The Dukes of Hazzard first appears in the 1981 Mego catalog. Mego paid a mere $2,500.00 to acquire the Dukes of Hazzard license. The line became surprisingly popular and sold well due to the Dukes of Hazzard television show, which ranked as high as number 2 in the Nielsen ratings. Unfortunately, even this unforeseen popularity was not enough to save the floundering company.
Click on a head to visit each characters gallery page
The 81 line consisted of only four figures with two temporary additions, but is filled with numerous variations to keep hard core Dukes of Hazzard collectors busy.
The image in the 1981 catalog showcases the four 8"
figures. The Luke, Bo and Daisy figures appear as they were initially
sold at retail, but the Boss Hogg figure hardly resembles the marketed
figure and is very interesting for many reasons. See the Boss Hogg
section for details on this figure and the possible reasoning behind
it.
Kids and collectors were puzzled as to why Mego
never made the General Lee car for the 8 inch figures. Some
people have bought the 11 inch General Lee car under the impression
it was for the 8 inch figures...Don't do that. This is an odd omission
since the whole point of the show was racing around in the General
Lee. One wonders why Mego didn't simply repaint the Starsky and
Hutch Torino car. With the 8" format giving way to the 3-3/4"
format, there were no accessories or playsets produced for the 8"
figures.
Dukes of Hazzard Packaging
The 8" Dukes of Hazzard figures were all packaged on blister
cards measuring 8-1/2" x 10-5/16" and featured fantastic
illustrations of the characters related to the show. It even possibly
confused and tortured children/collectors by featuring Uncle Jesse
and Rosco P Coltrane, who were never offered in the 8" format.
With no checklist of figures reflected anywhere on the packaging,
parents or children had no idea what figures were actually available
and could have been searching endlessly for characters that never
existed with no chance to succeed. The card design was the same
for every figure differing only by the character's name and item
number on the front.
The artwork on the back of the cards was identical for every character with no character specific information. The back featured the same illustration as the front, but smaller. A film-strip ran down the right side of the card with actual photos from the show. The only non copyright text on the back was: "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "Collect Bo, Luke, and Daisy to create your own adventures!"
There is only one card variation that exists for Bo, Luke, and Daisy.
Only minor text changes were made to the copyright statements by
adding the registered trademark symbols to the line and character
names. When the figures were introduced, initial cards reflected
a 1980 copyright date. The main reason for the card revision was
to add Copyright/trademark symbols when the show and character's
names were mentioned on the card.
The revised cards now reflected a 1981 copyright date. The
1980 and 1981 cards both have two lines of copyright text located
at the bottom left corner of the cards. The top line on the 1980
card is significantly shorter when compared to the top line of the
1981 card. It is possible to distinguish between the two cards without
being able to read the text.
The easiest way to differentiate between the 1980 and 1981 is by
the copyright text located in the lower left corner of the card.
The text reads:
1980 card:
The copyright information reads:
1980 WARNER BROTHERS., Inc.
Manufactured for Mego Corp., New York, N.Y. 10010, in Hong Kong
1981 card:
The copyright information reads:
TM Indicates trademark of WARNER BROTHERS INC. ‹1981
Manufactured for Mego Corp., New York, N.Y. 10010, in Hong Kong
The text doesn't even have to be legible to differentiate between
the cards. The top line of text on the 1980 card is much shorter
than the bottom line so as long as you can see the two lines of
text, you can tell which card it is. The back bottom left corner
of the card features the same text respectively. The majority of
cards remaining are the 1981 cards.1980 cards can be found, but
are more difficult to find when compared to the 1981 cards. With
such a slight difference between the cards, most collectors will
not pursue one particular version over another.
Even though the Dukes of Hazzard line was introduced in the twilight
of Mego's existence, the figures were all well done. For Mego and
Dukes and of Hazzard collectors, all the figures can be found loose
and packaged at very reasonable prices. The limited amount of characters,
with numerous variations do create a challenge that is very obtainable
if pursued. It is somewhat sad to realize that this was the last
8" line Mego introduced and sold at the retail level. That
alone does adds some nostalgic ties to collecting these figures.
Click on the pics to see original Mego Dukes of Hazzard Ads and the Dukes sections of every Mego Catalog!