What Happened on the Final Episode of ‘Dukes of Hazzard’?
40 years ago, on February 8, 1985, the Duke boys had their last ride, when the series finale of Dukes of Hazzard aired. The series — which chronicled the adventures of cousins Bo (John Schneider) and Luke (Tom Wopat) Duke as they hung out with hot pants-clad cousin Daisy (Catherine Bach), alternately outsmarted and rescued Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best) and Boss Hog (Sorrell Booke), and found ever-higher barriers to jump in their Dodge Charger, the General Lee — was a ratings smash, showing up in the top 10 for three of its seven seasons. But by the series end, cast changes and over-reliance on formulas had led many viewers to move on — so even if you had a John Schneider poster on your wall, you may not remember how the series ended.
A Duke is crowned: how the show began
Everett Collection
Dukes of Hazzard was adapted from the 1975 comedy film Moonrunners. Moonrunners also focused on a quirky Southern family who ran a moonshine business, and had many elements in common with the series — including the presence of Waylon Jennings as a narrator, a plot based around two young male cousins who get in comedic trouble with the law, and characters named Cooter and Sheriff Rosco Coltrane — but it was a little rougher around the edges and less family-friendly than Dukes.
Moonrunners director Gy Waldron retooled his ideas into a half-hour sitcom format, which was originally planned to only have nine episodes as a mid-season replacement show for the 1979 spring season. But when studio executives saw what the cast and crew pulled together, they ordered Dukes to become a full-fledged series — and this was before the premiere episode, which ran on January 26, 1979, had even aired!
The first season ended with an impressive 20 million viewers, and producers understood that they had a phenomenon on their hands. In the years that followed, the Dukes were everywhere — from John Schneider’s singing career, to the bestselling Hot Wheels version of the General Lee, to the popularity of Catherine Bach’s barely-there short-shorts (which are still known as Daisy Dukes to fashionistas born decades after the show ended).
Why Dukes went off the air
Nothing lasts forever, and that is often doubly true in Hollywood. Trouble arrived on the Dukes set in the fourth season, when Schneider and Wopat became concerned both about what they saw as decreasing quality in the scripts they were being given, and whether they were being paid fairly for their work. Disputes led them to walk off set as filming of season five began. Producers dealt with this by introducing two new Dukes, Coy and Christopher, who were seen as watered-down versions of Bo and Luke, and were wildly unpopular with audiences.
Poor ratings sent producers to negotiate with Wopat and Schneider, who came back for the end of season five. But the show was never quite the same. Many, including some of the show’s stars, decried the series’ decision to begin using model cars — instead of real cars driven by stuntmen — for the General Lee’s stunts in order to save money. Scripts rehashed familiar concepts. The show’s ratings dropped, from being number six at the end of season four, to number 34 at the end of season five. The momentum was gone. It was time to plan the General Lee’s final ride.
What happened in the final episode?
Despite the re-casting drama and ratings decline, Dukes had been a part of TV viewers’ lives for the better part of a decade, and the series’ end was a high-profile occasion. Entertainment Tonight sent a reporter to set the day the final episode was filmed, where the stars reflected on their long run. “As actors, your job generally lasts six weeks, a movie-of-the-week, maybe a couple months in a show on stage, and to have something that runs seven years is just phenomenal,” Wopat told ET, while Schneider said, “For seven years … it’s been the only thing in my life, other than my immediate family, that has been around for that long, and I’m gonna miss it.”
For such a major occasion, however, the final episode of Dukes didn’t wrap up the series in any major way. The episode, “Opening Night at the Boar’s Nest,” was co-written and directed by Schneider — he and Wopat, as well as Sorrell Booke and James Best, had gotten involved behind the scenes on the show, with Best beginning to direct episodes in season four, and the rest following along in time.
In the episode, Rosco performs magic in a talent show at the Boar’s Nest, and recruits an irritated Boss Hogg to participate in a “disappearing” trick. Hogg tries to use the trick as an opportunity to sneak out of the boring talent show and tackle some business, but he is quickly kidnapped by out-of-town criminals (one of whom, Kevin Peter Hall, would go on to fame as the title monster in 1987’s Predator).
Bo and Luke quickly figure out that something’s wrong, and plan a quick rescue of Hogg. Once Hogg’s bacon has been saved, the Duke boys try to convince Hogg to come back and finish Rosco’s magic trick. Hogg is reluctant to do so, until he overhears Rosco reminiscing about the special bond he felt with the Boss. Moved, Boss Hogg completes the trick, much to Rosco’s delight. No major plot points are resolved, and no major plans for the Duke boys’ futures are made. Rather, the show went out with more of what made fans love it — light-hearted plots, charming characters, and a final spin in the General Lee.
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