How much did Dukes of Hazard ratings fall during dispute?

Schneider and Wopat left the show for a season. i'm assuming it was $$ dispute. I remember still watching the show with replacements.

Just curious if ratings took a dive or were they still respectable.

 

No idea but I watched it too. Don't remember much about it, I was a kid. I struggle now to watch any episodes of the show.

From wiki:

The Dukes of Hazzard was consistently among the top-rated television series (at one point, ranking second only to Dallas, which immediately followed the show on CBS' Friday night schedule). With that success came huge profits in merchandising, with a wide array of Dukes of Hazzard toys and products being licensed and becoming big sellers. However, over the course of the show's fourth season, series stars Tom Wopat and John Schneider became increasingly concerned about a contract dispute over their salaries and merchandising royalties owed to them over the high sales of Dukes products. Neither were being paid what was owed to them and this became very frustrating to the duo. As a result, in the spring of 1982, as filming was due to begin on the fifth season, Wopat and Schneider did not report to the set in protest over the matter. Catherine Bach also considered walking out due to similar concerns, but Wopat and Schneider convinced her to stay, insisting that if she left then there may not be a show to come back to, and that settling the issue was up to them

The new Dukes — previously-unmentioned nephews of Uncle Jesse, who were said to have left the farm in 1976, before the show had started — were unpopular with the great majority of viewers, and the ratings immediately sank. Much of the criticism was that Coy and Vance were nothing but direct clones of Bo and Luke, with Coy a direct "carbon copy" replacement for Bo and Vance for Luke, with little variation in character. This was something that even show creator Gy Waldron has said was wrong,[6] and that he insisted, unsuccessfully, that audiences would not accept direct character clones and the two replacements should be taken in a different direction characterwise, but was overridden by producers. Waldron also commented that if Bach too had walked, the show would have most probably been cancelled. It was reported that prior to filming, Cherry and Mayer were given Bo and Luke episodes to watch, to study and learn to emulate them, although Cherry has said in interviews that he doesn't recall this ever happening.

Hit hard by the significant drop in ratings, Warner Bros. renegotiated with Wopat and Schneider, and eventually a settlement was reached, and the original Duke boys returned to the series in early 1983, four episodes from the conclusion of the fifth season. Initially, part of the press release announcing Wopat and Schneider's return suggested that Cherry and Mayer would remain as part of the cast (though presumably in a reduced role),[7] but it was quickly realized that "four Duke boys" would not work within the context of the series, and due to the huge unpopularity associated with their time on the show, they were quickly written out of the same episode in which Bo and Luke returned.

 

I also had this as a kid and I remember playing it with my mom and dad. Never could get my older brothers to play:

 

Actually sounds like Schneider and Wopat played it smart by telling Bach to stay

 

My mother hated that show so much I could only watch in when I was babysitting. Somehow I don't ever even recall seeing the Cherry and Mayer episodes.

 

Wow. The show ran it's course pretty quick

 

I didn't even realize it lasted until 1985.

 

Today's TV shows would kill for 13.8M viewers.

 

Apart from tuning in to catch a glimpse of Daisy, I'm surprised it got any ratings at all!

 

Why? What else was on TV back then? Not every one had cable.

 

It was certainly popular among grade schoolers; I remember watching it when I was in elementary school, which was up until the walkout season.

 

Because it was awful, imho.

 

Sometimes turning the tv off is the best choice.

 

It's awful seeing that Hogg was worth 10 points when Daisy was only worth 5. She'd be worth more than anyone else in my game.

 

Not only that, he had TWO cards and the other was a "Hogg Wild".

 

You mean your 2017 self or your 1980 self?
My 1980 self loved the show and watched it every week. My 2017 self not so much.
Perspective is everything.

 

Me too. I watched it every week. I enjoyed it back then.

 

As a kid in the 80s most of my friends and I shifted our attention to Knight Rider because KITT was awesome. I guess that's why I have no recollection of DOH even being on in '85.

 

Never liked it, I'm afraid.

 

Too busy to watch TV back then. I was aware of the show's existence, but was also working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week in a factory. Even after buying a VCR in late 1979, it never occurred to me to tape it. Never really sat down in front of an episode, until at my in-laws, 1983 - ? then all I remember was Daisy. Even ended up with a poster of her I still have, rolled up next to the famous Farrah poster.

 

I couldn't always watch it every week because we had one TV, but up until 1983 or so I loved watching this. I can recall tuning into some episodes later and it had two seemingly generic characters playing "the Duke boy's cousins" or some such nonsense as a stand-in for the two main actors. Just awful. But as a testament to it's popularity, I worked at a Toys-R-Us around 1985 or so and they were still selling an electric General Lee car for kids. It even beep-beeped a short electronic version of the TV car's custom horn jingle. This show was a huge hit with kids. Spencer Gifts also had posters of Daisy Duke and sometimes even the Duke Boys well into the 1980s.

 

I watched every episode of the series. I was twelve when it came on the air and nineteen when it was canceled. If you'd like to read a few fun facts related to the show, I'm about to share them.

#1- In the early 1980s, Johnny Cash cut and released a record titled "General Lee" in which he sang as though he was the car itself.
#2 - While he and Tom Wopat were away from the show, John Schneider cut a recording of "It's Now Or Never". To my ears, it sounded good then and holds up nicely all these years later.
#3- When members of the cast appeared on a celebrity edition of "Family Feud", Catherine Bach got all 200 points in the bonus round on her own. If I recall correctly,
she gave all five number one answers.

The show was very popular with myself and most of my friends. There were two brothers in our little hamlet of Glen Aubrey, New York who loved the show so much they bought a 1969 Dodge Charger and painted it to look just like the car on the show. They even managed somehow to track down one of the horns that plays the opening notes of "Dixie". Their one concession to what must be, was to not weld the doors shut so they could keep the car street legal.

 

Great tid bits. I believe the Waylon theme song sold quite well. Did Waylon narrarate every season?

I did notice, as a kid, the same car jump scenes were used over and over. Probably filmed from multiple angles. Destroying cars can get expensive.

I wonder how many cars were actually used during the run

 

I have read somewhere online an exact figure for the number of cars wrecked by the show. Wikipedia perhaps? (If you consider them a reliable resource). I have also read that in collector car circles the show went though so many cars that this particular year and model of vehicle is supposedly very hard to get ahold of today.

I heard the Waylon version of the theme on the radio back when the show was popular. Just the good ole boys!