Hazzard Square

[RogerDuke]

These are amazing Hoss. Thanks for posting them.

I smiled at a little coincidence. I just posted a trivia question about the Loretta Lynn episode and came down here and saw you were discussing it too. Great Dukes minds think alike.

[HossC]

I have to thank CDoherty for indirectly helping me find this location. We were discussing somewhere nearby as the possible filming location for another episode when I decided to have a virtual spin around the area in Street View. I was mainly looking at the hills in the background as these tend to change least over time. As I made my way west along Agua Dulce Canyon Road I spotted a familiar outline in the background:

The reason I recognized it is that it's another screengrab from my "unknown" files that's been bugging me for ages. It appeared in the scene where the General jumps the hay cart in 'People's Choice'.

Here's a close-up of the hay cart looking in the other direction. The roadside scenery has changed a bit over the years, but I'm pretty sure the camera was about here.

There's a better view of the background hills from the other side of the hay cart. The length of the shadows indicates that this was filmed a little later in the day.

I'm not sure if this location was used again (you can bet I'll find another great scene in two weeks time!), so while we're here I'll mention that it's very close to Vasquez Rocks. I don't remember them appearing in Dukes, but they famously appeared in 'Star Trek: The Original Series' (when Kirk attacked the Gorn) and 'Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey' (partly as a parody of the 'Star Trek' scene), as well as many other TV shows and movies (click on the link above and there's a link to a list of productions about halfway down). The Kirk/Gorn scene even made it into this week's Google Doodle that celebrated 46 years of 'Star Trek'.

[HossC]

I don't know how many times the stunt was performed, but the front of the General looks quite battered as it makes its jump. If the picture looks familiar, it may be because an almost identical shot was used for the Facebook "Jump Day" post on Wednesday. I captured this one back in May, but several of the other screengrabs here were done just a few hours before the Facebook picture appeared. This one looks to be just a couple of frames earlier. I'd like to say it was all planned, but we're not that good - it's just a coincidence, and I know that Roger likes them!

Maybe this last picture belongs in the bloopers thread, but if you freeze-frame the landing you can see the two occupants are wearing brown crash helmets. You can also see what happens when Charger meets tarmac.

There was a good bit of location switching for this jump. Most of it was filmed on Agua Dulce Canyon Road, but the "Dip" sign before the jump was on West Potrero Road near Lake Sherwood (I will get around to covering West Potrero Road properly, I promise).

I haven't been able to identify the dip itself, but the spot where the speakers fall off looks like East Carlisle Road. Watch the landing carefully - the speakers initially stay on, and only fall off when the we switch to a different camera (and location).

[RogerDuke]

I am constantly amazed at your ability to research and post this stuff Hoss!

[HossC]

A couple of weeks ago I was watching an episode of 'The Fall Guy' where one of the girls (I think it was Jody, but it may have been Terri) got kidnapped and held in an old railroad carriage. I looked up possible filming locations and found myself in Griffith Park, not far from WB's studios. It was then that I noticed that Google had increased their coverage of Streetview in that area. I was pretty sure that the following scenes were filmed somewhere in Griffith Park, but had never been able pinpoint the exact spot before.

The same piece of road is used in at least two episodes toward the end of season 2; I thought it may have appeared in a third, but couldn't find it when I had a quick look. This first picture is from when Rosco pulls over the General and its illegal cargo (that was supposed to be a water heater) in 'Mason Dixon's Girls'. It was filmed on Griffith Park Road, not far from the golf course and zoo. To see it on Streetview, click here.

Doing a 360, we get this view from 'Southern Comfurts' - it's the scene where everyone's looking for the gray car with the money in the trunk. Daisy's Jeep enters the road from the dirt track on the left (I tried to get a screengrab, but they all came out too blurry), and is then, almost immediately, seen traveling in the opposite direction.

Daisy starts to catch the gray car as she rounds the corner. The dirt track is just visible in the background on the right, as is the junction with Mineral Wells Road. If you look on Streetview you'll see the curbstones aren't as red as they used to be, but the stone/fence structure to the left of the gray car is unchanged. They pull the car over just around the next corner.

For the last picture I'm returning to 'Mason Dixon's Girls'. As the boys drive away from Rosco they appear at the northern end of this section of road, heading south toward the place where they were stopped initially! This part of the road has changed a bit since Dukes was filmed, and the General would now be at the entrance of the 'Gottlieb Animal Health and Conservation Center' (the veterinary hospital for the zoo). The twisted tree on the left, on the other hand, still looks virtually the same.

[RogerDuke]

I am constantly amazed at your ability to research and post this stuff Hoss!

DITTO

Hmm. I bet Griffith Park has something to do with that historic astronomical sight Griffith Observatory.

[HossC]

Hmm. I bet Griffith Park has something to do with that historic astronomical sight Griffith Observatory.

The observatory is on the southern side of Griffith Park, which is where some of 'Hazzard in Hollywood' was filmed. There are a couple of pictures of that area back in post #136. I think the observatory only appears in the brief shot below (it's seen when Rosco and Cletus head off to look for a bank):

[HossC]

I first looked for the location of the dam from 'The Ransom of Hazzard County' way back near the start of this thread. After checking a few possible locations I relegated the pictures to my 'unknown' selection. Since my original search I have developed a better understanding of the way the camera can make things look much nearer, for example, when I first saw the picture below I thought I was looking for quite a narrow dam, yet if you check the third picture in this post you'll see how big the curved part in the middle of this picture really is. Also, as I've mentioned a couple of times recently, Google has improved its mapping of some areas of interest a great deal over the last year or two.

Even this shot only gave me an idea of height, not width:

It turns out that what we're looking at is the northern end of the Sherwood Dam which is at the eastern end of Lake Sherwood. The picture below is looking south - explore the view for yourself on Google Maps. Despite the lake being drained in the '80s, the dam still looks the same. What has changed is the number of houses on the northern lakeshore. It's hard to tell from the aerial views, but it looks like the access road may now be private property.

Here's a comparison map that shows the new road (East Potrero Road) at the top and the new housing along the shore. The cul-de-sac with the darker tarmac on the left of the color map is probably as close as you'll get nowadays.

That's probably enough dam photos for now!

[RogerDuke]

Thanks for these interesting shots Hoss.

And thanks for the Griffith observatory picture.

I know I've been complaining about the new street light of my neighbors but having the Los Angeles skyline near your observing sight would be a lot worse....of course when they originally built it, light pollution wasn't that big of a problem.

[HossC]

And thanks for the Griffith observatory picture.

It looks like I was wrong about the Griffith Observatory only appearing in the shot above. I'm not sure how I missed it, but there's a good chance that the scene below was filmed there too .

"...Bo and Gabby took a stroll to look at the stars." Here's a close-up of them sitting on the steps of the observatory, just before Gabby surprises Bo by breaking into Merle Haggard's 'Somewhere Between'.

[RogerDuke]

Thanks for the picture Hoss.

If they wanted to see the stars it would be a good idea to turn those stupid lights off but I suspect they're not seeing many stars anyways. Bo is paying more attention to Gabby than the Milky Way.

I might be an amateur astronomer but I'm a Dukes fan too and I can tell you that I'd rather see a star named John Schneider than spend a night looking at the other kind of stars.

[HossC]

Today's posts take me somewhere I hadn't planned to go: 'The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning'. I've only seen it once before, and that was when it was first shown on TV. I'd assumed that it had nothing to do with the TV show except for getting the car right, but then I saw the trailer on the 'Reunion' DVD and realized that it shared a couple of filming locations. I apologize for the more-blurry-than-normal images - they're taken from a TV recording rather than the usual DVDs.

I'll start with a location about 30 yards from where the TV series was filmed. This is the entrance to Boss Hogg's mansion, although the mansion itself was filmed elsewhere. The road on the other side of the gate is West Potrero Road, which did appear on the TV show.

Here's a better view of the gate, which I'm pretty sure was fitted for the movie (there's a different one there now, anyway). This house is actually next door to the one I featured recently in the Valencia Oaks Movie Ranch thread (see 2nd, 3rd and 4th pictures - it was in the 'Knight Rider' episode that also featured the TV Duke Farm and Boar's Nest). Coincidentally, that house also appeared in last night's 'Murder She Wrote', a 1986 episode that featured Hughie Hogg's genie, Katherine Moffat.

Unsurprisingly, West Potrero Road hasn't changed much since the movie, as you can see here (spin to the left to see the current gates). According to the dialog, the General got onto two wheels by Bo and Luke leaning over - need I say more about the script?!

I'll finish my West Potrero Road pictures with this shot which shows the familiar white fencing that featured in many episodes of the TV series.

[HossC]

I don't know why they didn't use the Warner Brother's backlot for this movie, maybe it was being used for something else. Instead, they used another familiar location, the town of Piru. Piru featured a few times in the TV series, including a very prominent role during the race in 'Luke's Love Story'. For comparison, and a map, check out posts 272 to 274 of this thread.

I'll go through these roughly in the order they appear in the movie. The first shows Rosco, Flash, Bo, Luke and Uncle Jesse outside the large house used by the race observer in 'Luke's Love Story'. Just off to the right there's a sign saying "HAZZARD COUNTY INN".

This is Piru's Post Office, diagonally across the road from the house above. The guy with his hand in the air is Old Man Abernathy, Boss's opponent in the upcoming election.

This is the church where we first get to meet Enos and Daisy. In reality, it's Piru United Methodist Church on Center Street.

This location wasn't used in the TV series, but it's just past the church on Center Street. As you can see from the signs in this picture and the previous one, Piru Elementary School is between the two. On the right is the La Verne Nursery, although the camera angle never really shows it. In real life, Boss Hogg's ice cream truck would be heading for a dead end as Center Street only continues for a couple of hundred yards past this point.

[HossC]

This bridge is nearly at the end of Center Street. In the movie it plays the part of the Hazzard/Chickasaw county line. As far as I can see, only the sign and the painted white line were added for filming.

Toward the end of the movie, Boss Hogg tries to give a speech near Piru Station. As previously mentioned (in post #274), the station wasn't there when 'Luke's Love Story' was filmed. The slalom through the trees, and Enos's car flip from that episode were filmed roughly where the poster and balloons can be seen on the left of this shot.

This scene, with the old bank just out of shot on the left, featured more than once in the TV series. Most of these stores are now closed, and I suspect a lot of them were dressed for the movie.

I'll conclude my pictures from 'The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning' with this shot of Cooter's new garage. You'll find it on Center Street, just across the railroad tracks from the previous picture. Apart from the sign over the door, it looks the same today, as you can see here.

Let me know if there are any more shared locations - just don't make me watch the movie again! They somehow managed to make a CGI car jump look less realistic than the models in season 7 of the TV show.

[CDoherty95]

This scene, with the old bank just out of shot on the left, featured more than once in the TV series. Most of these stores are now closed, and I suspect a lot of them were dressed for the movie.

.

If I'm not mistaken the building on the right was used in "Officer Daisy Duke" when the baddies of the week crashed Daisy's patrol car into the fruit stands outside the store to escape Enos.

Is that the episode you're referring to Hoss?

And while were on the topic of the 2007 movie, what character does everyone think was worst? Personally I think turning Lulu from a bright, happy, bubbly lovable character into let's be honest, a bit of a prostitute was a step too far...

On the plus side, April Scott sure looked good in a pair of Daisy Duke's!

[HossC]

If I'm not mistaken the building on the right was used in "Officer Daisy Duke" when the baddies of the week crashed Daisy's patrol car into the fruit stands outside the store to escape Enos.

Is that the episode you're referring to Hoss?

It's seen in 'Luke's Love Story' and 'Officer Daisy Duke'. I mention 'Officer Daisy Duke' back in post #273, and the second picture shows the same store.

And while were on the topic of the 2007 movie, what character does everyone think was worst? Personally I think turning Lulu from a bright, happy, bubbly lovable character into let's be honest, a bit of a prostitute was a step too far...

On the plus side, April Scott sure looked good in a pair of Daisy Duke's!

I'd probably have to agree with you about Lulu being the least like here original character, although most of the ages/age differences are completely screwed up.

I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression and think that I found any aspect of the movie "good", but at one point I thought April Scott actually sounded quite like Cathy when she used the CB.

[HossC]

I've just remembered one scene I liked in the movie. When Jesse suggests they go to try and call a truce with Boss, he finds a couple of old suits for the boys. The suits appear to be a homage to Tom and John's suits in 'High Octane':

While the questionable geography in the chase around Piru reminded me of the race in 'Luke's Love Story', I'm sure it was unintentional.

[HossC]

I thought that I'd read all the HazzardNet threads on filming locations before I started this one. Somehow I managed to miss a 2005 post by HNet member 'Them_Dukes_Them_Dukes' (their only post) who lives/lived very close to the Golden Oaks Ranch. After recognizing a couple of local roads, Them_Dukes_Them_Dukes took some screengrabs and location photos, and the link still works:

http://photo.tophersworld.com/gallery_onlocation.htm

The first and fourth locations they identified have already been covered in this thread (a section of Placerita Canyon Road and Saugus Speedway), but the second and third proved interesting because they were places I'd been looking for for a while. I'll start with the third because it's a return to another part of Placerita Canyon Road, where I've already found several filming locations. I can only think that I missed some of these by looking west to east, because they're more obvious when you look east to west. There are some screengrabs on the link above, so I just plan to add some clearer pictures and Google Maps links. Some of the camera angles make them harder to spot, so I've included grabs from Street View alongside the ones from Dukes.

The first is from 'The Rustlers' when Bo is about to jump out of van towing the horsebox. This piece of road is just to the south of Golden Oaks Ranch. Remarkably, the telegraph poles have hardly changed over 30 years. The grab on the right was taken from here.

Here's the same piece of road and the same scene looking the other way. The metal gate on the right of the Dukes grab was still there when Them_Dukes_Them_Dukes took a picture in 2005, but has since been replaced with a new fence and gate. At the bottom of that track you'd find the barn from 'Find Loretta Lynn' and the Golden Oaks Boar's Nest location.

A couple of hundred yards down the road you get to this junction, shown here in another shot from 'The Rustlers'. The turning on the left is the entrance to the Placerita Canyon Natural Area.

The same junction also gets shot from different angles when it's used in other episodes. The one I've picked is the site of Rosco's detour from 'Find Loretta Lynn'. The gate is just visible in front of the RV, and the mailbox is just hidden by the rear. You'll also see this road near the start of 'People's Choice' when Daisy splits from the General after winning the race to town. Unfortunately, I couldn't get quite the same camera angle, but you can check out the Street View here.

[HossC]

The other location identified by Them_Dukes_Them_Dukes' pictures is one I've spent quite a while trying to track down. I must've looked all along the old route of the Fillmore-Saugus Railroad without luck, and now I know it's because the railroad tracks aren't part of that line! In real life it's Pine Street in Santa Clarita. The screengrabs are all from 'The Ghost of General Lee'. The first is from when Boss spots the driverless General and gets his driver to follow it. This is right at the southern end of the paved section of Pine Street. A fence has been added between the road and railroad since filming - check it out here.

Here's the reverse view from Boss's car.

This shot of the railroad crossing was filmed looking west from Pine Street, not far from the location above. If you take a look at Street View you'll see that the old unpaved track (below) is still there, but now has a gate across it as there's a newer, wider road to the left.

I'll finish the Pine Street pictures with a view from across the tracks. The "STOP" sign looks genuine, but I agree with Them_Dukes_Them_Dukes that the barriers are props. I'd guess that the crossing is busier than it was when Dukes was filmed because it now has automated barriers and lights. I'd also guess that the steam locomotive is from stock footage as it certainly wasn't filmed at this location (for any steam buffs out there, I think the loco is the only surviving Southern Pacific GS-4, #4449, in Daylight color scheme).

[HossC]

While I was looking at the Pine Street area I decided to explore a little more in case there were any more filming locations nearby. Heading north past the railroad crossing I realized that as the telegraph poles started to have lights on, they started to look familiar. If y'all remember back to post #247, you'll recall the pictures I posted of the "Hazzard County Fair Grounds". For the second picture I mentioned the telegraph poles/lights and suggested that there may be a road and/or railroad on the other side of the fence - it turns out there was both. Take a closer look at that second picture of post #247 and you can just see a pylon on the hill next to the telegraph pole above the blue light of the patrol car on the right. That pylon is roughly in the center of the picture below.

The fairground site itself has changed over the years, so I'm going to have to use surrounding landmarks as evidence. The picture below shows an up-to-date aerial view where I've marked the three towers that are seen in the background. The white ones are a common sight in this area, but the darker ones aren't seen so often.

Here's an aerial view of the same area using Google Earth's timeline feature - I think it's from 1994. I've highlighted the place where the fairgrounds were. The low white building that's visible in the background of some shots can just be seen at the bottom left corner of the highlighted area. It has since been replaced by the two-story building that you can see on the left of the first picture in this post.

Due to the growth of trees, it's difficult to see the surrounding hills from Street View. In the picture below I've inset an image of the landscape from Google Earth's ground level view taken from about the same spot. You can also see the low white building that I mentioned above.

[HossC]

I'm working my way through season 2 at the moment, hence why I was looking at the fairgrounds again. When I got to 'Dukes Meet Cale Yarborough' I was reminded of another location I needed to find: Hazzard Station.

From a different angle it looks like there's an actual railroad next to it, so I thought I'd follow the railroad at Pine Street, and it wasn't long before I found a building matching the distinctive roofline above. It's located parallel to the main railroad, just south of Newhall Avenue, and even has a short (200 yard) section of track with a small steam engine (which I've since found used to belong to Gene Autry). A closer look with Street View confirmed I had the right building. A Panoramio picture gives a better view, and tells us that it's the former Saugus Station building which is now home to the SCV (Santa Clarita Valley) Historical Society.

Normally that would be the end of the story, but in this case it isn't, because the old station building was only moved to its present location in mid-1980, ie. after 'Dukes Meet Cale Yarborough' was filmed. From the SCV website:

The Saugus Station, built in 1887, was saved from demolition in 1980, when it became the first structure to be moved to Heritage Junction Historic Park, operated by the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society at William S. Hart Park in Newhall — two miles south of the train station's original location.

I followed the line north and found the original location just south of Drayton Street on Railroad Avenue. For those of you paying attention, you'll remember that Drayton Street was the location of the German Auto Center where the patrol car was swapped for an ambulance in 'Deputy Dukes' - you can remind yourselves here. The aerial view below is from 1977.

Just for comparison, I'm including this picture of the building in its original location that I found on the SCV's comprehensive website. It's dated 1965, but gives a very similar view to the screengrab that started this post. The depot closed in 1978, so it had only been shut for about a year when Dukes was filmed. The SCV website has a larger version of this picture with additional information here and some pictures of the station being moved here. There's also another interesting picture I found on Flickr. It's dated 1980, just before the move, and clearly shows the "SAVE OUR STATION!" signs on the front of the building.

[RogerDuke]

It's amazing how you research and figure this stuff out Hoss. Thanks.

[HossC]

I'm afraid that for this post I have to be the bearer of sad news. I'm sure y'all are familiar with the covered bridge at the Disney Golden Oak ranch that I dealt with in post #233. In that post I used a 45 degree aerial view because I usually find locations easier to spot when I look at them from an angle. Here's what the area looked like from directly overhead.

If you noticed that I said "looked like" in the previous paragraph, it's because it doesn't look like that any more. When I looked at the area last week I happened to have the 45 degree view turned off, and found that the pond/lake seems to have been filled in and the bridge is missing.

I guess it's progress. The ranch now includes two relatively new urban street sets and less rural buildings. I still think it's a shame to lose this iconic structure. As well as Dukes, you may remember it from other shows such as 'The Fall Guy' episode 'Mighty Myron' ...

... or the 'Murder She Wrote' episode 'Night of the Headless Horseman', amongst others.

[Jamie]

How do you know so much about the filming locations? I think it's amazing that someone is willing to share that much knowledge to all. Thanks for all the great info.

[HossC]

How do you know so much about the filming locations? I think it's amazing that someone is willing to share that much knowledge to all. Thanks for all the great info.

Thanks for your comments. I start with some screengrabs of places that look possible to identify, and then spend ages on Google, Google Maps, Google Earth, Bing Maps and Historic Aerials. Sometimes an appearance in another show can help too, as is the case with today's location.

Y'all may have seen the pictures of the Duke Farm's appearance in 'Murder, She Wrote' that I posted a few weeks back. Well, it turned out that an episode a few days later led me to another Dukes filming location. I originally only watched 'The Bottom Line Is Murder' because of the guest stars: Adrienne Barbeau (Marcie in 'The Cannonball Run'), Judith Chapman (Kay Faulkner in 'The Fall Guy'), George Takei (Sulu in 'Star Trek'), and from Dukes, Pat Klous (T.C. Rogers in 'People's Choice'). Then I realized that the TV station (supposedly in Denver) was the same building as the one used as the Capitol City Hospital in 'The Boar's Nest Bears'. It was all there: low, flat-roofed white building with a distinctive wall either side of a shallow set of steps, and it even had a red curb. Unlike Dukes, 'Murder, She Wrote' also showed several other useful views. The second here shows a continuation of the wall and some previously unseen white/brick buildings behind. The third picture is a long view showing a taller building behind, and the last is a shot of the car park showing the end of the building behind the guard in the second (this building can be seen briefly in Dukes when Sheriff Little drives away, but it's quite blurry).

This gave me a lot more to work with, and I knew I was looking for a larger complex, probably in the Santa Clarita area. There were far fewer buildings of this type when Dukes was filmed, so that narrowed down my search considerably. After ruling out the 'Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital' and the 'College of the Canyons', I found what I was looking for at the 'California Institute of the Arts' (or CalArts as it's usually known).

Here's a picture I found taken from almost the same angle as the second one above. In the middle you can see the 'Roy G. Disney Music Hall' (the school was founded and created by Walt Disney in the early 1960s).

It turns out that the building seen in Dukes has been used in several other productions too. Here it is in the 1979 movie 'The China Syndrome' starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas.

This is the nearest shot I could find of how it looks today (explore the campus for yourselves on Google Maps). CalArts alumni include actor David Hasselhoff, director Tim Burton, and Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter. Many other Pixar staff also went to CalArts, and insert a secret "A113" into their movies as a reference to the classroom number used by graphic design and character animation students at the school.