- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons".
Today I'm going to talk about an episode
from Season 4, "The Prophecy",
where John
attends his
25-year class reunion.
Early in the episode,
it becomes evident that John is having a bad week.
He's in the sawmill,
things aren't going the way he wants,
his hand's bothering him.
He's just experiencing some signs of getting a bit older.
Unfortunately, too many of us know that routine. (laughs)
Grandpa is saying, "Oh, you got a touch of the rheumatism."
And John's saying, "I don't have rheumatism."
And Olivia's sort of smiling about the routine,
thinking that John is, perhaps,
being overly sensitive to this whole thing
and worrying a little needlessly about it.
Into this situation of John's comes Eula Mae,
who he went to school with.
And she is now heading up the reunion party,
gathering together the classmates
that can make it to their 25th reunion.
And she is basically assigning people chores. (chuckles)
She says she can't do it all herself,
and so she is just volunteering people, like John,
and Zack, who they went to school with,
and Graddy, who they went to school with,
and Grover Cleveland, who they went to school with.
And the character of Eula Mae is played by Lynn Carlin,
who we saw in later episodes come back
as the love interest of Ep Bridges
and the woman he ultimately married.
She was playing a different character at that point.
So, this is another example of a guest star
who played more than one character
during the seasons of "The Waltons".
As there is a conversation going on around the dinner table,
I liked how
the director used
Mary Ellen pouring coffee
as a means to move the conversation,
move the camera's focus around the table
to pick up who was speaking at a given time.
So, rather than having to do a separate cut
in what we would call the master,
we just, the camera follows Mary Ellen.
Zack Rosswell, played by actor James Gammon,
comes by to talk with John about the class reunion.
Now, the character of Zack
was one that we saw in a number of episodes,
but this was the first time I remember hearing
that they actually, John and Zack, were in the same grade,
they graduated together.
So we heard John talk about
Yancy being one of his oldest friends,
but it doesn't say anything about
Yancy being part of the same graduating class.
I think he also went to school with Ike,
but doesn't, in this case,
say that Ike was in the same graduating class.
So Zack and John share the sense
that they don't fit in at the reunion,
that many of their classmates have gone on to more,
say, prominent, or important positions,
made more money, in a sense,
so theoretically have been a bigger success,
and that John and Zack are both feeling
a little uncomfortable about attending this reunion,
that they probably feel
is going to just show up their shortcomings
and make them perhaps feel not so good about themselves
by comparison with their classmates.
But they figure they'll help get each other through it.
Grover Cleveland Cathcart, played by James Ray,
is another one of their classmates
who comes into town for the reunion.
He is now, I believe, a politician in D.C.
and he married one of their other classmates,
who
isn't attending.
She's not well or something.
His wife was someone that
Olivia remembers,
and maybe there was a touch of jealousy there
about a couple of the women that were classmates of John's
and that she feels were, perhaps,
women he looked at and was interested in
and were sort of her competition back then.
Having been recruited by Eula Mae
to take on certain aspects of organizing the class reunion,
John, with Olivia, goes to visit Martin Renshaw,
who, he's over in another town.
I can't remember if it's Rockfish, or something like that.
But this is actor William Phipps,
who, I guess there is family money,
and his house is where they plan to host the reunion dinner.
And he is very uncomfortable because Eula Mae says,
"Well, it's your house and you have to stand,
you have to say the blessing."
And Martin is painfully shy,
and so he's very uncomfortable about that.
And John promises that, if it comes down to it,
he will do that for Martin
and help Martin also get through this reunion.
Heading back to report in to Eula Mae, (laughs)
John knocks on Eula Mae's door and is greeted by
Rachel Stubblefield, played by actress Sandra Deel.
And she sees him and immediately kisses him.
John's a little taken aback and then figures out who it is.
And again, another classmate,
and one that we find out,
briefly in their senior year,
that John and Rachel were actually engaged
for a brief period of time. (chuckles)
So this is also news to us.
But they talk about their classmates,
and you know, things that have happened.
Rachel's been, I think she's been married four times.
So just a very different path that her life took.
B.C. Graddy comes by, this is actor Noble Willingham.
He has his whole family with him,
including his wife, Viola,
who is played by actress Deanna Lund.
Some of you may remember Deanna from the series,
"Land of the Giants", back in the day.
He has about three children
that are all running around being pretty crazy,
including the youngest,
who is chasing the chickens around in the coop.
This is, once again, Kami's brother Jeff Cotler.
I didn't realize how many episodes Jeffrey not only was in,
but actually was a character that, in some cases had lines,
but was definitely featured.
We saw him frequently in the schoolhouse.
And so I guess they figured
people wouldn't necessarily identify him
as one single character.
But the children are all out of control,
and B.C. is trying to talk with John
about the reunion and what's going on in his life.
And, you know,
he's trying to get Viola to control the children.
So again, we just see a very different sort of family,
and the way in which another classmate of John's,
his life is, how it's different from what John's is.
There's a whole subplot in this episode
that features John-Boy.
And early in the episode,
John-Boy is crossing the campus
and he comes across Dr. Porter,
and John-Boy introduces himself.
And Dr. Porter asks John-Boy what his plan is, you know,
what he plans to do, how he plans to make a living.
John-Boy says, "Well, you know, I'm a writer."
And he is like, "Yeah, but how are you gonna make a living?"
And he basically says that most writers,
the majority of writers, don't make a living at it.
Even the ones whose names you know,
that they actually make their living doing something else.
This is very disconcerting to John-Boy.
So John-Boy spends
this episode
trying to figure out how to reconcile this for himself.
And at one point,
Jim-Bob comes home
and John-Boy has been using a stick to write in the dirt,
and he's written, "10,000".
And Jim-Bob says, "10,000 what?"
And he goes, "Well, that's how many out-of-work
writers there are
in the U.S."
And Jim-Bob says, "Well, that's stupid." (laughs)
John-Boy is like, "What do you mean?"
He's like, "Well, you're a writer.
You make up ideas and you put 'em on paper, right?"
And he's like, "Yeah."
He says, "Well, so you work for yourself, right?"
He's like, "Uh-huh."
He said, "So if you work for yourself,
how can you be out of work?"
Which is an interesting way to say it.
So yes, John-Boy can work anytime,
but can he get paid for what he's doing?
And that again, is often the challenge
for people in the arts,
is how do you actually
make money doing what you love
and what you're passionate about,
and in many cases, what you are best at?
So John-Boy continues to try and sort out this dilemma.
A little later, Mary Ellen knocks at the door.
John-Boy doesn't answer.
She finally sort of enters,
and he's just sitting there,
and she's like, "What are you doing?"
And he says, "Well, I'm trying to think of writers
who actually make money as writers."
And she mentions Margaret Mitchell,
who wrote, "Gone with the Wind."
He's like, "Yeah, yeah, of course. Besides her."
And so they start getting into a back-and-forth
about writers and ones that make a living.
And Mary Ellen names a few people,
but John-Boy sort of blows 'em off
because they aren't what he considers serious writers.
Maybe they write murder mysteries,
or something that John-Boy doesn't consider higher writing,
you know, the John Steinbecks
and the Hemingways of the world.
And he begins to
maybe change a bit of his perspective on it.
But it was a really fun scene to have,
where, you know so much of the time,
the interaction between John-Boy and Mary Ellen
was contentious, or, you know,
them picking on each other
in a fun, teasing sort of way, as siblings.
But in this case, they're really sort of on the same side,
trying to, where Mary Ellen
is actually trying to help John-Boy resolve something.
So I liked that.
Ultimately, the Waltons end up hosting
the class graduation dinner,
because Martin Renshaw's mother, fell, broke her hip
and is camped out in their living room,
so they can't hold the dinner at their house.
So Grandma and Olivia say, "We'll do it, we'll do it here.
It's short notice, but we'll make it work."
And so, everyone gathers in the Walton front yard.
Jason and some of his musician friends play music.
We have put together all kinds of food
and put a series of tables out in the front yard.
There's a cute thing
where Grandpa is getting them to make ice cream.
So he's kind of corralled them
and is, you know, is keeping them going over there.
And you see Jeff Cotler and the two other children,
and Elizabeth's there.
And so they're sort of wrangled there
as the, you know, as people mingle about
and have, you know, lemonade, punch,
and have something to eat.
Seeking a bit of refuge from the party,
John goes up and finds John-Boy in his room.
And John-Boy is reading a letter he got from Dr. Porter,
where Dr. Porter sort of takes back
a bit of what he said to John-Boy,
and how negative he was
about trying to pursue writing as a career.
And Dr. Porter shared a quote from Sinclair Lewis.
And as John-Boy reads it to John,
and is really looking at John-Boy from a new perspective,
he begins to see that his, John's, sense of
lack of accomplishment for the 25 years since he graduated
is not what he was thinking.
In that as he sees
John-Boy as, in a sense, one of his accomplishments,
that he has raised
this bright, intelligent, passionate young man,
who is going to go forward
and create a wonderful life for himself.
And I think probably through extension,
John also realizes that all of his children
are a major accomplishment in his life.
And he begins to look differently
about what his life has been.
The classmates sit around the table
and start reminiscing about the yearbook,
and who was voted
most likely to this, that, or the other thing,
and they come down to who was most likely to succeed.
And it was John Walton.
This house, and this business, and his family,
and John did exactly what the prophecy said,
that he was most likely to succeed,
that he has succeeded
in living the life he wanted to live
and that he has created a wonderful life for himself.
And maybe it isn't, from the outside, the most successful.
He doesn't make the most money.
It's not showy.
He doesn't have fame or fortune.
But
it is a wonderful life,
and it's a life that John can be proud of
and that others from the outside can envy.
And I think it's a wonderful message to us all
about what we seek and what we go after
and what's really important in life,
and that it isn't always the outside accolades,
but the small things
and the most important things in our lives.
This was one of the few occasions
where the good nights were not just featured
on the house at night with the lights in the upper windows,
but you actually see John sitting at this table
where his classmates were.
And as the good nights are said from the windows,
that John
reflects on
his life.
And we see another side of John,
the depth of him and his reflections on his life.
And to me, there was something about
how poignant that moment was,
seeing John sitting at that table outside
as the good nights proceed,
that
I kept seeing Ralph,
not John Walton, but Ralph,
and
a deeper
side of Ralph
that you didn't always see as John Walton,
when he was lighthearted and teasing and you know,
or he was angry about something.
This is sort of the inner, deepest part of the man
and what he brought to John in such a poignant way
and things that I reflected on
and saw in Ralph in real life.
So it meant a lot to me
to rewatch this moment from the series.
That's what I have for you
for this segment of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons"
about the episode from Season 4, "The Prophecy".
I will be back with more "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons",
more of your questions in an "Ask Judy",
and who knows what, here in 2023,
as we continue.
Thanks for watching.