“Why Don’t These Doors Open?”

Tags

a-z challenge, action, blog, bo, car, cinema, dodge charger, dukes of hazzard, film, general lee, gran torino, luke, meme, movie, review, smurfin the web, tv

As we roll onto the letter “G”, I had a long think about this one. I think by now you have the jist that I am discussing Modes Of Transportation in TV & Film as my A-Z Blog Challenge theme, so I won’t mention it again (maybe later on). When thinking about “G”, I was going through spaceships for example Galactica which was nostalgic enough, but in the end I had no real choice but to write about another car. Lets face it, automobiles are the most common form of transport so it stands to reason that there would be a lot of them in my list. I make no apology for that =)

So what car could possible take the letter “G” of my challenge all to itself? The General Lee of course! I hope by now you have connected the title of this post to the car itself. Looking back on it now, why they use the doors? Back then of course, jumping into the car through the windows was deemed quite cool and a manly thing to do, especially if done by the perfect Duke boys, Bo and Luke (Luke Duke, lol – how stupid does that sound now?) Anyway, onto the car itself…

The General Lee

The writers were actually quite clever with their choice of car for the show. The Dodge Charger has been and probably always will be associated in TV & Film as the car the “bad guys” drive. There are many examples of this – The bad guys chasing Steve McQueen in Bullitt, the antagonists in the movie Cannonball starring David Carradine, Dominic Toretto’s Charger in the Fast & Furious films. The difference in The Dukes of Hazzard was that although the Duke brothers were “bad” in the literal sense of the word due to the trouble they got into, they also managed to end up winning the day for the good guys, but always with the help of the car.

Sometimes I think that in this show, the car was a bigger star than either of the Dukes and there are probably thousands of Dodge Chargers around the world painted in the General Lee’s colours. It’s one of those cars that is as recognisable in TV & Films as the Gran Torino in Starsky & Hutch, which I am not covering in this challenge I’m afraid, but I give it a quick mention here seeing as it starts with the same letter, lol. I leave you today with this very fitting tribute to the car The General Lee. Enjoy!