COOTER TAKES ON HOLLYWOOD

The impending cultural backlash against the faux Dukes of Hazzard movie coming out soon heats up with the latest barrage from one Ben Jones, whose presence as "Cooter"---a semi-literate, moonshine swilling naif whose appearance suggested the unholy breeding attempt by Yul Brenner and Aunt Bea---has translated into a trip to Congress and an empire of Cracker Barrell restaurants. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never has so much been made of so little with so few brain cells.

Anyhoo, "Cooter" is up in arms about the new movie (starring Johnny "Jackass" Nashville, Steve Stifler, that annoying talentless chick with the gams, Burt Reynolds, and Johnny Cash as the ghost of King Hamlet, bent on warning "Bo" of the nefarious plans of Uncle Jesse to seize the throne of Hazzard County by marrying his niece Daisy and murdering Boss Hogg).

So he's sent this missive to the loyal Dukes of Hazzard fan base:

Hey Y'all,

I thought this would be a good time to let everybody know my feelings about the upcoming "Dukes of Hazzard" feature film, since if it weren't for the "Dukes" fans, I'd have to get a real job fixing the Slurpee machine at the Pic' n' Save. The folks who love our show have kept it alive and well, despite the lack of respect it has been shown by "Hollywood."

Web sites like ours have been an extraordinary means of communication for the "Duke" community, no matter what that rat bastard Krzyzewski keeps trying to say about us diluting their "brand." What do you expect from an uptight tool driving a Chevy Prowler convertible anyway? The power of the internet has enabled us to not only keep the show viable, mainly because of what "Bo & Luke Duke" is a euphamism for in Pashtun and Bengali. Something about man/goat love. In our business, it doesn't get much better than that.

Like our fans, those of us who worked on the show have a special affection for it. For over 25 years we have cared about it, nourished it, burped it, grounded it when it got all sassy and thinks its all that, damn teenage show, what the heck did it think bringing "Blossom" over to MY HOUSE thinking it can take that sluttly little show to the USA Network junior prom or something? And it seems to me that it is time for us to have our voices in our head heard again. Skitzo, moi? Whose laughing now, Sigmund! From all I have seen and heard, the "Dukes" movie is a sleazy insult to all of us who have cared about cashing the "Dukes of Hazzard" teat for so long.

You probably know that the creators of this film wanted absolutely nothing to do with the original members of the cast. Okay, sure, we're old, and a bit flabby, with not a lot of our original hair, and maybe one or two teeth. Doesn't that seem strange to you, given how popular our show is right now, and how popular our cast still is? After all, our huge success for so many years is the reason they are making the film, and the film, after all, is about us. I mean, for a quarter of a century fans have been laughing with us, not at us, right?

In the last few years I reckon I've done many hundreds of interviews around the country on radio and television and for dozens of newspapers. I always tell them that ours is a classic family show with positive values, great action, wonderful slapstick comedy, mighty fine country music, and a very gifted cast who had great chemistry. Sure, we were portraying an American south with no blacks, hispanics, non-Baptists, an America where a man could repeatedly crash a bright orange car festooned with Confederate regalia without ever seeing a negative impact on his insurance premiums, and where are Yankees are slimy little weasels with thousand dollar suits who can be outwitted in 48 minutes by a town completely lacking a complete set of natural teeth. America could tell that we were clearly enjoying what we were doing and for that hour folks could forget their troubles and just have fun along with us. It had nothing to do with making fun of the homestate of the then current president of the United States who was the source of so many of their troubles, and it had nothing to do with the Brezhnev Doctrine going on the offensive, what with invading Afghanistan, and getting all uppity in Angola, Nicaraugua, and that little effing island we knocked over in 1982. No siree, nothing at all. It is exactly the kind of entertainment that families crave right now.

Lately most of the interviewers want to know my opinion of the "movie" version that is coming out in August. I've always tried to be candid with my opinions, and when it comes to this film, I think it would be a mistake for me to pull the punches. Like you, I haven't seen the film, but I have read the script, I've talked to a lot of people who worked on the set, and I've seen the raunchy TV commercial. Frankly, I think the whole project shows an arrogant disrespect for our show, for our cast, for America's families, and for the sensibilities of the heartland of the Cooter bank account.

Unless they clean it up (and by that, I mean make a nice healthy deposit into my bank account, not to mention the delivery of those three virginal goats) before the August 5th release date I would strongly recommend that true blue Duke fans hold their noses and pass this one up. And whatever you do, don't take any youngsters to see it. As plain as I can put it, the only thing this movie shares with our show is the title. Oh, they do have the General Lee flying through the air, although according to the New York Times, they didn't even use stunt drivers.

Sure it bothers me that they wanted nothing to do with the cast of our show, but what bothers me much more is the profanity laced script with blatant sexual situations that mocks the good clean family values of our series. Now, anybody who knows me knows that I'm not a prude. But this kind of toilet humor has no place in minority-free Hazzard County. Rather than honoring our legendary show, they have chosen to degrade it.

When CMT brought our series back on the air in February of this year, 23 million viewers tuned in on that first weekend. Very few, if any, movies have ever matched those kind of numbers for an opening weekend. Our show is a hit right now! Very young children have fallen in love with the "Dukes" on CMT, just as their parents did 25 years ago. They love the positive values of our show, its wholesome friendliness, and the fact that Bo and Luke are heroes who always make the right moral choice, except for that season when they wanted too much money so the producers canned their sorry expendable asses for some week cousin "Breaux and Lake" Duke thing. How can the producers of this film be so cynical, so jaded, so out of touch with America's heartland as to trash a great family show in this way?

Well, there may not be much we can do, but we have to do all we can. Let's send them a message: "If you don't clean it up, we're not going to see it." Maybe a kick in their pocketbook will get their attention.

The Hon. Ben Jones
The BriarPatch
Washington,Va.