To Catch a Duke

Title screen

Season 3, Episode 16
Original Air Date: 6 February 1981
Directed by: Denver Pyle
Written by: Bruce Howard
Created by: Gy Waldron

Plot Summary

Two jewel thieves have to stop into Hazzard when their car overheats. Thinking that Rosco has recognized them, they're relieved to find out that he's just giving them a ticket for "osculating" as part of Boss' new laws to make more money. On the way to pay their fines, Myrna, the female thief, hides the jewels in a flower bed outside the police station, and gets another ticket for picking a flower. While they're paying their fines, Bo and Luke come in to complain about the tickets that Cletus gave them for breaking a fishing permit law which Boss had passed 20 minutes earlier. Rosco sends them packing, but then he hears an APB for the thieves and their $200,000 of jewels. The thieves rush out and force Bo and Luke to drive them away at gunpoint, before getting out around the corner to go back and retrieve the jewels. What they don't know is that Flash has found the jewels and carried them into Rosco's patrol car.

Boss assumes that Rosco was in on the robbery, as it would explain his "new secondhand used car" and his new gold ("there's a lot of zinc in there") watch. Upset that Rosco didn't give him a cut, Boss sacks him and promotes Cletus to sheriff. In civilian clothes, Rosco goes looking for the Dukes to help plead his innocence, even though he still believes that Bo and Luke are involved.

Bo and Luke figure that the jewel thieves will hang around to try and steal the jewels back from Boss, so they tail Boss to the Boar's Nest. Sure enough, the jewel thieves hold up Boss and Cletus, but as their getaway car has been rolled down the hill by Bo and Luke, they force Rosco to drive them away. After losing all of their pursuers except Bo and Luke, Rosco disarms the robbers and stops. He thinks he's cleared his name by catching them, but they say they'll tell Boss that him and the Dukes were involved. To put things right, Luke has to come up with a plan.

Trivia

• This is the only episode in which Daisy doesn't appear. Waylon explains her absence by saying that she's gone to visit Aunt Kate for a couple of days. In reality, Catherine Bach was away filming TV special Circus of the Stars.
• Rosco's new watch wakes him up by playing Georgia on My Mind.
• When Jesse says "I'm just going by the old Picard place.", it's probably a reference to executive producer Paul R. Picard.
• A couple of years before this episode, Martha Smith (Myrna) starred as Babs Jansen in Animal House. She also featured as Francine Desmond in every episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

Bloopers

• While Bo and Luke are driving around the square after letting the jewel thieves out, the passenger door on the General is briefly shown ajar, even though it's supposed to be welded shut.
• The shots of the General and the patrol car going around the square on two wheels were recycled from two different episodes, so the stores in the background have different signage.
• Just after Myrna's arm gets trapped in the car window, Rosco pulls a U-turn and the window is fully closed. Seconds later he stops the car and her arm is stuck in the window again.

Quotes

• After making a small sale:
  Cooter: "$2 worth of gas. That ought to get you about halfway to the corner."

• When Myrna refers to Hazzard as a "tank town":
  Waylon: "Friends, don't it make you kind of feel sorry for folks coming to Hazzard thinking it's just like any other place?"

• When Luke comes up with a plan to clear their names:
  Waylon: "Now, Luke's plan had four things wrong with it. One. It was hard. Two. It was dangerous. And three. It had no guarantee. And four. Rosco liked it."

Regular Cast

• Tom Wopat as Luke Duke
• John Schneider as Bo Duke
• Catherine Bach as Daisy Duke (credit only)
• Denver Pyle as Uncle Jesse
• Rick Hurst as Cletus
• Ben Jones as Cooter
• James Best as Sheriff Rosco Coltrane
• Sorrell Booke as Boss Hogg
• Waylon Jennings as The Balladeer (voice)

Guest Cast

• Martha Smith as Myrna Rowby
• James Crittenden as Burt Rowby
• Victoria Johnson as Lori Mae

• 
  Martha Smith as Myrna Rowby
• 
  James Crittenden as Burt Rowby
• 
  Victoria Johnson as Lori Mae

Crew

• Supervising Producer: Rod Amateau
• Produced by: Myles Wilder and Ralph Riskin
• Executive Producer: Paul R. Picard
• Executive Story Consultants: William Raynor and Myles Wilder
• Executive Story Editors: Leonard B. Kaufman (as Len Kaufman) and Martin Roth
• Story Editor: Bruce Howard
• Creative Consultant: Gy Waldron
• Associate Producers: Skip Ward and Gilles de Turenne (as Gilles A. de Turenne)
• Director of Photography: Jack Whitman
• Art Director: Robert I. Jillson (as Bob Jillson)
• Title Song Composed and Sung by: Waylon Jennings
• Music by: Fred Werner
• Unit Production Manager: Gilles de Turenne (as Gilles A. de Turenne)
• First Assistant Director: Jon Paré
• Second Assistant Director: Nicholas Batchelor
• Second Unit Director: Craig Baxley
• Second Unit Director of Photography: Arthur R. Botham (as Arthur Botham)
• Second Unit First Assistant Director: Kelly A. Manners
• Supervising Editor: Russell Livingstone (as Russ Livingstone)
• Editor: Jamie Caylor
• Music Editor: Abby Marable
• Sound Editor: Ron Tinsley
• Sound: Victor Goode
• Set Decorator: Tom Bugenhagen
• Property: Beverly Hadley
• Special Effects: John James
• Makeup: Ray Brooks
• Hair Stylist: Virginia Darcy
• Men's Costume Supervisor: Bob Christenson
• Women's Costume Supervisor: Linda Hickman
• Casting: Melissa Skoff
• Creative Consultant: Philip Mandelker
• Some Automobiles Supplied by: AMC
• Location Facilities Provided by: The Burbank Studios
• A Lou Step Production in Association with Warner Bros Television

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To Catch a Duke
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