Duck Dynasty: A Surprisingly Funny Hit Show

I first saw the advertisements for Duck Dynasty in the early part of 2012. Never before had I seen so much facial hair. ZZ Top only has two excessively bearded men. The fellows at Duck Commander all have beards that can compete with the veteran rockers from Texas. I must confess that the advertisements did not cause a great deal of excitement on my part. I did not watch the show for the first few weeks it was on. I have to confess that I only watched when commercials during Storage Wars showed the guys from Duck Dynasty having digestion issues after eating some bad stuff on a "redneck road trip." Since watching that first episode, I've been pretty much hooked on the show. Even Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the show went on Jay Leno and intimated that he thought producers who wanted a show about duck hunting rednecks were crazy.

Duck Dynasty is one of the latest installments of the reality TV genre. The show centers on the Robertson family of West Monroe, Louisiana. The family patriarch, Phil Robertson, was the founder of the Duck Commander company that specializes in duck calls and hunting videos (I have seen none of these videos personally). Phil quite possibly could have been famous in another avenue of life. He actually started ahead of Terry Bradshaw as the quarterback at Louisiana Tech before he gave up football with a year of eligibility remaining because football interfered with duck hunting. Phil made out just fine, as he's earned millions with his duck calls, videos, and other assorted hunting paraphernalia.

Phil's wife "Miss Kay" and his brother Si (pronounced like Cy), a bearded Vietnam vet with an ancient Vietnam-era Tupperware cup constantly filled with tea, fill out the older generation of Robertsons. Si has some of the funniest quotes from the show. In a recent show that started with a half-blind Si accidentally eating squirrel poo that he mistook for berries, he let the tribe know that he hadn't been to the eye doctor in ten years, to which he added, "Ain't nothin' changed in ten years. You turn on the radio, and there's the Flu Fighters." Si's "Vietnam Special" of beans cause quite the stir when it got to his companions on a road trip.

The beard that plays the straight man in all of this craziness is Willie Robertson, one of Phil's sons who is now the CEO of Duck Commander. Willie is often antagonized by his older brother Jase, who has taken Willie's RV without permission, broken into Willie's office at night for a spotlight, and made a rather unique conveyor belt to increase production.

Minor characters include the wives of Phil's sons, the grandchildren of Phil and Kay, Jep Robertson (another son of Phil), Duck Commander employees Godwin, and an extremely slow-talking bearded neighbor known simply as "Mountain Man.",Mountain Man is from Louisiana, but actually spent time in Portland.

Duck Dynasty is pretty unique when it comes to reality TV. Most of the other shows in this genre follow people who are being as bad as they can be. Duck Dynasty actually promotes values that most people could wish for their family.

All of the Robertson boys are apparently married to their first wives. The grandchildren say "yes, sir" to Phil on a regular basis. The dangers of hanky panky are drilled into the heads of the young 'uns. As Phil told his grandson John Luke while taking the teenager and his girlfriend fishing, "Never touch her below the neck." The extended family always ends the show around a table saying a prayer before eating.

The show is very humorous, and much of the humor is related to Jase trying to get Willie's goat or Si's interesting take on life and his attempts to explain this take verbally. People of just about any age can enjoy the clean humor (unless they find the occasional humor related to poo and flatulence offensive), and there is pretty much nothing that parents have to worry about. Apparently, many people find the show entertaining, as it is one of A & E TV's biggest hits ever.

The much-awaited third season of Duck Dynasty started with brand new episodes on February 27, 2013 on the A & E Television network.

The first episode of the new season focused on Duck Season's Eve, a night on which the Duck Commander guys rough it to get ready for duck season. Jase was the only one to make it. The rest of the guys took up Willie's offer to hang out in the RV that earned notoriety because of Si's Vietnam surprise of beans and hot sauce. Si went to Phil and Kay's house and fell asleep while Jase and Martin ate "Mallow dogs."

The season was pretty funny, and the final episode took the Robertson clan to Hawaii. On this episode, Phil and Kay hang out in the room while Kay sleeps and Phil watches a Jason Bourne marathon. Willie's clothes don't show up, and he winds up wearing a dress (AKA sarong) for the entire trip. Si has no room and winds up being stuck with Willie and Kori.

Back in March, it was revealed that season 4 of Duck Dynasty would be held up over a contract dispute. The Robertsons wanted more money for the viewers they bring to A & E. The season finale of Season 3 brought 9.6 million viewers (a new record). In early May 2013, however, it was announced that production for season 4 was underway. The new season of Duck Dynasty will start in short order on August 14! As stated on A & E commercials, the new season of Duck Dynasty started on August 14 with Phil and Kay getting married on their homestead. This was the first episode to feature Al Robertson, Phil and Miss Kay's preacher son. In this episode, Si took them down memory lane to a run-down crack house where Phil and Kay supposedly met.

Episode 2 of Season 4 saw Martin get a date. Si dressed up like a woman, complete with feather boa, to give some advice in a role play.

Duck Dynasty has now completed season 6, and A & E is putting out some shows that are taken from the Duckmen before they started filming DD for the network. Some of the comments from Phil have been a bit controversial in the days since the show first came on, but a threatened boycott brought the family's patriarch back to filming after a short "suspension."