My last column was a timely tribute to the May 1977 release of Smokey and the Bandit (the greatest movie of all time), so it logically stands to reason this month I am personally obligated to pay homage to the Dukes of Hazzard. Why, you ask? Well, casual readers might say that clearly a pattern exists for the writer — his wheelhouse, his artistic tastes, his cinematic genre of choice is good ol’ boys doing what good ol’ boys do — driving fast, chasing girls, breaking rules, and trying not to get nabbed by the long arm of the law. I hereby no comment all inquiries about parallels to my private life as far as the above are concerned, but I do want to proffer that Dukes of Hazzard exists largely because of the success of Smokey and the Bandit.

Allow me to explain. One could reasonably argue that despite the presence of A-listers Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, and Sallie Field plus Grammy Award-winning country crooner Jerry Reed in the film, the actual star of the movie was the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am with the Georgia-issued BAN ONE license plate. Snowman’s black and gold tractor trailer decorated with a Wild West scene painted on the side is nearly as iconic and pops up during anything from the annual Bandit Run road rallies to, improbably, a cameo on the 2010s AMC horror show The Walking Dead. Initially lacking marquee names on the project, the makers of Dukes of Hazzard took it one step further and elevated an orange 1969 Dodge Charger with a Confederate flag on the roof as the explicit centerpiece of the tv show from the beginning; the cast members are widely recognized now, but none ever became true headliners in Hollywood. The General Lee, on the other hand, garners considerable attention to this day from those who adore it as well as those who condemn its “politically incorrect” paint job. As pro wrestling promoter Eric Bischoff coined in his autobiography, and you know I had to find a way to make wrestling relevant this month as I attempt to do each issue, “controversy creates cash.” Seemingly everyone involved with that show carved a fine little industry niche for themselves, including the car, which continues to be spotted at muscle car museums, in music videos, at auto shows, and in private collections around the country some 40 years after its debut on CBS. For the record, about 300 Chargers were used during filming; many were wrecked only to be later lovingly restored by enthusiasts.

Another similarity, if you have not already arrived there, is that both the movie and the show were based in the state of Georgia. Almost all of Smokey and the Bandit was filmed outside of Atlanta, most notably near Jonesboro; the first five episodes of Dukes of Hazzard in 1979 were shot on location east of Atlanta around the town of Covington before the unlikely ratings sensation was taken more seriously by network bigwigs and production was moved primarily to Paramount Ranch in California. Nevertheless, the show was always set in the fictional Hazzard County, Georgia, and the General sported the tag CNH 320 issued by that state to reinforce said geography. An overlap you may not be aware of, however, is the fact that three prominent Dukes of Hazzard stars played bit parts in Smokey and the Bandit. Ben Jones, John Schneider, and Sonny Shroyer can all be spotted in the 1977 movie before their signature roles two years later as Cooter Davenport, Bo Duke, and Enos Strate, respectively. It was logical I suppose for TV executives, after the incredible box office success of the film, to hire people from that project to make the show a success or to mimic it in other ways. Now is a fitting time to bring up the role of Waylon Jennings as The Balladeer; viewers never saw his face, just his hands (as he “bemoaned” on the hit single radio version of the Dukes’ opening credits theme), but his unmistakable voice narrating each episode with pithy country witticisms provided the same type of comic relief and dramatic tensions for which fellow Nashville mainstay Jerry Reed was also known on the stage and silver screen. Maybe I am taking a victory lap on their behalf by mentioning this here, but if skeptical readers believe both men were only notable as entertainers mostly in the 1970s, or that their following was ever only regionally and provincially Southern in nature, Jennings was a part of one of the most memorable seasons of Married with Children as Ironhead Haynes in 1994, not to be outdone by Reed as Coach Red Beaulieu in The Waterboy four years later. I rest my case about the wisdom of the original casting decisions.

Returning to specifically Dukes of Hazzard talking points, the production strategy, such as it was, did in fact work. The series was a ratings smash for CBS, which reaped the rewards of showing J. R. Ewing’s Dallas back to back with the Duke boys on Friday nights. It lasted for 147 episodes over parts of seven seasons, spawning additional TV movies with the original cast, continuing syndication, at least one spinoff, a cartoon series, multiple video games, and other derivatives including lunchboxes, matchbox cars, Halloween costumes, and myriad additional novelties still generating royalties to this day. Clearly the show was not and is not exclusively Southern but national in its fandom, so it no doubt permeated the borders of Caroline County as well. I recall a local newspaper letter to the editor from the 1980s, written by a transplant, who could not stand living here for one more day. Good riddance, I say, but among the stated reasons for their hasty departure was that they were surrounded by, in their words, and I quote, “Dukes of Hazzard cars.” I fail to see how brightly-painted souped-up classic cars are in any way intimidating, but good luck living your cookie-cutter life in suburbia, pal.

Fast forward a couple decades and the Dukes of Hazzard literally came to Caroline County. A series of charity car shows in Ridgely featured NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty as the headliner but also booked a cavalcade of auto icons for autographs, selfies, and other fun. Luke Duke, Enos Strate, and Cletus Hogg among other characters associated with the series all made local appearances in various roles including a 2016 fundraiser luncheon at a Denton restaurant prior to a rolling county-wide tour. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Cletus, who when he is not reprising his role as a TV deputy sheriff is simply Rick Hurst. An affable gentleman, he was genuinely curious about the history of the area, and after realizing he had hit the jackpot by sitting next to the county’s most active historian, shared his family genealogy. Come to find out, like me, he has traced his lineage to the earliest settlers of Jamestown, Virginia; I let Hurst know that such documentation qualified him for membership in a society called First Families of Virginia and directed him to where and how he could apply. Giddy is an accurate word to describe me on that day.

This was not, however, my first notable experience interacting with the Dukes of Hazzard. I have lived the life since literally pre-school. The first time I was ever on television, it was for a drawing of Cooter’s tow truck I sent to the “WOW!” kids’ program on the old WDCA Channel 20. The fascination continued into adulthood as I featured a picture of me and him (Ben “Cooter” Jones was a two-term Congressman from Georgia, by the way) in, of all things, my wedding photo collage. Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) and Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle) both died before I could meet them, but I have said hello to Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best), Daisy Duke (Catherine Bach), and Bo Duke (John Schneider) over the years at gatherings such as Hazzard Homecoming in Virginia or at one of several museums Cooter has operated there or in Tennessee. For that matter, I assume at least a few readers caught Luke (Tom Wopat) in concert at the Ocean City Inlet during the mid-1990s or perhaps saw Schneider star in a musical called The Civil War when it passed through Baltimore in 2000. For a show that was panned by critics as corny and unsophisticated, Dukes of Hazzard sure has kept the people involved in some form of demand all these years.

The series has also given the auto industry a boost. Though the General Lee was a 1969 Charger, Dodge switched specs and branding in roughly 1970: Chargers morphed into “pony car” Challengers moving forward. In 2008, that company re-released their version of a hotrod — its own Corvette or Mustang, if you will. Just as Yellowstone has proven to be an excellent if unintended commercial for black Ram pick-up trucks, today you will see a plethora of Challengers in all colors no matter what part of the country you are traversing. In late 2011, Dodge dealerships began selling 2012 Challengers with “header orange” paint; less than 1,000 were produced. I could not resist that siren song; I bought one new without even test driving it and it turned out to be an excellent investment, lasting to date almost 200,000 miles with no mechanical issues whatsoever. Due to overwhelming demand for the rare and durable orange cars, Dodge ended up marketing a 2014 version as well. I will keep mine to straighten curves and flatten hills forever, or at least until the mountain gets me.

Just like Smokey and the Bandit, I attempted to retrace the steps of Dukes of Hazzard or at least locate their original albeit scripted stomping grounds. If you recall the opening credits, for example, they conclude with the General Lee going airborne; that was filmed at a satellite campus of Emory University in Oxford, Georgia. Been there, done that. I have taken so many pictures at places like the old Kent Narrows Bridge, the drawbridge in downtown Cambridge, the rickety one-lane ferry bridge at Bestpitch in the swamps of southern Dorchester, and the Hunting Creek bridge near Choptank posed like I too am contemplating a jump as Waylon cuts to commercial that the “Dukes of Chazzard” has its own album on my social media. I could go on but I will leave it up to you to geek out to your own fandom-fueled finds and fanciful imaginations.

Does it pay to be a Dukes enthusiast? Not really, but the benefits are okay. I once won a contest for a free meal at a barbecue restaurant for showing up in costume with a Daisy Duke impersonator in my orange Dodge, so there’s that. Before that glorious victory, however, we have to go back to 2005. When the Dukes of Hazzard movie starring Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, Willie Nelson, Lynda Carter, and, dramatic pause, BURT REYNOLDS opened that August, I was more than psyched. Next to Smokey and the Bandit, Super Troopers from 2001 is my second favorite film; the comedy troupe that wrote and starred in it, Broken Lizard, did the honors for this snarky send-up. Knowing that I was acknowledged locally as kind of a superfan, the newspaper editor at the time did a story on my Dukes collection, travels, and memories, not to mention asking me to submit a scholarly review of the Hollywood release for publication. I was more than happy to oblige, as seeing it in print concluded a fondly remembered week that had actually started with a photo shoot inside a General Lee in Gatlinburg; the best picture from that day is included with this article and also displayed along with the aforementioned media coverage at another fan’s tribute Boar’s Nest-replica museum outside Rougemont, North Carolina. See…I am not the only one like this, I swear (though my wife’s maiden name is a direct reference to the show, so maybe I am just a bit more obsessed than most after all).

So what lessons can Caroline Countians learn from this Dukes of Hazzard thinkpiece? If nothing else, there’s something to be said for good clean innocent rural American fun, a genre the mainstream national culture regretfully is largely devoid of today. No matter. We make our way the only way we know how, especially in the county with the most dirt roads in the entire state of Maryland. Perhaps we would do well to consciously promote our own version of the Hazzard we have here, however you wish to interpret and apply that suggestion.