The Dukes of Hazzard

The Dukes of Hazzard was a Syndication network action\comedy series created by Guy Waldron.

The show aired from January 26, 1979, to February 8, 1985, lasting for seven seasons & 147 episodes.

It was produced by Paul R. Picard Productions and Piggy Productions, Inc. (in season 1), and Lou Step Productions (from seasons 2–7).

Plot
The series centered on the adventures of cousins Bo and Luke Duke, who live in the fictional Hazzard County on a family farm with their Uncle Jesse & cousin Daisy.

The cousins race around in their customized 1969 Dodge Charger stock car (known as "The General Lee"), evading corrupt county commissioner Boss Hogg and bumbling, corrupt Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane.

Cast

 * Tom Wopat as Luke Duke
 * John Schneider as Bo Duke
 * Catherine Bach as Daisy Duke
 * Denver Pyle as Uncle Jesse Duke
 * Sorrell Booke as Boss Hogg
 * James Best as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane
 * Rick Hurst as Deputy Cletus Hogg
 * Sonny Shroyer as Deputy Enos Strate
 * Ben Jones as Cooter Daveport
 * Waylon Jennings as The Balladeer
 * Byron Cherry as Coy Duke
 * Christopher Mayer as Vance Duke

Production
"The Dukes of Hazzard" was developed from the 1975 film "Moonrunners" (which was created by Guy Waldron).

In 1977, Waldron was approached by Warner Bros. with the idea of developing "Moonrunners" into a television series. He reworked various elements from Moonrunners, and from it was devised what would become "The Dukes of Hazzard".

The show's production began in October 1978 with the original intention of only nine episodes being produced as 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, primarily 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 produced, "Repo Men" (the fourth to be broadcast).

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 (and thus "Moonrunners") 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 between Rushing and Warner Bros., although he remained on good terms with cast and crew and in recent years has made appearances at several fan conventions.

By the end of the show's first (half) season, the family-friendly tone of The Dukes of Hazzard was mostly in place.

When "The Dukes of Hazzard" returned for a second season in the fall of 1979 (its first full season), with a few further minor tweaks, the show quickly found its footing as a family-friendly comedy-adventure series.

By the third season (starting in the fall of 1980) the template was well set in place for that which would be widely associated with the show.

Casting
During the show's fourth season, series stars Tom Wopat and John Schneider became increasingly concerned about a contract dispute over their salaries and merchandising royalties owed to them over the high sales of "Dukes of Hazzard" products. 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.

The show's 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 (in total, they made 19 episodes including one with Bo and Luke).

Some scripts for Coy & Vance were originally written for Bo & Luke, but with their names quite literally crossed out, and Coy & Vance penned in.

The new Dukes (who were 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 & Vance were nothing but direct clones of Bo & Luke, with Coy a direct "carbon copy" replacement for Bo & 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 characterwise, 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 (though presumably in a reduced role), 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.

The Return of Bo and Luke
Although Coy and Vance were never popular with the majority, a few 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.

Bo & Luke return from their NASCAR tour just as Coy & Vance leave Hazzard to tend to a sick relative.

Even 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 or 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 decried the miniature car effects newly incorporated to depict increasingly absurd General Lee and patrol car stunts (which had previously been performed with real cars by stunt drivers).

The miniature car effects were intended as a budget saving measure (to save the cost of repairing or replacing damaged vehicles) and to help compete visually with KITT from the Syndication series, "Knight Rider."

In February 1985, The Dukes of Hazzard ended its run after seven seasons.