Don't tell Cooter about Britney Spears stepping into Daisy Duke's shorty shorts for a Dukes of Hazzard movie.
"It's a ludicrous idea," said Ben Jones, who played good ol' mechanic Cooter on the 1979-85 TV series, meaning no offense to the popster. "Nobody has ever worn Daisy Dukes as well as Daisy Duke."
Spears' name was floated as possible Daisy material in Thursday's Hollywood Reporter. The trade paper also noted Ashton Kutcher and Paul Walker were "expressing their interest" in playing Daisy's General Lee-driving kin, with trucker-hat fan Kutcher presumably eyeing the role of Luke (the dark-haired Duke) and Walker hot for Bo (the fair-haired Duke). The movie's said to be in the script-writing stage at Warner Bros.
Reached for comment Thursday at Jones' Sperryville, Virginia, club and museum, Cooter's Place, the self-described Dukes historian said the way he sees it, Daisy Duke was, and is, Catherine Bach, just as John Schneider's Bo Duke, Tom Wopat's Luke Duke and he's, well, Cooter.
"When people think of the Dukes of Hazzard they think of us," Jones, 61, said. "Why don't you get Bo Duke to play Bo Duke? Why don't you get Luke Duke to play Luke? Why don't you get Cooter to play Cooter?"
Jones is not the first to pose such questions. In 2001, David Soul, Hutch of TV's Starsky & Hutch, expressed similar sentiments when Ben Stiller became attached to star in a big-screen version of the 1970s cop show. Soul's lobbying efforts failed--mostly. Starsky & Hutch, the movie, is due to open next March, with Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch. But Soul and original costar Paul Michael Glaser were invited back for cameos.
Jones, who, following his days under the General Lee's hood, went on to serve two terms in Congress, said he understands that movie producers crave young stars. He even has a suggestion on how to keep both Dukes loyalists and anxious studio execs happy: Let the Kutchers, Walkers and Spearses play the Duke family's next generation; let Wopat, Schneider and Bach cameo as their original Duke selves. And most of all, let Dukes be Dukes.
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"If they try to do some sort of smart-ass thing, it won't work," Jones said.
The Dukes of Hazzard was a critically panned, but audience-embraced Top 10 hit through seven seasons on CBS. The show focused on the adventures of two good-looking cousins (Schneider and Wopat), their really fast car (a tricked-out 1969 Charger dubbed the General Lee), their even better-looking cousin (Bach), their wizened father figure (Denver Pyle as Uncle Jessie), and the corrupt Hazzard County kingpin (Sorrell Booke as Boss Hogg) who vowed, in vain, to "get them Duke boys!"
The series hit a road bump in 1982 when Wopat and Schneider held out for a bigger cut of Dukes tie-in merchandise. The powers-that-be played hardball with the actors, writing out Bo and Luke and introducing Coy (Byron Cherry) and Vance (Christopher Mayer).
The fake Dukes didn't take. One sub-standard ratings' season later, Wopat and Schneider returned. According to Jones, the experience should serve as a lesson to those would try to fill out Bo and Luke's jeans in a big-screen version.
"It was a disaster," Jones said of the Dukes' lost season. "They were nice guys, but it was a disaster. They were just blocks of wood."
Jones will recall happier Dukes days next weekend at the third annual Dukesfest, where upwards of 20,000 will converge at the Sperryville Cooter's Place to celebrate Hazzard County's finest. This year's event will mark the show's 25th anniversary. (Production on the series began in the fall of 1978.)
Original stars James Best (Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane), Sonny Shroyer (Deputy Enos Strate) and Rick Hurst (Deputy Cletus Hogg) are among those expected to appear, along with Jones.
In past years, fans have traveled from as far away as South America and Italy to pay homage to what Jones likens to a "permanent piece of Americana"--"a "B-movie Western with cars."
In the end, Jones said he wishes the makers of the Dukes movie well, and he wishes they'll stay true to the spirit of the show.
And one more thing...
"Let 'em know Cooter's available to play Cooter," Jones said, laughing.