45 Years Ago This Summer
Big Enos and Little Enos Burdette make a bet with truck driving duo Bo “The Bandit” Darville and Cledus Snow that they can’t get from Atlanta, Georgia to Texarkana, Texas, pick up 400 cases of bootleg Coors
Who is fleeing her wedding to Junior Justice and his father the obsessed Sheriff Buford T. Justice. A pursuit across the south ensues.
During 1974, in response to the crisis resulting from the OPEC oil embargo, President Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act that imposed a national 55 mph speed limit.
The cultural standards of 1977 weren’t those of the 21st century.
the entertainment industry was planning to do what it always does: imitate success.
It was called The Dukes of Hazzard.
But Pontiac sold an unfathomable number Trans Ams after the film came out.
The year before Smokey, the GM division sold a healthy 46,701 Trans Ams during 1976.
The two Smokey sequels were, uh, not so good and not so profitable. Then there was a series of TV movies where the Bandit wasn’t Burt Reynolds and drove a Japanese-made Dodge Stealth instead of a T/A. Not great.