Confederate flag may be removed from ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ General Lee toys

Report: Confederate flag may be removed from

‘Dukes of Hazzard’ General Lee toys

The 1969 Dodge Charger from “The Dukes of Hazzard,” known to the world as the General Lee, prominently features the Confederate flag on its roof in the popular 1970s-1980s TV show. Some reports now say the flag will be removed from certain toy versions of the car, and at least one former “Dukes” cast member tells TODAY he’s furious.

No clarification was offered on whether products other than die-cast versions of the car would be altered.

Although the report still hasn’t been confirmed,  HobbyTalk readers had no trouble believing it. Wrote one, “Not surprising. They have been removing the image from the model boxes for years. I have one that was a giveaway from the Kansas City Royals that has the Royals logo on the trunk and no roof flag.”

Another wrote, “Was at a Hobby Lobby today. In the model kit section was a 1/25th scale General Lee … without the Confederate flag on the roof!!! It looked strange, to say the least! It’s like the Batmobile without the bat logo.”

But another reader took a different stance. “I am from the West and yes to me the Confederate flag does not (represent) anything positive,” he wrote. “We don’t see Germans flying around the swastika flags (because) it’s their history.”

And yet another wrote that rather than produce a General Lee without the flag, he believed that toymakers would just stop making reproductions of the car. “Warner Bros. will no longer endorse the license for anything that has the Confederate flag on it,” he wrote. ”Therefore, if you are a die-cast manufacturer, your license will not be approved if your sample has a Confederate flag on it, (such as the General Lee, Hazzard County Patrol cars, Cooter’s tow truck and so on) if the sample is produced without a flag then it will be issued, but no one is going to do a General Lee with just the 01s and General Lee lettering, it would look silly.”

Warner Bros. says it’s not

taking Confederate Flag

off the General Lee

A Warner Brothers Consumer Products spokesperson says they “were not, and are not planning to change the design of the General Lee on merchandise.”

Reports on the Internet had claimed that Warner planned to remove the Confederate Flag from the roof of toy versons of the General Lee. Fans started an online petition asking Warner to change its mind. And Ben Jones, who played Cooter on the show, issued a statement opposing the plan.