General Lee
the car

• The General Lee was a 1969 Dodge Charger 440 with the 440-cubic-inch Magnum V8 engine
• Over 300 Dodge Chargers were used on the show because once a car was jumped it was not used again The shock of the impact completely destroyed the structural integrity of the car.
• At the end of filming of the TV show there were only 17 original General Lees remaining Warner Bros. authenticated all these, each car being given a Certificate of Authenticity of its participation in the TV Show.
• The General Lee was painted bright orange and had a confederate flag on the roof and the number '01' on the door.
• During the  show's prime, the General Lee received over 30,000 pieces of fan mail monthly mainly asking for an autographed picture. The autographs being prints of the tire tread made by driving the car over the photograph.
• Boxes of lead weights were stored in the trunk during jumps to balance the weight of the engine in the front thus preventing the car from turning end to end in the air. 500-600 lbs were used for short jumps and 1,000 lbs were used for the longer jumps.
• At least 3 general Lee cars were used per episode
• On all the General Lees used for the show, the locking mechanism was disconnected from the foot-operated parking brake for the "Bootleggers' Turn", the 180-degree turns the Dukes made in practically every show to lose sheriff Rosco, and/or deputies Enos and Cletus.

Where did the name General come from?

• The name "the General" was created by Gy Waldron as part of the original Dukes script. As the show evolved and the General took on the dimension of a character, his popularity kept pace with that of the show's other characters.

The "Dixie" Horn

• is a 12-note musical horn of the "Way Down South in the Land of Cotton"
• The horn was added when the show's producers were driving down a Georgia highway to film the show's first episodes and heard the horn of a passing car. They chased the car down and convinced the driver to sell his musical horn. They later found out that they paid 5 times what the horn was worth as the item was a stock item in most any auto accessory store.

General Lee License Plate

Georgia CNH 320

Dukes of Hazzard
the TV SHow

• First Air Date:
  January 26, 1979
• Last Air Date:
  August 16, 1985
• Number of Seasons:
  Seven
• Number of Episodes:
  146 one hour episodes were produced (with two, two-part episodes)
• inspiration for the series came from a 1975 movie called The Moonrunners

stars

• Luke Duke-Tom Wopat
• Bo Duke-John Schneider
• Daisy Duke-Catherine Bach
• Uncle Jesse-Denver Pyle
• Narrator-Waylon Jennings

spin offs

• Sonny Shroyer (Enos) got his own show called Enos debuting November 12, 1980 and lasted 1 season. Enos got a job with the Los Angeles Police Department where he fought big city crime with good ol' country driving and  know how. The last episode aired September 19, 1981. Sonny came back to Hazzard for the 4th season.

• In 1983, a cartoon spinoff was made with Coy & Vance as the Duke boys for 13 episodes and Bo & Luke for the last 7 episodes.

• In 1997, CBS aired a brand new reunion movie with most of  the original cast

Four video games based on the show were created:

• The Dukes of Hazzard (unreleased Atari 2600 prototype)
• The Dukes of Hazzard: Racing for Home (1999)
• The Dukes of Hazzard 2: Daisy Dukes It Out (2000)
• The Dukes of Hazzard: Return of the General Lee (2004)

• Release Date:
  August 5th, 2005
• Cousins Bo and Luke  Duke, with the assistance of their sexy cousin Daisy  and Uncle Jesse, must save the Duke family farm from destruction by the town's corrupt and evil commissioner Boss Hogg. Their efforts constantly find the "Duke Boys" eluding authorities in "The General Lee", the boys' orange 1969 Dodge Charger that keeps them one step ahead of the dimwitted antics of the small southern town's Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane.

Coloring Pages

General Lee

 Daisy Duke

trivia

• The show went into the top ten in the 2nd season creating a merchandising franchise and Waylon Jennings got a top 40 hit with the title theme.

• The show had two sets of Dukes cousins, two different deputies and four different sheriffs. 300 General Lees (and many more patrol cars!) were wrecked. The Boar's Nest was destroyed in several fist fights. Eleven country stars were caught in Boss's Celebrity Speed Trap (the Oak Ridge Boys were caught twice!).

• In 1997, CBS aired a brand new reunion movie.

• The 1st 5 episodes were filmed in Covington Georgia, where a real town was used.
• The Duke boys got the General Lee after it was seized from a couple of guys who used it as their getaway car in a bank robbery.
• Bo and Luke had been caught running moonshine and were put on probation. Therefore, they weren't allowed to have guns so they used bows and arrows instead.
• Luke Duke had served in the Marine Corps. before returning to Hazzard County.
• Catherine Bach's (Daisy) hot pants were so adored that they became known as "Daisy Dukes"!
• John Schneider was only 18 years old when he first appeared as Bo Duke.
• Ben Jones (Cooter) went on to became a Congressman from Georgia until he was beat by Newt Gingrich.
• James Best (Roscoe) received his training as an actor from Julliard.
• When John Scheider and Tom Wopat refused to re-sign their contracts for the 5th season, there was a nationwide search for replacements. Bryon Cherry and Christopher Mayer were selected to appear as their cousins Coy and Vance Duke. When the dispute was over, John Schneider and Tom Wopat returned & everything was back to normal.
• The "P" in Roscoe P. Coltrane stands for "Purvis."
• The character Boss Hogg first appeared on a show called "Flo's Yellow Rose", a 1980 spin off series of the TV show Alice.
• Way back in the past, Uncle Jesse and Boss Hogg had been friends and made moonshine together.

trivia
2005 Movie

• Jessica Simpson, who plays Daisy Duke, beat out Britney Spears, Mandy Moore and Jessica Biel for the role.
• Dolly Parton was offered the role of Pauline (according to Jessica Simpson) but turned it down.
• Paul Walker and Ashton Kutcher were considered to play the Duke boys. Anthony Anderson was also considered to play Boss Hogg.
• Filming commenced on 8 November 2004, 26 years almost to the very day that shooting began for "One Armed Bandits," the first episode of the original TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard" (1979).
• Many of the jumps and car chase scenes were filmed on a Louisiana State University, Agricultural Research Station in Louisiana. The Station was leased to Warner Brothers during the off season for filming.
• One of the original cars from the '80s was used as a close-up car. It's a converted '68 Charger to look like a '69 and the original engine was replaced by a brand new Hemi engine. The car was used for a few close-up scenes and then sent back to Warner Bros.
• In 2005, Warner Bros settled a lawsuit filed by representatives of late film producer Robert Clark. Lawyers for the producer claimed that when the studio bought the rights to Clark's film Moonrunners (1975) in order to make "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV series, they bought the TV rights only, not the feature film rights. The lawsuit attempted to hold up release of this film. The settlement amount was reportedly $17.5 million.
• 26 Dodge Chargers were used for the making of this film. Several 1968 and 1970 Dodge Chargers were converted to look like 1969 Chargers. Only one Hemi Charger was used, the rest were 440s, 383s, and a few small block 318s.
• Two Dodge Chargers were purchased for a total of $2, given that after the making of the film they would be sold back to the original owner for $1.25 a piece.
• The license plate on the General Lee is "CNH 320", just as it was in the television show.

Synopsis
 

• In a place called Hazzard County, which existed 'somewhere in the South,' lived the Duke family. Jesse Duke with his two nephews, Bo and Luke and his niece Daisy worked hard to run a farm, run moonshine (if they really had to. Bo and Luke were on probation after getting caught running shine) and out run the local Sheriff. And they looked pretty good doing it too.
• The boys drove a souped up 1969 Dodge Charger that was painted orange, with an 01 on the doors (which were welded shut) and a Confederate flag on the roof. The car was known as "General Lee," and every week, the boys drove fast and jumped long and far to get out of trouble ("Trouble" usually being getting out from under some trumped up charge or bad rap put on by the County Commissioner, "Boss" Jefferson Davis Hogg and his right hand man, Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane.) The trumped up charges were usually done in an effort to keep the Dukes out of the way while Boss tried to turn a dishonest buck or two. The charges probably would have stuck, if Bo and Luke weren't so persistent in not wanting to be framed and if Rosco wasn't such a bumbling idiot sometimes.
• All in all, a one hour episode basically consisted of a car chase, Rosco giggling "Khee, khee I love it, I love it!" Daisy smiling pretty and wearing her short-shorts while slinging brew at the Boar's Nest (the local watering hole), Enos, Cletus or Rosco wrecking their patrol cars (usually in very creative ways too), General Lee flying high or driving fast, a fist fight or two and everything being resolved in the end with Boss usually making a hefty donation to the orphanage when the Dukes found out of his illegal activities.