The Dukes of Hazzard

THE DUKES OF HAZZARD
Made by: CBS
Shown on: ITV?
Years shown: 1979-84

Yee-haaa! Nothing makes for better Sunday afternoon viewing than a bunch of inbred Americans, with their short shorts, fast cars and trailer-trash sensibilities. Well, someone thought it was a good idea, and indeed it turned out to be.

With music and a theme song by Waylon Jennings, the stars of the show were cousins Bo and Luke Duke (Tom Wopat and John Schneider), one dark-haired and chunky, one cute and blond. They operated just on the right side of the law as they did their modern-day Robin Hood schtick in Hazzard County. They lived with white-bearded Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle), their foxy cousin, Daisy Duke (Catherine Bach), and they cruised around the dusty landscape in their car, the General Lee, which was orange with the Confederate flag painted on the bonnet. This car also had no operable doors, and so the ‘Good ol’ boys’ would just athletically leap in through the windows, which I have to say I thought was pretty cool.

The Dukes were so affable and easy-going that they didn’t really have enemies, but there was the local governor, the obese and cigar-smoking Boss Hogg (Sorrell Brooke.) He was always looking for ways to throw the boys in the county lock-up, and berated his pathetic deputy, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (James Best), whenever he failed to do so i.e. every cotton-pickin’ episode. This comedy-drama was not directly aimed at kids, but succeeded with them largely because of the high-speed car chases and stunts, which would involve the General Lee jumping a fifty foot gorge, or driving for three miles on two wheels. I also thought that baby-faced Luke was a nice slice of eye-candy. Grown men, however, were more taken with Daisy Duke, who sported figure-hugging denim hot-pants, and was inclined to drape herself over the boys’ car whenever there was an opportunity - and this was when she wasn’t seeing off sexist creeps in the watering hole where she was a waitress. But looking back, there was something a little amiss about Bo, Luke and Daisy: they were far too tactile with each other to be cousins. But then again , that kind of thing is probably legal in some southern states.

The boat was rocked when Wopat and Schneider got into pay disputes with the network, and had to be replaced. Bo and Luke supposedly left Hazzard to try their luck on the race car circuit, and in came another pair of cousins, Coy and Vance Duke (Byron Cherry and Christopher Mayer.) They did their best, but CBS fought to resolve their differences with the originals, and they returned only one series later, no doubt with wads of cash jammed into the back pockets of their tight jeans. Dukes had spin-off potential, and made a brief star of Sonny Stroyer, who played dozy deputy, Enos Strate, in his own series. Wopat, Schneider and Catherine Bach reunited in 1997 for a Dukes of Hazzard TV-movie special, although there was probably less jumping through car windows, and slightly less revealing leg-wear.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 10/10

(Thanks to www.tvcrazy.net for the borrowed pic)