K&F Show #380: General Lee vs. The Slammer! // Dukes Review S2E8 “Hazzard Connection”

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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:
“Hazzard Connection” S02E08

Welcome back to Hazzard County! This week, Bernie, Corndog, and I revisit Season 2, Episode 8 of The Dukes of Hazzard, “Hazzard Connection.” We’ve got a demolition derby, stolen racing engines, the General Lee taking on an allegedly indestructible Mercury, and Luke climbing around a moving semi-trailer. This is exactly why I love Season 2. The action is fantastic, the production details are wonderfully imperfect, and the actors get to do some of the things that made us want to be Duke boys in the first place.

The trouble starts when Bo and Luke take jobs hauling wrecked cars for demolition derby operator Augie Detweiller. It sounds like an honest way to make some money, but Augie has a much more profitable business hidden inside those battered cars. He’s using them to transport stolen racing engines. Apparently, in this particular criminal enterprise, racing engines are the preferred currency. Forget gold. Forget cash. Bring a trailer full of horsepower! Boss and Rosco already have their eyes on Augie’s operation. Seeing Bo and Luke working for him gives them another reason to suspect the boys, who now have to figure out what they’ve gotten themselves into and find a way to prove their innocence. Naturally, this requires driving, sneaking around, more driving, and putting the General Lee in situations no responsible Charger owner would ever consider.

One of those details is the Slammer. This old Mercury is described as being reinforced with concrete and rebar, making it the ultimate demolition derby weapon. It’s supposed to hit like a wrecking ball and survive whatever comes back at it. Watching the car slam into other vehicles and pull away with surprisingly little visible damage, Corndog points out that something must have been done to make those hits work. We speculate about how the crew might have prepared the cars or helped sell the impacts, but we don’t have a definitive answer. What we do have is footage of some genuinely hard-looking hits. The Slammer lives up to its name.

The derby gives us one of my favorite kinds of shots from the early seasons. We get a close view of John Schneider behind the wheel, then the camera pulls back as the General slides into the course. You can see him actually driving the car. That adds so much to the scene. The stunt drivers deserve enormous credit for making the General Lee move the way it does. Al Wyatt and the rest of that crew created the action that made the car a legend. But when John gets to do some of the driving himself, you feel the connection between the actor and the car. It’s Bo Duke doing Bo Duke things, and it’s just better.

Corndog and I also point out a ’68 Charger being used as the General, complete with its round side markers painted over. They didn’t always remove every feature that distinguished a ’68 from a ’69. Sometimes they painted it orange and sent it to work. As a kid, I never cared. Now, spotting those details is part of the fun. The General isn’t the only familiar car in the episode. A Mustang and Camaro return from “Days of Shine and Roses,” wearing different colors. Corndog recognizes the Mustang as a likely carryover from Uncle Jesse’s moonshine-car adventure. Its fresh paint does very little to hide what a rough old car it is underneath.

The Mustang also gives us a wonderful piece of Hazzard logic. Bo and Luke pretend the brakes have failed while trying to get information out of Enos. Then the brakes actually fail, and the car ends up in a pond. Afterward, they drive it out and head home. Apparently, we’ve all been overcomplicating brake repairs. Just find a pond! Bernie catches another detail: the car goes into the water nose-first, but somehow turns around before coming back out. There must be a remarkably convenient turnaround lane down there.

The Camaro gets a fantastic jump, and the episode keeps delivering the kind of car action that makes you react even when you know it’s coming. Bernie watched this one with family and guests who weren’t familiar with the series, and they responded to the crashes and jumps just as you would hope. These scenes still work.

One impact is particularly painful for us Mopar people. Rosco’s patrol car hits Daisy’s yellow Plymouth and wipes out its passenger side. This isn’t a little scrape that can disappear between scenes. It’s a hard collision with serious-looking damage. Corndog suspects that particular car may have been knocked out of service, although we can’t say for certain whether it was repaired or repurposed afterward. We also discuss how the supply of those early-’70s Plymouths became a problem for the production. Watching this hit, you can understand how quickly a television show could use up its inventory.

The big finish brings us to the car carrier, and Tom Wopat gets one of the episode’s best moments. Luke climbs out of the moving truck and works his way around the trailer. That’s actually Tom out there, holding onto the structure while the road moves underneath him. John and Tom both contributed to the physical action of the series, but they seemed to have different comfort zones. We talk about John’s swimming scenes and his fear of heights, while Tom was willing to tackle some of the climbing and elevated work. Personally, I’ll take the swimming.

Luke then backs the Slammer off the moving trailer. If that makes you think of Knight Rider, you’re in good company. We make that connection during the review, especially because Jack Gill would go on to work on that series. We’re speculating about inspiration, but it’s fun to see the Dukes doing a moving-truck maneuver years before KITT made it familiar.

His insider notes take us back to Saugus Speedway, which also appeared in the previous episode, and to Potrero Road near Thousand Oaks. The white fence along the road shows up in several early California episodes. We also recognize a camera angle used again in the 1997 Dukes of Hazzard reunion movie. Those locations became part of the show’s visual language, even when we didn’t know their names. Then there’s the stakeout scene, where a red-and-white cigarette pack sits plainly on the General’s dashboard. It’s another little detail that survived filming and editing. Between that, the blue interior, the painted-over markers, and the wrong-car close-up, this episode gives car spotters plenty to enjoy.

For all its rough edges, “Hazzard Connection” delivers exactly what I want from this show. The derby is fun, the hits are convincing, the actors get real action, and the moving-trailer sequence is terrific. I gave it 9.5 out of 10 Corndogs, and Bernie gave it a 10. This is a great episode to put on when you want to remember why the Dukes were so much fun in the first place.

Episode Stats

Series: The Dukes of Hazzard
Season: 2
Episode: 8
Series Episode: 21
Title: “Hazzard Connection”
Original Air Date: November 9, 1979
Written By: Paul Savage
Directed By: Paul Baxley

Guest Appearances:
John Quade as Augie Detweiller
Med Flory as Shoulders
Gerald McRaney as First Workman
Dianne Kennedy, credited as Dianne Anthony, as Bessie Lou Perkins

Corndog Heads Back to Cruisin’ the Coast

Corndog is getting ready to head back to Cruisin’ the Coast for the first time since 2019. He used to go regularly, but work, family, and life have a way of filling the calendar. It’s good to hear that he’s making the trip again—and taking the red Charger. Naturally, the days immediately before a road trip are the perfect time to start working on your car. At least, that seems to be the rule most of us follow. Justin is replacing valve stem seals to deal with smoke that has been bothering him, especially when he pulls away after sitting at a stoplight.

He’s been putting that job off because the Charger’s long-term plan involves a 440. The car is headed toward becoming his Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry tribute, so spending time on the current 318 hasn’t been high on his list. But there’s a difference between tolerating an old engine and watching a cloud drift away in your rearview mirror every time you leave a light.

Then the parts-store valve spring compressor makes the job harder than it needs to be. Justin goes into work on his week off to build his own tool. It works, but needs a few adjustments. If you’ve ever made a tool because the one you bought was driving you crazy, you understand the situation.

We also clear up that this is the red Charger, not his Daisy Plymouth project. That car is running nicely with its own 318, and he has no reason to disturb a good little cruising engine. Different car, different plan!

At recording time, the forecast for the coast includes plenty of rain, but Justin knows those showers can move through and leave good cruising weather behind them. Here’s hoping the repairs make the trip more enjoyable and the weather gives him plenty of time behind the wheel.

Elsewhere in the show, I’ve been using Google Gemini to help troubleshoot my ’73 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, including its wipers and spare-tire-powered windshield washer. We check out Cody Young’s work with Avenge Industries, discuss why host chemistry matters on automotive television, and fit in our October birthday trivia, Bernie’s news, and a little Holley carburetor talk.

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