This is not really good news for 1985, but early 1985 saw The Dukes of Hazzard close after its 7th season. It had more than run its course though, so let's remember what was so good about it!
I remember many a Saturday afternoon watching the heady combination of cars, girls, great comedy acting and country music. Who were the shows real stars? I guess at the the time, the obvious (now) charms of cousin Daisy Duke, played by Catherine Bach were lost on me. Amazing I know (see below). A note here, Jessica Simpson does not even get within a country mile... :-)
My favourites at the time were the two cousins, Bo and Luke and those great car chases! Tom Wopat and John Schneider played these parts, John going on to star in Midnight Cowboy. Early shows regularly featured their buddy, the car mechanic Cooter, who owned another classic car, the red Gran Torino with "Starsky and Hutch" stripes! Of course Bo and Luke's car was the red Dodge Charger called "The General Lee" and, just in case you didn't realise they were from the South, it had a Confererate flag on the roof. I distinctly remember too the amount of cars in my small town in the UK that used that very distinctive horn too, though not many were yelling "Yeeeeehaaaa" out of the window at the time!
The great character didn't end there of course. The glue holding the whole show together was Uncle Jesse, played by Denver Pyle, who starred in every single episode.
Let's not forget the great character of Roscoe P (Purvis) Coltrane, the bumbling sherriff of Hazzard County, played with great comic effect by James Best. His dog was called Flash, a basset hound.
And who could forget Boss Hogg (Boss Jefferson Davis ("JD") Hogg), played by Sorrell Booke?! What a comic performance, one of the best ever surely? Has a man ever sunk so low so regularly, but, you know what, he wasn't all bad and that's why he was well loved!
A constant theme of course was the country music, specifically the bluegrass themes that generally accompanied the car chases. Of course, many a show is held together by a theme song that just says it all about the spirit and message of the show, and this is no different, with a great song sung by Waylon Jennings featuring clips from the show (mostly from episode 1 by the way, that did NOT have this theme).
So, the overall assessment? Ok there were some really silly storylines (anyone remember the one where the Alien landed?) but there were such great performances and fun stuff, it was a great show, at least for about 5 years!
There is an annual "Dukesfest" in Nashville (only in America....!)
And can you still get this racing set, with the jump? Coooool!
