Happy, Happy, Happy should sum up how Phil Roberston feels these days. He is the patriarch on the A&E show “Duck Dynasty” which is about his family duck call business, Duck Commander. His #1 bestselling book “Happy, Happy, Happy” came out this Spring and is in its 13th printing having already sold 680,000 copies. The season finale had 10 million viewers. And it all started with a simple duck call. The Wall Street Journal reports:
“Happy, Happy, Happy” chronicles Mr. Robertson’s rough upbringing in rural Louisiana, where his family farmed and hunted their food and lived without indoor plumbing; his conversion to evangelical Christianity after years of hard drinking, bar fights and philandering; and his rags-to-riches success story as an entrepreneur who turned his patented “Duck Commander” duck calls into a multimillion-dollar business. The book is breezy and conversational, packed with bits of advice for simpler and happier living, such as, “Suck the head off a crawfish. You’ll want to do it again and again,” and “What makes me happy is going out and blowing a duck’s head off.”
The book, like the TV show, seems to resonate with people who long for a less-hectic life, one that is grounded in faith, family and nature. It targets multiple demographics, including hunters and fishermen, entrepreneurs and small-business owners, and evangelical Christians. It features the kind of self-made success story that has always appealed to American readers. Still, no one anticipated how big a hit it would be.
Phil’s take on how it all started.
