20 Years Ago, ‘Smallville’ Reunited the Duke Boys From ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’
What To Know
- John Schneider and Tom Wopat, known for playing the Duke boys in The Dukes of Hazzard, reunited on the TV show Smallville in the 2005 episode “Exposed,” delighting fans with nostalgic references and Easter eggs.
- Wopat’s character in Smallville drove a 1969 Dodge Charger with a jammed door, echoing their iconic car stunts from Dukes of Hazzard, and the car was specially modified to prevent on-set injuries.
- Schneider noted that both shows provided comforting, nostalgic entertainment for viewers, drawing parallels between the enduring appeal of The Dukes of Hazzard and Smallville.
The 1985 series finale of The Dukes of Hazzard wasn’t the last time John Schneider and Tom Wopat shared the screen. For starters, they played truck-driving brothers in the 1987 TV movie Christmas Comes to Willow Creek. But then, on November 3, 2005 — 20 years ago now, and more than 20 years after The Dukes of Hazzard’s final episode — TV’s Duke boys rode again in Smallville.
That TV show starred Tom Welling as a young Clark Kent, while Schneider and Annette O’Toole played the future Superman’s parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. And in the Season 4 episode “Exposed,” Wopat shows up, and the Dukes of Hazzard Easter eggs begin…
John Schneider and Tom Wopat were “like two kids in a candy store”
© Warner Bros. / Courtesy: Everett Collection
In “Exposed,” Wopat plays Senator Jack Jennings, who comes to the town of Smallville to enlist the help of Jonathan, his longtime friend. (Jack Jennings’ name is a reference to Waylon Jennings, the country star who served as The Dukes of Hazzard’s balladeer.)
“That was a great idea [to pair them up],” Welling told the Chicago Tribune at the time. “They were like two kids in a candy store, being together. You could tell that a lot of the old gags came up again.”
Welling also said he watched The Dukes of Hazzard “all the time” in his youth. “John’s going to hate me for saying this, but I caught it in syndication because they began that show the year I was born,” he added.
Wopat, meanwhile, told the Tribune what the issue was with his guest-starring gig: “The difficult part is, they’re yelling for ‘Tom’ on the set, and we’ve got two T.W.’s here.”
“I only work with T.W.’s,” Schneider joked.
A certain Dodge Charger also reappeared — with one “hazzard” removed
As in The Dukes of Hazzard, Wopat’s character drives a 1969 Dodge Charger in “Exposed,” but don’t go to the Smallville episode looking for the same paint job.
“It’s bluish-green, aqua,” Schneider said of the senator’s car. “They can’t be ridiculous [and make it orange]. They wanted to nudge. They didn’t want to shove.”
In another nudge toward Dukes of Hazzard nostalgia, the senator’s car had a jammed door, meaning Wopat’s character had to jump in through the window, just as he did in Dukes.
And Schneider told the Tribune he had Smallville’s crew members take out the door lock mechanism “so that my buddy wouldn’t get his back ripped open again like he did 27 years ago.”
Wopat elaborated on the situation: “The door-lock thing, when you take the plastic piece off of it, it’s just a little spike,” he said.
“A piece of threaded metal,” Schneider added
“You can impale yourself pretty good on it,” Wopat revealed.
So Schneider insisted that the Dodge Charger on Smallville be customized. “I had them go in with a pair of bolt cutters and get rid of it. They didn’t want to. At first, they put a piece of black tape on it. I said, ‘No, no, that’s not good.’”
And those weren’t the only references to Hazzard, as fans will discover if they watch “Exposed.”
“It has the potential of bringing in the entire 27 years’ worth of Dukes of Hazzard audience to Smallville, which is great,” Schneider said.
Schneider saw parallels between Smallville and The Dukes of Hazzard
In an interview with the Scripps Howard News Service at the time of his and Wopat’s Smallville reunion, Schneider reflected on The Dukes of Hazzard’ enduring popularity, 20 years hence.
“It’s one of the television friends people have from the old days,” he said. “It was more appointment television than anything today. People would not miss The Dukes of Hazzard, no matter what…”
He also explained that Dukes was comfort TV for small-town and rural viewers. “When people tune into Dukes, they could go back to a time in their life when everything was OK,” he said. “They were sitting in their home with their grandparents, mother and father, eating ice cream and watching Dukes of Hazzard.”
And he said he joined the cast of Smallville because it shares Dukes’ family-oriented morality. “Television does affect how people act,” he said. “[On Dukes] we were always doing something good. We would be getting a part from the junkyard, and we would see some criminal taking advantage of someone and find out he was Public Enemy No. 1.”
Though Schneider said he hoped Wopat would be “in a few episodes” of Smallville, that Season 4 installment turned out to be Wopat’s only appearance. But for a generation of Dukes fans, it must have been quite the throwback.
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November/December 2025
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