As for the story of the Dukes. well set a spell, and let me see if I can reckon...
Back in the 80s, Friday nights was Must See TV night, and CBS was still the place to be, like their slogan these days... sure, there was DALLAS and FALCON CREST to round out the night and lead in to the news before bed, but before those great dramas, there were the DUKES OF HAZZARD!! YEEEEEEHAW!
Bo and Luke Duke (John Schneider and Tom Wopat), redneck cousins from Hazzard city, located in Hazzard county in the deep-deep deep south (deeper than that even), were born and raised in Hazzard, brought up into adulthood by their Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle), a wise old reformed moonshiner. The Duke boys, along with their other cousin, Daisy (Catherine Bach), spent the dinner hour Friday nights racing thru the backwater hick town, straightening the curves, flattening the hills, in their super-duper customized candy apple red Dodge Charger, the General Lee, complete with roll-bars and reinforced interiors (for drag-racing, demolition derbies, as well as for conveniently jumping the ever-washed-out bridge over the ever-flowing creeks around the county) and blue Confederate Flag on the roof, and stenciled with '01' on each welded-shut-for-safety door. The Duke boys fought the good fight for redneck hicks everywhere, knowing full well that some day the mountains might get them, but the Law never will...
but, oh, how the Law did try!!
The commander in chief of Hazzard city and all of Hazzard County was mayor/governor/chief of police/head of all organized crime Boss Jefferson Davis 'JD' Hogg; and whatever higher office he didn't hold in the city or county was conveniently held by one of his strikingly lookalike cousins (all portrayed by the late, great Sorrell Booke in the TV series) The rest of the Hazzard PD included Sherriff Roscoe P Coltraine (Keew keew koo kooo!) (James Best) the hard-nosed hard-headed right hand of Boss Hogg, Deputy Enos Straight (Sonny Schroyer) the 'good seed' drowning in the sea of corruption that was Hazzard law enforcement( who was also not-so-secretly madly in lust with Daisy Duke) and, later, Roscoe and Boss Hogg's cousin, Deputy Cletus (Rick Hurst)...
Now, back in the good ol' day (before the good ol' days depicted by the series) JD Hogg and Jesse Duke were actually friends and partners in their moonshining business. Over the years though, they grew apart, Jesse stole Boss's woman, Boss stole Jesse's goat, and recipes for moonshine (you know how it goes in the South between women, goats and moonshine, all men are happy!!) So, once he got rich and powerful, Boss Hogg bought up all of Hazzard, he owned or at least controlled everything in the county, and ran the place with the tightly clenched iron fist of a red faced redneck dictator/emperor. Everything, that is, except the Duke Farm, the Duke family, and that car, the General Lee... And the General Lee never crashed, never missed a jump, rarely ever even failed to start, and if it ever did fail or fall on hard times at the mercy and tricks of Boss, Huey, Roscoe Cletus or Random Bad Guy of the week, and if the Duke boys themselves couldn't fix it or find the parts, there was always Cooter Davenport (Ben Johnson), head mechanic and owner of Cooter's Garage and Service in town, and friend to the Dukes, to lend a helping hand...
Boss Hogg and Sherriff Roscoe were related because Boss Hogg married Roscoe's sister, Lulu; Cousin Cletus came to Hazzard after Deputy Enos left to go to Los Angeles (for his failure of a spin-off ENOS)... when ENOS failed, Enos came back, but Cousin Cletus stayed on too... then there was Huey Hogg( Jeff Altman), Boss's nephew who was just as crooked but not as experienced and wise in the ways of evil trickery and treachery.
Oh, so the only thing that never changed was the core Duke family, you might think... you would be wrong... see, after like 5 seasons, the Duke boys wanted more money, but the network said NO, the CAR is the star, so Bo and Luke joined the NASCAR circuit and left Hazzard behind, conveniently leaving the General Lee behind as well, and leaving Jesse and Daisy to fend for themselves.... for about 5 whole minutes the next season before...
...long-lost and never-before-seen-heard-from-nor-mentioned cousins Coy (Byron Cherry) and Vance (Christopher Mayer) stopped in for a visit, just in time to help Uncle Jesse save the farm once more from the clutches of evil Boss Hogg!! Coy, Vance... Bo, Luke... they were the same characters, just changed the names, you might say... again, wrong! See, Bo had the yellow shirt, Luke had the blue plaid... but, COY (new-Bo) had the blue shirt and VANCE (new-Luke) had the yellow, so... so there!!
any way, after a season in hell with Coy and Vance in the drivers' seat of the real star, Bo and Luke came back, sent the other cousins packing and sucked it up for another season... unfortunately, since it had been 'proven' that the show was more than the car, the writers and producers went to greater efforts to showcase the car and the stunts became cartoonish to the point of lunacy, including one time when the General Lee jumped over A HOUSE!! (or was it just A BARN!?)
oh well, it was 8 or 10 years of hell-raising, hair-brained, redneck shenanigans, and a few more made-for-TV-movies to follow-up (who can forget the Dukes of Hazzard go to Hollywood? anyone? EVERYONE?!!

)
and thats the story of the Dukes of Hazzard...
Just 2 good ol' boys
Never meaning no harm
Beats all you ever saw, been in trouble with the Law
Since the day they were born...
Straightening the curves
Flattening the hills
Someday the mountains might get 'em
But the Law never will
Makin' their way, the only way they know how
That's just a little bit more than the Law will allow...
Just 2 good ol' boys
Wouldn't change if they could
Fightin' the system like
2 modern-day Robin Hoods...
-THE BALLADEER (Waylon Jennings)
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAWWW!!
