When your author was just a wee lad, visions of the orange 1969 Dodge Charger from The Dukes of Hazzard leaping over ravines, lakes, other cars, and anything else that needed to jumped had a profound effect on his psyche. Decades later he’d own a ’68 Charger of his own, though regrettably it spend the vast majority of its time with all four wheels on the ground (when it wasn’t on a lift).
Nevertheless, the flying Mopars of Hazzard County are the stuff of legend – estimates put the number of destroyed Chargers in the hundreds over the course of the show’s history. Crucially however, the cars died noble deaths – doing some seriously bitchin’ jumps.
Here in this 30 minute compilation clip you can see every single one of the those sweet jumps back to back, including the first time they “jump a dang creek” and realize the car is, at least by television standards, more or less impervious to the perils of known physics.
As an adult, the joy of watching all this airtime is somewhat tempered by the harsh reality of each car’s imminent demise, most often by way of a nose dive due to the weight of the motor up front. Occasionally the editors got bold and allowed us to see the car land before cutting away to an in-car studio shot, and we catch things like the panels buckling from the frame bending, hoods popping open, and so on.
It’s actually kind of amazing what television was able to get away with in the late 70s and early 80s. Still, there’s a solid 32 minutes of non-stop entertainment here any way you slice it.