League of Extraordinary Bloggers Weekly Theme: Sweet Ride!

This week's topic: Besides the Batmobile, what is the sweetest ride cruising the streets of pop culture?

Between my pop culture vehicle themed art and recent blog posts, it's no secret that I looooove vehicles from movies and TV. In fact, the very first League post that I wrote was dedicated to my 5 top favorite vehicles from pop culture. But now Brain (our fearless League leader) has forced me to pick just one, and to make it even more difficult, we can't pick any incarnation of the Batmobile.

And for the record, I would have gone with the 1966 version. Just sayin'.

Anyway, my second favorite pop culture ride was a no-brainer for me. All I had to do was turn my head slightly to the left and look at my Dukes of Hazzard shelves and the multitude of General Lee toys and other Dukes collectibles with that classic orange '69 Dodge Charger and the answer was pretty clear.

Now don't get me wrong. I love the Ecto-1 and the Back to the Future Delorean, but for sheer 4-wheeled sexiness, it doesn't get any more sweet than the General Lee.

I don't exactly know what it is about this car that I love. Ever since this show grabbed hold of me when I was in a kid, I have reserved a place in my heart for this car. It's kind of weird, since I usually have an aversion to anything Southern. But this show gave me an idealized, more innocent version of the South, I guess. Normally I cringe at the sight of the rebel flag, but for some reason, I'm okay with it when it's on the top of the General Lee. I think that after having lived in the South for 17 years, and hating just about every minute of it, my love for the show strengthened as I wished that this was how the South really was.

But this post is just about the car. This was the first TV show that I remember thinking of the vehicle belonging to the main characters as a character unto itself. The General Lee had personality. It practically had a voice, like R2D2, but instead of talking in electronic beeps and whistles, it spoke in the screech of its tires, the rev of its engine and the horn that bellowed out Dixie as it flew through the air.

I guess that's why I can't stop buying toy versions of it. I've even taken to collecting knock offs of the General Lee. Once the show became a big hit, every toy company from Hot Wheels, to Matchbox, to Buddy L, to Tootsie Toy were cranking out cars that were orange with a Confederate flag on top (even if the numbers on the door were 07 or 10). Not to many other famous cars from a TV show can claim so many imitators.

So, that's my pick. The General Lee. The finest car to ever grace the small screen (and the big screen too, if you count that horrible movie).

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Video Blog #20

Yeeeeeeeeeeeee HAW! A Look at My General Lee Collection!

I've never kept it secret that I have been a dyed-in-the-wool Dukes of Hazzard fan since I saw the very first episode when I was 5 years old. I had a bunch of Dukes toys back in the day and have recently gotten on a kick collecting as many toy General Lees (and their plethora of knock-offs) as possible.

So let's take a gander at my little garage full of orange muscle cars. (Click all images to view Boss Hogg size.)

The first General Lee is my most prized in the collection and one that I loved dearly as a kid. It took me a while to find another one (that I could afford) on eBay, but one finally popped up and not long after that, I managed to find the Bo and Luke action figures that originally came with the 1:18 scale Mego classic...

Next up is one of the many oddball knock-offs that were everywhere back in the day. Every junky toy company tried to get in on the Dukes craze, remolding whatever toy car they already had in orange plastic, slapping a confederate flag on the top an adding whatever number most resembled an "01". In this case we got an "07". I really dig the arbitrary "REBEL" sticker.

Next we have a sweet "rev-and-go" action General Lee that originally came with some sort of stunt set, complete with country fences to crash through and barns to jump over. I just have the car. Nice spoiler, eh?

Who remembers Wrist Racers? Yeah, they were hella bad ass, and having a little wind up General Lee on your wrist was double bad ass back in 2nd grade. I won so many Twinkies with this bad boy at recess.

Next up we have the gen-yew-wine article! The ERTL 1:64 scale General Lees were a staple of kid-dom back in my day. Every single boy (and a couple of girls) that I knew back then had one of these. I went through a few myself. Here we see a couple of versions; the original with the white printed stickers and the later, arguably nicer looking clear printed sticker version.

This next little orange oddity is what I believe to be a knock off from a company called "Tootsie Toy", makers of low-grade toy cars back in the '60s-'80s. I found this one in a cheap-bin in a junk shop. It was all of 25 cents. Score!

A smaller cousin to the Wrist Racer General Lee was this little baby version that actually launched from a tiny ramp worn on your finger. Not as cool. But adorable.

Not quite a knock off, but clearly highly influenced by the show's success, Hot Wheels came out with their very own orange muscle car, complete with confederate flag on top. This is rather uncharacteristic of such a company as Hot Wheels, but I can't blame them; The Dukes of Hazzard was the hottest thing on TV back then.

And finally, my tiniest of General Lees from the Racing Champions line. The detail of a toy car not much larger than a penny is astounding!  I had to fork over quite a bit to grab this one on eBay (well, quite a bit for a tiny toy car) and still couldn't resist taking it out of its packaging and displaying with the rest of its brethren.Seriously... how cute is this little guy?

So, that's my General Lee collection! There are only a few more out there that I'd like to add. Some are a bit too expensive and some are hard to get a hold of (most of those are from other countries), but that's the point of collecting; getting them eventually through patiently hunting.

Anyway, see you Monday with another video blog, and thanks for reading! Yeeeeeeee HAW!