In another sign that post-Newtown squeamishness about firearms-related TV is fading, Country Music Television (CMT) is running a reality TV series [sic] about Knob Creek’s “colorful” Sumner family. GUNTUCKY hits the small screen on Sunday, April 21 at 9:30 p.m. EST, with back-to-back episodes. Suffice it to say, there’ll be more (and better) explosions than ten FPS Russia uploads, a bit of T&A (though nothing to touch American Guns), manufactured domestic abuse and plenty o’ gun porn. Make the jump for CMT’s take on the series. As much as I love Knob Creek’s machine gun shoot, I just know I’m gonna prefer the county’s bourbon. Again. Still. So to speak . . .

At their family-owned and operated Knob Creek Gun Range, customers can try out, pawn and purchase a broad spectrum of legal firearms, from cannons to rare collectables.  The world famous Range has been in the Sumner family for three generations, led by Patriarch Gran-pa Biff Sumner, Jr.  Biff handed over day-to-day business of the range to his reliable son, Kenny, who now has his hands full thanks to the rest of the family.  The Sumner family also includes Kenny’s irrepressible brother, Steven; his usually free-spirited son Chad; and a new generation of Knob Creek Gun Range employees, Steven’s kids, Stephanie and Payton. 

In the first half-hour episode, Steven teaches his son Payton that shooting up dad’s property comes with a big price, while the rest of the crew tracks down hard-to-find collectables. Meanwhile, Gran-Pa Biff has some bad news for the owner of a seemingly rare weapon; and two excitable brothers come to the range to blast their ratty old fishing craft into Boat Heaven. In the night’s second GUNTUCKY episode, the Sumners agree to stage an epic Civil War reenactment, while Gran-pa Biff has Steven examine and test-fire a very valuable rifle.

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19 COMMENTS

  3. Tried to go shooting there once while working a job at a nearby Army base. (I’m in the film/TV business myself.) My friend, a producer, got scared off by all the booming and banging and refused to leave the car. I forgave her, but it took awhile.

    • Yes sir. I much prefer FPS’ 5 minutes of gun play and goofiness to 30 minutes of manufactured drama and scripted “reality.” These gun-centric reality shows are all so meh.

  5. If someone wants to make a good gun show, they should follow the lead of Penny-Arcade TV off of penny-arcade.com. They hired their own crew (dismissing one and hiring a new one between seasons) and put the content together based on what *they* wanted – not what some network executive thought an arbitrary demographic model might want.

    (You can say “that’s a website, not on TV”, but penny-arcade has more viewership than a lot of the boutique television shows, or even channels. If the lords of Penny-Arcade choose to mock you, the Internet as a whole will come to claim your reputation: google Paul Christoforo some time.)

    • In some ways, PA has become the TTAG of the video game world. Well, based on founding dates, I should say TTAG has become something like the PA of the firearms world.

      …Even after thinking about it, I’m not sure how I would feel about a TTAG comic.

  6. There is a show on Animal Planet about a gun store. They usually just build high quality hunting rifles, cowboy action shooting guns, and occasionally gun smithing. Though they have some cool stuff. First episode I watched one guy traded in like 30 or 40 junked guns and a part of the junk guns were 4 12 guage shotguns designed to be fired from the wings of an airplane. The guys got them fixed and attached them to an ATV which was pretty cool in my opinion.

    • Wild West Guns? It can be hit or miss…I do like their guns and wish they’d spend more time focusing on them rather than the writers trying to script mini crises in the shop every episode.

      A common theme among these gun shows is that they aren’t so much about the guns as they are about people who happen to work in a gun shop.

  7. “As much as I love uns, I just know I’m gonna prefer the bourbon. “

    Was that supposed to be “guns” or a rather-obscure Al Bundy sub-reference?

  8. I loves me some gun tot’n hillbillies like anyone else but I’m thinking this (intentionally or otherwise) just contributes to an image of gun owners that only benefits gun grabbers.

    • Maybe. Remains to be seen, but at least the network gun-shyness is over. Until the (tic… tic… tic..) next school shooting.

      AND YOU KNOW it will be a school, because nothing, NOTHING commands so much an outpouring of overflowing hearts…

    • My first instinct was that it’s another reality show exploiting stereotypes about Southerners. “Hahaha, look at this white trash Honey Boo-Boo are her redneck family! They can’t even make spaghetti right! And those duck hicks are funny, too!” Although, from what I hear, the duck family is getting laughed at right to the bank.

      • Much of country laughs at New York city slickers. What these shows are doing is mainstreaming country culture.

        It has been sneered at for far too long. The “urbane” sophisticated person now has plenty of competition.

  10. Here’s my pitch:

    Breakfast with Ronnie! Bacon, Biscuits, and Ballistics with Ronnie Barrett- 7:00E/P

    Lets get to work, people. Make it happen!

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