I remember being eight years old when I started watching this show. I would anxiously await the Friday line up that included The Incredible Hulk, Dallas, Falcon Crest and this one. That was a great Friday line up, highlighted of course by the Dukes. What was so appealing about this show to so many people was it's virtue. I'm sure parents wanted their kids to watch it because you couldn't have a better show for their kids to watch. It was safe. The Dukes were polite, virtuous and church going. How could they not like that? How could a parent object to anything like that? But of course as kids we liked it for different reasons.
Stunts, fast cars, Daisy, Boss Hogg and Roscoe. The Dukes of Hazard was so absurd sometimes but it always entertained you and more often than not it made you laugh. Could you imagine what the script must have looked like when they first pitched it to studio? Could you imagine how silly Roscoe must have looked on paper? I mean how do you write in his ridiculous laugh? How do you write all of his idiosyncrasies? Or was that all James Best? I don't know, but it sure was funny.
TV is different now in the 90's and beyond. Shows are more gritty and real and there is nudity and foul language and talk of homosexuality and alcoholism and a plethora of other issues. And that is fine. I like shows like Dawsons Creek and Friends and such, but Dukes of Hazard is a throw back to a simpler time. It is a time in television history when innocence was combined beautifully with humour, fast cars and lots of scenes of the General Lee jumping creeks. This was so much fun to watch and even when Coy and Vance came on the show, it was still okay.
The Dukes of Hazard was classic TV. My generation looks at this like my parents generation looks at Leave It To Beaver. Has twenty years really gone by?
