That spot did not go over well with many fliers, who voiced their disagreement on social media (it’s unclear that getting gussied up would solve the upset caused by delayed flights, increasingly tiny seats and other flying indignities). But it was merely a warm-up for the longer show, which has its debut next month on YouTube. This one features Duffy in a whole variety of dad outfits straight from the “Father Knows Best” closet of the American mind, with his family as supporting characters, down to their matching PJs.
There he is in the Oval Office, introducing his kids (and the show’s concept) to President Trump as white-collar dad in a Trumpian outfit of blue suit, white shirt and red-and-blue tie. There he is in snowy Montana, leading his gang on snowmobiles in coordinated snowsuits. In Philadelphia, he’s in a polo shirt and jeans, introducing his children to a role-playing Benjamin Franklin. He hangs out in a plaid shirt with Kid Rock, a scene that also features Duffy’s wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a Fox anchor, in an American flag sweater and matching American flag cowboy boots. (The two met on the reality show “Road Rules: All Stars.”) He wears a lot of shackets. And that’s just in the show’s four-minute promo.
In other words, this does not seem to be in the mode of the storied road trips of American pop-culture mythology, be they the grungy road trip of Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in “Easy Rider” or the existential one of Chloé Zhao’s Oscar winner “Nomadland.” It does not even seem to be modeled on the gaffe-filled comic road trip of the Griswold clan in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”
It’s more like “Road Trip: The Suburban Nostalgia Version.” (See the cars, which include throwback station wagons redolent of “Leave It to Beaver” and a big, black Toyota SUV with Duffy, of course, in the driver’s seat.) It was conceived, presumably, to evoke the values — “wholesome,” “patriotic,” “joyful” — enumerated by Duffy in his post on X and meant to define the show and, by association, himself.
As such, it effectively brands him as the Everydad of the administration, complete with ur-weekend wardrobe. And when it finally airs next month, it may turn out to be less about actual reality (reality TV rarely is) than about heavily messaged reality. In other words: marketing for history.
