Burt Reynolds. We'll miss him.

Well, it was bound to happen, I guess.  We lost Burt Reynolds.  I've said it here before, and I'll say it again, Smokey and the Bandit was the greatest movie ever made.  Ever.  It's a sad day for car movie lovers everywhere.

There are lots of things out there about the life and career of Burt Reynolds today, but around here we mostly care about the car movies.  I'm going to have to pop one in the DVD player tonight!

Here’s a little synopsis of some of the best (and worst) Burt Reynolds movies featuring the big three: car chases, car jumps, and car crashes.

 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ = GOLDEN MOUSTACHE RATING SYSTEM!

Feel the fame at the Hollywood Star Cars Museum in Gatlinburg

If I didn’t have to work to pay for the electricity to run my television, I would spend a lot more time sitting around on my couch watching old car shows and movies. I don’t care about deep storylines and strong plots. Car jumps, crashes, and explosions are where it’s at. So when we went to the Hollywood Star Cars Museum in Gatlinburg, Tenn., I knew I was in the right place. Sure, this is a touristy area full of questionable attractions designed to suck your wallet dry. But if you like cars, especially famous cars, this museum was actually worth the price of admission. This review is so action-packed, we’re going to take it on two wheels!

Luke Duke comes to Cooter's Place

We had a brush with fame last weekend.  I've mentioned before how much I loved old car-themed movies and TV shows like The Dukes of Hazzard.  Well, those shows were more than just the cars--someone had to drive them.  BHo and I were really excited to hear that Tom Wopat would be at Cooter's Place in Nashville signing autographs.  Naturally, I forced everyone to stand in an hour-and-a-half line to meet Luke Duke.  We met people that were more obsessed with the show than me.  All-in-all, I'd say it was a pretty fun day.

Yee haw! 35 years of Dukes of Hazzard memories at Cooter's Place

When I was six-years-old, I wandered into the family room while my dad was watching what I considered to be an unbelievable show. There were a couple of guys having a police chase on dirt roads with a bright orange racecar. They slid around turns. They ran into each other. They jumped things with their car. It was the greatest thing I had ever witnessed in my entire life. Of course, dad was watching the pilot episode for The Dukes of Hazzard. And for the next six years, I absolutely had to tune in every Friday night. It was non-negotiable. So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that today, I watch the Dukes DVDs regularly with my son. Luckily, he likes it as much as I do, so we get along just fine.

Disneyland's Cars Land puts you in a Pixar animated movie set

About a year ago, the Hovers headed to Disneyland.  And although it claims to be the Happiest Place on Earth, there was something decidedly non-happy about that visit.  Pixar’s Cars is BHo’s favorite movie.  It was the first one we ever took him to at a theatre in 2006.  We’ve watched the DVD fifteen billion times.  And Disneyland had a brand-new “Cars Land” addition to the theme park.  The only problem was, we were there about a month before it was to open to the public.  All our little eight-year-old Cars fan could do was look at it through a construction wall.

The attack of General Lee

I admit it.  I have an irrational, juvenile love for The Dukes of Hazzard.  I still clearly remember the day when I was six-years-old that my dad was watching the pilot episode on our RCA TV.  I just couldn’t believe that they actually had a show like this, with wall-to-wall car chases, that I was allowed to watch.

And the Oscar goes to ... Pontiac Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit

The Academy Awards are this weekend. I know this, because General Motors put out a press release talking about how they have provided a lot of the cars featured in big movies over the years.

Recreations of famous cars are all over the place. I always threaten my wife that I’m going to build a Fall Guy truck. Of course, the last thing I need around here is a junky old lifted ’82 GMC long bed. But still, if I had unlimited space, time, and resources, I’d be rockin’ it like the Unknown Stunt Man.

Great movie car chases are almost exactly like real life

So yesterday I was wanted by the police for a murder that I didn’t commit. Unfortunately, they had enough so-called evidence to lock me up and throw away the key. The only way I was going to get out from under this was to catch the real killer. I broke out of jail by piling pillows under my covers, then I jumped out from behind the sink when they came into my cell to investigate. I then broke my truck out of the impound yard, and went to work.

Take the latest Hover Motor Company TV and movie car quiz

I've been thinking about trying a few car-related quizzes here on HMC for awhile now to see how people like them. The first one is going to be a TV and movie car challenge, because, well, because I didn't have to do much research to write the questions.

Give this a try and see how you do, and feel free to post your results and/or comments and questions in the comments section below. And if you like this, I hope you pass it along to your friends and post it on messageboards and things like that. If it looks like folks are interested, I'll create some more car-related quizzes on different topics in the future.

Good luck!

The top ten greatest car show TV tunes of all time

When you were a kid playing with your toy cars, did you just line them up and look at them? Did you just inch them along in traffic and patiently sit at stoplights? Did you spend a lot of time pretending to conserve fuel? Did you worry about routine maintenance and car washes and where to park and any number of things that suck the life out of driving in the real world?

No, you didn’t. I’ll tell you right now, your cars were involved in high-speed chases. The fast cars ran away from the police cars. Everything could jump the coffee table. Nobody got hurt. And no car would suffer any damage, unless it played into your chase scenario.

Tubemobiles! Local cars that came straight from Hollywood movies and TV shows

General Lee in KC!

Kansas City isn't exactly the entertainment capital of the world. Not many movies are made here. It would be unusual to see Tom Cruise in the local Starbucks. They don't tend to block off the streets to film car chases. If you can make it here, you might not be able to make it somewhere else.

But if you go to enough car shows around town, so start to see a distinct Hollywood influence. Real and recreated TV and movie cars are all over the place, and you can really have a brush with fame when you see these cars for real.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a total sucker for old car-related movies and shows. So when I see one of these celebrity cars around here, I notice it. I mean, the General Lee can clear a barn by hitting a ramp made from hay bails. Who wouldn't want to see something like that in person?

Battle Force 5 - from the Requests and Dedication line!



The Director

 “Dad—I have an idea you can do for an article.”

I have to admit, I love it that BHo, my first grade son, even cares enough to come up with story ideas. He gets drug to car shows and races and things all summer. He waits around a lot while I wash the car. I couldn’t ask for a better kid when I’m doing what I want to do, so I can’t very well take his requests lightly.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Battle Force 5”

“Oh. OK. Well, um, what do you want me to write about?”

R.I.P. Stephen J. Cannell. His shows live on, and so do the cars.

Tonight my wife said, "you know Stephen J. Cannell died, right?"

Of course, I knew that.  As if.  In my world, this guy built one of the most enviable careers I've ever seen. I mean, he created some of the greatest cheeseball one-hour cop and detective shows ever shown on television.  Shows that, by the way, I am still absolutely addicted to today.  This is the guy that came up with The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, Hunter, and The A-Team. 

He was able to develop those awesome bits of guilty pleasure, become rich and famous, and actually have movie studios hire real actors, blow things up, coordinate car chases, and televise all this to a national audience.  Seriously, for someone like me who stresses over a measly little blog, this is amazing, fantastic, cataclysmic, otherworldly awesomeness that cannot be explained in words. 

He died of cancer last Thursday, which totally stinks.  But his TV shows live on on television and DVD. 

In keeping with the car theme of this place, I decided to talk about some of my favorite Stephen J. Cannell shows in the context of the cars that were on them.  I'll bet you remember a few of these: