Dukes of Hazzard

Stunt Cycle was one of Atari's first non-Pong standalone consoles, and was based off the Atari coin-op of the same name. Sometime in 1980 Atari decided that Stunt Cycle would make a great Atari 2600 game, so programmer Bob Polaro was tapped to do the conversion. Using the Paddle Controllers to simulate the original consoles bike grips, Polaro made a near perfect port of the standalone console. It was around this time that marketing decided to make Stunt Cycle into a Dukes of Hazzard game, so Polaro went back to work retooling the graphics to fit the new Dukes of Hazzard theme. The motorcycle was changed into the General Lee, while the row of cars was changed into a lake. The colors were brightened up a little and some Dukes of Hazzard theme music was also added to the game to complete the illusion. After a few more months of tinkering, the new Dukes of Hazzard version of Stunt Cycle was good to go, but there was a problem: clever playtesters soon realized that you could change the speed on the car in mid-air. This basically took the challenge out of the whole game, making it fairly boring. Also, by this point (late 1980/early 1981) the game was starting to look a bit dated, so management decided that a completely new version would be better. Programmer Mark Hahn was then assigned to do a totally new Dukes of Hazzard game from scratch, which was never released either.