Comedian Jeff Foxworthy once lamented that whenever anybody heard his down-home Southern accent, they’d automatically deduct 100 IQ points.
Nat Geo’s new reality series Rocket City Rednecks, premiering Wednesday at 9pm, sets out to prove that tendency wrong, following second-generation Alabama rocket scientist Travis Taylor — who looks like actor Thomas Jane and sounds like Larry the Cable Guy — and his whiskey-loving band of buds and relatives as they combine their scientific know-how with good ol’ backwoods fun, sometimes creating genuinely useful stuff, sometimes not.
Why is the show as addictively tasty as a platter full of Southern-fried chicken? What other show will teach you how to make moonshine AND a rocket that is powered by it, all in the name of creating alternative fuels? And depriving Mom of new plumbing?
Or make you think hard about national unity during the creation of a homemade moon buggy (hint: sumo suits as conflict resolution)?
We give it two thumbs, one red neck and a million IQ points up!