Why 'Duck Dynasty' rules reality TV

Why 'Duck Dynasty' rules reality TV

A proposal for a TV show about a Louisiana family that makes duck calls didn't have to go far to find doubters. They were seated at the dinner table. "I said, 'This will never work. Nobody's going to watch that,'" remembers Jase Robertson, who works for the family business. "My dad (Phil) echoed that. I think he said something along the lines of 'A redneck family, they're not going to run that.' " Well, they did run it, and people watched. Lots of people. A&E's Duck Dynasty, which opens its fourth season Wednesday (10 p.m. ET/PT), has become a ratings phenomenon, ranking behind only AMC's zombie hit The Walking Dead last season among cable series. The reality series that follows the bearded Robertson clan and their Monroe, La., outdoor sporting-goods business grew 95% in viewers last season, averaging 8.4 million viewers. Dynasty is designed as a modern-day sitcom with a rich cast of characters including patriarch and duck-call creator Phil; his wife Kay and sons Willie, the CEO; Jase, who makes the duck calls but would rather be hunting or fishing; and Jep; and Phil's offbeat brother, Si. The couple's oldest son, Alan -- uniquely clean-shaven -- joins the show in the fourth-season premiere, which features a surprise wedding-vow renewal ceremony for Phil and Kay on their 49th anniversary. "He's kind of the troubled one in my family. He's good looking, he's clean shaven, he bathes regularly and he wears nice clothes. We've always tried to figure out what exactly is wrong with him," Jase says. The show's success has much to do with how engaging the Robertsons are, says Andy Dehnart, editor of realityblurred.com, a blog about unscripted TV shows. "The No. 1 thing is just that the cast members are really appealing, nice, funny, warm, awesome people to spend some time with on TV. I think that's what makes all the difference," he says. Fans tweeted their feelings about the show to USA TODAY. Sherie Hinton of Fairfax, Va., says, "Watching (the) show takes u back to what's important. Church, Family, Fun," while Laura Hill of New Castle, Ind., relates to the tight-knit family you can love "even when you want to wring their necks like a duck." That's a typical response: "We get that a lot on social media, 'How I wish this was my family,' which is the best compliment we can get," says A&E's reality-programming chief Lily Neumeyer, also an executive producer on the series. Jase says he believes sincerity is the key. "I think the smartest thing we did was stay true to ourselves." Producers get episode ideas from the family members, but the episodes resemble sitcom plots: Willie wants to lose weight before a reunion. Jase thinks Willie is going through a midlife crisis. "We all sat down around a table and had them tell stories and we just listen. They always have the most amazing, funny stories and moments," she says. Producers often re-create situations for the show, so like most such series it isn't entirely unscripted. Once the cameras are rolling, the Robertsons take it from there, Neumeyer says. Still, when producers try to film or re-create events from their lives, family members don't necessarily go along with their plans. Jase says he's not told what to say and that he has balked at requests, refusing to wear knickers in an episode where he and Willie go golfing. "A lot of the ideas that they have, they always take a turn somewhere because that's just not what we would do," he says. "I think it's difficult for them to trust us enough to know that they're going to get something they can use, and that's been the biggest battle. They want to control it, but we're uncontrollable. So, finding that balance is the genius part of the show." Dynasty's success already is leading to imitators, Dehnart says, but it will be hard to reproduce the on-camera genuineness of the Robertsons. Discovery Channel on Tuesday unveiled Porter Ridge, a comedic series from Dynasty's producers that centers on an auto salvage yard business in the hills of Indiana. "I fear for the day when a bunch of Duck Dynasty clones come on the air, in part, because it's lightning in a bottle," says Dehnart. The family just got a big raise, Deadline.com reported Tuesday, enabling A&E to promise "several" more seasons of the show, but Jase dismisses reports of acrimony."We were having normal negotiations and people blew it out of proportion just for a story," he says. "A&E has been good to us. It says a lot of them to allow us to do what we do on the show, which is not normal television. They took a risk on us and we've been happy with them, and I think they've been happy with us." The high profile has helped the family business, too, with many people who aren't hunters buying the duck calls and other items. A&E says an extensive line of merchandise is a big seller at WalMart and other big retailers. The family members are in demand at various events, and Willie and Si will appear, as other characters, on the season premiere of ABC's Last Man Standing (Sept. 20, 8 p.m. ET/PT). "It's changed our lives, because I can't go to the grocery store without people gathering (around), but I think the difference in us and most people on TV is this was not something we set out as a goal," he says. "So, it didn't really taint the important things, our faith and our family and our perspective on life."




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Two stars finally find the right projects to do together decades after their heyday.

Two stars finally find the right projects to do together decades after their heyday.

SAN DIEGO — Arnold Schwarzenegger found an important common thread in politics and movies: Do the work that is good for the people. And judging by the uproarious crowd that came to see a special Comic-Con fan screening Thursday night of his new action movie with Sylvester Stallone,Escape Plan, no one's vetoing what he does best. "It isn't always successful, but that's what the intention is, and you've got to do movies for the people," the actor and former California governor says as he and Stallone sign autographs for fans, some of whom are dressed as Schwarzenegger's cigar-chomping camouflaged character in Commando or shouting the familiar Rocky catchphrase "Yo, Adrian!" at Stallone. More: Complete coverage of Comic-Con 2013 Directed by Swedish filmmaker Mikael Håfström,Escape Plan (in theaters Oct. 18) stars Stallone as a master jailbreaker who may have met his match when he is tossed into a high-tech slammer called "The Tomb." There, he meets another inmate (Schwarzenegger) with similar goals of escaping, and they work together to free themselves and also take revenge on the bad guys du jour. Separately, the actors defined the action-movie genre in the 1980s, but recently they've been on screen together more often than not. Stallone cast Schwarzenegger in a cameo in 2010's The Expendables, then wrote a bigger role for him in last year's sequel and has already signed the former bodybuilding champion for an Expendables 3. "We'll be doing Expendables from here to eternity. We're going to make up for the time we lost in the '80s," Schwarzenegger says. Stallone, 67, calls it "bilateral cooperation" that's been occurring in their later years. "We finally ran out of opponents and it's just us left in a room. 'Hey, you wanna dance?' 'Sure, let's go.' " He regrets not being able to work with Schwarzenegger, 65, back in their heyday, but they just couldn't find the right project. "They say, 'Hey, why don't you do one where you dress up as female cops?' Yeah, that'll work. No one will suspect that," Stallone quips. "Or then we were a dog and a cat, so it's a metaphor. And then we were bickering neighbors." Putting both of them in the same futuristic prison? That was more like it. "Finally, we get to smack each other and everything happened the way it happened," Stallone says. To Håfström, they're larger-than-life personalities in many ways, but that icon status off-screen gets set aside when they're acting. "Their friendship has grown over the years and now it's come out to full bloom in a way. They like to work together, they've done it before, and in this case they did it more than in any other movie. I'm sure they'll continue to do it," the director says. "It's been a relationship that has evolved through the years, in a good way." There is a definite competition between the two stars, though, and Håfström noticed that healthy tension and used it in scenes such as their big throwdown in the middle of the prison. "He'd come to me and say, 'Sly did the scene a little bit stronger than you. …' He's firing us up like that," Schwarzenegger says. "We were competing in the fight scenes and in the running and with the chase scenes, and it really worked out great for the movie." He couldn't see himself going into politics 30 years ago, but Schwarzenegger always envisioned himself doing films and action movies, with more to come. "It's a very risky business to be in because one day you can be down, the next day you're up again, and then you can be down again," the actor says. "You never know, but that's what makes it fun. I love operating without a safety net."



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Miss Connecticut wins Miss USA contest in Vegas

Miss Connecticut wins Miss USA contest in Vegas

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A 25-year-old accountant from Connecticut with a secret glamorous side is the new Miss USA. Erin Brady of South Glastonbury, Conn., won the beauty pageant Sunday night after strutting in a white sparkly gown and answering a question about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding widespread DNA tests. She beat out 51 other beauty queens every U.S. state and Washington D.C.at the Planet Hollywood casino on the Las Vegas Strip to take the title from outgoing champion Miss Maryland Nana Meriwether. Asked if she agreed with the decision to swab the cheeks of arrestees, Brady said she did, since they had committed crimes after all. As Brady was crowned, she could be seen mouthing "Oh my God, oh my God" with tears in her eyes. As the stage emptied, the blonde woman spoke about her commitment to fighting drug and alcohol abuse, which have marked those close to her. "I grew up in a family influenced by that and I think it's really important to help the children of families that are suffering from those problems," she told The Associated Press. As Miss USA, Brady gets the crown and a New York apartment for one year. She is expected to spend her title reign on a nationwide speaking tour and raising breast and ovarian cancer awareness, the organization's official cause. The Central Connecticut State University fiance major could not contain her excitement at the prospect of telling her bosses at Prudential Financial she wasn't coming in tomorrow. Or ever again. Asked what she was looking forward to now that the competition is over, she described a routine that sounded not very different from her training regime: getting in her beauty sleep and hitting the gym. Her father Francis said he always knew his math-oriented daughter was a glamour girl. She and her sisters used to strut around and pretend they were beauty queens. "They would model around the pool," he said. Her sister Audrey, 20, said with tears in her eyes that her grandmother would orchestrate the shows. "She'd be like, 'prance around the pool like Miss America.'" The family was taken by surprise when Brady announced that she would be entering the Miss Connecticut competition two years ago, but cheered her on. "She just went up there on a whim, man. But it was like, 'Just go for it. There should be more people like you who are competing, where it's not all about the hair and the makeup, but personality too,'" Audrey said. Fiancee Tony Capasso said it was her winning personality that propelled her to the crown. He said he advised her to compete without makeup. Brady told The Associated Press she hopes that her background will help dispel the image held by some of the bimbo beauty queen. "I think that now more than ever, they're accepting that we're all intelligent individuals and that it's really not a stereotype anymore," she said. Unlike the rival Miss America pageant, Miss USA doesn't ask its queens to perform a talent or choose a charity mission. Brady will represent the United States at the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow this winter. Last year's Miss USA, Olivia Culpo, won that international crown, becoming the first Miss USA to ascend to Miss Universe in 16 years. Brady said she is determined to pull of that feat for the U.S. again. In the moments before she won, Brady held hands with first runner up Mary Margaret McCord, of Alabama. McCord could be seen saying, "I love you" in the moments before the winner was announced. Miss Illinois Stacie Juris was second runner up. Two of the six judges' questions on Sunday touched on the controversial data-collection programs run by the National Security Agency brought to light earlier this month. In both cases, the queens took an unconcerned attitude. Miss South Carolina said the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden who leaked the information should not be charged with treason. Miss Alabama said the programs did not bother her. Brady also took a sanguine attitude in her answer about check swabs. "If someone is being prosecuted and committed a crime, its should happen. There are so many crimes that if that's one step closer to stopping them, than we should be able to do so," she said. ___ Yvette Cruz contributed to this report. Hannah Dreier can be reached at http://twitter.com/hannahdreier



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