I recently watched the first two episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard and that was a strange experience. I had only fragmentary childhood memories of an orange car, people jumping in through the window, and a fat guy saying "Duke boys!" over and over again. It's funny when just one little phrase is all you have, it becomes emblematic of so many hours of pre-adolescent lethargy, and every time you try to remember it you just see a fat man saying "Duke boys!" repeatedly like a jingle stuck in your head. "Duke boys! Duke boys!" It's disturbing after a while.
So, now I've seen some of it again, I am not surprised to find that the show was, dramatic pause, horrible. Even nostalgia couldn't make watching more than a half hour of it worthwhile.
There were a few surprises, though. For one thing, it was shot back in the days when people shot TV on real film stock, and maybe that stock wasn't well preserved, or maybe it's my monitor, but it looks very under exposed. This makes for a stange experience: particularly in one scene, it sort of looks like the Godfather with a sputtering Boss Hogg stepping in for Brando. It's a completely differenty visual style from later TV.
It had also never occured to me before how drastically TV fashions can change. Watching these episodes reminded me that there was a time in American TV in which almost every show had to have at least one car jump in slow motion. I would go so far as to guess that the Dukes of Hazzard ushered in this leitmotif, which went on to be almost the entire reason for the existence of shows such as Knight Rider and the A Team. It used to seem so natural that it should be that way, but now it just seems bizarre. And I can't remember the last time I saw a car in mid air on television.
Posted by Alan Hogue at January 16, 2005 01:21 PMI don't believe I saw one episode of the Dukes. But as it was/is such a large feature of our culture, I've never had to. Which says a lot about television. All of us can probably list a number of shows we've never watched and yet know quite a bit about.
Posted by: Bobby Farouk at January 16, 2005 02:30 PMI've no idea how true it is elsewhere, but for the longest time very short frayed cutoff jeans were known as "Daisy Dukes" over here.
I've caught the odd moment on cable here and been unable to watch more than two minutes of it, having adored it as a kid. It's the banality of the plots and acting that gets to me.
Posted by: Mags at January 16, 2005 02:39 PMThe Dukes of Hazzard are glorious. Anyone who says differently can step outside.
Graeme, who loves all manner of tacky late '70s / early '80s television
Posted by: Graeme Burk at January 16, 2005 06:22 PMI tried, Graeme. I was ready to love it. But the second episode in particular just bored me to tears. I think this is one of those shows best left as a fond memory. It's like port, it tastes funny unless you let it age about 25 years.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at January 16, 2005 06:43 PMIt can be horrible to watch something as an adult that you adored as a child. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension was profound to my eleven year-old self yet seemed pathetic when I watched it last year.
In an attempt to surprise me this Christmas, my parents bought me the first two seasons of Little House on the Prairie. I loved that show when I was eight. After my reaction to Buckaroo Banzai, I'm afraid to watch it because I don't want my happy memories of Walnut Grove taken away.
The Dukes of Hazzard was all about Catherine thingybob in bikinis and denim hot pants and so forth. Notwithstanding that, I bet Eric Frogspawn dug it. I'm surprised at Alan H--they *were* civil disobedients after all.
Posted by: ROBBIE at January 17, 2005 03:20 PMI have to confess, I understand Barbara's concern about Little House on the Prairie. I bought my Dad the Waltons Season 1 DVD boxset-- He's a huge fan-- and I was hugely disappointed when I watched the first episode. (It didn't help that I had watched the brilliant original TV movie that inspired the series, The Homecoming, first and was appalled to see how everything from that movie had been blow-dried and prettified).
That said, I watched selected episodes from the first season of Little House on the Prairie when they were shown in syndication last year and they probably hold up better than the rest of the series, so Barbara should give it a shot.
I still withhold judgment on whether the Duke Boys have dated badly.
Posted by: Graeme Burk at January 23, 2005 03:18 PM