At Long Last! The WMS Dukes Of Hazzard Slot Machine Decorations!

I've been trying to get my hands on this stuff for so long!  It's 2019, and I first wrote about the Dukes of Hazzard Slot Machine in 2012!  I was just a budding blogger then, with less than a year of sharing my collection with the world under my belt.  I scoured message boards, wrote so many emails, and called casinos all to try to track down anything from the slot machine, but nothing worked.  I had a few leads that never panned out and made some connections, but I was never any closer to getting anything.  And then in the last month, I went from having next to nothing to assembling every piece.  I was trying to acquire the items from casino insiders when I should have just stayed inside my wheelhouse.  I got them where I get most my stuff.  One piece came from ebay and the rest from a fellow diehard Dukes fanatic.   Let's take a look at these amazing additions to the collection.

The largest piece is the "Big Money Rev Up" board.  When playing the game, if you get a bonus, the screen says look up and the different bonuses rev like the engine of the General Lee.  They light up as they rev.  The board features Luke, Daisy, and Bo as well as Boss Hogg and the classic Dukes logo.  The boarder is orange with a blue and gold star trim.  It definitely has a great Dukes look to it.  The board measures 26 inches long by 23 inches high.  It's big.  I placed some lights behind it to show off the features.

The bottom has Warner Bros.'s legal information on it as well as warnings about malfunctions and results on the video screen being final.  Luke approves.

WMS's information is in the corner.  The game displays a 2006 copyright year, but I don't remember hearing about this game until a few years later.  Could I have been that out of the loop?  Table and slots became legal in my state, Pennsylvania, in 2010, so maybe I wasn't paying attention for a bit.  Curious.

The back of the big board is complicated.  There are individual light sections behind each bonus amount.  Being a part of the game, the rev up board has a lot of electronics attached.  The rest of the design is partly see-through so light can shrine through.

The next piece isn't as flashy as the rest, but is basically the heart of the machine.  This is the LED board that displays the jackpot.  In casinos, the slot jackpots are progressive.  They kept getting higher until someone wins.  I suppose that would attract people to play certain machines.  Being a Dukes of Hazzard machine is the only aspect that would attract me.

This beast measures 16 inches long, by 8 inches deep and is 7 inches high.  It is very heavy.  It's so dense that it is hard to move around.  The front is all LED lights that can display different messages.

That's a lot of lights.

The side has different ports for computer wires.  I figured it was just an LED board and not very interesting until I noticed a hinge on one side.  I unscrewed one screw and made a really fun discovery inside.

The LED side opens up and gives access to the controls.  Maybe these parts need maintenance sometimes.

I'm tech savvy, but this stuff is above my pay grade.

I then noticed what looks like a key on the right side.  I turned the key and was incredibly excited about what I discovered inside. 

Behold!  The motherboard!  I kind of figured these were all just decorations and the actual controls would be inside the video screen or something.  But it's all right here.  Every little light, flash, and strobe is controlled by this CPU.  All the wires are intact and everything looks brand new.

To me, the mother board looks just like one from a standard desktop computer.  To the left is the hidden jackpot.

Connected to the motherbaord is a Compactflash memory card that includes WMS's Dukes of Hazzard software.  

The card comes out very easily and can be admired.  The card has a 64mb storage capacity.  It just so happens that I have a multicard reader next to my computer that accepts the compactflash format.  I had to pop this bad boy in to see what was inside.  Turns out not much.  There are two .hex files, a .dat file and a .txt file.  I could only open the .txt and it just had a bunch of random text on it.  I don't know what the other three files contain.  Still, this is a great little bonus that could come in rather handy down the road.  

Here's the back of the memory card.

The next decoration is, well, unique.  This stylized old school television has a great graphic of the Duke cousins and their light-hearted nemesis (nemisisi?)  The design of the TV resembles some kind of retro '50s look.  I would guess that several of WMS's games that have older TV themes share this odd TV with each graphic inside.  This is a very commonly used image of Bo, Luke, and Daisy, but both pictures of Boss and Rosco are on the seldom used side.  Boss has his signature hat in his hand and I always thought of this picture of Rosco as more of a picture of James Best out of character.  His uniform is unbuttoned and he is being a little more stern than Rosco ever was.  It seems like James really knows what he's talking about, which was rarely ever the case with ol' Rosco P. Coltrane.

The TV measures 12 inches high and the top is 14 inches long.  The sides have simulated air vents to maintain that old school look.

The back has the console look to it.

There is an electronic base that has a circular florescent light attached.  It fits inside the TV.

All of the wires are intact and have connectors.  The wires also have WMS Gaming info on them.

Next up is a stunning glass panel.  On the machine, it is below the video screen beside the money intake.  It features a great image of Boss Hogg and has really fun text on it.  I'm all about Dukes of Hazzard bonuses!  It measures just under 5 inches by 11 inches.

It is built for a back light so you can see the image on the back.  I stuck a light behind it to really show it off.

It has part numbers and WMS gaming info along the top.  This text would be hidden if it were in the machine.

And now the General Lee!  The behemoth sits on top of the whole shabang like a king on his throne.  The Gen'ral looks down on you as you try to win all the money.  It's positioned like it's about to drive into your lap or even drive right into your garage.  It is huge.  The General measures in at 18 inches long and all the faux wood base make it 13 inches high.

To show how big this Gen'ral is, I lined it up beside the rather large golden era bank and the standard 1/18 diecast.  The 1/18 is almost always the big boy when lined up with other replicas, but it looks tiny in this shot.

The General Lee has a barn-bustin' theme going for it.  It is similar to the classic Knickerbocker Barn Buster set and also the 2014 Hallmark Jumpin' General Lee Ornament.  The wheels are well done and look accurate.

The base is bigger than the car.  You don't really see the back of the car so the license plate isn't there.  The tailights are nicely detailed though.

The passenger side wheel is missing because it is hidden from view.  You've got to hand it to WMS for creating all of these pieces from scratch.  They didn't copy anything already made.

This is a fun angle for the car.  Unfortunately WMS did not include the push bar.  Along with the orange paint, the numbers, the flag, and the wheels, the push bar is one of the details that makes a Charger a General Lee.  It is missed on this rendition.

There is no flag on this car.  WMS didn't go the route of leaving the General Lee bald and designed their own solution.  They popped the 01 on the roof along with some stars.  I dig it.  It resembles the look but doesn't include the flag.  It's better than nothing.  The 01 on the roof looks pretty good.

The one on the door, though, is a little off.  The top of the 1 just isn't right.

An angle at the top of the 1 just throws everything out of order.  Most people wouldn't notice it, but we Dukes fanatics sniff it out immediately.  It could be worse though.

There is a tiny part number running along the decal.  

The back of the base has indentations for other pieces when assembled.

There is also a light thing that looks like a mix between a police light and a light house.  It must have been on the barn the Gen'ral Lee is bustin' through.

The bottom of the base is metal and there are quite a few wires connected.  If I remember correctly, the front end of the car lights up, along with the two front wheels, in red, and the light pole thing lights up.  That would account for the four wires.

The larger pieces have part number stickers.  Here is the info for those taking notes at home.

There are several different connections at the end of the wires.  They connect to the LED board and its innards.  I'm very happy that none of the wires are severed.

The last piece is Ol's Rosco's patrol car.  It's also on a base, but it isn't bustin' through a barn.  More like spashin' through some mud.

The patrol car doesn't have about 25% of its rear end to make room for other decorations.

It basically looks like Rosco was chasing the Duke Boys and smashed his car, or crushed his car, or almost destroyed his car in all the creative ways that put a smile on Cooter's face.

Another creative license that WMS took was adding a Hazzard County Sheriff badge to the hood of the car.  Maybe they thought the one on the door wasn't enough.  The design isn't totally accurate, but again, it's more like one of those "only Dukes fanatics will see it" kind of inaccuracies.  The most important thing is that they spelled Hazzard correctly.

The badge is also on the side of the car, where it belongs.

The Rosco car is substantially smaller than the Gen'ral.

They are not in scale to each other at all.  You can really see the divot that is taken out of the patrol car for the other decorations in this shot.  The lightbar is a simple rendition, but accurate.

The Rosco car is smaller than the bank but still larger than the 1/18.  It really is a rare occasion when the 1/18 is dwarfed.

The bottom of this base is also metal and has two wires sticking out.  I think maybe the headlights flash and the light bar lights up.

More part numbers!

There is also an additional WMS branded wire that wasn't connected to anything.  Not sure where it goes.  

I didn't think I would be able to easily reassemble it all.  The LED board has screws sticking out of the bottom that don't come out.  I got some old scrap paper and balanced it on the piles so the screws weren't protruding through.  The retro TV sits inside the cut away part of the Rosco car.  The General Lee base sits on top the the LED board.  There are screws and holes in all the parts so they can be assembled permanently.  It really has a fun design when all together.

This mass of Dukes of Hazzard goodness weighs over twenty pounds and is over two feet wide.  I love this thing so much.

In the casino, the video screen is at eye level, with the rev up board above that and the cars and LED bonus board on top of that.  I've recreated that look here.  The Boss Hogg bonus panel is below the video screen in the casino, but I placed it in front of the blank LED board for this picture.  This monstrosity is over four feet tall!  And I love every inch of it!

I have been looking for any little piece of this slot machine for nearly a decade.  I first laid eyes on it at the Meadows Casino in Washington, PA.  There are still four Dukes slot machines there and the Slot Tech Manager tells me it is a very popular machine.  I don't have the actual slot machine, but I got every decoration for it.  With all of the wires intact and the motherboard and flash card being here, in theory I could find a compatible slot machine and install all these goodies.  Maybe down the road.  I'd still love to get my hands on one straight from a casino.

I was talking with fellow Dukes fanatic, the Dutch Duke Boy, Serge Klaucke and he mentioned that he had the set but wasn't sure if he wanted to sell it.  A few days later, the Boss Hogg glass panel popped up on ebay.  I contacted the seller to see if she had any other pieces.  She told me she found it in a storage locker she bought in Reno, NV.  I got the panel right before Christmas, and right after New Years I worked out a deal to buy Serge's pieces.  Turns out he had everything but the Boss Hogg panel.  Serge is, of course, in the Netherlands so the items had to be shipped, but they got here quicker than most ebay purchases.  Thanks so much for the excellent packing job Serge!  Your collection is in good hands!  I think it's so crazy how I had nothing from the slot machine and all of a sudden I have everything.  What a wonderful addition to the collection.  I'm so excited about it.  Now where am I going to put all these huge pieces?