The fun continues with another post full of Dukes of Hazzard goodies. This time we have a super rare jacket, an Uncle Jesse autograph, some belt buckle stickers and some premiere invitations.
Oh yeah, and some Kid Rock backstage passes. Way back in 2013,
Jeff gifted me a pair of Kid Rock passes from is 2002-2003 tour that was adorned with Crazy Cooter's smiling mug on them. All these years later I had the opportunity to snag a few more Dukes inspired passes from the same tour. The two Jeff bought me were blue and said "working" on the bottom. I grabbed a couple different colors of that same pass as well as a Boss Hogg and Flash "vip" pass in orange and blue and two passes with Daisy and a word bubble saying "Don't do anything I wouldn't do" in both blue and orange.
The orange ones are the best color but they are a little hard to see. Kid Rock is a big Dukes fan so of course he would incorporate the best show ever into his world tour. Glad I can add to the ones Jeff got me. I wonder if there are any more out there.
Next up are a few sheets of stickers that have a familiar image on them. I wonder what they could be.
They aren't just any old stickers intended for a sticker book or your school locker. And what's that? On each sticker there is an oval cut out? It appears to cut out a good bit of the General's flag and a lot of the background.
I bought these on ebay and the seller didn't know what they were. The paper is thicker than normal sticker paper. I recognized the image right away and knew that these were used in the production of the Bo and Luke belt buckle. This may not be as interesting as the Cast and Crew Belt Buckle mold, or the buckle owned by John Schneider, but is is still a production piece not meant for public consumption. It's really interesting to see how much of the original image was cut off to fit on the belt shape. Each page has six images printed on it.
Oh, and I bought a bunch. It's funny because in 2014,
I bought a belt that originally had this image on it and then was covered by some horses and was then ruined when they seller tried to get the horses off. I could technically fix that damaged belt with one of these stickers. It's as if I was meant to buy these production stickers. If I only had one sheet, I would never consider taking one off, but I have four sheets, maybe I should fix it. Hmmm...
Here are a couple of really fun items. One of my best Dukes experiences was
attending the Hollywood premiere of the 2005 movie. I walked the red carpet and hobnobbed with the stars and director. It was an amazing evening that I'll never forget. I love finding items that remind me of that night. I have a few other premiere invitations and I am loving getting more. This is an invitation to the "FDA Mult-Media Screening" at the Odeon West End theater in London. The front has the movie Z logo in red against a black background.
The reverse side has the specifics about the screening. In England, the FDA is a trade union that represents public service professionals and managers. I suppose they oversee movies and hold the screening as an inspection to monitor the quality of the motion picture. Thank you google. This screening took place on August 11, 2005, which was after the movie opened in the U. S. on August 5. The movie opened in the UK on August 24 of that year. The design of this invitation is simple but stands out. But it's not the only invitation printed for that screening.
This is the second most unique premiere invitation I have. It is for the same screening as the above invite. It has a lot going on so we will start with what I guess is the back. If you think the photo or representation of the colors is a little off, you are incorrect. This is a rebel flag but instead of being red, white and blue, it's orange, white and blue. Where the red should be is General Lee orange. I do believe this is the first Dukes of Hazzard item I've ever seen with this color flag on it. It looks a little off at first, but honestly, it kind of works. The more I look at this, the more I like it. Strange that there has never been another instance of this on a Dukes item. There is a tiny Village Roadshow and Warner Bros. logo on the bottom.
The opposite side has the beginning of a sentence in familiar font. It resembles the General Lee lettering but is in all caps. It looks identical to the numbers font used in the beginning of the trailer, that was also shown against an orange background. Maybe the printers wanted to save on ink and just printed the flag above using the same background as this side. This invite is a fold out.
When you fold open the next section, the sentence is completed to read "This summer there's one movie guaranteed to give you the horn." The folded out page has a picture of Jessica's lower half. To us Americans, this line might be a little confusing. The phrase has a different meaning to our British friends. Given the context clues from the picture of half of Daisy, you might be able to figure out the "give you the horn" means to arouse someone. Odd choice for an invitation...
But when you fully open the invite, you see it's the old bait and switch and the horn mentioned is the actual Dixie horn of the General Lee and the familiar melody is written out, at least the first ten notes. I've never seen the notes spelled out as "der" but I've also never seen the flag in orange or heard the "give you the horn" line so I guess we are learning a lot from this invitation. Jessica/Daisy's full image is shown along with Sean and Johnny's Bo and Luke laughing at the joke. This is a very strange but very fun invitation.
The back side fully unfolded has a lot of orange.
The screening information is similar to the black invitation. I wonder who decided which individuals received the simpler one and who got the provocative fold out. I'm glad I have both.
I now have six different premiere invitations. These two from England accompany another I had for a later premiere in the UK, one from Miami, and an a press screening in Hollywood. They are all great, but the best one I have is from the actual premiere that I attended at the Chinese Theater is Hollywood on July 28.
Each invite is unique and very displayable. The one on top is from my screening. I didn't receive it as my invitation was more last minute and consisted of one of the best phone calls I ever received. I bought the invite later on. The front is a cutout of the General Lee and the inside shows the cast. There is a little mechanism behind Jessica that I believe once played Dixie, but the battery is dead and I would have to tear it to get to the chip and there is no way I'm doing that. I have to be getting close to owning all the WB printed invitations to any screening of the movie, but you never know what's out there. Does anyone know if I'm missing any?
Next up is a page from an early '80s issue of Variety magazine that has a congratulations to Denver Pyle, our Uncle Jesse, from the Lew Sherrell Agency. The agency represented Denver and they paid for the page to congratulate Denver for being a part of the successful season of the highly rated program and to invite the public to watch his directorial efforts . R.I.P Henry Flatt was the first of twelve episodes Denver directed.
Having the page alone would be cool enough, but somewhere along the line, Denver autographed it. Uncle Jesse's signature is tricky to find and most times it's personalized. This page is unique enough that I had to have it.
I would say that some of the most common Dukes toys are the Ertl 1/64 General Lees and the Mego 3 and 3/4 inch Bo and Luke figures. They were the biggest toys in 1981 that didn't have to do with a galaxy far far away and every kid had them in their toybox. These two examples of Mego Bo and Luke, though, aren't common at all.
While perusing ebay, which I do from time to time. I noticed something was a little different about these plastic Duke Boys. What caught my eye was the white portion of Luke's chest piece. The white line was narrower than usually. The seller didn't have anything posted about these figures being different so I took a gamble and bought them.
Upon further inspection, there's definitely something fishy about these Dukes.
Both Bo and Luke have a totally different chest piece and it includes a sheriff badge molded into it.
You can see the difference from a regular Bo figure on the right and this unique one on the left.
Here is the unique Luke on the left, and the regular one on the right. The different white portion really stands out. A little research confirms that the chest piece is actually from Mego's CHIPs figures that came out before the Dukes line. Mego was notorious for reusing parts but it's strange to see these Bo and Luke figures with CHIPs parts like this. The crotch piece is also different from the normal figure, but it isn't on the CHIPs figures. I have no idea that these figures are different. Maybe they were prototypes or made toward the end of the line and Mego was running out of parts. They don't give me any indication they are custom as the paint is spot on with the standard figures. It's a mystery. A Dukes mystery and that's the best kind.
My final addition in the post is such a doozy.
About a year ago I wrote a post about the blue Dukes windbreaker jacket form King Jack and said I had to get my hands on the orange version. Mission accomplished. I was aware this jacket existed but knew it was in the super rare category. I didn't know the blue one existed and I proclaimed it was rarer than the orange one. No matter which one is more rare, I now have them both in my collection!
This jacket has such a lasting design. I said it about the blue jacket, and it holds up with the orange one; if this wasn't so rare, I would wear it all the time. It has such a great look to it.
The giant 01 along with the strips that go down the arms are blue. In the post about the blue jacket, I assumed the 01 and strips were black.
The Dukes logo on the front in white is the same as the blue jacket. It has TM and copywrite WB 1981 on it.
Just like the blue one, this is an adult XL which means it fits this Duke Boy perfectly. It's odd that these jackets were made for adults when most of the clothing from the golden era were created for kids. I'm not complaining though, I might wear this to a formal event or Hazzard County spring affair.
These two jackets are incredibly hard to find and I'm super happy to have found both. I know the orange one originally came with a little pouch that it folds into and I assume the blue one did too but I've never seen a picture of it. I am still on the hunt for the pouches. But if I came across either of these jackets unused with the pouch, you know I never would have taken them out and seen how wonderful they are and how perfectly they fit me. Hopefully I'll find some unopened versions with the pouches of both down the road.
