Plot Summary
The television series The Dukes of Hazzard followed Bo and Luke Duke, two cousins living in an unincorporated area of the fictional Hazzard County, Georgia, racing around in their modified 1969 Dodge Charger, The General Lee, evading corrupt county commissioner Boss Hogg and his inept county sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. Bo and Luke had been sentenced to probation for illegal transportation of moonshine – Jesse made a plea bargain to stop brewing moonshine in return for the boys to forgo jail time and instead be placed on probation. As a result, Bo and Luke were not allowed to carry firearms (they often used compound bows) or leave Hazzard County (although the exact details of their probation terms varied from episode to episode; sometimes it was implied that they would be jailed for merely crossing the county line; on other occasions, it was shown that they may leave Hazzard as long as they were back within a certain time limit).
Corrupt politician Boss Hogg, who either ran or had fingers in just about everything in Hazzard County (and whose exact powers, much like the terms of the Duke boys’ probation, often varied in different episodes) was forever angry with the Dukes, in particular Bo and Luke, for eternally foiling his crooked scams and was always looking for ways to get them out of the picture so his plots had a chance of succeeding. Many episodes revolved around Boss trying to engage in an illegal scheme with criminal associates. Some of these were get-rich-quick schemes, though many others affected the financial security of the Duke farm, which Boss had long wanted to acquire for nefarious reasons. Other times, Boss hired known criminals from out of town to do his dirty work for him, and often tried to frame Bo and Luke for various crimes such as bank robbery (thus resulting in imprisonment and allowing Boss easily to acquire the Duke farm). Bo and Luke always seemed to stumble over Boss’ latest scheme, sometimes by curiosity, and often by sheer luck, and put it out of business.
Due to their fundamentally good natures, the Dukes often wound up helping out Boss Hogg, albeit begrudgingly. More than once Boss was targeted by former associates who were either seeking revenge or had turned against him after a scheme unraveled in any number of ways: Boss’ greedy nature, Rosco’s bumbling, the criminals simply outsmarting the two or their consciences came to the surface. Sometimes criminals who were even more crooked and ruthless than Boss came to town. Sheriff Rosco also found himself in trouble more than once. On such occasions, Bo and Luke usually had to rescue their adversaries as an inevitable precursor to defeating the bad guys; these instances became more regular as the series went on.
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Full Cast Bios
Beaureguard “Bo” Duke (John Schneider)
Quite a bit younger than Luke. Bo was an ex-stock car test driver and did all the fancy jumps in the General. No one in Hazzard could out-run the General when Bo was driving. If there was something in Hazzard that looked like it could be jumped, Bo would jump it without hardly a second thought. He even jumped a 32 car pile up for a stunt show. (Did any of you notice that the General used to do that stunt had black bucket seats, instead of the usual tan bench, and had extra roll bars added to it, not to mention the racing seat-belts.) Carnival of the trills was the show that he did the 32 car jump Bo didn’t come up with as many ideas as Luke did, but he always did his part when it came to getting the boys out of trouble. Bo was always on the lookout for pretty girls which got them into trouble a few times too.
Lucas K. “Luke” Duke (Tom Wopat)
Luke was the cooler, more rational Duke cousin. Luke didn’t get to drive the General all that much, but when he did, he often preluded it with his famous hood slide. Luke was an ex-Merchant Marine and always got the Dukes out of all the trouble Bo got them into. Luke was the one who did all the crazy stunts, like jumping onto moving vehicles. It helped to have Marine training in Hazzard. As Luke would slide across the hood, Bo would be starting up the engine and throwing it into gear for a faster getaway. He and Bo used to be in the family business of runnin’ shine, a tradition that was started 50 years be fore there was a U.S.of A., until they messed that up by getting caught. Now all they do is drive around all day in the General.
Daisy Duke (Catherine Bach)
Daisy was the hottest girl in town. Boss Hogg got her to waitress at The Boar’s Nest in exchange for lending the Dukes the money to buy a car (which turned out to be a big mistake for him!) and enter it in his race. In the beginning she had a 1972 yellow Plymoth Roadrunner until her cousins drove it off a cliff. She then got her famous jeep Dixie, which had a gold eagle painted on the hood. Daisy hated it when the boys treated her like a helpless girl, she always wanted to join in all the action, and often did help get the boys out of trouble.
Uncle Jesse Duke (Denver Pyle)
The Duke patriarch. He always looked out for his family and often let his pride get in the way of his better judgement. Uncle Jesse never broke his word unless it was to get his boys out of trouble (which happened a little too much). Back in the days when he ran moonshine with Boss Hogg in The Ridge Runner Association he got to drive his black Midnight Runner, but now he just drives a rusted old Ford Pickup. Whenever he asked Boss for a favor he said something along the lines of “J.D., in all my years I ain’t never asked you for anything, but now I need a favor from you.” And it always worked. Uncle Jesse had a way with words and always got what he wanted. He was wise too.
Jefferson Davis Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke)
The Dukes’ worst nightmare. All Boss wanted to do was to eat, eat, and eat some more, while becoming the richest man in the world. Boss would come up with every way possible to make money and take all the mortgages his bank holds…especially, the Duke Farm, but for some odd reason the Dukes always helped him out when he was in trouble. Boss had a white 1970 Cadillac with longhorn’s on the front. Although he rarely drove it himself, everyone knew when that car showed up, trouble wasn’t far behind. Since Boss owned the law in Hazzard, he never got into any trouble with all the schemes he pulled.
Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best)
The local law in Hazzard. He was a straight-as-an-arrow cop for 30 years, but he didn’t get his pension, so he turned crooked. Now, he does everything and anything for Boss Hogg. Day in and day out he would find anyway possible to give someone in Hazzard a ticket.
Flash (A Basset Hound)
Rosco got her from a police gazette magazine, and he loved this dog more than anything else in the world, even money! Supposedly she could smell a crook a mile away. I guess that’s why she hated Boss so much. She like the Duke boys though.
Deputy Enos Straitt (Sonny Shroyer)
The only lawful lawman in Hazzard. Although he always did what Boss or Rosco told him to, he never liked it. He was hopelessly in love with Daisy and everyone knew it. He even almost married her near the end but he chickened out. Enos left during the third season to join the police out in California and start his own show, but returned after it went down the drain.
Cooter Davenport (Ben Jones)
Cooter was a mechanical genius. He could fix anything that was handed to him. Cooter was the dukes best friend he would fix the general and loan them his truck.
Lulu Hogg (Peggy Rhea)
Boss’s big wife and Rosco’s older sister. She had to have her way or ELSE….. Boss would be in big trouble!
Deputy Cletus Hogg (Rick Hurst)
He was Boss Hogg’s cousin and Enos’s replacement when he left for California. He had a crush on Daisy but she never liked him. Cletus also was only 1/8 Hogg so he didn’t mind helping the dukes boys escape from Rosco a time or two.
Coy Duke (Byron Cherry)
Another Duke cousin. He was Bo’s pathetic replacement for the forth season (the only low point in Duke history) when Bo and Luke went to race in the Nascar circuit professionally. He had the same past as Bo; an ex stock car test driver, but was so lame. He couldn’t come up with a plan to save his life. Neither Coy or Vance could drive or anything (the reason that Bo and Luke left for a little while was because of not being paid enough)
Vance Duke (Christopher Mayer)
Luke’s replacement and another cousin. Not as bad as Coy was, but bad enough. Like Coy, he was given the same background as Luke; an ex merchant marine. He didn’t do as many crazy stunts as Luke, but he came up with as many plans. Coy and Vance weren’t on probation so Boss hated that but the dukes never used guns just there bows.
Miss Tisdale (Nedra Voltz)
The post misstress of Hazzard. She ran the post office and delivered all the mail on her motorcycle while doing crazy stunts on it. She had the biggest crush on Uncle Jesse and did everything to be next to him. She got herself into trouble a few times, and loved it since Uncle Jesse hid her out while the Dukes boys made things right.
Sheriff Little (Don Pedro Colley)
Sheriff Little was Chickasaw only sheriff and he couldn’t wait to catch the duke boys but he never did.
The Balladeer (Waylon Jennings)
You heard his voice in every episode; singing the theme song, and narrating the story.He was always gave the Duke boys advice that they couldn’t hear, and telling everyone to hold on for a commercial break.
The General Lee (1969 Dodge Charger)
The General Lee is the greatest automobile on the face of the Earth. Bo and Luke came across it while looking for a car to put the engine they had just built into. They found a beat-up black charger in a Chickasaw junk yard after it had been used in a bank robbery and run off the road and used the money Uncle Jesse lent them to buy it.They took it over to Cooter’s Garage and turned it into the car we all know and love.The General had to be severely overhauled to withstand all the abuse the Dukes put to it. The car was stripped down, replaced with a roll-bar added, a grill guard was added to the front, the antenna was removed so the Dukes could slide across the hood easily, and the doors were welded shut ’cause Luke wanted it to be just like a car in the Nascar Circuit. The horn was replaced with one that played the first 11 notes of Dixie even though the tune was edited in after the first few episodes. The only color Cooter had in his garage at the time was orange so that’s the color it came to be. They also slapped a big ol’ Confederate Flag on the roof with the name GENERAL LEE on both sides of it. And don’t forget the big ‘ol “01” on each door. By the way its license plate was Georgia CNH 320…
