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Yee-haw! 'Dukes of Hazzard' reunion in the works
January 10, 1997
Web posted at: 3:00 a.m. EST(CNN) -- Snap on your seatbelts, the Dukes are back!
There's Bo Duke, actor John Schneider.
"Feels like old times," he says.
And cousin Luke Duke, actor Tom Wopat.
"It's kind of like going back to high school; it's a little weird," he says.
And of course, cousin Daisy Duke.
"Ladies and gentlemen, without further adieu, I bring you Catherine Bach," Schneider jokes before revealing the former actress.
The stars of the enormously popular '80s television show "Dukes of Hazzard" are back for an upcoming two-hour reunion special on CBS.
But let's not forget its other star, the 1969 pumpkin-orange Dodge Charger called General Lee.
The car may be back, but it's not the original. Producers of the reunion show had to comb the country to find one. During the show's original 6-year run, they wrecked nearly 300 of the cars.
Cancelation a real surprise
Schneider says he couldn't believe the network canceled the popular show in 1985 after six years on the air.
"When the show was canceled, we were a top 20 show," he says. "I didn't believe for a second that this show was gone. I didn't believe that anybody could be that inept."
Wopat puts it another way.
"You know, Warner Brothers was a great company, but I don't think they really ever understood (the show), and I know CBS didn't," he says. "I mean, William Paley was running the network then and he just said, 'I haven't a clue why this is a hit.'"
In fact, it was rural America that embraced the Dukes -- small-town viewers who liked the patriotic, "family-that- sticks-together" story lines.
"Just like the country music, it's country humor. It's folk stories, if you will, of America," Bach says.
Okay, it was also the short-shorts that most of the female cast members wore. An '80s' version of "Baywatch", if you will.
This time around, however, Bach, who inspired the term "Daisy Dukes" by the short-shorts she wore on the show, says she's not sure if the shorts will make an appearance on the reunion special.
"I don't know yet," she says. "I just had a baby."
The reunion show hopes to attract a second generation of Dukes fans raised on TNN reruns of the original series.
"A lot of the kids that were in junior high or grade school, they're in college now, so that really drives a lot of the cult status," Wopat says.
Now, the cast is older than most of their fans.
Schneider was 18 when the show started. Now he has a teen-age daughter.
And although it's done a tad bit slower, Schneider and Wopat still get in and out of the General Lee through the windows. Some things never change.
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