- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of 'The Waltons'".
Today, I am taking more of your questions in a segment
of "Ask Judy".
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please do hit like, and subscribe.
I have a question here from Beth who said,
"I was curious about the opening theme song from Season 1
when Daddy honks the horn and all of the kids
come running to see him bringing a radio home
for the family.
How was this staged to do the cameos,
such as John Boy seeing Daddy
through his window, Mama coming out the door,
Grandma get up from the swing,
and Grandpa stands behind the tire swing.
Then all of you kids come running
to greet him, except Elizabeth.
She comes from another direction,
which makes me wonder what she was doing.
Was it stop, start action,
as in get up, stand, then move. My second..."
Ah, okay, so lemme take the first question.
So, it was done in sections.
We would've done a wider shot
of everything facing the house
with the truck coming in and John getting out
and getting the radio and all of us gathering up
onto the porch, Elizabeth running in.
That would've all been done
with the camera set from that particular position.
Then they would've done separate shots
of the angle of the truck driving in,
when John arrives and he's honking the horn.
They would've done a separate shot, a separate camera shot,
of Will by the swing.
A separate shot of Ellen.
A shot of John Boy in the window.
And then another reverse kind of shot
of Elizabeth running over.
Now, what she was supposed to have been doing,
your guess is as good as mine.
There was nothing specific about that.
Maybe she was playing in the garden.
Maybe she was playing in the side of the yard.
But it was just to create a sense of the family
gathering together there
with the excitement of what's happening,
and we're getting this radio,
which raises kind of an interesting point
because in "The Homecoming", we sat around
and listened to the radio.
And yet this is supposed to be a year later
than the setting for "The Homecoming".
So maybe we got a new radio that worked better. Who knows.
Anyway, your second question was,
"As you were all together as a family,
the picture goes from live to changing
and looking like a photograph.
Did someone actually draw that
or was it some sort of technology to make it look that way?"
I'm not totally sure if that,
I think, I know there was a painted picture of the house
at some point,
but I'm not sure if that was a photograph
or if it was some sort of, you know, technique in the edit.
You know, we didn't have computers at that point
to be able to do Photoshop things
where we can create all kinds of techniques.
So it's possible that it was some sort of a photograph
or a drawing or, you know, painting or whatever.
And so they transitioned that within the edit,
but I'm not positive.
So, I hope that gives you some of the answers
to your questions.
And thank you so much for asking.
Question from KM. She had a few questions.
"Why did Corabeth call Ike Mr. Godsey instead of Ike?"
I think it was because of the time period, the era.
Corabeth also had her own sense
of the airs that she put on,
the sense of life that she wanted.
So I think in the world that she wanted to live in,
people were still a little more formal.
That there were these sort of polite society traditions.
And I think calling Ike Mr. Godsey was part of that.
I think she just was a little more formal.
But I loved how in, at times when things were more sensitive
or they had these beautiful quiet moments,
intimate moments, between them that she did call him Ike.
And that was always very telling
because it always meant something when she called him Ike.
All right. Another question.
"Did you and the other children
have some kind of nanny on set
or were the parents involved?"
Everybody who was under 18 had to have a parent
or guardian on set with them when we were working.
So for some of us, our moms were there.
It didn't have to be a parent.
It could be a guardian.
Kami's mom worked full time,
so Kami always had a guardian.
And in later seasons when I was older,
but still my mom needed to be there,
my mom acted as Kami's guardian as well.
And then once I turned 18 and didn't need a guardian,
my mom still took Kami as her guardian.
So it was one or the other.
And in this case, many of them were the moms.
And then, "How did you land the role?
Had you been acting in school at a young age?"
I started off doing like, little musical reviews,
and little theater productions and stuff like that.
And then when I was maybe seven,
my dad found me an agent.
I started doing some, initially background work,
like in commercials and things.
And then I started auditioning for roles.
So I had already been doing
different types of little little parts
in film and television
from the time I was very young.
And then I also started working with a theater company.
I did one theater production as a child
for about a year when I was about seven or so.
And then when I was 10,
I joined a theater company that I was involved in
up until I started doing the series,
and I couldn't do both anymore just time-wise.
So that was how it kind of came about for me.
And then, "It must have been quite hard
for some of the kids to remember lines and positions.
Were there are just a lot of shots?"
Not really. Most of us just, we did our homework.
We learned our lines, we learned our blocking,
and we shot in really short segments.
So it was pretty easy to remember where you were going
and what you were doing because you did it multiple times.
And sometimes people messed up,
but mostly you get in a groove
and you know what you're supposed to be doing and you do it.
So we moved along pretty quickly
and all of us quickly, you know, came up to speed.
Some of the others had also been working before.
Eric Scott had worked before.
Jon Walmsley had worked before.
I'm not positive.
I know it was one of the first things Kami did
and Mary McDonough.
David Harper, I don't recall offhand.
But, you know, we kind of helped each other as well.
And then, "Do you know why Oliva
didn't have more relatives: mother, father, siblings,
and why wasn't that brought up on the series?"
It's true that we focused more on the Walton side
of the family, John's side of the family.
We did make mention a few times of relatives of Olivia's.
She had an Aunt Kate that she went to visit.
Uncle Cody, I believe was a relative of hers.
She mentioned a sister, Frances,
at one point in an episode.
And then in "The Shivaree", and then a subsequent episode,
she had her goddaughter, Olivia, named after her,
that was also on her side of the family.
So there may have been some other references here and there,
but I think they just sort of tended to focus more
on the Walton side of the family.
So, I hope that helps with some of your questions,
and thanks so much for writing these all,
and for all of your interest.
This sort of follows on the last questions.
Marcel asked, "You mentioned your own mother
was your onset guardian.
Was a guardian a state of California requirement?"
I believe so.
It was certainly part of the child labor laws,
and within the union and stuff like that.
So I dunno if it was so much state
or union requirements.
And you asked if the guardians bonded the way the cast did.
They really did.
They became very good friends
and they hung out together on the set,
knitting and telling stories and, you know, just,
we all went to lunch together.
The kids and our guardians.
And then you asked if there was a funny guardian story.
I remember one time, Eric Scott's mom, Judy,
was telling a story about the, you know,
part of their job was to protect us.
And there were some things
that they were concerned about or felt, you know,
should be happening on our behalf.
And so the mothers decided to go up to the production office
and speak with the person who would've made those decisions.
And Judy Scott talked about how they all went in there
and you know, and everything.
And this was this particular man.
I know I dealt with him once or twice.
He could be pretty intimidating,
and he wasn't inclined to say yes to things.
So, she said she kind of came in,
and she started walking forward and she was, you know,
toughening up to plead their case.
And she turned around
and realized that everybody else was like four steps back.
And she was kind of out there on her own,
but she did her best to state their case.
I don't know that it was successful,
but we appreciated the effort on our behalf.
A question from Kelly, she said two questions.
One about Richard Thomas and the glasses John Boy wore.
"Were they prescription or a prop?"
I believe they were a prop.
I think Richard just thought that they were nice
for the character,
and I think they were just basically clear glass.
So that's that question.
And then a more general one.
"In talking on the phone scenes
when the other person cannot be heard.
Is there someone actually talking on the line
to help with the pacing of conversation
or do actors just pretend?"
Basically actors just pretend.
We will sometimes kind of know in our mind
what it is that we are responding to,
what the other person that we can't hear is saying.
So, you do sort of create those telephone conversations,
You speak, and then you have to sort of imagine
what somebody else is actually saying,
and sometimes I would write pretend dialogue,
so I would know what it was I was hearing,
what would make sense.
And it's not even in the script.
We just have to, from what we are saying,
kind of deduce what was said to us and react to that.
So it is all basically pretend.
This question from Doug.
"As 'The Waltons' was set in the 1930s and 1940s,
a number of storylines in various episodes
were based on historical events of the period.
As a young person during your time on the show,
how much history did you learn or become interested in
as a result of being exposed to the scripts
that reflected the historical events of the time?"
I certainly learned a ton
about that time period from doing the show.
Everything from things that Will Geer taught us
about nature and the environment and things like that,
or what was actually in a story,
and what life would've been like then.
You know, milking a cow. I'd never done that.
I learned that.
Or about churning butter or making ice cream.
So, there were a lot of elements.
Episodes in particular that stood out
were like "The Inferno" about the Hindenburg.
So, I learned a lot more about that
because of that episode.
And also "The Abdication".
I really didn't know the story of Edward,
King Edward and his abdication.
So I remember reading up on that before that episode.
So, certainly, a lot,
and a lot maybe that I didn't specifically research,
but that I just absorbed from my time on the show.
So, thanks for asking.
That's what I have for you for this segment of "Ask Judy".
I'll be back with more
"Behind the Scenes of 'The Waltons'"
and more "Ask Judy".
Thanks for watching.