Remember When Roy Orbison Performed on ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’?
You never quite knew who might pop up from week to week on The Dukes of Hazzard. The show featured a number of seemingly improbable guest appearances over the years, including one from the legendary Roy Orbison. Orbison played himself during a musical appearance on the show that aired on March 27, 1981, and he performed his signature hit, "Oh, Pretty Woman."
Orbison appeared in an episode of the classic TV show titled "The Great Hazzard Hijack." According to IMDb, the episode centers around the series' protagonists, Bo and Luke Duke, who "find themselves in big trouble after fishing some stolen bills out of the river."
One of the running gags on the show was a "celebrity speed trap" that local kingpin Boss Hogg operated, which served as the supposed catalyst for many of the celebrity appearances on the show. In the clip below, narrator Waylon Jennings says, "Boss Hogg's celebrity speed trap snagged another one: Roy Orbison. He was passin' through from here to there."
Orbison pays his fine in the episode by performing at the local watering hole, much to the delight of Daisy Duke, who rewards him with a kiss at the end of his song.
But that's not the end of the matter. The ever-wily Boss Hogg tears up Orbison's ticket, but issues him another for supposedly slowing down too much in the speed trap zone, forcing Orbison to stay and have a beer -- and play another song.
The Dukes of Hazzard premiered on Jan. 26. 1979, on CBS. John Schneider and Tom Wopat starred as Bo and Luke Duke, two "good old boys," as the song's iconic theme song from Jennings described them, who always conducted their lives just a little bit on the wrong side of the law.
The show had a long run before wrapping up on Feb. 7, 1985, and it's inspired several reunion movies and even a full-scale theatrical movie from 2005 since then.
See the Cast of The Dukes of Hazzard Then and Now: