I Admit It: We Are ‘Duck Dynasty’ Fans

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I watch very little television most nights. Sometimes I catch Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” if I can stay awake long enough. I do watch Monday Night Football or the occasional Red Sox game I catch televised down here in the South. But even then I keep the sound off and a book in my lap.

But over the past year or so, our family has developed a guilty pleasure for a show filmed not far from East Texas. I’m talking about “Duck Dynasty,” of course, which features the Robertson family of West Monroe, Louisiana. The A&E network just concluded its third season following this family of heavily bearded men with long hair and do-rags on their heads. If you met the whole group walking down the street, likely you would step aside, because they are rather scary looking — especially when wearing their hunting warpaint. The men wear camo every day. They all have beautiful wives and handsome children. Our 15-year-old daughter Abbie fully plans on marrying John Luke when both come of age — in about 15 years by our reckoning.

The Duck Commander company, founded more than 40 years ago by patriarch Phil Robertson, has made a fortune manufacturing duck calls. But on any given day, these guys would rather be duck hunting, frog gigging, or doing just about anything rather than get stuck inside. Their misadventures provide hours of entertainment that might strike many viewers, especially those of the urban variety, as rather unbelievable. Who, after all, would use explosives to get rid of a decrepit duck blind, then use a front-end loader to hoist a travel trailer up on a freshly built wooden frame to serve as its replacement? And spend time gutting the trailer’s interior, fixing it up with all the comforts of home, spray-painting the exterior black, and camouflaging it to become the ultimate duck blind?

My wife’s family would do that. I can absolutely identify with folks who enjoy blowing stuff up, stay up all night trying to ambush beavers damming up a pond, or set up web cams to track feral hogs tearing up a pasture. I am related by marriage to folks who regularly do those types of things. Although I am not a hunter — mainly because I don’t like killing or cleaning animals — I hang out with kinfolks who have introduced me to the joys of trot-line fishing and tannerite. The latter is a legal explosive that rednecks pack in small containers and then use for target practice because it makes a mighty loud noise when struck by a projectile. Think of it as a really, really loud firecracker. But it causes little damage and is perfectly safe otherwise — as long as you’re not standing right next to it when someone is shooting at it, but who would do that? You can light tannerite with a match, for example, and it won’t ignite.

So when we watch the Robertson men, for example, risking their lives trying to extract a honey beehive from a swamp using a wet-dry vac with an extended hose because of the lure of the honey inside, the notion doesn’t strike us as ludicrous. Except my wife’s three brothers might have figured out a better method to get that hive down.

“Duck Dynasty,” as an admiring New York Times article put it recently, is guided reality. The shows are obviously scripted but appear based on actual events. And in real life brothers Willie, the company CEO and the man responsible for building Duck Commander into a multi-million enterprise, and younger brother Jase are constantly exchanging barbs. And Uncle Si, brother to founder Phil, does indeed say the most outlandish things. The result is a show that, at least for us, is as entertaining, funny and true to modern rural Southern culture as anything we have ever seen on television.

A&E has hit it out of the park with “Duck Dynasty.” The premiere episode was the most-watched non-fiction show on cable this season. The family is likely making more money off the show plus licensing merchandise than it does making duck calls. Good for them. They should enjoy and invest it while they can. Fame is fleeting.

I’m sure this all has some folks just shaking their heads in bafflement, who don’t see the attraction of “Duck Dynasty.” Here is part of its appeal for me, my Beautiful Mystery Companion, and our daughter (OK, she’s mainly watching for a glimpse of John Luke.) It is that rare television show, quite adept at demonstrating the dynamics involved in an extended family. Each episode ends with the Robertson family eating a meal together after Phil says grace, thanking God for their blessings. Despite all their differences, sniping, and at times downright weirdness, they are still family. And there is no malice, meanness or cruelty in these episodes, which is rare.

That means something these days. Besides, as Uncle Si might say, “Hey, ‘Duck Dynasty’ is just flat-out funny, Jack.”

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