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Pop Culture Happy Hour: Requested Reboots And 'Duck Dynasty'

By Stephen Thompson
Published September 13, 2013 at 7:00 AM CDT
NPR

With intrepid host Linda Holmes trapped in the air-conditioned movie theaters of Toronto, the Pop Culture Happy Hour gang was forced to reconstitute itself yet again for this week's episode — this time with our old pal Tanya Ballard Brown, who returns via the power of popular demand. You talk, we listen, people.

First off, inspired by the none-too-promising RoboCop trailer — that is to say, the trailer for the RoboCop reboot due out in February — we take a trip around the table to discuss movies and movie franchises we wouldn't mind seeing resuscitated. Naturally, this often entails us diving into movies and movie franchises we just plain love: Trey Graham picked this one (SHOCKER), Tanya picked this one, I picked this one, and Glen put more thought into this exercise than everyone else combined (as is his wont), and thus picked this one, after a quick throwback to an old PCHH favorite.

Then it's on to a discussion of the A&E reality series Duck Dynasty, whose Season Four premiere enjoyed record-breaking ratings last month. Based on the lives of Louisiana's multi-generational Robertson clan — several of whom preside over a successful duck-call business — the show inspires the gang to talk about depictions of the South (complete with Trey and Tanya's competing Carolina accents), depictions of loving families on TV, and depictions of reality itself.

And, as always, we close with What's Making Us Happy this week. Trey is happy about a pending reboot we didn't discuss earlier in the episode, plus a forthcoming movie adaptation of a Glen Weldon favorite. Glen loves a recent-vintage YouTube sensation, as well as a predecessor by the same act. Tanya returns, yet again, once more, to a familiar object of her affection, including a possible prequel to a TV show she admires. And I finally got around to watching a TV show everyone else on earth already loves, and sing the praises of a new album by a band everyone else on earth ought to love going forward.

Find us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: me, Glen, Trey, Tanya, absent Linda, producer Lauren Migaki, and our esteemed producer emeritus and music director, Mike Katzif.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Arts & Life
Stephen Thompson
Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)
See stories by Stephen Thompson
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