RogerDuke

I didn't believe it was possible but Ray Kohn and his amazing crew have actually improved perfection and created an even better stunt show than their first 17 incredible events. Saturday was a beautiful day in eastern Ohio as my wife and I sat down for the show. Earlier I wished Ray and my favorite driver Mike good luck but didn't get a chance to talk to anybody else on the crew. The show began with the National Anthem and was followed with a memorial to those killed in Charleston S.C. That event may have led to the unfortunate knee jerk reaction of taking the Dukes off the air but I gotta hand it to Ray and his crew. Honoring the victims in Charleston was a classy move on their part and is one of the many reasons I love the Northeast Ohio Dukes. After the introductions, the show began. The stunt show is run like an episode. In this episode Cletus is driving a white van with a million dollars in it and is high jacked by Bo and Luke look-a-likes in a General Lee Look-a-like. You can probably guess that the story has a happy ending but before that happened here are some personal comments and highlights....not necessarily in order that they happened.... 1) The show did it's first truck flip. Of course it wasn't Ray's showpiece 1973 Ford but it did the job. Uncle Jesse emerged from the wreck unscratched and so did the stuntman. (just like the real show, only the stuntman was actually in the truck) 2) Daisy took Rosco's sheriff's car and Rosco chased her around in a motorized mini-bike. I laughed the whole time. All the actors are hooked up to portable microphones and Rosco is absolutely hilarious. He's so good at imitating the real McCoy. 3) Speaking of good at his job, the narrator was excellent. He even wore a black cowboy hat similar to what Waylon would wear. 4) My friend Mike did a flip in a Big Ed Little sheriff's car. Normally he plays Enos but since more stunts were added to the show he made the switch. I've only seen 7 of the 18 shows so I'm not sure but I think this was his first time playing Big Ed. I sat by his wife and kids and smiled when he came over to see them after the stunt and got to shake his hand. 5) Two things I wasn't expecting were explosions...huge explosions! One happened when Ray (playing Bo as always) threw some dynamite. The timing to the real device was perfect. It looked as real as it could. Also there was an explosion on one of the stunts. Wow! We actually felt the heat from the huge fireball. I looked at my wife with eyes wide open and said. "Did that jut really happen!?" 6) Ray's big jump went perfect. Like all the other stunt men he emerged fine (although I suspect a couple of them are bruised up especially the guy who flipped the truck) Ray has really gotten this stunt thing down to a science and I'm sure he's as good or better than the guys who did it from 1979-1985 7) Just before the jump there was an emotional tribute to Ray's father who passed away in February. Before that he was the one who played Uncle Jesse in the shows. I was especially attached to him because several years ago I befriended him and he always made me feel like I was a nephew every time I came to a show. He was truly a fine representative of the Uncle Jesse from the show and I was especially blessed to know him. He always let me call him Uncle Jesse and always had a way of making me feel like I really was in Hazzard County. My eyes got a little watery during the tribute. I miss him. 8) Another thing that was emotional for me was knowing that the next day would be James Best's birthday. Time passes on and people pass on to Hazzard County Heaven but for those of us who remain, they're always in our heart. Thanks to Ray, his family and crew for loving the Dukes and good old fashioned family values enough to keep the show alive. 9) There was a guy there operating a drone with a camera. He told me he was working for Yankee Lake so I suspect there may be video of it on their website now or later. Ray usually has videos on his website as well. If you get a chance to see it you'll quickly understand why I love these shows.

We love you and miss you Rosco. You'll always be in our hearts. Happy Birthday. (July 26)

If reporters are there I'll be having a few things to say. I'm pretty excited about tomorrow. I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve.

Farrah Fawcett

Donald Trump

I see Flo has a new Progressive commercial out. It starts out with two guys driving a fat ride convertible and the song Dixie plays just like on the General Lee's horn. I suspect that the politically correct police are calling Progressive every day to protest. I applaud them for not giving in and dropping the commercial.

I'm really exited about this. Even if Ray hadn't changed the plot of the show I'd be excited but now that I see something new is coming I'm twice as exited. I'm really lucky to live relatively close to this. I wish everybody had an opportunity to see this. As always I'll write up a review early next week. And I suspect it will be a two thumbs up like always.

Duck Dynasty

Welcome to Hazzard County. Keep us posted with pictures of the progress in the coming weeks and months. We're excited to meet you.

Gotta admit I made the same mistake when I first rolled into town. After spending a few days in solitary confinement I never made that mistake again.

military

I was glad to see on their latest episode they've gotten back to their roots and went out in the swamp again. I think some folks stopped watching them because the were getting too civilized.

Imagine a co-worker, who you didn't like, robbed a bank and the response of the authorities was to arrest him and days later come to into the homes of all his co-workers and take away all their furniture. That would make absolutely no sense at all. Apparently it would make sense to TVLand though. Oh well, I have to stop thinking about this thing because it's not good to focus on something negative for so long. Life's too short. So I guess it's time to take the loss on the chin and move on If we ever see a day that the government comes into our homes and confiscates our Dukes DVDs by force because the Dukes of Hazzard has been deemed "hate speech" then I guess I'll have a bigger problem. I don't think it will get that bad in my lifetime but I see nothing to stop the trend of the politically correct few to impose their will on the innocent majority. We're supposed to be a nation that is tolerant of everybody but if your views aren't in line with what the government wants them to be, there will be no tolerance for you. Hopefully this will be my last post on the subject. It's time to put a Dukes DVD in and move on to better things.

Since George Washington owned slaves I can only assume that he has been banned from television as well. There was never a single racist moment in 7 years and 150 episodes of the Dukes. If they can be banned from TV I can only assume someone who owned slaves deserves that AND WORSE in the eyes of the politically forces who run this country.

Hmmm, my last post made me wonder. Could the Dukes stars sue TVLand for punishing them (loss of royalties) since nobody on the Dukes had anything to do with the murders? I feel like suing TVLand for punishing me by taking my enjoyment away. I feel like they're accusing me of having something to do with the tragedy. I've never sued anybody in my life and have no intention to but if I was losing money because of this unjust punishment I'd consider it. I hate being punished for something I didn't do.

If he thinks he's going to take the flag off to make everybody happy he's sadly mistaken. I know I'm not happy. If he replaces it with the American flag he's going to offend a lot of people with anti-American feelings. He must be a hateful person if he doesn't consider their feelings. Pardon my sarcasm but this is what we're degenerating into.

After the Bill Cosby thing yesterday I assume that every episode of The Cosby Show, Fat Albert etc will be dropped if it hasn't already. I'm okay with punishing him because he's guilty. The Dukes stars have done nothing wrong. The problem is who you're really punishing in these cases is the people who still like these shows. Not only that but none of the other actors and actresses on The Cosby Show did a lot after that so they're getting punished for losing royalty payments.

It makes you wonder how much longer the America flag will last. It is offensive to some people like terrorists and the department stores need to consider their feelings.

round

Here's an update on the flag situation. TVLand has dropped every show that displays an American flag because some people find the American flag offensive. They don't seem to mind offending the people who love the American flag. They don't matter.

I realize that things are different in other countries and I respect that. But there's an old bumper sticker here that makes a lot of sense. "If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns." Since we already have a lot of guns here, if they were taken away from honest law abiding citizens the criminals would take over the country.

Things are getting silly. Imagine if someone did something bad to undocumented immigrants and used the American flag to promote their bad behavior. Nobody would propose banning the American flag. They'd know that the majority of American don't believe the American flag stands for hurting others. Yet we're punishing Dukes of Hazzard fans for the act of one horrible person who does NOT represent the south and certainly does not represent our favorite show. What percentage of people have to be offended before something is banned? George Washington owned slaves. Should we take him off the dollar bill and quarter as some are proposing? Symbols and words change their meaning. To most people the Confederate Flag stands for the good things the folks of Hazzard believe in. Letting bad people influence us to the point that we silence and vilify good folks is not the answer.

Welcome to Hazzard County Ktulu. We're happy that you're here!

Everything offends me. Ban everything. Woops, never mind. My opinion doesn't matter. A gun and a flag do not have the ability to come to life and kill people. All the attention has been drawn away from why a young man would have so much hatred and what can be done to change that. The mainstream media is only focused on a piece of metal and piece of cloth. We're never going to solve problems if we don't face them.

mom