Follow That Still

Synopsis:

“In Hazzard County, hunting season allows three weeks for deer, two for quail, and it’s open season all year on Dukes and moonshiners.”

Hard Luck Jones has been getting into trouble with revenuers for years, and Agent Buchanon thinks he’s caught him again until Bo and Luke blow up his still.

Back at the Duke Farm, Uncle Jesse suggests to Hard Luck that he should try farming instead, and even offers help.

Over at the Boar’s Nest, Boss has bought himself an armored personnel carrier (APC) to form part of a war memorial. In reality, he just wants to use it to hide contraband cigarettes.

Spotting the potential for a mobile still site, Hard Luck steals the APC during the night. When Bo and Luke arrive at his farm the next morning it’s deserted. They quickly find the APC (complete with still), and decide to move it as Rosco’s sniffing around. It’s a great plan until the APC breaks down on Duke property. After camouflaging the APC, Bo and Luke head for town so L.B. can fix the broken part.

It doesn’t take long for Hard Luck to sniff out his still and resume ‘shine production. That gets the attention of Uncle Jesse, who gives Hard Luck a lecture on the trouble he could cause the Dukes. They also reminisce about making ‘shine for each other’s weddings.

Bo returns with the fixed part, and all three set off in the APC. After collecting Luke and Daisy along the way, they manage to take out Enos’s car with a shell they find aboard the APC. They also roll straight over Rosco’s car and blow up the still with the last shell.

Once the floor is clear, Bo discovers the hidden cigarettes and they all start to throw them out. When Luke realizes the brakes have failed, they all abandon the APC.

The APC comes to rest in the wall of the Boar’s Nest. Buchanon has to settle for arresting Flint and Miller, the criminals who wanted Boss’s cigarettes. He also gets Hard Luck a job at a legal distillery.

Commentary:

Near the start of the episode Buchanon tells Rosco “You used to be the best sheriff in this state. Now you ain’t worth a hill of beans.” From One Armed Bandits we know that Rosco wasn’t always corrupt, and that he only changed when most of his pension was defeated, but even then he was only credited with “30 years as a fairly honest lawman.”

Boss very generously dedicates the war memorial to “J.D. Hogg and Less Important Heroic Veterans of Hazzard County.” When Luke asks Boss what wars he fought in, the reply is “I fought three and a half wars on the home front. It’s the American way.” This contradicts Boss’s statement to Rosco in One Armed Bandits when he says, “I got me three medals in two wars and the only time I get scared is when you get smug.”

Highlights:

In another well-known goof, the contraband cigarettes continue to be thrown from the APC, even when there’s no one left inside.

From time to time Rosco is given some bizarre duties to perform, but scrubbing Boss’s back has to be one of the strangest so far.

Trivia:

Since Luke diagnosed the problem with the APC, and has experience with them from the Marines, it would be more logical for him to fix it rather than Bo. In reality, Tom Wopat never learned to swim (despite Catherine Bach’s attempts to teach him), so John Schneider got to do all the water-based scenes such as this and the one in the next episode.

The covered bridge (above) that appears in many episodes, and many other TV shows, was located on Disney’s Golden Oak Ranch, near Santa Clarita. Some of the Golden Oak sets like the Boar’s Nest and Burl Tolliver’s house disappeared years ago, but the bridge survived until 2012.

–synopsis and vidcaps by Hoss (with info from The Dukes of Hazzard Unofficial Companion).