YMMV / The Dukes of Hazzard

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Some fans think that part of the reason African-American Chickasaw County Sheriff Big Ed Little can be such an Inspector Javert toward the Duke Boys is because, (rightly or wrongly), he views them as white supremacists who don't deserve any respect or leeway due to the Confederate flag painted on their car.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Before the General Lee's flag became infamous, many people only knew of the series because of Daisy's short shorts. Tiny short shorts are still occasionally referred to as Daisy Dukes to this day. By modern standards the fanservice is extremely mild, though.
• Fair for Its Day:
  • Despite the controversial female objectification throughout the series, Daisy definitely has moments of heroism and badassery. In the very first episode, she punches a patron of the Boar's Nest for harassing her. When she becomes a cop and her cousins try to steer everything in her favor, she rebukes them for trying to coddle her AND becomes a cop without any of their assistance.
  • On the one hand, Sherriff Little from neighboring Chakasaw County is the only semi-regular black character in what is supposed to be the Deep South, which really doesn't make any sense. On the other hand, he is a tough-as-nails no nonsense type who always comes across as the only grown-up in the room whenever he shows up — especially when he has to deal with man-children like Boss and Rosco.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The Dukes of Hazzard was very popular in the U.K., Mexico and Italy, and still has reruns in the UK and Italy.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • One episode has Boss Hogg replace the police cars used by Rosco and Cletus with three-wheeled ATVs. Their first attempt at a roadblock results in both of them falling over. A few years later, three-wheeled ATVs would be banned in the United States because of said instability.
  • The iconic General Lee did a lot to enhance the popularity of the Dodge Charger and was one of the most-loved cars in popular media. When it was revealed that literally hundreds of Chargers^note to be more exact, about 300 were destroyed when filming the car stunts, the good feelings of muscle car aficionados turned somewhat sour.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In "Hazzard in Hollywood", Rosco states that if Boss gets his life story turned into a movie, that Rosco wants to be portrayed by Burt Reynolds. Guess who played Boss Hogg in the film?
• Just Here for Godzilla: While most fans do like the stories, the characters, and the fanservice on both sides, let's face it: the bulk of you are here to watch the General Lee outrun cops and make ridiculous jumps. Even those that hate the movies love that part.
• One-Scene Wonder: Two very minor characters from the 2005 movie are decently remembered.
  • The burly jail prisoner who Boss pays to punch another prisoner who insulted his wardrobe, only for the burly prisoner to insult Boss's wardrobe himself once he collects his money.
  • Farmer's Daughter Laurie Pullman barely has a minute of screen time in the opening and closing scenes but makes a decent impression for two reasons. One is her Lingerie Scene as she makes out with Luke at the beginning of the film and tries to keep her shotgun-toting father and brother from pursuing Luke on her behalf. The second is how she ends up chasing Luke with a shotgun herself after he moves on to another girlfriend.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: It's impossible to discuss the series without bringing up the Confederate battle flag on the roof of "General Lee", the protagonists' car. The flag controversy really came to light after the 2015 Charleston church shooting prompting TV Land to pull the show from its lineup and Warner Bros. to pull merchandise bearing the flag, including "General Lee" miniatures. The Unite the Right rally in 2017 and the death of George Floyd in 2020 dealt further blows to the franchise's reputation.
• Replacement Scrappy: Coy and Vance. They were brunette and blonde and there was really nothing to distinguish themselves from the far more iconic Bo and Luke. They didn't make it a full season before leaving.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Some (although not all) of the people who view Coy and Vance as Replacement Scrappies admit to warming toward the characters around the midway point of their run on the show when they have some powerful moments in the Darker and Edgier episode "The Great Insurance Fraud." Coy's actor puts on a particularly convincing performance of someone traumatized by (wrongly) thinking that he caused a fatal car accident. The tension and emotion they display in the Dating Catwoman episode "Coy vs Vance" is also decently remembered.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Dennis Haskins appears as the character of Moss in the pilot along with a string of appearances as different characters, the pilot airing roughly a decade before his best-known role as Mr. Belding on Saved by the Bell.
  • NASCAR driver Terry Labonte made an uncredited cameo as a pit crew member on an episode aired in early 1984. Labonte would go on to win his first NASCAR Winston Cup championship later that year.
• Seasonal Rot: The series began to rot when Bo and Luke exited and were replaced with Coy and Vance. But even after Bo and Luke returned, the show had already shown its age. We already know that the Dukes clan was all goody-goody. It got to the point where you were no longer booing and hissing at Boss Hogg and Sherrif Coltrane, but looking forward to their stark contrast to the Dukes' personalities, and relishing in their comic-relief antics — especially since Rosco Took a Level in Dumbass to become more of a twelve-year-old who lives for "hot pursuit". ("Good news, good news! Yuk yuk yuk!")
• Stock Footage Failure: In "Enos and Daisy's Wedding" an Establishing Shot of the boarding house Enos lives in includes the woman who owns the boarding house standing in front looking worried. This shot is from a different episode where that was important, but in this one she disappears without explanation after the establishing shot.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Occasionally there's a One-Scene Wonder Villain of the Week with enough impressiveness, Affably Evil moments, or banter with Boss and Rosco you wish had managed to become a recurring associate of Boss (such as Hadley and Avery-who steal Rosco's diary for blackmail purposes after being double-crossed-, Slocum the mail fraudster, Alabama Jones and her brothers, record pirate Horton-played by L.Q. Jones- Carla and her Wrench Wench gang of auto part thieves, the Badass Biker Baxley sisters, rival Small Town Tyrants Colonel Cassius Claiborne and Sheriff Droopy Catchcart, remote control expert Perry, Master Forger Benny the Quill, hustlers Phil and Ernie, Patch Laurel, and the Harper clan of bookies), but it would be wise not to hold your breath on that score.
  • Grady Byrd is probably the best of the temporary replacements for Rosco when his actor was on strike, avoiding being a Replacement Scrappy by sharing some of Rosco's funnier traits but also having his own characteristics, and coming across as a little more competent. While these facts (and a well known actor) were endearing enough to get him brought back for a second appearance, it would have been nice to see Grady get at least some of the episodes where other temporary sheriffs (like Hughie Hogg and Buster Moon) had the job in order to have a longer and more interesting arc on the show.
  • Cletus being written out of the show soon after Enos's return feels disappointing, as they did have some decent comedic value as Those Two Guys and also could have been in alternating episodes for a while. At the very least, many fans wish Cletus had received a proper sendoff like Enos did the first time he left the series.
  • Even Coy and Vance get some of this due to the feeling that, based on their actors' performances, they could have been made distinct characters with a little more effort, or at least given a grand sendoff by teaming up with Bo and Luke for one last adventure instead of unceremoniously leaving.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A throwaway line in the pilot says that at least some of the Dukes fought against the Confederacy in The American Civil War. Following up on this could have mitigated a lot of the Values Dissonance nostalgia for the Confederacy in the show, but it's never referenced again.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The General Lee, which is named for a Confederate leader and displays the highly controversial Confederate battle flag. In the 70s, the creators (perhaps somewhat cluelessly) saw it as general symbol of the South, but it later became heavily associated with the alt-right as they reclaimed it as a symbol of white supremacy in the mid-2010s.
  • The Monochrome Casting with in total one black recurring character, which at the time was probably seen as an acceptable way of avoiding racial issues in a light-hearted comedy, but today sticks out both as unrealistic and as blatant diversity-denial.
• Woolseyism: In the Mexican Spanish dub all the Southern accents are replaced with Mexican Northern ones, since the Mexican North is the cultural equivalent of the American Deep South. In fact, Boss Hogg's Mexican VA (the late Esteban Siller) was a native Norteño or Northener in Spanish.

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