As we moved into the 1970s, all that hippie-dippy, Kumbaya stuff was wearin' kinda' thin. So, while the city folks wandered into discos to numb their brains with throbbing noise, bright lights, and nose-candy, the rest of us moved-on to e…
As we moved into the 1970s, all that hippie-dippy, Kumbaya stuff was wearin' kinda' thin. So, while the city folks wandered into discos to numb their brains with throbbing noise, bright lights, and nose-candy, the rest of us moved-on to embrace Good Ol' Boy, outlaw ways. Bar-room brawling, haulin' ass in heavy American steel down country roads while yammerin' at your buddies on the CB radio...
Hollywood really got up to speed with the trend in '77 with SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. But it wasn't the first of the genre. A couple years earlier, there was a B-movie called MOONRUNNERS. It didn't make all that big a splash, but it did lay the groundwork for what became THE DUKES OF HAZZARD.
The Dukes were really intended as a sort of mini-series. A nine-episode, mid-season filler. I remember the Hollywood folks ridiculing it as ridiculous, low-brow trash that they couldn't believe was actually being produced and broadcast...
Then the ratings came in.
CBS extended the original nine episode order to thirteen, and a full season to start in the fall of the same year. The show would wind up running into 1985.
But, with the extension came major changes in production. The first handful of episodes were filmed in Georgia. Actual southern patchwork pavement roads. Real hick town. Genuine redneck hick extras. Boar's Nest looked like a proper country dive bar. Then they moved shooting to California.
To a denizen of the Rural South, it looked like a cartoon loosely based on the early episodes. Locations replaced with sets and studio lots. Cars came out of dusty chases and crashing through barns looking freshly washed and waxed! Worse-yet, the show became popular with kids. So the "outlaw" stuff had to be watered-down. Bo & Luke became goody-two-shoes and Rosco became a clown. By the middle of the second season, they found a nice, safe formula, and milked it for years.
Funny that, at the time, hardly anyone thought the Rebel Flag on the General Lee's roof (not to mention on the front license plate of the sheriff's car) was offensive. Also note that the Dukes had black friends and neighbors, and it didn't feel like a forced agenda. Obama and company have really set-back race relations in America several decades.
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