I hadn’t seen *The Waltons *since it first aired in the 70s. I’m watching it now (218 episodes). I think it was one of the shows that represent the best of that decade. Sure, it’s slow-paced by today’s standards, but there really isn’t much that could have been edited out. And contrary to the show’s reputation, it’s not about a 2-dimensional goody-two-shoes family of country hicks. The characters have much more depth than I remembered, and some of their situations can be somewhat cutting-edge for the 70s, bringing up subjects that hadn’t been addressed before on tv.
Pretty treacly stuff, IMVHO.
Mrs. B. spent a few years looking for a copy of the original pilot (“Christmas at Home” or something like that. She finally found a DVD at reasonable cost. When I kept passing on sitting to watch it, she watched it one morning while I slept in. She never mentioned it again.
they just took some old Bonanza plots and rewrote them.
believe it was “The Homecoming”
I prefer the Simpsons.
Didn’t it all start with the TV movie Spencer’s Mountain?
Speaking of which, has anyone looked at an episode of Bonanza in recent years? I’ve seen high school plays that had more realistic sets. Absurd that we believed those.
Didn’t watch it at the time it was originally broadcast but watched the whole series through several times in reruns. It was pretty standard family fare for its time, not terrible but nothing groundbreaking. Will Geer was the best thing about it; the post-Grampa episodes were notably weaker.
The producers did it a disservice by trying to extend it far beyond its natural life, bringing in Peggy Rea and a couple of random kids after Michael Learned left the series.
It started with Earl Hamner’s semi-autobiographical novel Spencer’s Mountain set in his home state of Virginia, which was made into a theatrical film starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara, set in Wyoming. Years later another Hamner novel about the same people was made into a TV movie called The Homecoming with an entirely different cast. The next year The Waltons premiered. They had to call it “The Waltons” and not “The Spencers” for copyright or film-rights purposes. The child actors were the same as in The Homecoming but most of the adult roles were recast. The books are quite different from the films and TV series.
I preferred his other long-running family oriented show, Falcon Crest.
The early seasons were some of the best TV on at the time, relative to other 1970s fare. It went downhill fast. In the span of about one season, Will Geer died, Ellen Corby had a stroke, Richard Thomas left the show for good, and Michael Learned left temporarily to return only occasionally. Even before that it was running out of steam, but they kept chugging on for years. Don’t even talk to me about the made-for-TV reunion movies that came out later. They were dreadful.
What are some of the groundbreaking topics you’re referring to, panache? I watched it in its original run but I was a kid probably 8 or 10 years old and I don’t remember many of the plots. I mostly remember it being irritated that all the girls wore overalls. Give me frilly dresses! Or at least cute bonnets like Little House on the Prairie.
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Don’t even talk to me about the made-for-TV reunion movies that came out later. They were dreadful.
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And had the weirdest chronology: a grandchild who was born before Pearl Harbor was about 10 in 1963, the Baldwin Sisters were driving around selling shine when they’d have to be 110 in the 1970s, etc…
… and Boss Hogg was always scheming to get their land…
They addressed Mein Kampf, the Holocaust, Book Burnings, Religious Zealots, Spousal Abuse, Alcoholism, Paranoia of German Americans.
Some of the episodes got Preachy, but it definitely was not “Brady Bunch”.
Also a 13 year old girl being forced to marry an older man against her will and Jason marrying outside their faith.
First, was it patterned after the Walton’s of Wal Mart? it was in the Ozarks, right?
Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Schuyler, Virginia, is the actual location and hosts lots of tourists each year.
I’ve mentioned before that I think the first 4-5 seasons actually hold up quite well. Not treacly, and with a fair amount of vinegar and reality mixed in. Allowing Ellen Corby to return after her stroke as almost-wordless Grandma was pretty amazing.
I can get past the fact that, since it was filmed in Southern California mountains, it’s bright and sunny every single day. Always bothered me that all the children had 1970s Dry Look hair, though.
I just watched the fairly-late episode in which a Jewish soldier had just found out that his grandfather had died in one of the Polish death camps. Nobody believed that the camps were real.
The family had a picnic near the top of Walton’s Mountain, and they visited Grandpa Walton’s grave. The soldier recited the Jewish Prayer for the Dead, in Hebrew.
Not so much treacle.