The Dukes of Hazzard


The Dukes of Hazzard is an American action-comedy television series that was aired on CBS from January 26, 1979, to February 8, 1985. The show aired for 147 episodes spanning seven seasons. It was consistently among the top-rated television series in the late 1970s,. The show is about two young male cousins, Bo and Luke Duke, who live in rural Georgia and are on probation for moonshine-running. The young men and their friends and their female cousin Daisy Duke, and other family, have various escapades as they evade the corrupt law officers Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. The young men drive a customized 1969 Dodge Charger nicknamed General Lee, which became an iconic symbol of the show.
The series was inspired by the 1975 film Moonrunners, about a bootlegger family which was also created by Gy Waldron and had many identical or similar character names and concepts. The show was the basis for a film of the same title in 2005.

Plot overview

The Dukes of Hazzard follows the adventures of "the Duke boys", cousins Bo Duke and Luke Duke , who live on a family farm in fictional Hazzard County, Georgia, with their female cousin Daisy and their wise old [|Uncle Jesse]. The Duke boys race around in their customized 1969 Dodge Charger stock car, dubbed General Lee, evading crooked and corrupt county commissioner Boss Hogg and his bumbling and corrupt Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane along with his deputy, and always managing to get caught in the middle of various local escapades and incidents.
Bo and Luke were previously sentenced to probation for illegal transportation of moonshine; their Uncle Jesse made a plea bargain with the U.S. Government to refrain from distilling moonshine in exchange for Bo and Luke's freedom. As a result, Bo and Luke are on five years' probation and not allowed to carry firearms—instead, they often use compound bows, sometimes with arrows tipped with dynamite—or to leave Hazzard County unless they get probation permission from their probation officer, Boss Hogg. The exact details of their probation terms vary from episode to episode. Sometimes it is implied that they would be jailed for merely crossing the county line; on other occasions, it is shown that they may leave Hazzard, as long as they are back within a certain time limit. Several other technicalities of their probation also come into play at various times.
Corrupt county commissioner Jefferson Davis "Boss" Hogg, who either runs, or has his fingers in, virtually everything in Hazzard County, is forever angry with the Dukes, especially Bo and Luke, and looking for ways to get them out of the picture, for their habit of foiling his crooked schemes. Many episodes revolve around Hogg's attempts to engage in some such scheme, sometimes with aid of hired criminal help.
Some of these are get-rich-quick schemes, though many others affect the financial security of the Duke farm, which Hogg has long wanted to acquire for various reasons. Other times, Hogg hires criminals from out of town to do his dirty work for him, and he often tries to frame Bo and Luke as part of these plots. Bo and Luke always seem to stumble over Hogg's latest scheme, sometimes by curiosity, and often by sheer luck, and put it out of business. Despite the Dukes often coming to his rescue, Hogg never loses his irrational dislike of the clan, particularly Bo and Luke, often accusing them of spying on him, robbing or planning to rob him, and other nefarious actions.
The role of Boss Hogg was played by Sorrell Booke, who performed frequently on radio, stage, and film prior to his role in The Dukes of Hazzard. Boss Hogg is one of only two characters to appear in every episode of the TV series, the other being Uncle Jesse Duke.
The other main characters of the show include local mechanic Cooter Davenport, who in early episodes was portrayed as a wild, unshaven rebel, often breaking or treading on the edge of the law, before settling down to become the Duke family's best friend and owning the local garage. Enos Strate is an honest but naive young deputy who, despite his friendship with the Dukes, is reluctantly forced to take part in Hogg and Rosco's crooked schemes. In the third and fourth seasons, when Shroyer left for his own show, his character was replaced by Deputy Cletus Hogg, Boss's cousin, who is slightly more wily than Enos but still a somewhat reluctant player in Hogg's plots.
Owing to their fundamentally good natures, the Dukes often wind up helping Boss Hogg out of trouble, albeit grudgingly. More than once Hogg is targeted by former associates who are either seeking revenge or have double crossed him after a scheme has unraveled in one way or another. Sheriff Coltrane also finds himself targeted in some instances. On such occasions, Bo and Luke usually have to rescue their adversaries as an inevitable precursor to defeating the bad guys; in other instances, the Dukes join forces with Hogg and Coltrane to tackle bigger threats to Hazzard or one of their respective parties. These instances became more frequent as the show progressed, and later seasons saw a number of stories where the Dukes and Hogg temporarily work together.

Production

The series was developed from the 1975 film Moonrunners. Created by Gy Waldron in collaboration with ex-moonshiner Jerry Rushing, this movie shares many identical and very similar names and concepts with the subsequent TV series. Although itself essentially a comedy, this original movie was much cruder and edgier than the family-friendly TV series that evolved from it.
In 1977, Waldron was approached by Warner Bros. with the idea of developing Moonrunners into a television series. Waldron reworked various elements from Moonrunners, ultimately devising what became The Dukes of Hazzard. Production began in October 1978 with the original intention of only nine episodes for a mid-season filler. The first five episodes were filmed in Covington and Conyers, Georgia and surrounding areas, including some location work in nearby Atlanta. After completing production on the fifth episode, "High Octane", the cast and crew broke for Christmas break, expecting to return in several weeks' time to complete the ordered run of episodes. In the meantime, executives at Warner Bros. were impressed by the rough preview cuts of the completed episodes and saw potential in developing the show into a full-running series. Part of this plan was to move production from Georgia to the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, to simplify production as well as develop a larger workshop to service the large number of automobiles needed for the series.
Rushing appeared as shady used car dealer Ace Parker in the third episode, "Repo Men". Rushing believed this to be the start of a recurring role, in return for which he would supply creative ideas from his experiences: many of the Dukes characters and situations were derived from Rushing's experiences as a youth, and much of the character of Bo Duke, he states to be based on him. However, "Repo Men" would turn out to be the character's only appearance in the entire show's run, leading to a legal dispute in the following years over the rights to characters and concepts. Despite this, Rushing remained on good terms with cast and crew and in recent years has made appearances at several fan conventions.
By the end of the first season, the family-friendly tone of The Dukes of Hazzard was mostly in place. When the show returned for a second season in fall 1979, with a few further minor tweaks, it quickly found its footing as a family-friendly comedy-adventure series. By the third season, starting in fall 1980, the template which would be widely associated with the show was evident.
As well as car chases, jumps and stunts, The Dukes of Hazzard relied on character familiarity, with each character effectively serving the same role within a typical episode. Deputy Cletus replaced Deputy Enos in Seasons 3 and 4, and Coy and Vance Duke temporarily replaced Bo and Luke for most of Season 5, but these were the only major cast changes through the show's run. Only Uncle Jesse and Boss Hogg appeared in all 145 episodes; Daisy appears in all but one, the third season's "To Catch a Duke." The General Lee also appears in all except "Mary Kaye's Baby", and the rest of Deputy Dukes.
The show was largely filmed in Hidden Valley in Thousand Oaks, California, with scenes also shot at nearby Lake Sherwood and also at Paramount Ranch in nearby Agoura Hills.

Episodes

The show ran for seven seasons and a total of 147 episodes. Many of the episodes followed a similar structure "out-of-town crooks pull a robbery or commit a crime or scandal, Duke boys blamed, spend the rest of the hour clearing their names, the General Lee flies and the squad cars crash".

Cast and characters

Main characters

The pilot episode was to include a barber modeled after Floyd Lawson on The Andy Griffith Show as a regular character, but was eliminated when the final draft of the pilot's script was written and before the show was cast.
When John Schneider auditioned for the role of Bo Duke, he came to the audition in a dilapidated pickup truck, sporting a week-long beard growth, wearing overalls and a white T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in a sleeve collar, and carrying a can of beer, trying to look the part. At the audition, Schneider drank the beer and said he was from Snellville. The producers bought his "good ol' boy" act and Schneider was hired on the spot.

Recurring characters

Notable guest appearances

Throughout its network television run, The Dukes of Hazzard had a consistent mix of up-and-comers and established stars make guest appearances.
driver Terry Labonte makes a brief, uncredited appearance as a crewman in the episode "Undercover Dukes Part 1". The race cars supplied for both "Part 1" and "Part 2" of "Undercover Dukes" were supplied by Labonte's race owner, Billy Hagan. However, the emblems of the sponsors of the cars were covered to avoid paying royalties.

The celebrity speed trap

During the show's second season, the show's writers began flirting with the idea of incorporating a "celebrity speed trap" into some of the episodes, as a means to feature top country stars of the day performing their hits. On its first couple of instances, the "speed trap" was featured early in the story, but for most of the cases, it was featured in the last few minutes of an episode, often used when the main story was running too short to fill episode time.
The "celebrity speed trap" feature was essentially similar: Aware that a big-name country star was passing through the area, Boss Hogg would order Rosco to lower the speed limit on a particular road to an unreasonable level, so that the targeted singer would be in violation of the posted limit. The singer would be required to give a free performance at the Boar's Nest in exchange for having their citations forgiven; the performer would then perform one of their best-known hits or other popular country music standard, while the Dukes, Boss, Rosco, Enos, Cletus, Cooter, and other patrons whooped and hollered in enjoyment of the performance. More often than not, the performer would give a sarcastic parting shot to Boss and Rosco.
Singers who were featured in the "speed trap" segments were:
Honorable mentions: Mickey Gilley, Loretta Lynn
Gilley's and Lynn's appearances were not solely for the celebrity speed trap. After performing a concert in Hazzard, Gilley was nabbed while leaving and forced to do a second show to nullify his citation. Lynn was kidnapped by criminals wanting to break into the music business. Loretta Lynn was the very first country music guest star on the show in 1979 and had an entire episode dedicated to her titled "Find Loretta Lynn".
Note: Janie Fricke was the only country music guest star who did not perform a song, celebrity speed trap or otherwise. She played an accomplice to a robber in an episode who hid money in the dashboard of the car that was to become the General Lee.

Casting of Coy and Vance

The Dukes of Hazzard was consistently among the top-rated television series. With that success came huge profits in merchandising, with a wide array of Dukes of Hazzard toys and products being licensed and becoming big sellers. However, over the course of the show's fourth season, series stars Tom Wopat and John Schneider—who had already previously voiced their concern and discontent about increasingly inferior scripts being written for episodes—became increasingly concerned about a contract dispute over their salaries and merchandising royalties owed to them over the high sales of Dukes products. They felt that neither of them were being paid what was owed to them and this became very frustrating to the duo. As a result, in the spring of 1982, as filming was due to begin on the fifth season, Wopat and Schneider did not report to the set in protest over the matter. Catherine Bach also considered walking out due to similar concerns, but Wopat and Schneider convinced her to stay, insisting that if she left, then there might not be a show to come back to, and that settling the issue was up to them.
Production was pushed back by a few weeks as fairly similar looking replacements were subsequently, hastily hired: Byron Cherry as Coy Duke and Christopher Mayer as Vance Duke. Bo and Luke were said to have gone to race on the NASCAR circuit; how they managed to do this, bearing in mind the terms of their probation, was never explained. Cherry and Mayer were originally contracted at just 10 episodes as stand-ins, still with hope that a settlement might be reached with Wopat and Schneider. Some scripts for Coy and Vance were originally written for Bo and Luke but with their names quite literally crossed out and Coy and Vance penned in.
The new Dukes—previously-unmentioned nephews of Uncle Jesse, who were said to have left the farm in 1976 before the show had started—were unpopular with the great majority of viewers, and the ratings immediately sank. Much of the criticism was that Coy and Vance were nothing but direct clones of Bo and Luke, with Coy a direct "carbon copy" replacement for Bo and Vance for Luke, with little variation in character. This was something that even show creator Gy Waldron has said was wrong, and that he insisted, unsuccessfully, that audiences would not accept direct character clones and the two replacements should be taken in a different direction character wise, but was overridden by the producers. Waldron also commented that if Bach too had walked, the show would have most probably been cancelled. It was reported that prior to filming, Cherry and Mayer were given Bo and Luke episodes to watch, to study and learn to emulate them, although Cherry has said in interviews that he does not recall this ever happening.
Hit hard by the significant drop in ratings, Warner Bros. renegotiated with Wopat and Schneider, and eventually a settlement was reached, and the original Duke boys returned to the series in early 1983, four episodes from the conclusion of the fifth season. Initially, part of the press release announcing Wopat and Schneider's return suggested that Cherry and Mayer would remain as part of the cast, but it was quickly realized that "four Duke boys" would not work within the context of the series, and due to the huge unpopularity associated with their time on the show, they were quickly written out of the same episode in which Bo and Luke returned.

Return of Bo and Luke

Although Coy and Vance were never popular, viewers were disappointed by their departure episode, "Welcome Back, Bo 'n' Luke", which was for the most part a standard episode, with the return of Bo and Luke and the departure of Coy and Vance tacked onto the beginning. More than a few viewers commented that they were disappointed by this, and that they would have liked to have seen both pairs of Duke boys team up to tackle a particularly dastardly plot by Boss Hogg before Coy and Vance's departure, but as it turned out, Coy and Vance had little dialogue and were gone by the first commercial break, never to be seen, heard from or even mentioned again.
While the return of Bo and Luke was welcomed by ardent and casual viewers alike, and as a result ratings recovered slightly, the show never completely regained its former popularity. One of Wopat and Schneider's disputes even before they left was what they considered to be increasingly weak and formulaic scripts and episode plots. With Wopat and Schneider's return, the producers agreed to try a wider scope of storylines. However, although it continued for two more seasons, the show never fully returned to its former glory. Many cast members, such as Tom Wopat, decried the miniature car effects newly incorporated to depict increasingly absurd General Lee and patrol car stunts. The miniature car effects were intended as a budget saving measure and to help compete visually with KITT from the NBC series Knight Rider. In February 1985, The Dukes of Hazzard ended its run after seven seasons, so they were not picked up to do season 8.

Vehicles

The ''General Lee'' (Dodge Charger)

The General Lee was based on a 1969 Dodge Charger owned by Bo and Luke. It was orange with a Confederate battle flag painted on the roof, the words "GENERAL LEE" over each door, and the number "01" on each door. In the original five Georgia-filmed episodes, a Confederate flag along with a checkered racing flag in a criss-cross pattern could be seen behind the rear window; this was removed because the extra decal was impossible to replicate over and over again. The name refers to the American Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The television show was based on the movie Moonrunners, in turn based on actual moonshine runners who used a 1958 Chrysler named Traveler, after General Lee's horse. Traveler was originally intended to be the name of the Duke boys' stock car too, until producers agreed that General Lee had more punch to it.
Since it was built as a race car, the doors were welded shut. Through the history of the show, an estimated 309 Chargers were used; 17 are still known to exist in various states of repair. A replica was owned by John Schneider, known as "Bo's General Lee". In 2008, Schneider sold "Bo's General Lee" at the Barrett-Jackson automobile auction for $230,000. An eBay auction which garnered a bid of $9,900,500 for the car was never finalized, with the purported bidder claiming his account had been hacked. The underside of the hood has the signatures of the cast from the 1997 TV movie. Schneider has also restored over 20 other General Lees to date. In 2008, a replica of the General Lee fetched a high bid of $450,000 at the Barrett-Jackson auto auction. In 2012, the General Lee 1, the first car used in filming the series, was purchased at auction by golfer Bubba Watson for $110,000. The car had been scrapped after being wrecked during the famous opening jump shoot, and was later discovered in a junkyard by the president of the North American General Lee fan club. In 2015, following a wave of sentiment against Confederate symbolism in the wake of shootings in Charleston, SC,, Bubba Watson announced that he would remove the Confederate Flag from the roof of the General Lee 1 and repaint it with the U.S. National Flag.
The show also used 1968 Chargers by pop-riveting the "I" piece to the center of the 68's grille, as well as cutting out the tail lights, pop-riveting the '69 lenses in place, and removing the round side marker lights. These Chargers performed many record-breaking jumps throughout the show, almost all of them resulting in a completely destroyed car. No 1970 Chargers were used, as backdating them proved to be too time-consuming.
The Duke boys added a custom air horn to the General Lee that played the first 12 notes of the song "Dixie". The Dixie horn was not originally planned, until a Georgia local hot rod racer drove by and sounded his car's Dixie horn. The producers immediately rushed after him asking where he had bought the horn. Warner Bros. purchased several Chargers for stunts, as they generally destroyed at least one or two cars per episode. By the end of the show's sixth season, the Chargers were becoming harder to find and more expensive. In addition, the television series Knight Rider began to rival the General Lees stunts. As such, the producers used 1:8 scale miniatures, filmed by Jack Sessums' crew, or recycled stock jump footage—the latter being a practice that had been in place to an extent since the second season, and had increased as the seasons passed.
Some of the 01 and Confederate flag motifs were initially hand painted, but as production sped up, these were replaced with vinyl decals for quick application, as needed.
During the first five episodes of the show that were filmed in Georgia, the cars involved with filming were given to the crew at the H&H body shop near the filming location. At this shop, the men worked day and night to prepare the wrecked cars for the next day while still running their body shop during the day. Time was of the essence, and the men that worked at this shop worked hard hours to get the cars prepared for the show.
The third episode "Mary Kaye's Baby" is the only one in which the General Lee does not appear. Instead, the Dukes drove around in a blue 1975 Plymouth Fury borrowed from Cooter that Luke later destroyed by shooting an arrow at the car, whose trunk had been leaking due to the moonshine stowed in the back.
The Duke boys' CB handle was "Lost Sheep". Originally when the show was conceived, their handle was to be "General Lee" to match their vehicle, but this was only ever used on-screen on one occasion, in the second episode, "Daisy's Song", when Cooter calls Bo and Luke over the CB by this handle, although they were actually driving Daisy's Plymouth Road Runner at the time. As it became obvious that the "General Lee" handle would be out of place when the Duke boys were in another vehicle, the "Lost Sheep" handle was devised.

Hazzard police cars (AMC Matador, Dodge Polara, Dodge Monaco, Plymouth Fury)

The 1975 AMC Matador was one of many different Hazzard County police cars used on the series, mostly in the first season; they had light bars and working radios. A 1970 Dodge Polara and a 1974 Dodge Monaco were used during the pilot episode "One Armed Bandits", these were also seen in the show's title sequence. From the second season, the 1977 Dodge Monaco was mostly used. From mid-season four the similar looking 1978 Plymouth Fury was used instead. The Matadors and Furies were former Los Angeles Police Department vehicles, while the Monacos were former California Highway Patrol units.

Plymouth Road Runner

A 1974 Plymouth Road Runner was Daisy Duke's car in the first five episodes of the first season. For the last episodes of the first season a similarly painted 1971 Plymouth Satellite Sebring with a matching "Road Runner" stripe was used. In the second season Bo and Luke send it off a cliff in "The Runaway". Another, identical Plymouth 1971 model car appeared in the background a few more episodes along with the Jeep CJ-7 until it was finally dropped altogether.

Jeep CJ-7

Dixie was the name given to Daisy Duke's white 1980 Jeep CJ-7 "Golden Eagle" which had a golden eagle emblem on the hood and the name "Dixie" on the sides. Like other vehicles in the show, there was actually more than one Jeep used throughout the series. Sometimes it would have an automatic transmission, and other times it would be a manual. The design of the roll cage also varied across the seasons. When the Jeep was introduced at the end of the second season's "The Runaway", it was seen to have doors and a slightly different paint job, but, bar one appearance in the next produced episode, "Arrest Jesse Duke", thereafter the doors were removed and the paint job was made all-white, with Dixie painted on the sides of the hood. These Jeeps were leased to the producers of the show by American Motors Corporation in exchange for a brief mention in the closing credits of the show.

Ford F-100 pickup truck

Uncle Jesse's truck was a white Ford pickup truck, most commonly a sixth-generation F100 Styleside. However, in the earliest episodes it had a Flareside bed, and varied between F100 and F250 models throughout the show's run. Bo, Luke and Daisy also drove Jesse's truck on occasion.

Cadillac Coupe de Ville

A white 1970 Cadillac de Ville convertible was used as Boss Hogg's car, notably with large bull horns as a hood ornament. In early seasons, Hogg was almost always driven by a chauffeur, who was normally nameless and had little or no dialogue, but identified on occasion as being called "Alex"; and played by several different uncredited actors, including stuntman Gary Baxley. This chauffeur would often be dressed in a red plaid shirt and deep brown or black Stetson hat, but on occasion would be an older man, sometimes dressed in more typical chauffeur attire.
Hogg is first seen to drive for himself in the second season opener "Days of Shine and Roses", where he and Jesse challenge each other to one last moonshine race. From the fourth season onward, except for a couple of brief reappearances of the chauffeur, Hogg drove himself around in his Cadillac and frequently challenged others by invoking his driving expertise from his days as a ridge-runner. Unlike other vehicles in the series, Boss Hogg's Cadillac is typically treated with kid gloves. The car is almost always seen with its convertible top down, with the top only being seen in two episodes, "Daisy's Song", the second to be produced and broadcast, and briefly in the second-season episode "Witness for the Persecution", when Cooter is returning it to the Court House after repairs.

Ford Custom 500

A green and blacked out 1971 Ford Custom 500 sedan named Black Tillie was once used by Uncle Jesse to make moonshine runs.

Theme song

The theme song "Good Ol' Boys" was written and performed by Waylon Jennings. He was also "The Balladeer", and served as narrator of the show. However, the version released as a single is not the same version that was used in the show's opening credits; the single version has a repeat of the chorus and an instrumental to pad out the length, uses a different instrumental mix that emphasizes the bass, and replaces the last verse with an inside joke about how the TV show producers "keep on showing hands and not face on TV".
In 1980, the song reached No. 1 on the American Country chart and peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Broadcast history

United States

Soon before the series ended its original run on CBS, The Dukes of Hazzard went into off-network syndication. Although not as widely run as it was back in the 1980s and the years since, reruns of the program do continue to air in various parts of the United States.
Notably, television stations that aired the show in syndication include KCOP Los Angeles, WGN-TV Chicago, KBHK San Francisco, WKBD Detroit, WTAF/WTXF Philadelphia, KTXL Sacramento, WVTV Milwaukee, KMSP Minneapolis–Saint Paul, among others.
Nationwide, the show also aired on ABC Family and CMT and TV Land ; TV Land dropped the show in the wake of protests and controversy surrounding the display of the Confederate flag.
The Nashville Network bought The Dukes of Hazzard from Warner Bros. in 1997 for well over $10 million; not only did it improve the network's ratings, the show was also popular among younger viewers, a demographic TNN had a notorious difficulty in drawing; The Dukes of Hazzard has run either on TNN or sister network CMT ever since.

Nielsen ratings

International

There were two made-for-TV reunion movies that aired on CBS, ' and '.

Films

Also made were The Dukes of Hazzard in 2005 and a direct-to-video prequel in 2007. These films were in the buddy comedy road film in tone than compared to how the original TV series itself was an action-comedy.

Home media

DVD

has released all seven seasons of The Dukes of Hazzard on DVD in Regions 1 and 2. The two TV movies that followed the series were released on DVD in Region 1 on June 10, 2008 and in Region 4 on June 4, 2014. In Region 4, Warner has released only the first six seasons on DVD and the two TV movies. The Complete Series and Two Unrated Feature Films Box Set was released on DVD in Region 1 on November 14, 2017.

Streaming

The TV series was also made available for streaming and download through a variety of services.

Legacy and influence in popular culture

In 2005, Tom Wopat and John Schneider were reunited during "Exposed", a fifth-season episode of the television series Smallville. Wopat guest-starred as Kansas State Senator Jack Jennings, an old friend of Clark Kent's adoptive father Jonathan Kent. In the episode, Jennings drives a 1968 Dodge Charger—the same body style as the General Lee.
Lizard Lick Towing featured an episode with its repossession specialists Ronnie Shirley and Bobby Brantley repossessing a General Lee replica.

Confederate flag controversy

After the 2015 Charleston church shooting, renewed debate about the symbolism of the Confederate battle flag prompted TV Land to pull reruns of the original series. Warner Bros., which owns the property, announced it would also no longer create merchandise bearing the flag, including miniatures of the General Lee, although this has led to people making their own custom General Lees and selling them. During the 2020 George Floyd protests, Amazon reportedly considered removing the program from its streaming service.

Tourist attraction

Artifacts from the show are on display in Luray, Virginia; Nashville, Tennessee; and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Cooter's Place in Luray is overseen by Ben "Cooter" Jones from the series. The Gatlinburg location features a gift shop and a Dukes of Hazzard-themed indoor miniature golf course and go-cart track, with a small display of costumes, collectibles and artifacts from the show.
Covington and Conyers, Georgia; where the original five episodes were produced, have been two major tourist attractions for Dukes of Hazzard fans.