12 Good Ol' Facts About The Dukes of Hazzard

Mentalfloss ^ | 26Jan19 | BY Jake Rossen

[JohnBovenmyer]

Updated version:

A red '69 Charger, roof emblazoned, races across your screen, closely followed by 50 media vans and black SUVs. As the action pans you see they are approaching the Snake River Canyon. The pursuers slam their brakes as the Charger goes airborne and lands softly on the far side. Out of the near side pile-up crawls a white suited Robert Mueller and Sheriff Jim Acosta, followed by his dog, Nancy. On the far side we can now read MAGA on the Charger's roof. Out vault the Trump Boys, Junior and Eric, and a Daisy Duke clad Ivanka. Junior waves across the abyss, "Daddy says nothing is impossible with the General Laissez-Faire!"

[pepsi_junkie]

CBS of the 60s was all country fare (Petticoat Junction, Andy Griffith, Beverly Hillbillies, etc) and they were dominating the ratings but the boss wanted to be viewed as erudite by his peers in the intelligentsia and was embarrassed about the rural nature so he cancelled all of them and replaced them with a slate of shows which were meant to highlight leftwing values like All in the Family. Of course, to his chagrin Archie was the breakout star everyone loved, not meathead. But at least he didnt have a southern accent.

Then somehow a rural show about a couple of brothers driving around and doing good deeds while being chased by dopey lawmen slipped past him and became a giant hit. Must have driven him insane.

[Big Red Badger]

She is Dynamite!

[hoagy62]

Oops! Mu bad.

[ealgeone]

CBS execs hated the rural (think conservative fly over country) oriented shows. They wanted the urban, liberal based shows.

In the late 60s they had a cleansing and moved away from shows that were rural based to city based.

Been kinda downhill since.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Archie was the breakout star everyone loved, not meathead. But at least he didnt have a southern accent.

At least not until he did In The Heat Of The Night a decade later.

[Buckeye McFrog]

CBS execs hated the rural (think conservative fly over country) oriented shows. They wanted the urban, liberal based shows. In the late 60s they had a cleansing and moved away from shows that were rural based to city based.

That was largely driven by one of their major advertisers.....Proctor and Gamble.

And they're still at it. Maybe that company really IS a tool of the devil.

[-YYZ-]

At 12 years old, I thought it was great. Car chases, villains, ridiculous plots, and of course, Daisy! I sort of cringe now that I subjected my parents to it on our one color TV on Friday nights. It was pretty stupid, if fun.

[Reily]

“...urban...”

I imagine P&G convinced themselves that’s where the money was, (Probably true!)

I had a TV exec once tell me that daytime TV viewing hence commercials were focused more on the “urban” & female TV audience. Over the years because of working demographic changes more “urban” focus then female. Even though the “urbans” didn’t have the deep pockets of the females, there were more of them.

[DesertRhino]

“Yeah. The liberal mindset said no guns for the good ole boys. But dynamite strapped to arrows was ‘cute’ and like the A team, nobody got killed”

Oh baloney. it was circa 1980. The point of the movie wasn’t to do like today and make a dark, brooding, blood soaked horror-fest.

It was supposed to be good clean fun. Also back then ISIS was a hot chick professor who righted wrongs without killing anyone either.

[Buckeye McFrog]

That brings up a good observation I had to the reactions of several women when the Dukes of Hazzard movie came out.

They really objected to Jessica Simpson being cast in the role of Daisy. Their reasoning?

“She can’t play Daisy. Daisy was SMART!”

And looking back at the series I can see their point. That Daisy was feminine and redneck and tough and smoking hot....but she was smarter than the average bear too.

[Big Red Badger]

Smart and could handle a C.B. Radio!