Birth of the Roscoe P. Coltrane Laugh!

I'm responding even though it has been over a year since the original post was written because I was going to comment on the same thing.

DUKES OF HAZZARD fans really have to see this movie because it does feature James Best doing Roscoe P. Coltrane in everything but the setting and name. The scene where he swats Gary Lockwood in the face with the towel, followed by the Roscoe laugh and grin, was right out of a DUKES episode. As was the scene in the bar where he's running around with the bull horns--it could have been the Boar's Nest with Roscoe and the Boss horsing around after too much moonshine.

What made James Best in FIRECREEK eerie and frightening was the ugly and evil side that emerged now and again. Best's character Drew was kind of a simpleton like Arthur, but he would have these moments of lucidity where he was menacing and scary.

I wouldn't say this episode is the first appearance of Roscoe's distinctive laugh though in FIRECREEK it appeared all the time and Best was beginning to look like Roscoe with longer hair and a fuller face than he had in earlier performances, like in the TWILIGHT ZONE episodes he starred in.

Speaking of great James Best performances (and FIRECREEK is one of them--he stole every scene he was in, even when RIP), check out his guest spots as the guitar player in a couple first-season episodes of the ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW. And from around that same time, a low-budget flick called THE KILLER SHREWS where Best made a great hero and leading man (the movie also stars a pre-Festus Ken Curtis).