- Welcome back to another segment
of Behind the Scenes of The Waltons.
Today, I'm going to be covering aspects of the episode,
"The Baptism" from Season 5.
If you're enjoying these, please do hit Like and Subscribe.
"The Baptism" was written by Andy White
who was one of our producers and directed by Ralph Waite.
Interesting it was directed by Ralph,
considering the topic is about a revival meeting.
And of course, Ralph himself
had been ordained as a minister.
So I don't know if they had him direct this
because of his own personal history,
or whether it just happened to work out that way,
but that is the focus of this episode
is there's going to be a revival meeting.
Our Reverend Fordwick played by the incredible John Ritter
had spoken with a reverend who was touring
in the general area and doing various different meetings
and had worked out for him to be able to come
and be the featured speaker at this all-day revival meeting.
And one of the focuses of the revival meeting
is there's going to be a baptism.
Now, this sets up the conflict that is ongoing
between Olivia and John,
because she wants John to be baptized.
She wants him to attend church more,
to participate in religion more in the way that she does,
in the way she was raised, in the way she understands it.
Whereas John kind of walks his own path.
He's never felt that he needed to be baptized
or needs to attend church,
to know that he has his own relationship with God
and feels that in terms of his soul being saved,
he feels that the most important thing is for him
to have his own relationship and be comfortable with that.
So that is an ongoing conflict.
And of course, I don't understand why some of the children
have been baptized and some haven't.
Early in the episode, Erin mentions
that she was baptized when John Boy was, and yet Ben wasn't.
And evidently, Mary Ellen wasn't.
So it's just kind of odd why were some and not the others,
but I don't have an answer to that.
Early in the episode, as they are outside Ike's Store
and excited about the upcoming revival meeting,
at one point, as they cross from outside
where John Boy's car is to Ike Godsey store.
Now this would've been shot on the exterior set.
And I thought it was interesting
that Reverend Fordwick would - goes into the store,
and then you have this shot through the screen door
of the store, looking back at all of them,
kind of trying to anticipating the outcome
of this phone call that Reverend Fordwick is making.
They never showed the interior of the store,
which meant that all of this was shot outside.
Once you entered those doors on the back lot,
there really was nothing there.
There was a backdrop there,
so that you didn't just see the trees
and whatnot that was behind the front,
just what was just the front of this store.
So you would enter and kind of go around,
like you did in the interior set, where people would come in
and they'd have to go around a bit of a wall there.
And that was what allowed us
to not have a whole interior on the back lot.
I also noticed that as Richard is moving
from the car towards the doors to Ike Godsey's store,
he still has a bit of a limp.
And I was like, "Oh, he's limping."
And then I remembered that this was the season
where at the beginning of the season,
he had a cane even in "The First Edition",
because he had had a rather serious motorcycle accident
while filming a movie about James Dean.
And so he had a cane for, I think maybe only one episode.
Maybe a couple, but then,
he's clearly still not fully recovered from that accident.
Also made me smile as we see this shot
of John Boy that behind him on the wall of the store
is a sign that says Graves Emulsion,
which would have been put there
by our art director Ed Graves.
And quite frequently in episodes
when names had to be on things,
sometimes we saw that the names that were used
for these signs were members of our crew.
As Jim Bob is gathering parts
for the car that he's building,
he comes across a peacock up in a tree.
And this is our first introduction to Rover.
Mary Ellen is welcomed home from her studies
at school from all of the family, which is kind of sweet.
And then as we go later into this scene
around the dinner table, we follow this bowl of beef stew.
So that probably would've been canned beef stew
that we used for this particular scene.
And we follow the beef stew down the table,
and then it's empty and Grandma's gonna get up
and go refill it.
So just, again, these various different shots
that Ralph Waite had constructed,
which I always found fun and fascinating.
And there was talk around the table
about who's going to get baptized.
And Mary Ellen at that point says,
"Well, if I'm gonna be a nurse,
in dealing in these difficult situations,
I probably could use all the help I can get,"
which implies that Mary Ellen is planning to be baptized.
Another fun sequence that Ralph constructed
where people suddenly are hearing this loud screeching
in the night and come out to find out what it is,
come into the barn.
And so we've got interesting shots here
where they come in, they're looking around,
they're trying to figure out what's going on,
and then they hear it and they all look up.
And there is Jim Bob sitting with Rover.
And so the family now finds out that he has his peacock,
and he's keeping the peacock in the barn,
because he's worried that if he lets the peacock outside,
it will fly away, and he really wants to keep it.
But he really wants to see it fly.
So Jim Bob's having a tough time with this one.
- That is the ancient bird of royalty,
famous in song and story.
- Reverend Henshaw played by John Karlen arrives on the bus.
He's had the whole bus having their own sort of version
of a revival right on the bus.
And he comes out, and immediately wants to know
where the heart to the den of sin is in town.
And he's told, "Well, we do have a roadhouse."
And so they go out to the Dew Drop Inn,
where unfortunately, Ben is there with Yancy.
They were supposed to be out coon hunting,
but Yancy has stopped by the Dew Drop Inn.
He's visiting with Sissy, and now all of a sudden,
Ben's in a really awkward position.
He didn't necessarily plan to go to the Dew Drop Inn,
but now, it has become a big thing that Olivia is horrified
to find out that her son was seen in a tavern
by this reverend, this important person
who has come into town to run this revival meeting.
So Olivia's really having a hard time with all of this too.
- Ben Walton.
- Reverend.
- What in the name of peace and goodness are you doing here?
- Coon hunting?
- This is really thrown in Olivia's face.
As Yancy gives Ben a ride home,
John's still outside working.
Yancy, probably a little tipsy there,
he miscalculates and he runs into the chicken coop.
- Hi, John.
- Hi, Yancy.
Yancy, watch out the chicken coop!
- So Olivia comes running out,
and this is where Olivia finds out that Ben
was seen at the Dew Drop with Yancy
by this touring reverend.
A storm is brewing in more than one way in this scene
that's inside John and Olivia's bedroom.
You see her sitting, glancing out
at the storm clouds gathering.
The storm clouds gathering would have been stock footage.
We would've actually shot this on the sound stage
of Olivia looking out the window,
so we don't really see anything out the window.
So that made that kind of easy.
But then we start getting a rain effect
as she's talking with John who closes the window,
and you do see sort of this rain effect outside the window.
So they would've set that up.
And then of course John says
he has to go outside to cover the lumber from,
so he doesn't have wet wood, which he can't cut.
And again, we see stock footage of lightning,
and John is struck by lightning.
So that would've been some sort of an effect type thing
that they were able to shoot.
After this close call of being struck by the lightning,
with Olivia just seeing this and being horrified,
she gets much more insistent with John.
And he does agree that he will go to church
for the revival meeting.
They attend the revival, which goes on and on and on.
It's meant to be an all-day.
And we see shots where Jim Bob's kind of fallen asleep.
So they do different things to show the passage of time
and the varying characters who are there.
It's hot, it's sweaty, they've been there a long time.
And then there's a whole sequence
where different members of the congregation
come forward to be touched and saved.
And Mary Ellen is one of those who goes up to be saved,
as does Yancy.
He arrives, he's a little, in true Yancy fashion,
a little uncertain about it all.
But he steps forward and then Ben comes forward.
So of course Olivia's very happy about that.
As it proceeds, and John feels like
he is really being spoken directly to and goaded and pushed,
he gets up and walks out.
Olivia follows him out,
but she watches him walk outside into the rain.
Poor John Boy is feeling caught in the middle,
because he can kind of see both sides
of his mother's perspective and his father's.
And he just feels like for him,
the toughest thing has been being caught in the middle
over the years and not liking that position,
because he can see both sides and he just doesn't like
feeling the conflict between his parents.
John Boy has run a notice in the paper
about having found Rover and if the owner has lost him
to contact them.
He does get a message from the person who owned Rover
who says Rover's basically a free spirit,
and he can never kind of keep him any place.
And that if Rover seems happy where he is,
then the owner is okay with just letting Rover stay.
So Jim Bob now has to face the moment of truth
about will Rover choose to stay or will Rover leave?
And they bring him outside and he flies
and he goes up to the tree house
and seems to make himself at home there.
So clearly, Rover has decided to stay.
The final big baptism scene was shot at Drusilla's Pond
on the back lot of the studio,
and they have gathered a lot of people there,
and they go through baptizing a series of people,
starting with Corabeth.
You see her, you see some people we don't really know.
Ben is inspired to go into the water and be baptized,
which of course makes Olivia very happy.
And then, I'm not sure, I don't seem to be there.
I have no idea why I wasn't there.
I don't recall if there was some reason
I wasn't filming that day.
It seems very odd to me, but there you go,
especially since Mary Ellen appeared to have implied
that she was going to go and be baptized.
So whether we're just assuming that we didn't see it happen,
but then a little later, right towards the end,
there's a shot where I saw Grandpa
sort of hugging someone, and as I went back
and looked over at it closely, it seemed to be Erin.
But Erin had said earlier that she'd been baptized before.
So I didn't know whether they were trying
to sort of disguise that in hopes that people would think
that that had been Mary Ellen,
'cause we didn't focus on Erin going in the water.
So I'm not sure what that was all about,
but it was as confusing to me as it was to some of you
as viewers who have asked me what was up with that scene.
So I don't know any more than you know, sorry to say.
Of course, the episode couldn't end
without a resolution between Olivia and John.
John chooses not to go to the baptism at the river.
And when Olivia goes back to talk to him,
again, a clever shot, an interesting shot by Ralph
through this sort of wheel that's in the mill area.
And Olivia talks with John about how she's come to recognize
the way in which John is a good man
and she has never questioned that
and she loves him regardless
of whether he attends church all the time or not.
And so John is given that sort of extensive acceptance
from Olivia, and we know that all will be well
between the two of them going forward.
That's what I have for you for this segment
of Behind the Scenes with The Waltons
about the episode "The Baptism" from Season 5.
I'll be back with more behind the scenes of The Waltons,
more Ask Judy, and more special guests.
Thanks for watching.