When The Chip Is Down

Chip Mayer, the Fredo of the Duke clan, has died at the age of 57. In 1982, Tom Wopat and John Schneider pulled a Drysdale-Koufax and joined forces to negotiate new contracts before returning to The Dukes of Hazzard. With good reason, CBS assumed Dukes’ ratings were based more on the sex appeal of the General Lee, Catherine Bach and Denver Pyle than the two stars, and hatched a strike-busting plan. Knowing how much rednecks love cousins, the Tiffany Network replaced Bo and Luke with cousins Vance (played by Mayer) and Coy (played by Byron Cherry) faster than you can say Curly Joe DeRita, and the wacky antics, car jumping and Roscoe-taunting continued. But hicks and pre-teen boys are a fickle bunch and never warmed to the nouveau Dukes, who left Hazzard County as suddenly as they had appeared when Wopat and Schneider, having been shown the money, resumed their hood-sliding ways after 19 episodes.