- Welcome back to another segment of
behind the scenes of "The Waltons".
Today, I'm continuing with my visit recently
with David Harper.
So please welcome back David.
- We were so lucky to have Will and Ellen
it might have been different
if I was old enough to know who they were.
It might have been in awe of them,
but to me, they're just our grandparents
and years later when I used to see Ralph
on all these old westerns, I went, "Oh my God,
this guy was a working character actor for years."
And you know what?
Earl was great, 'cause Earl he was never unapproachable.
He'd always come down a lot.
And I told this story,
somebody asked me for a story
about the first time I met Earl Hamner.
And all I remember was he was the only adult in the room
that wasn't giving off shark vibes.
- Oh no.
- Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know.
The memory is not reliable and trustworthy sometimes,
but from the moment we met him
it's like, "Oh, this is..."
We didn't quite see that he was gonna be our protector
along the way too, so.
- Yeah, well, and it's also the perspective of
what were you nine years old?
- Yeah, we started this series
the day after my 10th birthday.
- Yeah, so when we did the Homecoming, you were-
- Yeah, I think I was nine.
- Nine, yeah.
- If I look back and do the math,
did we start filming in '71? - Yes.
- Did we, 'caused it aired
in September- - October of -71
So you had your birthday during
right as we were filming the Homecoming.
- Yeah, I just turned 10, 'cause I remember.
The first day on the set was the day after my birthday
and they had me, Eric and Jon,
one of the most tiny little dressing rooms possible.
We were falling all over each other
and I think that got old fast.
- We made the big time, didn't we?
- Oh, do you remember the dressing rooms that we had
on the sound stage with the chicken wire and the cloth tops?
- Yeah.
- I remember, 'cause Richard and Eddie
our craft service guy
were always playing tricks on each other.
And I think one time,
he got up on one of the soundstage stairwells
and threw a bucket of water in the top of Richard's...
And of course, you know, it's chicken wired cloth.
I guess, we were a little bit like the Marx Brothers,
'cause it was fun.
It was fun, it was work, but it was fun.
And when I watched the credits
and I see all those great cast of people,
I think about Dick Chaffee,
who I was quite fond of
and you know the crew guys were playing jokes on each other
and we thought it'd be really funny one day
to tie his bike to the rafters
and we broke for lunch
and poor Dick spent 20 minutes
trying to get his bike down.
I feel bad about that now, but, so yeah.
- I just flashed on,
everyone was always, it was always so tricky about parking
on the studio lot.
And you would really, people would park
in parking places that were reserved for somebody.
And I remember at one point somebody parked in
I think it was our sound recordist, William Flannery
I think it was his parking place.
Somebody parked in his parking place
and he arranged for somebody to get a forklift
and take the forklift.
We had the bathrooms behind our sound stage.
And he got somebody to lift the car up
out of his parking place
and put it on top of the roof of the bathrooms.
- I didn't know that.
- I think it was him, but whoever it was,
yeah, somebody put somebody's car up on the roof,
because they parked in their parking place.
- Probably happened one too many times, right?
- I expect so, yeah.
So it was-
- Well, you know what?
When production was booming at Warner Bros,
it was hard to find parking spots.
Back when us younger folks had guardians,
they'd drop us off at the stage door
and then they'd drive around for 20 minutes
trying to find a place to park.
- When I talked with Kami
I had asked her about who she felt in the cast,
because she was the youngest,
who she related to the most?
Who she felt what kind of relationships she had with people?
And she talked about you and her,
because you were the youngest
and she said that you two used to play all over the lot
to do shootouts on Western streets.
- Yeah, we used to play Bonnie and Clyde.
The insurance people,
if they knew where we were off, probably would've had a fit,
'cause nobody, - so half the time nobody knew where we were
and some of those sets had rusty nails and stuff.
But yeah, we had a blast.
It was a huge playground.
The car that John Crawford used for Ep Bridges
that was a Bonnie and Clyde car.
- Wow. - And we had bank sets
to rob and stuff.
So yeah, she's told that story a few times.
- I remember when we shot Phantom of the Studio
I Remember us shooting that little short film
that we created on the studio, all of the kids in the cast.
I have no idea what ever happened to that film, do you?
- Well, I was in possession
of all that and it just got lost.
Glenn Woodmansee was trying to teach me
how to edit it and I just couldn't get it.
And I wish I'd just thought,
"Glenn, will you edit this for us?"
And you know what?
The camera we used is this really nice camera
that dad bought for me.
And it was kind of problematic.
There were times when we'd film something
and it would eat the film.
- Ooh.
- It would get crunched up in there.
And so, it was not easy.
But yeah, it would be nice to have whatever remnants
of it is.
I don't know if it's in a box in my garage,
like if it was at my parents' house
and somehow or another they kept it.
Of course, I don't know, it might be totally destroyed
from bleaching or whatever.
Oh yeah, we had a blast.
I think Jon wrote the script.
It was 'cause we were in love with
the "Pink Panther" movies.
And Jon wrote almost all the dialogue and stuff.
Remember Pat Norris, this little kid played Billy the Kiddy?
So, yeah.
- Yeah, we had to create our own adventures
but we were also limited,
because if we were in - particularly for all of us
if we were in hair and wardrobe and makeup,
you could only get so messed up
or we'd get scolded if we got our our wardrobe torn or dirty
or they had to totally redo our hair or makeup.
- I have fond memories of the two paintings of the house
that we did, I think one was for Bob Jacks
and the other one was for Earl.
I'd like to see those,
'cause if I remember, they were actually pretty good.
- Yeah, and somebody must have helped us with them,
because I'm certainly no artist.
- Oh, well, Jon did the outline with pencil
and I mean, you older kids did the detail stuff.
Me and Kami just got to dab bushes and stuff.
But no, I remember they were actually quite good
at least, I thought they were.
- How did you see Jim Bob from beginning
the arc of his character?
Were there things that you related to about the character?
- Well, I wasn't trying to craft anything.
The whole airplane thing started,
because if you remember Bobby Moore, our first costumer
I used to follow him around
and there was an old wardrobe closet on our stage
and he was just going to get something
and I found that aviator's cap
and I just asked him, "Hey, can I wear this?"
And he said, "Sure, no problem."
Well, one of the writers saw it
and a couple scripts later, low and behold,
Jim Bob's into airplanes and of course the whole car thing.
People still ask me, "Do you still work on cars?
Do you still fly airplanes?"
No, never did.
- Those cars, some were really hard to drive
and I never drove your car,
but that one looked like it would've been really hard.
- There was so much play in the manual transmission.
I mean, I nearly killed myself a couple times.
Our transportation captain,
and he comes up to me on the set one day and he goes,
"Do you know you're driving in the next episode?"
And I said, "Do they know I can't drive?"
And so, he had to give me quote unquote a crash course
in about a week.
And I say crash course
'cause I nearly electrocuted myself once.
- Wow.
- Whenever they'd do a scene where I had to drive,
I would park the car next to the saw mill
and they'd have the camera set up in front of me.
And I was famous for lurching.
So as soon as I put that thing in the gear
the camera guys would just take off.
I never ran over the camera, thankfully.
But one time it was the episode where I'm teaching Kami
how to drive and we're on the back lot
and I backed into one of those big green electrical boxes.
And after the scene was over
the driver captain came up and said,
"You know you nearly killed yourself."
So yeah, that particular
it was the Jalopy that I was trying to put together.
That car was horrible to drive,
but Joe Conley crashing on that motorcycle
kind of gave me a run for my money.
There was that motorcycle- - You had to ride that too.
- Well, there was that motorcycle race episode
where I could barely hold it up
just when it was standing there.
My legs were too short
and the center of gravity was really high.
But they said that those suicide clutches
are awfully difficult
and poor Joe, I mean, I was never there,
but I heard he had trouble stopping
and that he crashed into a couple of tables.
And of course, you remember Richard's accident
on that other show
when he nearly decapitated himself.
People might remember the episodes where he's using a cane.
I think he broke his leg, right?
- Yeah, he broke his ankle, his leg something, yeah.
- Yeah, so how much of that,
'cause I just watched The Motorcycle Race recently
and there was a bunch of stuff
and I was talking with John Dayton,
our production assistant about it and I said...
Well, because it looked like
you were either attached to something being towed somehow
to get all those closeups of you circling in the...
That they were towing you or you were hooked up or you-
- I don't remember them towing me at all.
And you can always tell when they're doing that.
- But it was like a close up of you.
- Oh, well, I never actually drove the thing.
I just wasn't able to.
- Okay, so how did they do your stuff?
- I don't know.
Maybe it was a tow thing, but gosh,
I mean, I'm getting ready to turn 61, I'm old
and those are memories from 40, 50 years ago,
so I'll just feign senility, right?
If I can't remember something.
I got no problem doing that.
- Once again, I'd like to thank David for joining me.
I will be back with more behind the scenes of "The Waltons",
More Ask Judy and more with David Harper.
Thanks for watching.