Today, January 26th, 2024, marks the 45th anniversary of The Dukes of Hazzard premiere. Nearly half a century after its hayday, the TV series starring John Schneider, Tom Wopat, and Catherine Bach has gone down in history for its fast cars, hood slides, and tight shorts. None of CBS’ executives expected this southern-friend Robin Hood story to take off like it did. Still, no one’s complaining about the meteoric ratings, which launched Schneider and Wopat’s careers and reportedly led to their car, the General Lee, receiving over thirty thousand fan letters per month by itself.
Why Everyone Loves The Duke Boys, Their Cousin, and Their Car
For those who are somehow unfamiliar with the show, The Dukes of Hazzard was a 1979 action-comedy series featuring around Bo (Schneider) and Luke Duke (Wopat), a pair of well-meaning cousins whose penchant for fast cars puts them into a variety of trouble with county commissioner Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) and the corrupt sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best). The “Duke Boys” were joined in their adventures by their cousin Daisy Duke (Bach), a waitress whose name has become synonymous with her short shorts, and their Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle), the kind old patriarch of the Duke clan.
However, if you asked any Duke of Hazzard fan what they remembered most about the show, they’d probably say the car. Bo and Luke’s hot rod was a customized 1969 Dodge Charger dubbed “The General Lee”, with a Confederate flag painted across the hood and a horn that played “Dixie.” Thanks to the show’s thrilling car chases and gravity-defying stunts, The General Lee was actually 300 different Chargers, according to the show’s executives, but that hardly stopped it from becoming one of the most popular “characters” on the show. In 2007, a version of the car owned by John Schneider sold for nearly $10 million on eBay, according to CNN.
Dukes of Hazzard: The Legacy, 45 Years in The Rearview
The question of why Dukes of Hazzard has remained so popular isn’t a hard one to answer, but it does have two layers to its popularity. On the one hand, it’s a funny, family-friendly sitcom about a pair of good ol’ boys who tear around in a fast, American-made muscle car with a pretty girl in tiny shorts. In hindsight, it’s easy to say that of course it was going to be popular – that’s practically a go-to recipe for a chart-topping TV show.
On a deeper level, however, The Dukes of Hazzard is a story about two unlikely heroes who are committed to doing what’s right despite the law telling them otherwise. The Robin Hood parallels in the show are pretty obvious – to the point where it’s even mentioned in the show’s theme song. Since Bo and Luke are on probation for moonshine running, they can’t own guns, meaning that they use bows and arrows to fight back against the corrupt sheriff of Hazzard County. A lot of the boys’ adventures center around get-rich-quick schemes and car chases, but they’re also concerned with keeping the Duke family farm out of Boss Hogg’s hands. The theme of righteous rebellion in Dukes of Hazzard is the same thing that’s kept Robin Hood popular for hundreds of years, so it’s no surprise that the show has stuck in popular memory as long as it has.
These days, The Dukes of Hazzard‘s legacy is also pretty obvious on the surface. The original 1979 series ended up spawning two TV movies, two feature films, an animated series, a comedy-drama, a spinoff, four video games, and even a Dukes of Hazzard cameo in a car commercial. That said, subtler signs of The Dukes of Hazzard‘s influence can be seen in everything from daisy dukes – the jean shorts that were named after the character – to the cool hip slide the boys do to get across the hood of their car that’s been referenced in other media for decades.
With all these things considered, it’s not surprising we’re still talking about The Dukes of Hazzard 45 years later – here’s hoping we’ll still be talking about it in another 50.
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