For: The Dukes of Hazzard (film)

The Dukes of Hazzard is an American television series that originally aired on the CBS television network from 1979 to 1985. It was inspired by the 1975 film Moonrunners.

Exposition

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). It was up to Bo and Luke to uncover the schemes and foil the criminals.

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.

Main characters

• Lucas "Luke" Duke (Tom Wopat) (1979–1982 & 1983–1985) was the dark-haired, slightly older cousin. More mature and rational than his cousin Bo, he was typically the one who thought of the plan that would get the two out of whatever trouble they had gotten into. Luke wore a checked blue shirt (a plain blue shirt in most second season episodes), and a denim jacket over it in early episodes. He was a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a former boxer. He was the more physical of the two, often doing stunts like jumping onto moving cars. Luke was best known for his famous "hood slide" across The General Lee, which was seen in the opening credits of the show and later told by Tom Wopat to be an accident because his foot got caught on the side of the General Lee when he attempted to walk across the hood. In the pilot episode "One-Armed Bandits", he mentioned having a car of his own (which Cooter had secretly "borrowed" to run Rosco off the road "to make him mad", upon which he stole his patrol car for a subsequent car chase with the Duke boys) that mysteriously was never mentioned again after this episode, although it might be assumed that Cooter wrecked it.