Production
The series was developed from the 1975 B-movie Moonrunners. Created by Gy Waldron in collaboration with ex-moonshiner Jerry Rushing, this movie shares many identical and very similar names and concepts with the subsequent TV series. Although itself essentially a comedy, this original movie was much cruder and edgier than the family-friendly TV series that would evolve from it.
In 1977, Waldron was approached by Warner Brothers with the idea of developing Moonrunners into a television series. Production began in late October / November 1978, originally with the intention of just nine episodes being produced, to be used as mid-season filler. The first five episodes were filmed in Covington, Georgia, and surrounding areas, including some location work in nearby Atlanta. These first five episodes feature a noticeably different tone from the rest of the series, including some more adult-oriented humor, with some raunchier elements and slightly coarser language; several of the characters, primarily those of Rosco and Cooter, are also given different interpretation to their more recognized roles. After completing production on the fifth episode, "High Octane", the cast and crew broke for Christmas break, expecting to return in several weeks' time to complete the ordered run of episodes. In the meantime, executives at Warner Brothers were impressed by the completed episodes and saw potential in developing the show into a full-running series; part of this plan was to move production from Georgia to the Warner Brothers lot in California, primarily to simplify and streamline production, as well as developing a larger workshop to construct and service the large number of vehicles the series would get through.
Rushing appeared as shady used car dealer Ace Parker in the early episode "Repo Men", the fourth episode broadcast, and the third to be produced. Rushing believed this to be the start of a recurring role, in return for which he would supply creative ideas from his experiences - much of the character of Bo Duke he states to be based on him. However, "Repo Men" would turn out to be the character's only appearance in the entire show's run, leading to a legal dispute in the following years over the rights to characters and concepts between Rushing and Warner Brothers, although he remained on good terms with cast and crew and in recent years has made appearances at several fan conventions.
By the end of the first season, the far more family-friendly tone of the series was firmly in place; after the show returned for a second season in Fall of 1979, the template was set in place that would remain for the rest of the run.
As well as its regular car chases, jumps and stunts, the show relied on character familiarity, with Deputy Cletus replacing Deputy Enos in the third and fourth season, and Coy and Vance Duke temporarily replacing Bo and Luke (due to a salary dispute) in the fifth season, being the only major cast changes through the show's run (Ben Jones and James Best both left temporarily during the second season due to different disputes with producers, but both returned within a couple of episodes). Of the characters, only Uncle Jesse and Boss Hogg appear in every single episode; Daisy appears in all but one, the third season's "To Catch a Duke".
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Famous quotes containing the word production:
“... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)