The 10 Most Hilarious Redneck Reality TV Shows

Image via Complex Original

The term "stupid rich" takes on new meaning with CMT's Bayou Millionaries, which finds a humble Louisiana family in the fortunate position of living on the fourth largest gas deposit in the United States, sitting on an almost literal gold mine.

New money in the truest sense, the Dowdens of Shreveport are nothing like any family that you've seen on Bravo's Real Housewives. In fact, they're closer to the iconic redneck family from The Beverly Hillbillies, camped out in their original home despite earning a monthly five-figure paycheck for simply allowing the gas to be pumped out from underneath them.

Watching the Dowdens acclimate to their newfound wealth is quite entertaining, particularly because their financial common sense seems severely lacking. In one episode, the family advertises their yard sale on television, and, afterwards, sheepishly admits the cost of the ad easily outweighed their profit. On another, we see them uneasily attempting to fit in at a country club, trying their hand at tennis and golf for the first time, to no success.

As the saying goes, "Money can't by class," or, apparently, common sense.

Aside from maybe Keystone Light, no other alcoholic beverage has as strong a redneck connotation as moonshine, the clear liquid that is said to make a drinker hallucinate, much like Absinthe was once rumored to.

Discovery Channel's Moonshiners sheds light on the illegal practice of producing the 180-proof alcohol through pursuing Tim Smith and his sidekick, "Tickle," as they evade the authorities in Virginia while concocting their strong drink, which they refer to as "'Shine."

Frequent flashbacks to famed 'Shine brewer Popcorn Sutton, whose interludes are rife with redneck lingo, rendering the process of making the illicit beverage as humorous as it is enlightening.

If Survivor were to get rid of its cast of uppity suburbanites and substitute in a bunch of gun-toting, beer-guzzling backwoods types, the result would be CMT's Redneck Island.

Of course, it's much more entertaining to watch the misfit castaways duking it out on a uninhabited Mexican island and competing with the offbeat skills they've honed back home. Their talents include opening beer cans with their teeth, chasing chickens, and herding a mean cattle. Seriously, one of the contestants, a sunny blond named Jeannie, managed to lasso a full-ride rodeo scholarship.

God among Southern men, Steve Austin, hosts the challenges, where contestants compete for luxurious prizes like a private outhouse, an ice cold case of beer, and a fine meal of freshly prepared lizard. To each redneck palette, his own.

There are a handful of shows devoted to hogging, but women wrestling wild boars seems like an easy win in our book. A pretty girl on a pig? What's not to love?

Christie Chreene and Julie Snead, two lovely (if a little gritty) Southern ladies, don't just chase down hogs for sport—they actually protect fellow Floridians from unruly beasts that can just as easily consume a crop as a mouthful of human flesh. Yes, they're saving the world, one untamed mammal at a time.

Still, the real danger of confronting gnashing teeth would be scary business if it weren't for the sharp-mouthed beauties hunting them. Admittedly, those snug tank-tops don't hurt their cause either. A&E, for the win!

You Yankees can keep your fishing poles, 'cause Skipper Bivins has a far more efficient way to capture fish: with his hands and feet.

Animal Planet's highly entertaining Hillbilly Handfishin'follows Skipper and his partner, Jackson, as they school out-of-towners on their techniques (which are also referred to as "noodling") and trudge through shoulder-deep murky waters in search of catfish. The stuffy city folk who join Skipper on expeditions into Oklahoma's waters only make the backwoods men brazenly plunging their entire arms into the slush seem even brutish.

The contrast makes for an amusing caricature, and proves that even the most cultured urbanite can learn a thing or two from the talents of an intrepid redneck.

While CMT and TLC focusing on mocking the likes of backwoods antics, the National Geographic Channel chooses to bypass the punch lines in favor of highlighting "hillbilly ingenuity."

The unlikely group of folks they've rounded up for Rocket City Rednecks include several men who hold Ph.D.'s, actual rocket scientists, a certified genius, and a NASA machinist. Each guy is as brilliant as he is unflinchingly Southern, making this one a science reality show like no other in its class.

Performing experiments in Alabama's backyard, the men mix science and redneck sensibilities to entertaining effect, using discarded beer cans to bomb-proof a truck, launching moonshine-fueled rockets and cracking jokes about how much they enjoy consuming each all the while.

When the words "duck dynasty" come to mind, we picture Scrooge McDuck diving into his vault of gold coins. But A&E's Duck Dynasty is a completely different kind of duck tale.

The Robertons stumble upon success by crafting the best duck caller on the market out of Louisiana swamp wood. Their product sounds simple enough, but the thin reed of wood commands millions of dollars in profits, thrusting the backwoods clan far beyond mom-and-pop wealth. 

Duck calling may be serious business, but the Robertsons manage to wrangle up the comedy by staying true to their backwoods roots. Chasing gators, capturing beehives, and shooting bullfrogs are all on the agenda, proving that the Robertsons have one foot in the office and the other firmly submerged in the river.

You have to hand it to the History Channel, they know a ratings monster when they see one. And, really, there's nothing about a gang of Cajuns chasing gators in Lousiana's swamps that doesn't sound like it would command attention, even if only by way of ridicule.

The insta-hit Swamp People takes the danger of the Deadliest Catch and inserts salt-of-the-earth people into a far less exotic locale. The risky task they undertake seems thankless, but the men hunt down their thrashing prey with gleeful flourish, uttering catch phrases like "choot 'em" that leave haughty viewers to ruthlessly poke fun at Southern speech patterns. 

It's like a redneck safari where your tour guides are unapologetic, uncouth, and really damn good at what they do. 

Remember that Mountain Dew and Red Bull guzzling, truffle-shufflin' toddler who struck fear into your heart captured your heart on Toddlers & Tiaras?  After her surprising summit to Internet fame, TLC has, unsurprisingly, given six-year-old Alana Thompson her own reality show.

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo will begin airing on August 8th, at which point we will bet it will instantly pull rank as the most redneck show on television. Aside from Alana's prematurely trashy antics (seriously, what child says "A dolla make me holla?"), her family is a corrals every known Southern stereotype, and as witnessed in the trailer, is aware of just how redneck they appear.

Despite "having all [their] teeth," Alana's family is a comical incarnation of the backwoods clans seen in most horror movies, using extreme couping, mud-diving, four-wheeling, and armpit-farting as new ways to incite terror and laughter in equal measure.

Weddings are ordinarily classy affairs where white table cloths, pomp, and circumstance take center stage. But a redneck wedding is an entirely different scenario.

Since 2008, CMT has been following couples to be as they take that momentous strut down the aisle; or, in the case of My Big Redneck Wedding, through the muddy country fields. Each episode follows a new couple, with Tom Arnold hosting the "down home" (CMT's euphemism for really freaking redneck) nuptials.

Instead of enjoying a first toast with expensive bubbly, couples enjoy tandem beer funneling. Gone are the white gowns; women opt to wear coordinating camouflage dresses (you know, to match their man). Flowers are substituted with shotguns, and boutonnieres swapped out for guns and cans of beer. One couple even leaves the ceremony on their quads, a powerful ending to a peculiar ordeal that will (obligatory wedding pun) have you rolling in the mud-caked wedding aisle.