I recently completed another mini collection. I collected all of the read along books as well as the two additional stories that were only released on a stand-alone album overseas.
Stories From The Dukes of Hazzard was released in Germany in 1983 by Spot Records. It consists of five stories about of favorite county in the whole world.
It came on record and cassette. And I just got them both. The picture of the General Lee is familiar but not often used. It almost seems like the General is just floating in mid air. It isn't on the way up or the way down. It was caught right at the peak of the jump. Great stuff.
The reverse side of the album art has drawings of the Dukes with the General jumping over police cars.
I don't think these drawing were used on anything else. It is weird that Enos is first, and weirder that Enos is even on here. He is not mentioned at all in the stories. But we always like when we see Sonny Shroyer on products. He left Hazzard for his own show right before the merchandise boom hit so most products feature Cletus instead. Glad you made it on Enos.
This artwork is used often. The paragraph is fun. I wonder why "Flashing Lights" is capitalized. Car chases are mentioned often, but none of the stories really center around car chases and don't even feature the Gen'ral much.
The record itself is pretty enough to display.
I was fortunate to get the cassette at the same time I landed the record. It has all of the same stories.
The back of the tape labels the five stories.
The tape, box, and insert are all in great shape. The insert does not feature the artwork that's on the back of the record.
Three of the five stories were released first in the U.S. individually as Read Along book by Kids Stuff. These stories are the same except they feature tones during the story letting the reader know when to turn the page. They came with either records or tapes. All of mine came with records. I have some sealed and some opened. I need to get the tape versions.
The first one is simply titled "The Dukes of Hazzard." What's that you ask reader? You wish you could read and hear the story for yourself? Well it just so happens that I borrowed Jeff''s USB record player and recorded these stories for all to enjoy.
I have this book both sealed and open. The open one is colored in. Whoever colored it didn't do a very good job, but at least the General is orange.
The second story is called "Here Come the Dukes of Hazzard." The General isn't in this one at all.
The characters are slightly off in these books. The writer didn't exactly follow the show. The Dukes are vengeful and Boss is "dumb." It seems they got an outline and made up the rest.
The third story is called "Daredevil Danger."
There isn't a daredevil in it, but at least it has the General Lee on most pages. Daisy is on the cover and mentioned often in the story, but not featured in the pictures of the book.
To my knowledge, the last two stories did not have books to accompany them and were only available in the foreign released album. The fourth story is called "The Ghost of Hazzard County." This story in interesting. Boss has a cousin Jeremiah? The General Lee is Bo's Bright Red Hot?... Red? And one point the narrator says Bo, Duke, and Amos! He called him Duke, not Luke! A common mistake from people who don't know much about the show, but nothing you would expect from a a licensed product. It also mentions Shawnee County, that's a new one to me. The whole story is sort of a mix of the episodes "Ghost of the General Lee" and "The Hazzardville Horror." The General Lee is only mentioned and there are no races or chases.
The fifth and final story is called "The Legend of Bigfoot." It is also quite different than a standard Dukes story. It opens with a very peculiar line "The time Preacher Melvin's daughter ran off with that feed salesman from Marietta or the time Olive Warren's hogs got loose and dug up all the gladiola bulbs in the school yard." It also mentioned that Boss's new country house is a stones throw away from Uncle Jesse's house. That wouldn't happen on the show. The story is about Boss Hogg. Bo and Luke are only mentioned when they are dressed up like Bigfoot scaring Boss out of his new house. Bo and Luke on the show would not scare Boss out of his new home. They would not be the aggressors. They have never been the type of characters to make a first move like that and do something devious. There is no mention of the General Lee in this story.
All three books have the same back.
As a bonus I added this strange addition the collection. This is The Chipmunks Go Hollywood album.
It is a part of my collection because the high voiced rodents cover Waylon's theme Good Ol' Boys on the album.
I had Jeff's record player available so I might as well share the song. The song also features a little skit about the General Lee.
Not only do we get the song, but also this nice cartoon of the brothers (they were brothers, right?) driving our favorite car. I like the tiny Rosco head under the car.
The album came out in 1982. It is a product of Bagdasarian Productions. Um...ok.
It was released by RCA. There are no mentions of Warner Brothers of any license holders from the other songs that are covered. I wonder if they had permission to release this.
Before I decided to make rather quality recordings of these stories, I tried to record them with my phone on the Dukes of Hazzard record player. Everyone should feel fortunate that I abandoned that idea. It sounded horrible.
