1. JUMP-OFF POINT: Kick off the Challenge festivities by watching a movie that inspired a TV series.
The first time I watched Moonrunners, it was a strange realitization halfway through that I was watching The Dukes of Hazzard, except instead of being silly, it was depressing. I learned later — years later, the internet had to be invented — this was reworked four years later into the show that ruled childhoods in the late 70s.
The Balladeer (Waylon Jennings) sings to us about Grady (James Mitchum, who was in a movie with his father that influenced this, Thunder Road) and Bobby Lee Hagg (Kiel Martin), who run moonshine for their Uncle Jesse Hagg (Arthur Hunnicutt) in Shiloh County. A Baptist preacher, Jesse makes the same bootleg booze that his relatives have created since the Revolutionary War.
The two are lovers of fast cars and faster women, often getting arrested for fighting at The Boar’s Nest, the local bar. Grady has a stock car, #54, which is named Traveler for General Robert E. Lee’s horse.
The drama in this comes from Jake Rainey (George Ellis), the boss of the town, who sells liquor to the New York mob. He wants Jesse’s moonshine and he refuses to sell it, knowing he will mix it with poor booze to maximize profits. As he owns the local cops, he uses Sheriff Rosco Coltrane (Bruce Atkins) to railroad the boys, but they fight back.
Here’s where the sadness comes in. Uncle Jesse dies after a moonshine run and in anger, Grady and Bobby Lee take some explosive arrows and blow up all the stills of their enemies.
Directed and written by Gy Waldron, this was based in part on the life of ex-moonshiner Jerry Rushing, who was also a technical advisor. In 1977, Waldron was asked to create a nine episode replacement for CBS’ The Incredible Hulk and to develop a series based on Moonrunners.
Obviously, Bobby Lee and Grady became Bo and Luke Duke, with Uncle Jesse needing hardly any makeover other actor Denver Pyle taking over the role. Boss Jake Rainey, who is called a hog in the movie, because Boss Hogg yet kept Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane, down to almost the exact same dialogue that introduces him in the film and the first episode of the series, “One-Armed Bandits.” Daisy Duke, a female cousin, was added, as was a different mechanic character named Cooter who was played by Ben Jones, who was a revenue agent in Moonrunners.
The series that resulted would be the number two show on network TV and last seven seasons. A movie that feels a lot like a Roger Corman movie would be the perfect inspiration for people who conceived children at the drive-in and were now stuck at home on Friday nights, their stock cars traded in for station wagons.
B&S About Movies 
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