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Augie DETWEILLER

Boss Hogg is the COMMISSIONER of Hazzard COUNTY.

What a great story. I'm impressed that you put so much passion and work into this. I have heard of it but didn't know much about it. I sure learned a lot from your post. I just Googled Simon James but didn't really recognize him. It's so cool that you have become friends with him and he has been so much help. I would love to see one of these episodes but I'm pretty low tech. Let me know the best way to catch one. You mentioned that you want us to suggest a Dukes episode. Am I correct that you would be mostly interested in eps that feature Daisy?

cousin ALICE

Hi RogerDuke! I am really happy you saw my reply and to be able to share more about this here! It really is amazing that people were looking for the series online, going back even 17 years ago. Yes!!! I am a big fan of Catherine for sure. She is an amazing actor, and was constantly surrounded by others that were also very good, and producers that seem to really have known what they were doing at the time too. I am just starting to get into Dukes of Hazzard because of African Skies actually -- I see there are a few episodes already on YouTube, but I might have to grab the box set to see it in full. I found out about this forum via this thread about a week ago from digging through Google for African Skies related discussions. Both of these two shows are very much a time capsule it seems, super nostalgic in two very different ways, two different decades. I was born in 85, but Dukes was one of my moms favorite shows it turns out. I don't know that I saw a lot of it as a kid or remember much of anything from 10 and under though honestly -- so now I am seeing the two shows in the opposite order that most others did, but we plan to watch and enjoy it in full together soon too. It is really neat seeing Catherine in such a totally different type of role versus her role in African Skies, just wow! I absolutely have to see all of it now. So here is what happened. I was in some various 'Lost Media' discord servers since last year, and someone brought up African Skies and and we had a group conversation about it. People were saying it wasn't real, it was AI generated, lost forever, etc. Well, I remembered seeing it often on 'The Family Channel' when I was a teenager so I knew better, and actually there was already 2-3 kind of low quality episodes on YouTube, home recorded from cable with commercials, etc. So, I started looking for it... I dug around VHS collections in thrift stores, VHS groups on Facebook, some very dusty places out in the world. At one point, I found one single PAL tape on eBay Australia -- it had 3 episodes on it. The case was very strange looking though and it had been posted for months. I think the appearance of the case had made it kind of hidden in plain sight. It *looks* professionally made, but the logo font is all wrong and the images on it don't make much sense vs what is on the actual tape, we think it might of been a bootleg or simply a home made case someone made -- it is unclear where it came from. Anyways, I bought it, along with a multisystem VCR, and I put it on YouTube. A few months later someone I didn't know yet over at LostMediaWiki had heard about my upload and the couple others on YouTube, and created a page for the show on their site with info about the series, what episodes remained inaccessible to the public, what has been found, etc. I guess the series in full had never touched the internet before, because we dug REALLY deep and there just wasn't a trace of it anywhere ever. I also don't think it was ever distributed for sale on any physical media, only aired but for me it is unclear. And, I think this thread shows, that even 17 years ago people couldn't find it online either, and that might solidify this theory a bit possibly. Anyways, a few months later, I was able to get in touch with Simon James who played Rory in the series, and we quickly hit it off. It just so happened to be that he had every episode on VHS, 52 tapes total. His parents bought him a really nice promotional package when they filmed it, and the tapes were taken very good care of and stored properly over the 30 or so years, thankfully. He also has a very interesting folder with of promotional photos, full episode synopsis, full actor bios, etc. -- they have not been scanned in yet and I don't have these personally, but will be soon and shared. He sent the first season to me already, and I digitized them via s-video and have already sent them back. I didn't feel right/safe with us just posting them all randomly somewhere, so we waited some more time to get permission from the owner of Atlantis to create an official channel for it on YouTube to preserve it and share with the world. So here we are, that finally happened. I started posting them about a week ago. Set #2 will come soon, and we will post those too. It has been fascinating though, I have shared this series in other places and most people my age do not remember it until they actually watch a few minutes of it, then it hits them after they see the intro. I mean, for me even, it had been at least 25 years since I had seen it when this all started last year.. Memories unlocked for sure though. So great to hear from you! If anybody has any questions or can suggest their favorite Dukes episodes (I'd like to watch your favorites first!), and I am happy to share anything else that I can. Sincerely, ~Freelight

I certainly don't already know the answer. It might be the weekend before I get a chance to look into it properly, but don't let me stop y'all researching it too!

I love it when old threads come back to life. It serves as a reminder how vast the HazzardNet is. Also makes me wonder how many threads and posts have been on here since the beginning. Welcome to the HazzardNet freelight. We'd like to hear more from you. Are you a big Dukes fan or mostly a Catherine fan...or both? Thanks for the information.