Latest news with #RobertsonFamily
Fox News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
'Duck Dynasty' returns with Willie Robertson hunting for successor
The Robertson family is back with their revival of "Duck Dynasty." The A&E show aired its first episode on June 1, showing Willie Robertson, his wife Korie Robertson, and their children and grandchildren transitioning into the new "Duck Dynasty" chapter. Willie is currently the CEO of the Duck Commander hunting company, which Phil Robertson founded in 1972 and was a vital part of the original "Duck Dynasty" series. The television show premiered 40 years later, in 2012, before it ended in 2017. The first episode kicked off in West Monroe, Louisiana, with Willie, Silas Merritt "Si" Robertson and Jase Robertson doing what they do best – duck hunting. Si gave Willie a hard time for not hunting as much and not going into the Duck Commander headquarters for over a year, which prompted him to pay a visit and reevaluate his role in the company. Willie announced that he is "semi-retiring" as CEO of Duck Commander and is looking for someone to take his place. He took his children, John Luke, Bella, Sadie and Will, duck hunting to find out who would be the best person to replace him. His youngest son, Rowdy, was away at college and his daughter, Rebecca, was pregnant and couldn't make the hunting trip. On the trip, Sadie shared that her father never took them duck hunting when they were kids, which Willie blames on technology and cellphones as the reason they weren't outdoors in their youth. The episode concluded with a big family dinner, where everyone met the new addition to the family, Rebecca's son. She gave birth to her third child, Xander, in November. On May 25, Korie Robertson took to social media to share Phil's passing after months of health concerns. "We celebrate today that our father, husband, and grandfather, Phil Robertson, is now with the Lord." "We celebrate today that our father, husband, and grandfather, Phil Robertson, is now with the Lord. He reminded us often of the words of Paul, 'you do not grieve like those who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him,'" her post began. Korie Robertson added that the family will have a private service but will share details "about a public celebration of his life." "Thank you for the love and prayers of so many whose lives have been impacted by his life saved by grace, his bold faith, and by his desire to tell everyone who would listen the Good News of Jesus," she added. "We are grateful for his life on earth and will continue the legacy of love for God and love for others until we see him again." During a December episode of "Unashamed with the Robertson Family," Robertson's diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease was announced. Willie later spoke with Fox News Digital, saying that Phil was "battling a lot of different things right now." "He's got a blood disorder, and then he's got the mental issues that could be early [on-set] Alzheimer's… and probably some ministrokes because of his blood," Willie explained. "And so, it could be some stroke stuff happening, that has happened. So, we're still checking on all that." "But then he also has a back issue. He's fractured his back and that's where the pain's at. So, he's kind of battling many different things at the same time." "Duck Dynasty: The Revival" airs Sundays on A&E network at 9/8c.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
"Duck Dynasty: The Revival": How to watch live, stream and what time it airs
The hit reality TV show, "Duck Dynasty," first aired on March 21, 2012 on A&E Network. The show followed the lives of the Robertson family members as they navigated life and their family business, Duck Commander, in West Monroe, Louisiana. The show also showcased their duck hunting talents and practices, as well as their strong family values. A&E Network's new series, "Duck Dynasty: The Revival," will premiere on June 1 at 9 p.m. The series will feature 20 one-hour episodes, and episodes will stream the next day after the premiere. "Duck Dynasty: The Revival" will premiere on A&E, and viewers may watch through A&E, and the A&E app, with a TV provider. The show will also be available on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Pluto TV. The "Duck Dynasty" reboot will follow Willie and Korie Robertson, and the next generation of the family, as they map out the future of Duck Commander and pass down the family legacy to their children. The show will also follow Willie and Korie's children, Sadie Robertson Huff, John Luke Robertson and Bella Robertson May, as they navigate marriage and businesses of their own. Presley Bo Tyler is a reporter for the Louisiana Deep South Connect Team for Gannett/USA Today. Find her on X @PresleyTyler02 and email at PTyler@ This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: How to watch "Duck Dynasty: The Revival." Time, channel, streaming
New York Times
28-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
‘Duck Dynasty' Is Coming Back for a Second Term
On Jan. 20, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. Two days later, A&E network announced that it had ordered 20 new episodes of its hit 2010s reality comedy 'Duck Dynasty,' titled 'Duck Dynasty: The Revival.' The network, in its official statement, did not connect the second restoration to the first. But short of ABC's bringing Roseanne Barr's character back from the dead to head the 'Roseanne' revival, 'The Conners,' it is hard to imagine another programming decision that would so glaringly declare that the times had a-changed back. 'Duck Dynasty' actually aired primarily during the Obama era, with 11 seasons beginning in 2012, and it was never overtly about politics onscreen. (Offscreen was another story; we'll get to that.) Focused on the Robertson family of Louisiana, who made their fortune with the Duck Commander duck-call business before becoming reality stars, the series was first and above all a lighthearted family TV show. But 'Duck Dynasty' was also in many ways a precursor of the conservative identity politics that would sweep in after it. It was filled with cultural signifiers — beards, Bibles and buckshot — that spoke to the authenticity of rural life and the reverence for heritage. It became the focus of a controversy that previewed how central grievances over 'wokeness' and 'cancellation' would become to conservative politics. And it was a mass-market hit that found an audience by representing a kind of life — traditionalist, openly Christian, country — that was absent from much pop culture. The original series went off the air in 2017, months after President Trump's first swearing-in. It was most likely the victim less of social forces than of the mundane TV problem of overexposure: It cranked out 131 episodes and 11 seasons in five years, and the ratings had dived. Given its timing, the return of the Robertsons to TV feels like a restoration parallel to the one in Washington, a second term picking up where the first left off. But nothing really returns unchanged. The new 'Duck Dynasty' wants to bring back the old fun, and to some extent it does. But it is also, in its lighthearted, 'Happy, happy, happy' way, reckoning with what celebrity has made of it, how time has changed it and where a new generation of leadership might take a brand — and a show — built on nostalgia for the old days. THE SECRET TO THE ORIGINAL 'Duck Dynasty' is that despite being nominally a reality show, it was really a sitcom. It had the stagy zingers, setups and wacky side quests of a scripted, laugh-tracked network half-hour. The Robertsons called the approach 'guided reality'; producers suggested scenarios and the cast ran with them, being themselves but performatively. Practical jokes were played; shenanigans were had. It was cheerful, countrified escapism with all the heft of a balsa-wood decoy. It had one foot planted in the present, represented by Willie Robertson, the Duck Commander chief executive, who worked to modernize and expand the business. But it had another plunged deep in the swampy past, personified by Willie's father, Phil, the wizened company founder, with his folksy, unreconstructed opinions on marriage, manhood and religion. (Phil died on May 25 at 79.) Orbiting them were an assortment of bemused wives, cute kids and oddball neighbors and relations, like the gonzo philosopher Uncle Si. 'Duck Dynasty' was a simple entertainment, but it was also a complicated mash-up of several of the most popular TV genres of its time. It had some connection to 'hicksploitation' reality shows like 'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo' and to series like 'Deadliest Catch' that celebrated people who worked with their hands. It also had the structure and beats of a mockumentary sitcom. Like 'Modern Family,' it often ended with voice-overs summing up the episode's themes and lessons. (There's even a special 'The family goes to Hawaii' episode.) Like 'The Office,' it structured stories around staffers goofing around the warehouse and cooking up schemes like flooding the loading dock to create a duck pond. But there was a key difference between it and the network comedies set in bougie Los Angeles or a Rust Belt corporate office. It was about work, family and faith — a typical episode would close with a prayer over a meal — offering representation for the sort of region that had been largely ignored by the networks since the 'rural purge' removed TV's once-popular rustic sitcoms from the air in the early 1970s. 'Duck Dynasty' was both a fantasy of wealth and a fantasy of rural working-class life. It was not simply some 'Beverly Hillbillies' cartoon of shooting up the woods and cooking up varmints — though there was an element of that. (You do not have to watch the series long before you see a squirrel in a stew pot.) Instead, there was a savviness to how the Robertsons played with their caricatures and managed their screen images. (After the Robertson men became famous as bearded icons of country living, pre-TV photos emerged of them as clean-shaven as catalog models.) They were the jokers more than the butt of the joke. If they were laughing at themselves, they did so all the way to the bank. 'Duck Dynasty' was more than wish-fulfillment about money. It was, in some ways, a fantasy of work-life balance: of being prosperous, getting business done, but always having time for hunting and fishing and your kids. Even more, it was about the dream of striking it rich where you live — where your parents lived, and your grandparents — without having to move or adopt the alienating mores and language of another culture. You would remain yourself, with your familiar lifestyle but better stuff. 'Money didn't change some things,' Willie says in the pilot. 'We still manage to stay true to ourselves.' Unlike Jed Clampett, the Robertsons were not fish out of water. They remained firmly in their swamp, and the world would come to them. Sometimes it would send a helicopter. 'DUCK DYNASTY' WAS AFFECTIONATE for backwoods ways and tradition, but it could complicate its nostalgia. It gave the patriarch Phil plenty of airtime to sermonize about manhood and encourage his grandsons to marry 'a meek, gentle, kind-spirited country girl.' But characters like Willie's wife, Korie, would push back, patiently, on things like his saying that cooking was for women or 'girlie men.' Phil's opinions came out more blatantly and less telegenically, however, in a 2013 GQ interview, in which he called gay sex a sin and insisted that southern Black farm laborers were happy in Jim Crow-era Louisiana. Amid the blowback, A&E suspended him from the series. The punishment seemed, at the time, like the affirmation of a new cultural order. It was 2013, for heaven's sake! Barack Obama had been elected to a second term after announcing his support for same-sex marriage, which would soon become legal nationwide. Conservatives complained about the suspension, but broadly, talk like Phil's was of the past. You needed to recognize this, and grow, and change, or be left behind. Except … maybe you didn't. The Trump 2016 campaign was in many ways a successful appeal to voters like Phil Robertson, who believed that their views were being silenced, their icons canceled, their traditions trampled, their beliefs insulted. That campaign was also an appeal to the past, albeit with a less upbeat spirit than 'Duck Dynasty' exuded. Over and over in his speeches, Donald Trump valorized 'the old days' when the country was 'strong' and its men unconstrained. He promised voters in pockets of the country like rural Louisiana to restore the rich and meaningful lifestyle of their ancestors, even if the memories of those old times were airbrushed by nostalgia. 'Duck Dynasty' was in its jokey way an early variation on a theme that the more serious cable hit 'Yellowstone' would later expand on: the ways in which wealth, authenticity and identity derive from connection to one's land. It also anticipated the cultural messaging of second-generation MAGA figures like JD Vance — known first as the author of 'Hillbilly Elegy' — who in his vice-presidential acceptance speech argued that the bond of soil matters more than ideals: 'People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home.' Eventually, 'Duck Dynasty' embraced its political moment, at least offscreen. Phil — who was restored to the series shortly after his suspension — endorsed and went duck hunting with Senator Ted Cruz. Willie spoke in support of Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention. (The family, reportedly, was divided on his decision.) And if you thought at the time that giving a speaking slot to an A&E reality-show star was a symbol of a shambolic campaign that couldn't attract real celebrities, well, in November the joke was on you. IN THE NEW 'DUCK DYNASTY,' as in so many revivals, the co-star is time. Willie is old now — at least, for story purposes, he is feeling old. He's a middle-aged man caught in the sandwich of peak work responsibility and filial obligations. (Phil does not appear in the revival, though his diagnosis with early-stage Alzheimer's is mentioned in the first episode.) He is considering 'fully semi-retiring' and contemplating his eventual replacement as chief executive: his duckcession, as it were. The graying beards are not the only things that have changed. The new episodes are an hour long, which fiddles with the original's snappy half-hour pacing. The Duck Commander warehouse now includes a Robertson family museum, with a replica of Willie's office and a gift shop run by his daughter Bella. In the new version of the series, the company Willie runs now looks less like a duck-call business that also makes media and more like a media business that also makes duck calls. If 'Duck Dynasty' was about the Robertson family business, 'The Revival' is about the business of being the Robertsons. In the original series pilot, for instance, Willie resented having to make time to work on a cooking video for his mother, Kay. Now, touring the warehouse, we find him shuttling from podcast studio to podcast studio. The family has produced several podcasts, even as 'Duck Dynasty' has been off the air, the material ranging from comedy to Christianity to politics. Here, too, you can see a parallel to a larger cultural and media shift. In 2016, the Trump campaign collected the endorsement of the reality-TV star Willie Robertson; in 2024, it went all-in on podcast hosts. You also get a sense of how times have changed, even if 'Duck Dynasty' tries not to. In 2012, after all, the show stood out as the gentle-rebel-yell counterprogramming to an era of liberal politics and blue-state broadcasting. Now, it's just one more branch of a burgeoning sector of traditionalist, MAGA-coded media. With the new season's focus on generational change comes more screen time for the younger relations. There are a lot of them — Willie and Korie's kids, their spouses, their own kids, all living side-by-side on the family compound. This adds another layer of wish-fulfillment: the dream of having family close by, everyone working and prospering with plenty of free child care. (There has long been a pronatalist streak in cable reality TV — all those great big broods on the TLC channel — that vibes with the current conservative social-political push toward encouraging bigger families.) The first episode finds Willie deciding to try to find his successor through a series of tests and contests, which sets up a string of screwball generation-gap scenarios. Willie takes his grown children on a duck-hunting expedition; they're more interested in taking selfies. It's another sitcom setup executed to formula. When Willie's son John Luke — who runs a coffee roaster business from the warehouse — proves more interested in fancy brewing equipment than in hunting gear, Willie tells him, 'I need your A game, not your latte game.' But there's also an undercurrent here that connects with and complicates the original series's focus on preserving old ways in a new world. Once Willie was the new blood, adapting his father's hunting business for an era of brand expansion, despite Phil's occasional grousing. Now he's the graybeard — or at least the salt-and-pepper beard — wondering if his business is becoming denatured, even feminized. (There's a scene in which he is chagrined to find his office remodeled by his daughter as, in his words, 'a woman office.') He's the one worrying: Will my children care about what I care about? Will they carry forward what connects me with my past? It's no spoiler to say that the first episode of 'Duck Dynasty: The Revival' resolves this worry neatly and reassuringly, as Willie decides that it's OK if his children don't grow up to be just like him. It's also no spoiler to say that the kids, however much time they spend posting to Instagram, are really an extension of a multigenerational brand of family and faith. On the 'Unashamed With the Robertson Family' podcast, the older generations espouse Christianity (and, on the episode after the 2024 election, saluted President Trump's victory). On the podcast 'WHOA That's Good,' Willie's daughter Sadie Robertson Huff — who like her father has endorsed President Trump — discusses topics like 'How to Read the Bible' and 'What Makes a 'Good' Wife.' Even if Willie doesn't say it, his children's digital-nativeness may well make them a better fit both for the times and for a family business that is about celebrity as much as anything. 'Duck Dynasty' was originally the story of a family that turned a concrete, real-world business into TV stardom. In today's environment, fame is often the original product itself — see 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,' a very different reality show about faith and subculture that began with its stars' notoriety on TikTok. For 'Duck Dynasty' and Duck Commander, what started out with duck calls is now an empire of branding and cultural signifying. But both businesses operate on the same principle: You make a noise, and you get a response.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Duck Dynasty' Star's Granddaughter Reveals His Final Words
Duck Dynasty's Sadie Robertson has revealed her grandpa's final words. Phil Robertson's death at 79 was announced Sunday by family members after confirming that the reality star had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Sadie, 27, posted a tribute to the Duck Dynasty patriarch on Instagram Sunday night with a series of family photos. She opened with a Bible verse: 'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.' 'As I was sitting with Papaw Phil today, I thought about this verse… he has already experienced this on earth—going from dead to alive by the power of Christ!' the 27-year-old wrote. 'It was his testimony that changed his life, our families life, and thousands of others. Now he is experiencing it in the fullness. Fully alive in Christ. The new has come,' Sadie added. 'One of the last things he said to me was 'full strength ahead!' Amen!' The Robertson family revealed in December that Phil had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, his son Jase adding that he had 'some sort of blood disease' that was 'causing problems with his entire body.' 'He's just not doing well, he's really struggling,' Jase said on the Unashamed With the Robertson Family podcast. Phil's daughter-in-law, Korie Robertson, broke the news of his passing in a statement on social media Sunday. 'We celebrate today that our father, husband, and grandfather, Phil Robertson, is now with the Lord,' Korie wrote. 'Thank you for the love and prayers of so many whose lives have been impacted by his life saved by grace, by his bold faith, and by his desire to tell everyone who would listen the Good News of Jesus,' she added. She said that the family was holding a private service, but recognized that 'so many of you love him and have been impacted by his life,' telling fans to keep an eye out for more details about a 'public celebration of his life' soon. Following his death, MAGA also took to social media to mourn the Duck Dynasty star, who was an avid supporter of President Trump, calling him 'caustically brilliant' in 2020. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said that she was 'sorry to hear' about his passing,' and sent 'many prayers to his family.' Right-wing activist and founder of conservative youth group Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, wrote on X that 'Phil Robertson was an American icon and an inspiring hero to millions of Americans.' 'All the way back in 2013, when the woke era was first getting started, Phil offered a masterclass in how to overcome an attempted cancellation,' he said. 'Phil told GQ magazine he thought homosexuality was sinful. A&E tried to kick him off his own show, but he never apologized or backed down, and A&E soon had to bring him back.' The reality TV star was suspended from the show for nine days after calling homosexuality a sin in 2013. 'Phil was also the rare celebrity who was a proud warrior for the unborn,' Kirk added. Years after creating the Duck Commander hunting company in the '70s with his brother, Si, Phil and his family rose to fame after landing a reality show on the A&E Network in 2012 called Duck Dynasty. By 2013, the series became the most-watched nonfiction cable show in history.
CBC
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson dead at 79
Social Sharing Phil Robertson, who turned his small duck-calling interest in northern Louisiana into a big business and was the head of the family featured on the reality show Duck Dynasty, died Sunday, according to his family. He was 79. Robertson's family announced in December on their Unashamed with the Robertson Family podcast that the patriarch of the clan had Alzheimer's disease. A statement on social media from Robertson's daughter-in-law didn't mention how he died. "Thank you for the love and prayers of so many whose lives have been impacted by his life saved by grace, his bold faith, and by his desire to tell everyone who would listen the good news of Jesus. We are grateful for his life on Earth and will continue the legacy of love for God and love for others until we see him again," Korie Robertson wrote. Phil Robertson skyrocketed to fame in the early 2010s when the A&E network created Duck Dynasty, a reality show presented like a sitcom, which ran for 11 seasons. It followed the adventures of Robertson, his three sons — including Willie, who runs the family's Duck Commander company — their wives and a host of other relatives and friends. Phil Robertson and his boys were immediately recognizable by their long beards and their conservative, Christian and family-oriented beliefs. That got Robertson into trouble, too. He told a magazine reporter in 2013 that gay people are sinners and African Americans were happy under Jim Crow laws. A&E suspended him from Duck Dynasty, but reversed course in a few weeks after a backlash that included former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. At the time, Robertson's family called his comments coarse, but said his beliefs were grounded in the Bible and he "is a godly man." They also said that "as a family, we cannot imagine the show going forward without our patriarch at the helm." Robertson was born in north Louisiana and spent his life in the woods and lakes that make up the region called Sportsman's Paradise. Robertson played football at Louisiana Tech and taught school. He also loved to hunt and created a duck call in the early 1970s that he said replicated the exact sound of a duck. The calls were the centrepiece of the Duck Commander business Robertson would grow into a multimillion-dollar enterprise before A&E came calling. The family just didn't sell outdoor and hunting gear, but a lifestyle. "The Robertsons face everything from beavers to business deals in their own special way — with a twist of down-home practicality and a sharp sense of humour," A&E wrote in its promotion for Duck Dynasty. Tributes pour in Appreciation for Robertson appeared on social media shortly after this death was announced, largely from conservative politicians. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, wrote on X: "The great #PhilRobertson passed today. He loved Jesus and he was utterly fearless. One of my fondest memories was duck hunting with Phil — he was the best shot I ever met. And, in 2016, he recorded this amazing commercial for me. Rest in peace, my friend." "Saddened to hear of the passing of Phil Robertson — a man of deep faith, bold conviction, and unwavering love for his family," wrote Ben Carson, former housing and urban development secretary, also on X. "I'll never forget the time I spent with Phil and his wonderful family at their homestead in West Monroe, La. We rode through the swamp, stopping at his favourite duck blinds before being welcomed by Miss Kay with a warm, home-cooked meal, surrounded by their extended family and close friends."
