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The Dukes of Hazzard was part of America's redneck
fetish in the mid-to-late 1970s, otherwise evident in popular songs, movies, and
television shows highlighting fast cars, truckers, citizens' band radio,
moonshine, irreverent hicks, and clueless lawmen. Created by writer-producer Gy
Waldron and inspired by his own 1975 bootlegging comedy, Moonrunners, Dukes milked seven seasons of material from the tale of a Deep South
family of reformed whiskey-makers and their running feud with a greedy
impresario and his chief lackey, a buffoonish, venal sheriff. At the center of the action is Sheriff Coltrane's nemeses, cousins Bo Duke (John
Schneider) and Luke Duke (Tom Wopat), a couple of wild boys buzzing through the
backwoods in the "General Lee," a souped-up Dodge Charger. Bo and Luke are good
at heart but have to behave themselves while on indefinite probation,
complicating but not halting their efforts to vex Roscoe and his patron,
diminutive bigwig Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke). The enmity runs both ways: Roscoe
and Boss Hogg, with the aid of witless Deputy Enos Strate (Sonny Shroyer), dream
up ways of eliminating the Dukes--including their wise old Uncle Jesse (Denver
Pyle)--but their efforts always backfire.
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