Hazzard Square

[Brian Coltrane]

Once again Hoss, you've unearthed some impressive details about the filming history of our favorite show. Great work! Who knows, maybe someday future Dukes episodes will be filmed in these same areas. (I'd be amazed if Dukes didn't get a reboot at some point in the future, like Hawaii Five-O and Knight Rider.)

[HossC]

I keep adding pictures to my "unknown" folder, so it's great when I can pull a couple out and cross them off the list. I was actually trying to find a completely different location when I found this one. The pictures are from near the end of 'Hazzard Connection'. Most of the action takes place on either Carlisle Road or Potrero Road near Lake Sherwood. For some reason this very short scene was filmed nowhere near there. A few posts back I posted some pictures from Placerita Canyon Road. If I'd only kept following it I'd have found this place earlier. It's right at the end at the intersection with Sand Canyon Road. The houses in the background are still there, but they're now hidden by trees.

Here's the view from a different angle with Placerita Canyon Road on the right. Click here to see how it looks today.

If you zoom out of Street View and go about half a mile south from this intersection you come to Sable Ranch where the obstacle course from the game show 'Wipeout' is located. You'll have to zoom right in and have the 45 degree view turned on to see it properly, otherwise you'll just see unfinished blue shapes in a field.

[HossC]

Sometimes it pays to listen to Ferris Bueller's advice, so while I was at the intersection of Sand Canyon Road and Placerita Canyon Road I stopped to look around: if I hadn't, I could've easily misssed something. Luckily I've now ticked off several more of my "unknown" pictures. This is the same intersection as the previous post, but from a different angle. The screengrab is from 'People's Choice'.

Here's yet another angle, this time from 'Follow That Still'.

That brings us to this picture, which has bugged me for ages. I thought the mountain in the background would be a dead giveaway, but I couldn't locate it anywhere. It turns out this is just up Placerita Canyon Road, and the barriers at the side are where is crosses Happy Trails Road. I should have spotted it sooner. What can I say: the camera lens distorts the distances, the Google Street View is pretty blurry, the trees have grown considerably since 1980, blocking the background, I had a flat tire, I didn't have enough money for cab fare, my tux didn't come back from the cleaners, an old friend came in from out of town, someone stole my car, there was an earthquake, a terrible flood, locusts!

[HossC]

This picture from 'People's Chioce' has also bugged me for a while. The house is fairly distinctive, but there's not much scenery to go on, and it only appears very briefly. Just like the last picture, this house is also on Placerita Canyon Road, opposite the entrance to Ravenhill Road. Click here to see how it looks today.

Just across the road is this house. It looks as if it may have been under construction when Dukes was filmed; now there's a driveway, pool and surrounding trees.

The same intersection is used again almost immediately afterwards. The camera angle has been changed, but that's the General emerging from Ravenhill Road again. The hills in the background are the same as the ones in the second picture of the previous post.

[HossC]

This location, up in the hills from the previous posts, was found by a stroke of luck. I'd saved these screengrabs from 'Hazzard Connection' (the scene where Luke pretend the brakes have failed to scare Enos) a couple of weeks ago hoping to discover where they filmed. Again I thought they should be distinctive enough to find. Then I went to re-check the map of the previous locations and typed "sand canyon road" into Google, but did a web search instead of a map search by mistake. The first result was

. It was only five minutes long, so I thought I'd check it out for filming locations. Almost immediately after the bike leaves the car park it passes this spot. The video finishes at the intersection with Placerita Canyon Road at the bottom of the hill.

This was actually the picture that confirmed I was in the right place. The concrete blocks and silver/gray pipe haven't changed a bit, hardly surprising as the terrain doesn't exactly lend itself to development.

I'm pretty sure this is the same stretch of road from a different angle. You can check for yourself here, it's where Sand Canyon Road (also known as Little Tujunga Road in this area) is joined by Santa Clara Divide Road.

[HossC]

I'm going to use this post to show some scene-setting pictures from 'Find Loretta Lynn' before explaining their location in the next. The first is the entrance to the Hazzard County Stockyards with the large barn at the back. The barn was used to hide Loretta's RV.

Here's the same area as seen from the front of the barn as Miss Leona escapes. The distinctive stepped roofline of the white buildings is visible in both of these pictures.

When Bo and Luke arrive at the stockyards they park to the left of sign in the first picture. If you watch this scene carefully you'll see that the little black blob above Bo's head is actually a small animal scampering to safety!

Here's Squirt walking along the side of the barn, ready to ambush the Dukes. I've included it because it gives a good close-up of the "Feed & Grain" sign.

[HossC]

The buildings we've been looking at are part of Disney's Golden Oaks Ranch on Placerita Canyon Road. Here's how the buildings look today. Apart from a different side roof on the barn, they still look pretty similar. According to Disney's location plan (PDF) this is the "Central Region" of the ranch, and now sits between two recently-built street sets. The barn itself is simply labelled "Main Barn", but the area off to the right of this picture is appropriately named "Moonshine Meadow/Woods". To see it on Google Maps, click here.

One of the reasons that I included the picture of Squirt in the previous post is that it ties in nicely with these pictures from 'The Ghost of General Lee'. Although you can't see the white buildings in this picture (they're just off to the left), the roof that overhangs the barn doors can clearly be seen. The Feed & Grain sign is right there in the middle.

In another scene from 'The Ghost of General Lee' we see the bad guys in front of the same barn (the small bush must have been a prop because it moves along the barn wall between scenes!). This picture, however, also shows that this was the season 2 location of the Boar's Nest: the entrance is visible on the right. Once you know what you're looking for, you can see the barn and the white buildings in the background of several other Boar's Nest scenes in season 2.

[HossC]

While we're at the Golden Oaks Ranch I'll cover another recognizable structure that's only a couple of hundred yards north of the barn. Originally spotted by MeadowMufn in another thread, it's the covered bridge (#23 on Disney's location plan). This is Bo jumping into the lake while Luke drives Cooter's tow truck across the bridge in 'Follow That Still'

Here's another angle as Miss Leona runs away from Bubba in 'Find Loretta Lynn'. The bridge appears in several other episodes including when it was used as the exchange point in 'The Runaway'.

It's not the easiest structure to spot from the air, unless you know where to look, so I've included this aerial shot. As you can see, using the bridge isn't much quicker than driving around the end of the lake. The large building that's visible at the right end of the bridge on Google Maps seems to have been built since Dukes was filmed. For a non-Dukes aside, if you stay on Google's 45 degree view and go south-east you can see the new "Urban Business District" set at various stages of construction (change the orientation to see other views). Google must have updated their aerial views, because when I first looked at this area there was an old Wild West set at this location.

This last picture isn't on Golden Oaks Ranch, but it is only a short distance to the east on Placerita Canyon Road. The scene appears very briefly in 'The Ghost of General Lee'. The wall in the middle, on the corner of Running Horse Road, seems to have been rebuilt since Dukes was filmed, and is now surrounded by several bushes. The text on the wall isn't readable in Dukes, but it now says "Placerita Chaparral". If you check out the Street View you'll see that this particular view hasn't changed much over the years.

[CDoherty95]

Hoss I'm not sure if you were saving this for another post, forgot about it, or just didn't know about it but the Hazzard County Fairgrounds in The Rustlers was filmed behind the Boars Nest. There's a great shot near the end of the episode which shows Rosco's car in the center of the picture and the back of the Boars Nest in the center back. It's in the last 5 minutes of the episode,when the two horse nappers drive into the fairground and spot the patrol car.

I'm sorry I can't narrow it down any more than that, but hopefully you can spot the Boars Nest.

[HossC]

Hoss I'm not sure if you were saving this for another post, forgot about it, or just didn't know about it but the Hazzard County Fairgrounds in The Rustlers was filmed behind the Boars Nest...

I'll look that up tomorrow and pretend I was saving it for another post .

I don't seem to give myself time to watch whole episodes these days, so I tend to grab pictures out of sequence and don't necessarily watch every episode. This means that I accumulate images until I think I have enough to make a whole post about a certain area worthwhile or until the area is identified. Some of the pictures I posted last week had been hanging around for ages because I didn't know where they were, then several others fell into place when I rewatched other episodes. The last picture I posted (Placerita Chaparral) was only grabbed during the week when I was looking at 'The Ghost of General Lee' for another thread. I figured I'd stick it on the end because it was pretty close to the other locations, and I don't currently have any more that are nearby.

Anyway, thanks for the extra info. I think the next post will be heading back toward Lake Sherwood when I figure out what I want to show.

[Cooperman]

This is an amazing effort Hoss. As I said to you in another thread, if all this info were to be published in a printed book or guide, complete with colour photos and cross references, it would sell by the truck load!

Any more info on the horizon?

[Cooperman]

Just looking at one of your fine screen grabs Hoss, my eye was drawn to the sidewalk / pavement in front of Capital City's "Fine Jewelry Ltd" store.

It looks like the sidewalk used to end at an intersection there, just where the kerb stones curve inwards. The kerb that runs alongside the sidewalk from there on looks like badly boarded concrete.

Your awesome screen grabs have made me look at the infrastructure with fresh eyes. What do you make of this? Could it be that WB's original road layout was modified for additional buildings later on?

[Mark B / Scooter Davenport]

That kind of thing is a very common sight on studio backlots. Looks like that facade once had a driveway running through it.

[HossC]

That kind of thing is a very common sight on studio backlots. Looks like that facade once had a driveway running through it.

I was going to suggest something similar, although I couldn't find any more pictures of the same section of sidewalk - I guess it's back to the DVDs at some point . The lamppost seems to be propped up with small wooden wedges.

[Mark B / Scooter Davenport]

HossC: Are those facades on the backside of the Hazzard County Building? There probably used to be some garage door in place of that facade similar to the 'impound garage' entrance seen on the show.

[Mark B / Scooter Davenport]

Nevermind- if I'm correct, its between bldg E and F on New York Street? (page 8 map).

[HossC]

Nevermind- if I'm correct, its between bldg E and F on New York Street? (page 8 map).

You beat me to it . To save having to go all the way back, here's that map again:

I know the sidewalks were used in different ways because there's quite often a subway entrance on the corner marked 'F'. It may even be there in this picture.

[Mark B / Scooter Davenport]

The streets and sidewalks tend to stay even when facades come and go- on the Universal backlot, they kept the sidewalk footprints even after fire destroyed the facades and were rebuilt.

M

[Mark B / Scooter Davenport]

Haha- if you use google maps to zoom in on that spot of the backlot, you can actually see where that curve is on the sidwalk and where a (lighter colored) repair was made exactly where the cracks are in the screen cap!

Mark

[HossC]

Haha- if you use google maps to zoom in on that spot of the backlot, you can actually see where that curve is on the sidwalk and where a (lighter colored) repair was made exactly where the cracks are in the screen cap!

I think you must be referring to the light patch on the sidewalk roughly in the center of this view. It would be amazing if the original repair was still visible around 30 years later. The subway entrance I mentioned previously is visible on the corner just above and to the left. To explore in Google Maps, click here.

As I was looking around for the picture above I saw another building on the backlot that caught my eye. I'm not sure what the building is, but it's just north of Warner Blvd, not far from the famous WB water tower. I like the little patio on the roof of the building to the left.

All those regularly spaced pipes reminded me of a mystery building from post #107 back on page 11. It's the Genetic Research lab from 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Duke' (see below) which I suspected was somewhere nearby. I'm not sure if Google Maps had a 45 degree view facility when I started this thread, but if it did, I didn't know about it, so I missed this at the time.

Here's another view, 90 degrees round from the second picture in this post. It shows the covered loading bay that's visible on the left of the picture above. After seeing this view I'm pretty sure this is not the same building that was used for the back of the Atlanta Museum in 'Along Came a Duke'. The search for that building goes on ...

[HossC]

I meant to post these pictures from 'The Rustlers' a couple of weeks ago, but got sidetracked with the New York Street sidewalk discussion.

This is Burl Tolliver's farmhouse on Disney's Golden Oaks Ranch.

Although it's no longer there, you can work out its position from the covered bridge in the background.

I'm pretty sure that this field where the General speed-checked Manassas is right by Burl's farmhouse.

Now to address CDoherty's suggestion that the fairgrounds were behind the Boar's Nest. Initially I went along with the idea, but now I'm not so sure. I'll let y'all decide in the next post. For now, here's a shot from near the end of the episode which shows the bad guys being apprehended by the barn that's definitely on the Golden Oaks Ranch (see a few posts back). The Boar's Nest would've been just to the right of this picture.

[HossC]

Here’s the shot of the “Hazzard County Fair Grounds†(“Fair Grounds†appears as two words on the sign) that CDoherty mentioned. I have to agree that the building in the background is about the size of the Boar’s Nest, and the back of the Boar’s Nest does get used in later episodes (pictures to come), but I can’t match the landscape to the location. Even back on a 1980 aerial view the area behind the Boar’s Nest was grassy and quite small.

On this picture you can see a row of telegraph poles with distinctive street lights running down the side of the fairgrounds. I haven’t seen these anywhere on the ranch. I think there might be a railroad track on the other side of the fence; there’s definitely a road or track because a car and someone on a bicycle can be seen traveling past at various points. If there is a railroad it may be part of the Filmore-Saugus line that was slowly abandoned after the Santa Clara River trestle was washed out during a flood in 1976. I’ve been tracing its route on old maps and it’s easy to forget that Santa Clarita didn’t exist until 1987; before that it was Canyon Country, Newhall, Saugus and Valencia, and mostly open farmland.

In the background of this picturel you can see some dark cylindrical structures on the hill. I don't remember seeing them in other episodes, and haven't found them on any aerial maps.

Looking in this direction you can see one of the ubiquitous water towers above Jesse's head. I wondered if it might have been a real showground, but found nothing on Google. I think, at least for now, this location will remain “unknown†unless anyone can persuade me otherwise.

[HossC]

I've spotted a couple of WB locations this weekend over on Failblog. Both have been seen previously in grabs I've posted from 'The Dukes in Hollywood' etc.

The first is from LMFAO's 'Party Rock Anthem', although someone's replaced the original song with the Cantina Band music from Star Wars in this short clip:

.

is approaching half a billion views in YouTube!

The video was filmed on Hennesy Street. Here's a reminder of how it looked in 'The Dukes in Hollywood'.

The second is a picture of a Batmobile golf cart.

None of the commenters have yet realized that this was taken on Brownstone Street on Warner's backlot. The building at the end is part of New York Street. Here's how in looked in 'The Dukes in Hollywood'.

[HossC]

It seems to be the way of things now that I go looking for one location and come across another. In this case CDoherty was researching one of his interests when he suggested a possible location for the school in 'Along Came a Duke' (fourth picture in this post). We decided it wasn't the right place and both went on looking. My search led me to a site that mentioned that a couple of episodes of the TV show 'The Invaders' were filmed on Warner's backlot. Both were in the second season, so date from about 1968.

The first, 'Valley of the Shadows', was filmed in Midwest Street, this time playing the part of the small town of Carterville, Wyoming. Just like the earlier pictures from 'The Shootist', the square is instantly recognizable, but oddly different at the same time. After the credits a police car drives slowly around the square. The house that would become Boss Hogg's house is above the blue car on the left. The house behind the title in the center was occupied by the town doctor, Maria McKinley MD. By a strange coincidence it would become Doc. Petticord's house in 'Duke vs. Duke'.

The police car takes the long way around the square (I guess it looks better that way) and passes the church. In the road to the right of the church you can see some boards being put up, probably to hide the set behind the church that existed at the time (see later post about the other episode of ‘The Invaders’).

The gazebo is present in the square, but it’s on the ground rather than on its usual platform. Buildings 10 to 13 are visible in the background.

The centerpiece of the square is this statue.

[HossC]

In this picture the police car is just passing building #3, aka. Hazzard Bank.

It finally arrives outside what we know as the County Building.

Another angle shows buildings 3 to 8. I love this Mustang; it must've been nearly brand new at the time.

A closer look at buildings 10 to 13 shows covered sections projecting over the sidewalk, similar to those seen in the pictures from 'The Shootist'. At this time the town cinema was located in building #12, although, as you can see, it's "Closed Until Further Notice".