50 Fun Facts About The Waltons

The Waltons was created by Earl Hamner Jr., based on which of his novels?

Spencer's Mountain called its eldest son Clay-Boy Spencer; after a 1963 film with Henry Fonda, the story moved to television and he was renamed John-Boy Walton.

On which network did The Waltons air its original nine seasons?

CBS gave it what looked like a death slot, up against two hit shows; instead it ran nine seasons and outlasted both rivals.

Before creating The Waltons, Earl Hamner Jr. wrote eight episodes of which eerie anthology series?

The Twilight Zone gave Hamner his Hollywood break when Rod Serling accepted his scripts, a decade before the same writer created the gentle world of Walton's Mountain.

Who is the youngest of the seven Walton children?

Elizabeth is the baby of the family; the seven were nearly eight, because Jim-Bob's twin brother Joseph died at birth.

Walton's Mountain sits in which fictional Virginia county?

Jefferson County is fictional, but much of its map is real: the characters drive to Charlottesville and Rockfish, genuine neighbours of the Nelson County village where Earl Hamner grew up.

John-Boy wins a reporting trip and witnesses which real event of the 1930s?

The Hindenburg disaster: John-Boy wins a trip to report on the airship's arrival in 1937, sees it burn and comes home unable to write about it.

Which president's death is mourned on Walton's Mountain in the final season's opening episode?

Franklin D. Roosevelt pardons the Waltons' neighbour Harley Foster shortly before his sudden death in 'The Outrage', and John says goodnight as the funeral train passes.

How does John Walton Sr. earn the family's living?

Running a lumber mill keeps John on the mountain; in the pilot he worked in a distant town and came home only at weekends, a job he gave up after one fraught Christmas Eve journey.

The Baldwin sisters distil moonshine that they insist on calling what?

Papa's Recipe is pure whiskey, but the Baldwin sisters make it to honour their late father, the judge, and genuinely believe it is medicinal.

What does the snobbish Corabeth insist on calling her storekeeper husband?

Mr. Godsey is how Corabeth addresses Ike in company; Ronnie Claire Edwards, who played her, later put the line in the title of her memoir.

Which Walton's Mountain local is revealed as a First World War hero who holds the Medal of Honor?

Sheriff Ep Bridges keeps his medals locked away until John-Boy uncovers his war record; Ep tells him he should never have been called a hero for killing other men.

Which fictional college does John-Boy attend after high school?

Boatwright University is modelled on the University of Richmond, where Earl Hamner studied in the 1940s and where a drive and the library honour long-serving president Frederic Boatwright.

Which two Waltons characters' storylines changed to mirror what had really happened to their actors?

Grandma and Grandpa: Ellen Corby's 1976 stroke was written in as Grandma's, and when Will Geer died in 1978 the next season opened with the family mourning Grandpa.

Mary Ellen's first husband Curt, a doctor, is reported killed in which event?

The attack on Pearl Harbor: Curt is reported killed there, but years later Mary Ellen finds him alive in Florida, living under another name and unwilling to come home.

Olivia is written out of The Waltons when which illness sends her to Arizona?

Tuberculosis sends Olivia to an Arizona sanatorium; Rose Burton, a relative, moves in to look after the family, and John later goes west to be with his wife.

Which Happy Days star guest-starred on The Waltons as Seth, Jason's musical friend who is dying of leukemia?

Ron Howard played Seth Turner in 'The Gift', which aired just nine days after Happy Days made him TV's sunniest teenager, Richie Cunningham.

Which future Three's Company star played Reverend Matthew Fordwick on The Waltons?

John Ritter's young preacher arrives fresh from the seminary, gets drunk on the Baldwin sisters' moonshine and is sacked, until the congregation agrees to forgive him.

Who played Olivia Walton in the 1971 pilot movie The Homecoming, before the role was recast for the series?

Patricia Neal had survived a serious stroke before filming, and Earl Hamner and the producers doubted her health could stand a weekly series, so Olivia was recast.

Which famous ventriloquist played Grandpa Zeb in the 1971 pilot movie The Homecoming?

Edgar Bergen played Grandpa only in the pilot movie: when it became a weekly series every adult role except Grandma was recast, and Will Geer took over the part.

Which future Blazing Saddles star played preacher Hawthorne Dooley in The Homecoming, the Waltons pilot movie?

Cleavon Little's preacher helps John-Boy search for his father on Christmas Eve; three years later he was Sheriff Bart, riding into a town that did not want him, in Mel Brooks's comedy.

The Waltons looked doomed in 1972 when it was scheduled against which hit variety show?

The Flip Wilson Show was one of television's hottest hits when The Waltons arrived opposite it on Thursday nights; two years later it was off the air and the mountain family sat second in the ratings.

Ralph Waite's agent talked him into auditioning for John Walton by promising what?

The show would never sell, his agent promised: do the pilot, pick up a couple of bucks and go back to New York. Waite stayed for nine seasons.

Which Walton sibling marries in the first of the six reunion movies?

Erin marries Paul Northridge, her brother's business partner, in A Wedding on Walton's Mountain, but only after her old flame Ashley Longworth Jr. turns up to complicate things.

A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion, made in 1993, revolves around which real event of the 1960s?

The assassination of John F. Kennedy overshadows a Thanksgiving already heavy with grief: Ben and Cindy have lost their daughter Virginia and cannot agree about adopting another child.

Which Primetime Emmy did The Waltons win in 1973?

Outstanding Drama Series went to The Waltons after a single season, months after it had been scheduled against two hit shows and written off.

Which Waltons star won a fourth Emmy for the drama Nurse?

Michael Learned was billed as 'Miss Michael Learned' in the early seasons so viewers would not think a man played Olivia; her 1982 win for Nurse brought her lead-actress Emmys to four.

Which actress, James Stewart's mother in It's a Wonderful Life, won a 1977 Emmy as Martha Corrine Walton?

Beulah Bondi had played James Stewart's mother in four films; her Martha Corrine first appeared two years earlier, ready to take up arms rather than leave land wanted for a mountain parkway.

Which president vowed to make families "a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons"?

George H. W. Bush said it at the 1992 Republican convention; he had drawn the same comparison that January, and Bart Simpson answered on air, 'Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too.'

Which original Waltons star narrates the 2021 remake The Waltons: Homecoming?

Richard Thomas, the original John-Boy, appears on screen to introduce the film and narrates it as the older John-Boy looking back, while Logan Shroyer plays the teenager.

In which Virginia community was Waltons creator Earl Hamner Jr. born and raised?

Schuyler was a soapstone company town; when its mill closed in the Depression, Hamner's father took a factory job in another town and came home at weekends, the journey behind the Christmas pilot.

Earl Hamner Jr. later created which long-running 1980s prime-time soap set in California?

Falcon Crest traded the Waltons' close-knit mountain clan for a feuding wine dynasty ruled by Jane Wyman's tyrannical Angela Channing, and ran from 1981 to 1990.

Which role did Earl Hamner Jr. personally perform on nearly every episode of The Waltons?

The narrator's voice-over is Hamner speaking as the older John-Boy, the character he based on himself, so the author is in effect remembering his own boyhood aloud.

Richard Thomas played Bill Denbrough in the 1990 miniseries of which Stephen King novel?

It cast Thomas as the grown-up Bill Denbrough, a bestselling horror writer who goes home to face Pennywise: John-Boy, the boy who wanted to write, had grown up to play another author.

Before turning to acting, Ralph Waite had trained and worked in which profession?

Presbyterian minister: Waite studied at Yale Divinity School and was ordained before he turned to acting, then spent nine seasons playing the one Walton who stays home from church.

Ralph Waite later had a recurring role as Jackson Gibbs, father of the lead character, on which series?

NCIS cast Waite as Jackson, father of its lead agent Gibbs; when Waite died in 2014 the show let Jackson die too and dedicated that season's finale, 'Honor Thy Father', to him.

Earl Hamner Jr. wrote the screenplay for which 1973 animated film of a classic children's book?

Charlotte's Web became a Hanna-Barbera musical from Hamner's script; author E. B. White complained that the story stopped every few minutes 'so that somebody can sing a jolly song'.

Ellen Corby, the Waltons' Grandma, was Oscar-nominated as a lovelorn aunt in which 1948 film?

I Remember Mama brought Corby an Oscar nomination as Aunt Trina, her breakthrough after twelve years on the other side of the camera as a studio script girl.

Will Geer, who played Grandpa, was blacklisted in the 1950s for refusing to do what?

Called to testify before HUAC, Geer refused to name names and the studios dropped him; he moved to Topanga, sold vegetables and opened a theatre for other blacklisted actors.

Which folk singer did Will Geer befriend and tour work camps with in the 1930s?

Woody Guthrie and Geer toured Depression work camps together in the 1930s; in 1956 they shared a Folkways album, Bound for Glory, with Geer reading from Guthrie's writings between the songs.

Jon Walmsley, who played the musical Jason, also voiced which Disney character?

Christopher Robin spoke with Walmsley's voice in Disney's Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, years before he played Jason; off screen he married Lisa Harrison, the actress who played Jason's wife Toni.

Jason Walton lands a job playing honky-tonk piano at which local roadhouse, which he later owns?

The Dew Drop Inn horrifies Olivia and Grandma, who disapprove of drinking, when Jason becomes its piano man; after the war he buys the place.

Which future Oscar winner played Sarah Simmonds, John-Boy's overly protected date, on The Waltons?

Sissy Spacek played Sarah twice in 1973: she runs off with a rich boy in one episode and, in the other, John-Boy finds her hiding in a mountain cabin and has to deliver her baby.

Which Star Trek: The Next Generation actor played young sailor Ashley Longworth Jr. on The Waltons?

Jonathan Frakes, later Commander Riker, played the son of Miss Emily Baldwin's long-lost love; the confused Miss Emily takes him for her own Ashley, come back at last.

Judy Norton, the Waltons' Mary Ellen, posed for which magazine in 1985?

Playboy was Norton's bid to shake off her goody-goody Waltons image; she later said that had she known interviewers would never let it drop, it would not have been worth the trouble.

Waltons actress Kami Cotler moved to Virginia in the 1990s to do what job?

A teacher: Cotler taught in Nelson County, the real-life home of the family she had grown up playing, not far from Earl Hamner's boyhood house, and later became a school principal in California.

The actor who played which Walton brother became a messenger after the show and ended up owning a courier company?

Ben's Eric Scott started as a delivery driver, once carrying a package into the show's old production office where his own photo hung in the lobby, and rose to own the messenger firm.

The Waltons was the first major hit for which television production company?

Lorimar was a young company making TV movies when Lee Rich bought the script of The Homecoming; the hit series that followed paid the way to Eight Is Enough and Dallas.

What is the title of The Waltons' 1981 series finale, built around a party thrown by the Baldwin sisters?

The Revel is the Baldwin sisters' grand class reunion; when nearly every invitation comes back marked unknown or deceased, their neighbours on the mountain come as the guests instead.

What is the name of the Walton family's dog?

Reckless shares the farm with Chance the cow and Old Blue the mule, and dies of old age in season eight while romping in the woods with young Jeffrey, who had grown attached to the dog.

On which Hollywood studio's back lot was the town of Walton's Mountain built?

Warner Bros. kept the Walton house, barn and Ike's store in a wooded corner of its Burbank lot called the Jungle; the mountain itself was the Hollywood Hills, rising just beyond the studio.