The Dukes is a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series based on the live-action television series The Dukes of Hazzard which aired on CBS from February 5 to October 29, 1983. The series was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, producer of the original series.
The show features the Duke boys and their cousin Daisy in an automobile race around the world against Boss Hogg, Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane, and Rosco's dog Flash in a duel for the prize money which the Dukes hope to use to keep the family farm from being foreclosed by Boss Hogg. Actually, Boss Hogg wants the money and the land for himself so he, alongside Rosco and Flash, plans various schemes to keep the Dukes from winning. Most of the adventures are read from a post card by Uncle Jesse Duke to his pet raccoon, Smokey.
The first season took place during the period of the live-action show's replacement of the original actors with similar characters, Coy and Vance Duke, after the actors playing Bo and Luke walked out over a dispute about royalties. Thus, the first season of this animated series featured Coy and Vance. Bo and Luke eventually replaced Coy and Vance in Season 2 Episode 1 (14): "Boss O'Hogg and the Little People". This episode also featured a new introduction and voice over that reflected the change in characters.
The series followed no particular logical geographic path; for instance, consecutive episodes feature appearances in Venice, Morocco, London, Greece, India, Uzbekistan, Hong Kong and Scotland. Furthermore, another inconsistency was that one of the original premises of The Dukes of Hazzard was that Bo and Luke were on probation, which would seemingly preclude them (but not Coy or Vance) from leaving the state of Georgia, much less the United States itself. In the live-action series, the boys were prevented from leaving Hazzard County and Boss revoked their probation only twice. Once for the Boys to join the NASCAR circuit and once for them to go into Tennessee in the episode "Daisy's Shotgun Wedding".
Cast
Byron Cherry as Coy Duke (first season)
Christopher Mayer as Vance Duke (first season)
Tom Wopat as Luke Duke (second season)
John Schneider as Bo Duke (second season)
Catherine Bach as Daisy Duke
Denver Pyle as Uncle Jesse Duke
James Best as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane
Sorrell Booke as Boss Hogg
Frank Welker as Flash, Smokey, The General Lee
Note: Live-action co-stars Waylon Jennings (narrator/"balladeer"), Ben Jones (Cooter Davenport), Sonny Shroyer (Deputy Enos Strate), and Rick Hurst (Deputy Cletus Hogg) did not appear in this cartoon version.
On December 7, 2010, Warner Archive released The Dukes: The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of their Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.
