Jolt Country

Texas City, California, is a corrupt town off the beaten path that exists solely to issue speeding tickets, take advantage of anyone passing through, and peddle moonshine. After a green trucker named Billy Dawes is tricked into driving his 18-wheeler through town, his rig is confiscated and, after a thorough ass-kicking courtesy of the local redneck police, Billy is sent to jail for 250 days.

Unfortunately for Texas City's judge, chief of police, deputy, and everyone else involved in the town's rackets, Billy's brother is John David ("JD") Dawes, played by Chuck Norris. Before discovering that his brother is being held hostage, JD has already had to kick multiple asses in the local pub after being challenged first to a game of pool, followed by an arm wrestling match. When JD eventually finds his way to Texas City, he proceeds to kick the entire town's ass. He beats up a couple of cops and beats up some other dudes before escaping. For good measure he takes a break and bangs the corrupt judge's stepdaughter before resuming the ass kickings.

Even Chuck Norris occasionally needs backup, and just when things look bleak, his new girlfriend Arlene commandeers a CB radio and sends out a plea for help out over the short band. Arlene's call is answered by a group of random truckers who, out of loyalty to one of their own, arrive to destroy the town by driving their trucks over and through just about everything, including the judge's house. If there's one thing I learned from this film it's that it doesn't take a lot of convincing to get a bunch of truckers to veer off the road and come destroy a town.

If there's a second thing I learned from Breaker! Breaker! it's that you really don't want to piss off Chuck Norris. After being shot in the belly, JD tracks down the town's enforcer, the corrupt Sgt. Strode, and proceeds to kick his ass in the middle of his own ranch while a black horse runs laps around them. Sgt. Strode's broken bottle of whiskey is no match to JD's kickin' and choppin'. By the end of the film, the town is on fire thanks to a bunch of random truckers, Billy has been saved, and JD has introduced the citizens of Texas City to Law and Order -- those being the names of his fists.

The CB radio craze, fueled by films like this, [i}Smokey and the Bandit[/i], and Convoy, which was based of a song (of the same name!) exploded as everybody and his/her brother wanted to get a CB radio and communicate. The FCC, on the other hand, was not set up to handle the demand for Citizens Band licenses. It got so bad it started issuing 8-character license "numbers" - four letters starting with K or W and 4 digits. This then caused a problem with California's Department of Motor Vehicles. A section of the Vehicle code allowed an amateur radio or citizens band licensee to get tags for their vehicle consisting of their license number as a personalized plate.

So, for a short time in the 1970s until the legislature repealed the provision for CB radio licensees - and the FCC would later throw in the towel, realizing they couldn't handle the load of new licensees, eliminating the requirement to get a license to use the Citizens Band frequencies - California became the only state to issue 8 character license plates.

Citizens Band with Ron Howard! Although there was no fighting there was a lot of CB stuff