Billy the Exterminator

Show history

Pilgrim Films reached out to Billy Bretherton in 2004 about making a pilot for a Discovery Channel reality show about pest control. They had spoken with around 200 companies before deciding on his. After scouts spent a day riding along with him, they felt he was a good fit, and he ended up appearing on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. The Spike network was also considered as a possible home for the series. When the show first aired on A&E in 2009, it was called The Exterminators, but it was renamed Billy the Exterminator before season two, and that new title was also used for reruns of the first season. Starting with season four, the Bretherton brothers began traveling across the United States to help local exterminators and wildlife rescue teams remove pests and animals, while still handling some jobs back in Louisiana. The opening credits were updated to better match Billy’s personality, and his wife Mary, who left the show during its first season, was removed from them. Season five ran from February 11 to March 10, 2012, with two new episodes airing Saturdays at 10 PM ET. Season six started October 6, 2012, in the same slot, but moved to 11 PM ET on December 15, 2012. Billy left Vexcon in late 2012 due to personal family issues and moved to Illinois, which ended the show after six seasons. In October 2015, his brother Ricky started a YouTube series called Vexcon The Exterminators. In 2016, Corus Entertainment and Proper Television launched a series for CMT in Canada called Billy Goes North, which aired in the United States on April 5, 2017, as the seventh season of Billy The Exterminator. In 2020, Ricky began season two of his web series on YouTube, now featuring Billy and Billy’s son Bryce as regular guests. In 2021, Bryce started a TikTok account that often includes Billy and Ricky, and by October 2023, the account @brycebretherton had 153,100 followers.