K&F Show #375: The Dukes Meet the Mob! “The Meeting” Dukes of Hazzard Review

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Welcome to the official Kibbe and Friends Show with myself, Justin “Corndog” Cornette, and Show Producer Bernie McPartland! With this show we’re basically setting up the Boars Nest for the entire automotive media world to swing through for a couple watered down beers, stale popcorn, and fantastic waitresses. You can find every episode here on The MuscleCar Place as well as iTunes, Pandora, iHeart Radio, and Google Play. From time to time we’ll also be posting video clips and full shows to The Kibbe and Friends YouTube channel. If you click the “Download” link at the top of this post you’ll be able to stream it on your phone directly. You can also pull the RSS feed as well.

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The Dukes Of Hazzard – Episode Review:
“The Meeting” S02E04

Our Dukes review this week takes us to Season 2, Episode 4, “The Meeting,” and this might be one of the most wonderfully ridiculous episodes we’ve reviewed since starting through the series again. The easiest description is probably the one the DVD came up with: it’s the good ol’ boys versus the Goodfellas.

Black Jack Bender and a group of mob kingpins have decided that Hazzard County is the perfect place to hold a secret meeting. Boss Hogg has apparently done business with these guys before, and for $10,000 he’s willing to rent them the Hazzard County Jail and provide a little privacy. The mobsters claim they’re executives in the toy business, but they’re actually trying to figure out how to regain control of their criminal operations after their own sons have begun pushing them aside.

For a brief moment, the episode makes you wonder just how deep Boss Hogg’s relationship with these guys really goes. Then Boss makes it pretty clear that while he might be greedy, crooked and perfectly willing to take their money, he’s not interested in becoming an actual gangster. That’s one of those little character distinctions that I appreciate about Boss. He’s selfish. He’s dishonest. He’ll cheat anybody if there’s a dollar in it. But there’s still a line between Boss Hogg and somebody who is genuinely evil.

Bo and Luke eventually figure out that something isn’t right and decide that Hazzard County doesn’t need a collection of mobsters setting up shop. From there the episode abandons almost any attempt at reality and becomes a live-action cartoon. The Dukes sneak into the mob meeting underneath two catering tables, then attempt to escape by literally crawling across the floor with the tables moving over the top of them. At one point John’s table runs into a wall, backs up and changes direction. The mobsters somehow don’t immediately notice two pieces of furniture wandering around the room. It is absolutely ridiculous, and that’s exactly why it works.

The entire mob angle is played as broadly as possible. We’ve got pinstripe suits, tough-guy voices, coin flipping, guys crushing nuts in their hands, cement-galoshes jokes and enough stereotypical gangster behavior to make Bugs Bunny feel right at home. By the finale, the mobsters are literally sitting on the floor underneath a giant net with their hands raised as if Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy are about to walk into the Hazzard County Jail and explain the mystery. Bernie described the whole thing as reminding him of the old Bugs Bunny gangster cartoons, and that’s really the perfect comparison.

There’s also some great car action in this one. We get a surprisingly involved chase around the Hazzard town square with Daisy driving the General Lee, Cooter in the tow truck and multiple vehicles running around the Warner Bros. backlot. The actual town set isn’t very large, but through camera angles and trips down the short side streets, the production crew manages to make it feel much bigger. We also get some real in-car footage, plenty of old iron being thrown around by actual stunt drivers, and all the rough-around-the-edges charm that makes these early California episodes so much fun to study.

The Final Flight of Lee 3

The biggest piece of Dukes history in “The Meeting” is the death of Lee 3, one of the original three General Lees. Corndog really gets into the history of this car because Lee 1, Lee 2 and Lee 3 occupy a unique place in the story of the television series. The three cars were largely constructed together in California before being sent to Georgia, and they weren’t originally identified as Lee 1, 2 and 3 while they were being built.

Lee 3 was essentially the nice car of those original three. Lee 1 and Lee 2 were the workhorses with full cages, while Lee 3 had a removable three-point roll bar and was used extensively for beauty shots and actor scenes. It’s also one of the cars you’ll recognize in those very early publicity photographs where the General Lee doesn’t yet have the 01 on the doors. In some of those photos, the actors are even standing beside an open door because apparently nobody had yet gotten the memo that the doors were supposed to be welded shut.

Lee 3 survived the Georgia production, including some abuse there, and made the trip back to California where it continued working through the first season and into Season 2. Then “The Meeting” finally got it. Ironically, it isn’t even one of those gigantic signature General Lee jumps. The car launches over a creek and comes down hard on the opposite embankment. If you watch closely, you can see the body beginning to buckle. The gap around the driver’s vent window and A-pillar opens dramatically as the rear of the Charger pushes upward and the roof moves forward. That’s the end of Lee 3.

There is another General Lee jump earlier in the episode involving a different production car, and Corndog points out some of the clues showing that it’s one of the California-built cars assembled from a mixture of 1968 and 1969 Charger components. Those details are exactly why I enjoy revisiting these shows with Corndog. You can watch the same stunt you’ve seen for 40 years and suddenly realize there’s an entire automotive story happening underneath it.

Beyond the Chargers, I found myself watching the mobsters’ limousines. There are Lincoln and Cadillac limos running around Hazzard, including 1976 Cadillacs that immediately caught my attention because my mom had a ’76 Sedan DeVille when I was a kid. I even paused different scenes to look at the plates, and the production crew was changing license plates between shots. If they were recycling the same limo to represent multiple cars, at least somebody was paying attention.

We also get Rick Hurst as Cletus filling in as deputy while Enos is absent. Corndog recalled that Sonny Shroyer was away from the series for medical reasons around this period, and Cletus appears in three consecutive Season 2 episodes: “The Rustlers,” “The Meeting,” and “Road Pirates.” At the time the show doesn’t make a big production out of explaining Enos’ absence. Cletus is simply there doing the job.

As for the ratings, I loved this one. Is it believable? Absolutely not. Does it matter? Absolutely not. It’s funny, it has great cars, real stunt work, two General Lee jumps and an entire collection of cartoon gangsters invading Hazzard County. I gave “The Meeting” 9 cement galoshes. Corndog came in at an 8, and Bernie—who actually watched the episode this time—gave it an 8.5. Guaranteed, the worst thing that’s going to happen if you watch this episode is that you’re going to have a good time.

Episode Stats

K&F Show: #375
Dukes of Hazzard Season: 2
Episode: 4
Title: “The Meeting”
Written By: William Raynor & Myles Wilder
Original K&F Review: Kibbe & Finnegan Show #14 (December 2016)
Black Jack Bender: Paul Lambert
Steele: Lewis Charles
Devere: Leo Gordon
Rostosky: Marc Lawrence
Tony: Tony Cacciotti
Jordan: Charles Guardino
Rogers: Don Fox Greene
Peters: Richard Humphreys
Myrtle Tillingham: Lindsay Bloom
Cletus Hogg: Rick Hurst
General Lee History: The final jump and destruction of Lee 3, one of the original three General Lees

Dallas Kibbe Racing Update:
Dallas Kibbe Racing: Back to Jefferson Speedway

Away from Hazzard County, I had a racing weekend to talk about because Dallas went back to Jefferson Speedway in Wisconsin. This was significant for us because Jefferson was the last Midwest track where he raced in 2025, before everything we’ve experienced since then at the national level. Coming back after spending so much time racing against tougher national competition gave us a pretty interesting benchmark for just how far he’s progressed.

And the progress was obvious. Dallas won his heat race and then went out and led most of the feature. We didn’t ultimately leave with the feature trophy we wanted, but sometimes the finishing position doesn’t tell the whole story. Watching him go back to a track he’d raced before and seeing how much more comfortable, confident and capable he’s become was pretty satisfying for me as his dad.

National racing has forced him to develop. The competition is harder, the margins are smaller and you’re constantly learning because you don’t have another choice. Going back to Jefferson allowed us to see that growth in a way that’s difficult to recognize when you’re constantly chasing the next race. He went back as a noticeably better race-car driver, and regardless of what the final results sheet says, that’s the part of the weekend I’m taking with me.

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Burt Reynolds,

The Dukes Movie and the Cost of Being a Stuntman

That conversation led into the 2005 Dukes of Hazzard movie and a story from director Jay Chandrasekhar about working with Burt Reynolds, who of course played Boss Hogg in the film. Whatever you think about that movie—and we’ve all got opinions—Burt Reynolds was a legitimate automotive movie icon long before he ever arrived in Hazzard County.

The part that stuck with me was thinking about what decades of that career had done physically to Burt. This was a guy who came from an era when stars did things that hurt. Stunt work was real, cars were real and injuries accumulated. By the time I saw Burt later in his life, you could see the toll those years had taken.

It’s easy to remember the movie-star version of Burt Reynolds—the Trans Am, the mustache, the swagger and the guy who looked completely indestructible. The reality is that doing that kind of work for decades has a price. Hearing stories about him during the later stages of his career hits differently when you’ve seen what years of physical punishment can do.

Are Reproduction Chargers Becoming the New Cobra?

Our mysterious voicemail hotline produced another automotive question this week, and this one was actually pretty interesting. With multiple companies now developing complete or nearly complete 1969 Dodge Charger bodies, are we eventually headed toward a world where the ’69 Charger becomes something like the 427 Cobra of the muscle-car hobby?

Everybody understands the Cobra comparison. There are original Cobras worth staggering amounts of money, but there is also an enormous industry built around replicas and continuation-style cars. People can build the version they want, use modern components and enjoy the experience without starting with one of the tiny number of priceless originals.

We’re beginning to see something interesting happen with the Charger. US Car Tool is moving forward with a reproduction Charger body, and other projects are emerging as well. Once complete bodies become realistically available, it changes the equation. You no longer necessarily need to begin with a rusted, incomplete original Charger and spend years reconstructing everything that Mother Nature removed.

Does that mean reproduction Chargers suddenly become the next Cobra? I don’t know. But it’s a fascinating possibility. The ’69 Charger is one of those designs that transcends the normal muscle-car audience, and obviously The Dukes of Hazzard helped make that body shape recognizable around the world. If the aftermarket reaches the point where somebody can realistically start with a fresh shell and build the Charger they’ve always wanted, I think there is absolutely a market for it.

And because this is the Kibbe and Friends Show, that discussion naturally included our friend Nathan Warren and what he’s been working on as well. There is a lot happening in the reproduction-body world right now, and for people who love old muscle cars but don’t necessarily love repairing 55 years of rust before they can start building one, I’m excited to see where this goes.