Do you remember when John-Boy Walton asked Grandpa Zeb Do we got something to show we own Walton's Mountain? . and his Grandpa replied, quote:
You can't own a mountain any more than you can own an ocean or a piece of the sky. You hold it in trust. You live on it, you take life from it, and once you're dead, you rest in it. Unquote
Edgar Bergen, Father of actress Candice Bergen, spoke these words as Grandpa in the 1971 CBS Pilot movie The Waltons: The Homecoming: A Christmas Special.
In 1972, however, Will Geer would become the wise, lovable and most remembered Grandpa Walton until his untimely death in 1978. The Waltons reflected on God, family values and ancestral heritage of a family living in the rural community of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia during the Great Depression and World War 11.
The ambitions of the Walton children included: John-Boy who wanted to be a writer, Jim-Bob an aviator, Mary Ellen a nurse and Jason a musician who loved playing Grandmas favorite song Carry me back to Ole Virginia. Olivia Walton played by Michael Learned could quote Bible scripture as well as Grandma Walton and raised her children as good Christians with compassion for others. Has it been 40 years since
Dirty Harry starring Clint Eastwood and the God Father starring Marlon Brando were hot at the movies; the song Id love you to want me by Lobo went to No. 2 on the Billboard chart; Richard M. Nixon was re-elected President of the United States and .
The Waltons premiered in September 1972 on the CBS Television Network?
The Waltons was an American television series created by Earl Hamner, Jr. for Lorimar Productions that touched the hearts and souls of young and old for nearly 10 years. The show was based on the novel by Earl Hamner Spencers Mountain that became a Warner Brothers movie in 1963 starring Henry Fonda and Maureen OHara.
One of my favorite episodes is entitled The Scholar. Miss Verdie Grant, played by Lynn Hamilton, learns that her daughter will graduate from college but is embarrassed that she never learned how to read and write. She asks John-Boy to teach her; on the condition he keeps it a secret. The friendship and compassion between black and white country people and a Confederate Battle flag respectfully displayed in a school classroom as seen in this episode is not politically correct but is historically accurate.
We were invited everyday Thursday night into the Waltons home where John and Olivia Walton, along with Johns parents Zeb and Esther Grandma Walton, raise their seven children. John Walton played by Ralph Waite makes a living with his lumber mill.
The Waltons neighbors included: the Baldwin sisters, two proud Southern ladies who make moonshine liquor they affectionately call Papas recipe; Ike Godsey owner of the local general store and wife Cora Beth, Verdie and Harley Foster, Yancey Tucker and Sheriff Ed Bridges who keeps the peace in fictitious Waltons Mountain, Jefferson County, Virginia.
At bedtime the Waltons turned off the lights and said good night and on one occasion Elizabeth asked her Momma and Daddy to sing the old song The Old Spinning Wheel which begins with Theres an old spinning wheel in the parlor, Spinning dreams of the long-long ago. It has been a long time ago but re-runs of the Waltons, distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution in syndication, can still be seen on such channels like the Hallmark Channel. Good night, May God Bless and
Yall come back now, you here!
Read this about “Granpa Walton(Will Geer)” and you will NEVER look at “The Waltons” the same way again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Geer Turns out “Ole” Will was “Light in the loafers” and SERIOUSLY RED!
You can’t own a mountain any more than you can own an ocean or a piece of the sky.”
http://www.johnspeedie.com/healy/crap.wav
Network TV is close to “trash” anymore.....
I grew up on the “Waltons”, when there were about 7 TV channels in Dallas TX.
I borrowed a set of discs from the library a few months ago, since it had been decades that I’d seen the show.
It was so awful I took the DVDs back after watching the first show -— it was basically the same as watching “Dr. Quinn - Medicine Woman”...with the same plotlines, the same faux conservatism, the same underhanded progressivism...
BARF
Grandpa wasn’t the only Leftie. Ralph Waite was too, although I still like to watch him in movies and on TV.
Posters are right about the fake “Middle American values” of the show. Every episode seemed to be about how the tolerant Waltons took in a minority or Jew or some other outcast (like carnival performers) and showed them kindness while the rest of the ignorant yahoos in the town were ready to kill the outcasts. And the sympathetic characters were the ones who didn’t conform to authority — the ones boozing it up or doing other bad or illegal things. And, of course, John Boy wanted to be a journalist, which they played up as the highest calling on Earth. I’ll stick with Michael Landon for family fare.
Man I hated this show when I was a kid. Mom always insisted we watch it for the “positive messages” but man it was dull for a kid. Same with Little House. Further review when I got older showed them to be not nearly as horrible as I remembered, but I never managed to like them, too many bad memories.