The Dukes

I actually have fond memories of watching the animated Dukes cartoon on CBS in 1983 by Hanna Barbera. This was a fad back then where Hanna Barbera was animating popular prime time shows. On ABC, they did The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, Laverne and Shirley, and finally Mork and Mindy. On CBS, they set their sights on the Dukes of Hazzard, but picked the absolute worst time to do a cartoon series of them. During the show's deplorable fifth season when Coy and Vance were on there, so in animation, we had Coy and Vance with Daisy racing in the General Lee around the world against Boss Hogg, Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane, and Flash, who had more personality in this cartoon as well as the General Lee. I actually saw these cartoons recently and they are god awful to look at now. I can't believe I actually loved this show as a kid. My fondest memories was when the cartoon was renewed for a second season that same year, and best of all, following what the live series did, Bo and Luke were with Daisy and the race continued with the real Duke boys. And of course, there was Uncle Jesse and his pet raccoon, who also had personality, reading Daisy's letters. I hated the fact that the second season with Bo and Luke was cut too short. There should have been more episodes of that series. I did enjoy the final episode where Uncle Jesse flew out to a bog in a swamp and reunited with Bo, Luke, and Daisy, so this cartoon went out on a good note.

As an adult, this cartoon is a god awful series, but as a kid, I fondly recalled watching this show along with the live series.

in a way this proves that in the 1980's cartoons were not about substance and creativity, but were instead used as tools to sell merchandise(toys) to youngsters (or were used to promote another TV show or movie) and there were even entire cartoons based on video games. It seemed that every 1980's cartoon that was introduced to our kids was trying to sell or promote something else.

I remember in the mid 1970s seeing animated version of Star Trek and thinking that it was cool. But I didn'realize was that the Star Trek cartoon was the beginning of a new trend. The trend was to take a popular TV show and reinvent it as a Saturday morning cartoon.

"The Dukes" as the cartoon was titled wasn't all that bad. but it wasn't all that good either. It wasn't the only prime time driven cartoon out there in the mid 80's ..there was also Mr. T, The Real Ghostbusters, Rambo:The Animated Series, Hulk Hogan's WWF wrestlers(yes they too had their own 1980's cartoon), and lets not forget that George Lucas gave us "Driods & Ewoks" .all of these cartoons were based on other T.V. shows (Or Movies).and none of them proved to have any real staying power and were gone as quickly as they appeared. .

then there were the 1980's toy commercials cartoons, these were cartoons that only had one purpose and that was to sell more toys and the toy makers used the cartoon to promote their products. examples... G.I. Joe:Real American Hero, He-Man & The Masters of the Universe, Dungons and Dragons, Transformers the series, Captain Power, Teenage Mutant Nija Turltes And then in the mid 80's came the video game based cartoons such as Pac-Man, Q-bert and others. ...I can still remember that they had a prime time Pac-Man Christmas special. .

Just a side note........I actually did like the G.I Joe & Star Trek Cartoons.

but it seemed that ever 1980's cartoon that came on our tube was about something else other than just being a fun and entertaining.

I believe that is why the classic Disney(Mickey Mouse) and Warner Brother(Bugs Bunny) cartoons are so good and never go out of style. Those classic Cartoons are not trying to make us buy the latest fad, there not trying to get us to watch another TV show, there not trying to get us to play a video game...no...those classics are just fun and entertaining. And that why they never go out of style.

The 80's is best remember for it misguided attempt to gear toward kids.Like the Dukes cartoon, which Boss Hogg is about to take the Dukes farm over.But they have to win a race around the world first.It had to many bad plots and the Hazzard gang was wearing thin for the most part.