Comments

1
You gotta wonder how many Dodge Chargers they destroyed to make that footage.

Seems like a terrible waste of American steel.
2
I was just remarking to Mr. Vel-DuRay last night that if it weren't for the stupid TV show one probably wouldn't see nearly as much Confederate flag imagery as one does. There are undoubtedly people who only associate the Confederate flag with "being a rebel" (ironically against a stereotypical southern authority figure)
3
@1 - So many that not only did the show's popularity increase the collectibility of the '68–'70 Charger, it simultaneously increased its scarcity*.

I don't want to see any government agency flying this stupid ass-backwards flag, but I could give two shits if a crappy TV show wants to posthumously fiddle with its merch. What they should'a done in the first place was make only Boss Hogg fly the flag and not the protagonists (Hogan's Hero's certainly doesn't have this problem), but I doubt the show's writers were really digging that deep.

*http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078607/triv…
4

I guess I don't understand why they put any flag on it in the first place. They were booze runners working for an illegal still. If the South had won, wouldn't the Confederacy have also have taxed them?

And this is my thought about people who want to be Nazis...most of you, if you showed up at Nazi recruitment station, would have been shunted off to the nearest death camp for being an undesirable. People with dyed hair, tattoos, Mohawks, piercings, no jobs, not much in the brains department. It would have been nighty-night.

Even among "white" people there were several layers of classification in the Reich. A Nordic white would have still been a second class person after a German white. And so on down their line. People are pledging themselves to something that would have excluded them, or automatically made them a second class or lower citizen any way, and that seems so dumb.
5
Maybe the horn should play the Yankee Doodle song, and they can call the car General Grant. Don't mess with the Waylon Jennings theme song though!
7
The stupidity of this show knew literally no bounds. Moonshiners drive the most FUCKING CONSPICUOUS CAR in probably six counties, and the dumber-than-saltine-crackers local constabulary couldn't even do something as simple as lay down spike-strips to stop them. Or, like, go to their ramshackle, chicken-infested house and arrest them on-the-spot.
8
did they have spike strips in the 70's?
10
They were already taking steps on this. Last year, the cast of Dukes of Hazzard were in a commercial for Autotrader.com and the ad was a long chase with the General Lee and some cop cars. But in the whole commercial, the roof of the car is never shown. https://youtu.be/6syCBrvmJ68
11
See, America CAN get shit done! Racism solved!
12
I never watched the show. I knew who rednecks were, I had to go to school with them and endure their bullying and dumb-as-fuck antics. Why would I want to watch a show that glorifies them?
13
johnbailoisthedumbestmotherfuckerontheplanet
14
@8:

According to The Google, ancient Roman legions used a primitive version known as a "caltrop" to deflect cavalry charges and to break up infantry formations. Tire puncture devices were in use as early as 1919 and the modern strip-spike was patented in 1972.
15
I loved that show as a kid! The "rebel" flag and the name "General Lee" had nothing to do with my enjoyment of the show. Of course, like @9 stated, both choices are reprehensible in retrospect. I do remember an episode when Uncle Jessee stated that "A stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet." If I am not mistaken, they made a black friend in that episode.
16
I think some people in this thread were either too young to remember, or have completely forgotten how effing BAD television was in the 70s and early 80s.

Watching a cute girl in short shorts and two hillbillies jumping their car over rivers and other cars over and over running from a fat cop was like masterpiece theatre back then.
17
#4, love it!
I remember Knight Rider coming out at the same time DOH was popular, and KR's producers put up a commercial talking about how much more badass a car KITT was than the General Lee. You could send away for some sheet of comparisons, as I recall.
For true pathos, can't beat (on one of those 'this was the decade' shows) the original cast bemoaning, like John Gielgud shaking his head over an inferior production of Henry V, the New DOH, with the Duke boys' 'cousins' taking the lead. "Oh, God, it was so terrible...."

Re Lee, he deserves neither his reputation as military genius, nor as kindly old julep-sipping cracker. His treatment of two returned runaway slaves, one a woman -
"we were immediately taken before Gen. Lee, who demanded the reason why we ran away; we frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget; he then ordered us to the barn, where in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered; Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to "lay it on well," an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done."
So, y'know, fuck you, Lee.

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