Home

This was something I wanted to point out three years ago but either didn’t have the technology at the time to make the screen caps, didn’t have that particular season of the Dukes to make the caps or my laptop at the time was just a piece of crap and I couldn’t upload the darn things somewhere.

As you know, in 2005 Warner Brothers released the big screen version of the Dukes of Hazzard with Johnny Knoxville, Sean William Scott and Jessica Simpson. Also with Willie Nelson as Uncle Jesse, Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg and M.C. Gainey as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane.

Although Burt Reynolds’ connection to the Dukes is via working with James Best on some films back in the 1970’s, M.C. Gainey was the only actor in the 2005 movie who actually appeared on an episode of the original Dukes of Hazzard back in 1982.

Here he is from that episode (Bad Day in Hazzard), looking menacing as usual…

What’s interesting to note, and was the big deal I wanted to make three years ago, is the irony of all this. As he was in a few scenes with the original Rosco…

The best part tho’ is when Daisy gets the upper hand against him…

Heheheheh, you go girl!

Anyway, at the time of the ‘05 movie I remember being a little put out that the Rosco in the film wasn’t a bumbling idiot but was a ruthless, evil, SOB.  Played by a guy who’s made his entire career by playing ruthless, evil, SOBs. I was especially put out when I read somewhere that Gainey said something about how the original Rosco was “cornball” or something like that. Well, duh! That was the whole idea! You were on the show, man, weren’t you paying attention back in ‘82?!

I took the cornball remark as disparaging at the time (the whole thing about the movie seemed disparaging at the time). However, as I was putting this blog post together, I found the following statement by Gainey speaking of himself. He says…

“With a face like this, there aren’t a lot of lawyers or priest roles coming my way. I’ve gotta face that was meant for a mug shot and that’s what I’ve been doing for the past thirty years. If I play a cop, it’s always a racist cop, or a trigger-happy cop or a crooked cop - but by and large I play cowboys, bikers, and convicts.”

And not bumbling Sheriffs.  Gainey elaborated on that further in this interview done sometime around the time the Dukes movie came out. I wish I had seen this interview instead of the “cornball” comment three years ago, perhaps I wouldn’t have been feeling quite so critical.

Of course, after three years it’s all moonshine under the bridge right? Right. Still, I feel better having got this off my mind now. Better late than never. Heh!

Yeah, I’m back to Bill again. Heh heh! But this is interesting tho’!

Check this out. There’s a comic version of Greatest American Hero coming out soon and via a sneak peak at MTV.com, we can see what a few of the panels look like. The four panels feature heavily on Bill and also show us Ralph. Take a lookie here.

So I’m looking at these panels and I’m thinkin’, “This is cool! Can’t wait for this to come out…” and I’m looking some more and looking at Bill and thinkin’, “Yep, that looks pretty much like him…pretty good rendering…” and then I’m realizing that some of this is looking familiar.

Really familiar. I’ve done too many screen caps of Mr. Maxwell y’all and this just proves it. Take a look…

And then I’m thinkin’, “Man, that whole diner scene looks familiar….”

Familiar?! Holy bleep! If I had capped Bill when he was looking at the television instead of turned giving the guy next to him some static about trying to hear the tv, well…it’d be almost a mirror image. Yeah, I know, the comic has a girl waitress and the screen cap is a guy and there’s a ton of other minor differences but other than that, it’s pretty obvious the art work is based heavily on that scene. Now y’all gotta understand. I didn’t go lookin’ for the TGAH caps, I already had them in my collection. Which just proves I’ve capped too much of this show.  It’s all Bill’s fault!

Anyway, can’t wait to see the comic tho’! And who knows what more similarities I might find!

Since I mentioned coffee and donuts in the previous post about feeding all my cop muses, I was searching around for a screen cap to post for this week and came across this one from Starsky and Hutch…

That’s Arlene’s Donuts somewhere in Los Angeles. I coulda swore at one time I saw something about this donut shop on tv (the Travel Channel or the Food Channel or whatever) within the past few years but a Google search turned up very little about the place and there’s doubts it even still exists today. Apparently however, it was once a well known and successful shop.

Also interesting to note how Starsky’s Torino is almost like a rolling Coca-Cola sign…

I was screen capping some stuff for the Rockford Files awhile back and happened to catch this scene from the episode “The Dark and Bloody Ground.” Jim’s in the blue car that’s making the turn (he’s supposed to be in Arizona). What caught my eye was the gas prices at the Union76 station behind him.

 Wow huh? Fifty-seven freakin’ cents! And that was 1974…during the first oil/fuel crisis following the OPEC embargo of ‘73.  Of course, the difference between then and now is that it wasn’t so much that gas was outrageously expensive, it’s that it was in extremely short supply. We have yet to experience the 2008 version of gas rationing and waiting in line at the gas station to fill up on even or odd days only based on your license plate number. I ain’t sure which is worse, the $4 a gallon gas we pay now, or having to endure a true fuel shortage and I’m not sure I want to experience the shortage to find out.

Also interesting to note that, given my previous Screen Cap O’ The Week featured Bill Maxwell from The Greatest American Hero, the street that Jim is turning onto is…Palmdale Ave.

I’d call this a new regular feature for this blog but…nothing’s regular about this blog. I got enough screen caps now from various shows/movies I could probably do this each week for the next erm…uh, well for a long time. I dunno if I’m going to do this each week but it might prompt me to post to my blog more often if I have a particular screen cap I wanna share. (And at that point it would be  a regular feature! Brilliant!)

So here you go! Kicking off with our first Screen Cap o’ the Week it’s Robert Culp as Bill Maxwell from The Greatest American Hero episode “It’s All Downhill From Here” (I like to think of this one as “Squaw Valley Serenade”). Bill sportin’ the grey three-piece suit, a nice scarf, black winter gloves (as they’re up at a ski resort - no overcoat, Bill?) and….two guns.

Frankly, the two gun thing almost borders on being over the top but….holy crap, the look on his face alone gives pause. He means bidness. GAAAAHHH!!!

Speaking of more screen caps, long time readers will recall back in January 2008 I did a Dukes of Hazzard slide show, using screen caps from the first season and set to Willie Nelson’s “Georgia On My Mind.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeDbXFTi0SA .

Well, I’ve made another slide show dedicated to the Super Fed, Mr. Maxwell.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SKcIJt8dvk#. I call it a first draft as I may change it around but I haven’t received any comments on it (outside of close friends). In fact, neither slideshow has gotten so much as a “this sucks!” comment or a poor rating. Not that I’m looking for bad ratings, but…gee whiz.

Yes, whine whine. No, I can’t afford the cheese to go with it, the economy being what it is.