- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of 'The Waltons.'"
Today, I'm talking about an episode from Season 2,
"The Journey," where John Boy takes an older lady
out to the seashore,
giving up a chance to go to his school dance,
because he feels it's more important
to help her celebrate her anniversary.
We are once again bringing home a stray animal.
In this case, it is a seagull.
I notice once again that we are all barefoot. (laughs)
Boy, we sure did collect stray animals.
Evidently they feel that something's wrong with its wing,
and Grandpa suggests that they take it into the barn
and see what they can do about healing it up.
John Boy wants to take Marcia Woolery to the school dance,
but he doesn't wanna wear his knickers.
Mama is trying to hem a pair of pants,
but they have holes in the knees as well,
and John Boy just feels that he doesn't wanna go
to this dance with pants or knickers,
pants with holes in the knees or knickers.
So Ike has a pair of pants for sale, $2.50,
which Mama says they don't have.
John Boy says he has some money.
It was supposed to be for his class ring,
but he's willing to spend it on these pants.
But he can't get a commitment from Marcia Woolery.
Big surprise, Marcia is stringing him along
and won't give him an answer yet,
which is really frustrating to poor John Boy.
On the way to school,
Jim Bob (Ben) and Elizabeth are catching fish for the seagull.
Then on the way home from school,
despite John Boy trying to ditch all the children
so that he can go and make a deal with Ike for these pants,
we all come in there,
and Jason and Mary Ellen imitate John Boy and Marcia
and just really make fun of him.
Love this scene between John Boy and Grandpa.
John Boy is quoting a Keats poem,
and Grandpa pipes in with him,
and John Boy is surprised that Grandpa can recite Keats.
And Grandpa says he found a book one time, and he read it,
and then he starts quoting another one,
and together John Boy and Grandpa
just totally act out this poem in a fun moment
as they head to the front door.
In real life, Will could quote all kinds of things,
Shakespeare and Woody Guthrie and Mark Twain.
That was really a whole genre of things
that he had embraced in his life.
As Mama is pinning the hems on John Boy's pants,
I am holding the pins,
and I stick a pin in John Boy's butt. (laughs)
And we have a little moment back and forth,
and when Mama walks off,
John Boy kinda gives me a little playful kick,
and we chase each other off.
So still very much in that younger sibling dynamic
at this point in Season 2.
Grandma is going over to Maggie McKenzie's house
because she has been ill, and Grandma's gonna help her out.
While they are there,
they discover Maggie trying to get her car going.
It won't start.
John Boy offers to take a look at it.
He believes it's the spark plugs
and says that he will take care of it for Maggie.
Maggie McKenzie was played by Linda Watkins,
and what a lovely job she did in this episode.
I found her so enchanting.
While visiting to fix the car,
John Boy takes a look at a photo album
and pictures that Maggie has while she makes tea,
and he spots these two photos.
One is a young Maggie.
The other is a young Michael, her husband.
And this picture is none other than Earl Hamner
with muttonchops. (laughs)
Maggie had come over from Scotland to join Michael,
and when the ship arrived,
they got permission from the captain
to be married on the ship.
And the captain performed the ceremony,
And then as a wedding gift,
he gave them this gold $20 coin.
Maggie McKenzie wants to go to the seashore
to celebrate her 55th wedding anniversary
because that's where she and her husband were married.
Dr. Vance warns her that she shouldn't go,
that she has a bad heart, and that going could kill her.
Knowing she needs help,
and John Boy having offered to give Maggie assistance
should she have any more trouble with her car,
Maggie intentionally removes a piece from the car
so that she will once again need John Boy's help.
And when he comes back out to check over the car
and can't figure out what it is,
she finally confesses that she pulled this piece out
and that she did it because she needs John Boy's help
and needs him to drive her to the shore.
He's happy to do it,
but she wants to go on her anniversary,
which is the same day as the dance,
which John Boy now knows he's going to take Marcia to.
So John Boy doesn't want to give up the dance.
Maggie feels that there will be many more dances for him,
but this may be her very last chance
because she knows how fragile her heart is at this point.
Recognizing the significance of the overall situation,
John Boy does agree to take Maggie.
He must now tell Marcia that he can't take her to the dance,
and she is very annoyed with him when he tells her that
because he can't full explain.
It's a tough moment there for John Boy,
but he knows he has made the right decision.
♪ True love will never meet again ♪
- They're driving along in Maggie's car
and singing and having a wonderful time,
and then Maggie is first aware of smelling the sea air,
and she calls it to John Boy's attention.
And it reminded me of,
I believe it was in "The Homecoming,"
when John Boy writes and speculates
about wanting to go out and see the world,
and wondering if he'll ever see the ocean,
and what would that be like, and wouldn't that be a wonder?
And I seem to think that this is the first episode
in the series
when John Boy actually makes it to the seashore that we see.
I believe where this beach sequence was shot was
at Malibu Beach in California
at what we call Paradise Cove.
That was where we typically shot
when we had beach sequences.
And I love how here's the shot on the water
that we see this partial ring of light.
I don't know whether that was created by light effects
or whether for some reason that was a piece of a spectrum
of a rainbow, but it was used a couple of times.
I love how John Boy is running and playing in the surf
and just having a joyous time
and being so childlike in that.
And he gets himself quite wet,
and yet then when he comes back over to meet up with Maggie,
his pants are dry again.
Continuity points.
Maybe we're supposed to assume
that there was enough of a passage of time
that his pants dried.
But during that time, Maggie looks out to sea,
and she remembers the ship.
In her mind, she sees that ship again,
the ship she arrived on and when she came from Scotland,
and that was the last time she ever saw Scotland,
was before she left on that voyage.
Part of Maggie's tradition is
to go back to where they were married,
and then they had dinner together, she and her husband.
So she's looking for this restaurant.
John Boy has turned in his pants
and gotten the money back from Ike
so that he can afford to pay for dinner with Maggie.
As they are walking along, this is part of Midwest Street.
And as you hit this particular spot
and you see a reflection in the window of this shop,
the building you see the reflection of is the building
that was always used for things like Boatwright University,
or the hospital where we found John Boy after his coma,
or Mary Ellen's nursing school.
So this building was used quite a lot,
and you just kinda catch a reflection of it here
in this window.
And then they see the restaurant across the street.
I believe that was also a part of Midwest Street.
- [Maggie] There it is!
- Music starts up,
and Maggie is caught up in her memories
of dancing with her husband,
and John Boy says, "Let's dance," and they do.
And as they dance,
it shifts from regular time to slow motion,
and you see them swaying back and forth.
And then John-Boy in her mind becomes Michael, her husband,
and this Earl Hamner, now not just in picture form,
but actually doing this live dance sequence.
And when we do things like that because with the close-ups,
the camera can't get close enough
with them actually in contact,
so what usually happens is that the actors will simulate.
See, the hands are down below the camera,
and you can't tell,
and they sort of pretend that they're still dancing
with the other person,
and yet in fact they are merely pretending
because the camera becomes the other person.
On the drive home, singing once again
and reminiscing about a wonderful day,
Maggie has another heart attack.
We then are back at her house,
and Dr. Vance says, "It's not good,"
that she's really quite far gone now,
and he does not anticipate that she will live much longer.
She wants to talk to John Boy.
He feels so guilty that if he had not taken her
that she would not have experienced this heart attack,
and yet the doctor knows
it was just a matter of time.
And Maggie tells John Boy
that it was one of the best days of her life
and really thanks him.
And I think it did mean that much.
She said it's the happiest day she's ad in 30 years.
And as a thank you, she gifts John Boy
with the $20 gold piece that was her wedding gift.
At the end of the episode,
the seagull has recovered, and they set it free.
And here is a case of they have been to the seashore,
and now this lovely bird is going
to make its way back to the sea,
and here is this free spirit, and perhaps we can feel
that Maggie is now also a free spirit.
That's what I have for you for this segment
of "Behind the Scenes of 'The Waltons.'"
If you're enjoying these, please do hit like and subscribe.
I'll be back with more "Behind the Scenes of 'The Waltons'"
and more "Ask Judy."
Thanks for watching.