I was 6 when it aired, perfect age for this type of content, for the most part. I never missed an episode of this or Knight Rider, but I was just noticing how much longer dukes aired vs knight rider. I would assume it's because it had more characters, therefore it had many more possibilities as far as storylines go. But whereas KR felt purely 80's, so did dukes, even though it started in the 70's. I'm not saying it was exactly a trendsetter, but it kinda sorta was. It took the formula of Smokey and the bandit and ran with it. For 7 seasons. That's not easy to do, even back then. As predictable and cartoonish as it became (the first season had a much more raw vibe), it kept people coming back, even when its main stars left for a bunch of episodes. Had it become just a tad less cartoonish, and focused more on plot variation, I think people would look at it a lot more differently. And when you read old interviews with the stars, they seemed to have expressed as much during its run, but it fell on deaf ears. KR really fell off towards the end, and I can remember become less engaged (I was also a little older, which didn't help). It became even more cartoonish than dukes, & it fell off a cliff. But even at the end, dukes would still show its charm every now & again. Had dukes kept filming in Georgia, I also think that would've been extremely helpful. In closing, dukes always felt slightly more like can't miss tv than KR.
Review of The Dukes of Hazzard
