New Dukes Stuff - 10/7/2018 -Coleco Pedal Car, Multi-Season DVD Sets, Foreign Cassettes, Autograph Cards

And we're back.  It has been too long since I updated the ol' blog.  A ton of new Dukes stuff has piled up here at DukesCollector HQ and it's finally time to share it with the world.  I would have blogged about this stuff sooner, but I can't write a New Dukes Stuff post without DukesCollector Cooter and he was on vacation, playing volleyball, eating tacos, then he was in a wedding, just super busy.  Was that DukesCollector Cooter, or me?  Moving on.

Let's start off with the doozy.  I just got this bad boy and it is awesome.  This is, of course, the Coleco Dukes of Hazzard General Lee Pedal Car.  It's probably one of the most popular Dukes items out there and something that every collector wants in their collection.  I've written about our friend, Sam Mc's pedal car restoration, and I own the unlicensed AMF metal pedal car, but I've never added this beauty to the collection before.  (Ok, I own one that is not put together, but I never blogged about that.)  This beauty came to me from our new friend Ray who found me online, contacted me, and wanted it to be a part of the collection.  I love when that happens.  Thanks Ray.  It just so happened that he lived right between where Jeff was staying for the New York Comic Con and the New York Comic Con.  So on the final day of NYCC, good ol' Jeffrey picked up the pedal car and brought it to me.  Thanks Jeff!

I was thinking about giving it the Crazy C restoration treatment, but the stickers are so beautiful that it would be a crime to remove them.  This car has the perfect patina to it.  There are some minor scratches and a few tears in the decals, but it still looks amazing.

I could never remove these beautiful original 01s.

The hood looks nearly perfect.

Coleco added a tiny bit of detail to the engine   Hey, whats that battery box for?

There are a lot of details to simulate driving the General Lee.  The steering wheel has some decals as well as gauges and a speedometer on the dash.

There is a big ol' horn button on the left side of the dash.  Let's see what happens when you press it down...  

Whew!  That is so '80s technology!  It's so bad, but also so good.  I have been pressing that button a lot since I got this car.  Rarely do the pedal car's electronics still work.  Ray took really good care of this one.  There are also stickers for the clock, high beams, and windshield wipers.  Nice little touches.  

The other side of the dash has the movable key.  Let's see what happens when it is turned...

Now that, that is so bad and not good.  That's almost painful to listen to.  If those sound effects sound familiar, it may be because Coleco also made a Dukes video game with horrible Dukes sound effects in it.  I wrote about it a few years ago and recorded some video gameplay.  Read the post and check out the video below.  

Back to the pedal car, the license plate has 01 on it as well as Hazzard County.

The trunk has room for a few bottles of pretend shine and some bows and arrows.

There's even a door handle and lock sticker.

The decals on the wheels are a little rough, but you can still make out the words.  All tires should say Dukes of Hazzard and General Lee on them.

DukesCollector Cooter loves pointing out that one door opens, even though it shouldn't.

The car is almost too big for him, but he can still handle himself.

Does that look like a man enjoying himself, or what?  Don't go too fast DukesCollector Cooter.

He really shines when he gets a chance to peek under the hood.  The float valve might need replaced soon.

Ray took good care of this pedal car, but Cooter is gonna make it purr.  Keep up the good work DukesCollector Cooter.

Alongside the pedal car, Ray kept the original instruction booklet.  This is quite a find.  Coleco packed a lot on information into these pages.

There are decal placement instructions, information on the electronics, all kinds of good stuff.

I am sure a lot of people wish this parts list still had parts available.  I am lucky that the door and spoiler are intact on my pedal car.  A lot of times those pieces break off or get lost.  You could originally replace every part to the pedal car. I'm so excited to have this pedal car in my collection!

Next up are multi-season DVD sets that I got from Wal-Mart.  I am always happy when I find Dukes stuff in the wild, and it doesn't get wilder than Wal-Mart.

My guess is that these sets are packaged like this so they could be priced lower.  The first set comes with just seasons one and two. 

It is basically the two individual seasons shrink wrapped together with an insert added.  It is the cheapest of the three and available on walmart.com.

Next up is the first three seasons packaged together.  This is actually in stores.  I have a smaller Wal-Mart close to me and I found it in that one.  It's also available online.

Like the two season set, this one has the three individual seasons wrapped together with the insert.  There are no additional extra features or anything new that is different from the original releases.

Only the front cover is new and the back is just the back of season 3.  I haven't watched these special features in years.  I should go back and revisit them.

And the third set collects seasons four through seven.  The front artwork follows the theme of the other two, with the original seasons artwork in a collage, but this is actually a new box.  The original boxes for the later seasons were a little bigger, so I guess it was not economically feasible just to repackage them.  This is a single clamshell package that includes a lot of discs.

 

The back of the package is new and includes a new description that tells us that John starred in Smallville and Tom starred in Longmire.

The package is thick.  It is fun to see the DVDs in a more modern box.

The box does carry a 2018 release date.  The other two sets don't have a new date because the backs are just the old releases.  I love anything Dukes of Hazzard that has a 2018 release date.

Now these new multi-season sets are in addition to the compete series set that came out in March of this year in a fancy new package.  That set is available online and in various stores that sell DVDs.

I am not sure how, but for some reason, I have two of these 2018 box sets and they are different.  One is a little smaller.  The reason is that season 4 is really thick in one of the box sets and thin in the other.  But it is weird that I don't remember buying the two different ones and only recently realized there are two different sets.  That's weird, but I am happy to have them.  If you are a crazy collector like me that has to have every different thing, be on the lookout for the "thicker season 4 2018 box set" that I just named in addition to the standard set.

This isn't the first time multiple seasons have been packaged together.  In the collection, I also found this 2 Complete Seasons set with different but similar artwork on it.  I don't know when I picked it up, but it is several years old.

I guess it was released in 2008ish.

I also have all seven seasons shrink wrapped together.  This was the first "box set" that that had no new packaging.  Again, I am not sure when I bought this set, but it's probably been here for around ten years.

And of course let's not forget the 2015 box set.  Though it came out at an unfortunate time and was initially harder to find, this set is the first to include new packaging and is a great collection.

That's a lot of different versions of the same DVDs.  A lot of times I recommend that fellow collectors go buy the new Dukes stuff available, but I recognize that having the same thing over and over can get a little repetitive.  Having this many copies of the DVDs is only for the craziest of Dukes of Hazzard collectors.  I also have each individual season that I bought at midnight at Wal-Mart the day each one was released.  I love collecting!

Next up are two foreign copies of the Dukes of Hazzard album on cassette.  These sure are odd items.

First is the British release.  It advertises John's single "In The Driver's Seat" on the cover.

The small back panel features the track listing.  There is nothing on the outside of the package that says it is the British version.  If it was sealed, I wouldn't know why it was different than the standard release.

Luckily it is not sealed and the inside of the package states it British heritage.

Next up is the Canadian version.  It features the artwork that is on the vinyl release with the track listing added below.  The track listing portion seems to have a different background cover than the rest of the artwork.

It is sealed, but has the product information visible on the back package.  It is a product of CBS Records Canada LTD.

By my count, that makes five different releases of the album on cassette.

There are two different original American releases from 1981.  One is released by Scotti Records and CBS Records and one released by Epic Records.

I have no idea why there are two different releases.

It was also re-released in 1997 on CD and Cassette, and 1997 was getting close to the end for cassettes, but not quite there.

That's a lot of different Dukes cassettes.  I am planning on doing a whole blog post dedicated to the album and all the different releases.  There are so many!

The final piece me and DukesCollector Cooter want to show off on this post is a autograph print from the golden era.  These were given out and sent out to fans while the show was on the air.  If you wrote to the show, WB would send you one of these.

I recently picked up, let's say a few of these.  Ok, it was more than a few.

The front of the print features my favorite group shot by the tree.  I just love this image.

The back has all of the cast member's autograph pre-printed.  I have seen most of the stars sign items so many times, it's cool how their signature has stayed the same for forty years.

That's it for this post, but DukesCollector Cooter has his eye on all the other new Dukes stuff that I will be blogging about soon.  Oh yeah, there is a ton of stuff on the way.