get a hearty "hi ya'll!" and a plate of squirrel?

[fostersmom]

Either that or they would hand you a net and tell you to go catch your own frogs for dinner.

[cosmic1]

I'd love to see a show where the grandkids shared their impressions on their elders. That would be a hoot. Last week's one with Si eating all those donuts and then sleeping in the camper that he won while it was being moved to an undisclosed location was just hilarious. That reminds me of something my cousins would do to each other.