- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of 'The Waltons.'"
Today, I'm going to be talking about
an episode I've been asked about a number of times
from Season 4: "The Search."
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please do hit the Like and Subscribe.
This episode was directed by Harry Harris.
And in terms of the writing, it was story by Ellen Corby
and teleplay by Paul West, who was our story editor.
Now, I had to actually look up myself,
what exactly is a teleplay?
What's the difference between a script?
You see so many different credits:
script by, written by, screenplay by,
so I wanted to find out what exactly it meant
with a teleplay.
So here's what I discovered.
The story comprises basic narrative ideas,
themes or outline indicating character, development,
and action, while the teleplay consists
of individual scenes and full dialogue.
What's the difference between written by and teleplay by?
A teleplay by credit is appropriate
when there is source material of a story nature
with or without a television story credit.
But when the writer's entitled to story by credit
is different than the writer's entitled
to teleplay by credit.
So I hope that made sense to you.
So it was a term not used very often,
but in this case, clearly, it was appropriate.
Early in this episode,
Olivia says she's going to be visiting an old family friend
and she wants to take Elizabeth and Jim-Bob
because this friend hasn't met them.
Jim-Bob is none too happy about going.
He doesn't really wanna be shown off
like he's some sort of a pet, but Olivia does insist.
And because she's going to be taking the truck,
John says that Jason and Ben are supposed to change
one of the tires because it's a little dicey.
These segments when Olivia and the children
are driving along this road,
this would've been our local location Franklin Canyon.
And I noticed as they continued along
at different points in this story,
that it kept going back and forth
between Franklin Canyon locations
and back lot of Warner Brothers locations.
So there were times I wasn't totally positive
which was which, but I did find myself going,
"Oh, that's a back lot road.
Oh, that's Franklin canyon."
A lot of it had to do with the vegetation
that I was very familiar with,
the vegetation on the back lot of the studio
and also familiar with some of the type of vegetation
we would find in Franklin Canyon.
So I could be wrong about some of them,
but I had my best guesses.
As Olivia is driving along a rugged road
because of a detour,
she does indeed hit a rough patch
and the tire does blow out.
And there is sort of a slow motion crash. (laughs)
And when she lands at the crash,
it's like the truck stops
and then there's almost a delayed reaction of the actors,
doing a little bit of a settling into the crash. (laughs)
But I understand that they would've done it all slowly
and safely for the safety of the actors involved.
Elizabeth is worried about a hen
that they have taken with them
that gets loose from its crate when they crash.
And so she wanders off chasing the chicken
and gets lost.
And when Jim-Bob and Olivia go to follow her and find her,
they find that they are all lost.
- I don't remember this place at all.
- [Olivia] Nevermind, we'll be all right.
- Took a wrong turn someplace.
- Back home, as it has getting later and later,
Ike Godsey arrives with a message from their friend Frances
that they have not arrived.
So immediately,
they all realized that there could be a problem
and all the boys are gonna go out and start searching.
They do find out that Ben and Jason did not change that tire
cuz when Jim-Bob is there and he can change the tire,
but he finds there's no jack.
So a little bit of the brothers dropping the ball,
and Mama and Jim-Bob and Elizabeth being left out there
without the means to repair and change this tire.
Initially, Grandpa, John, and John Boy go out searching.
They have borrowed a friend's car, truck.
And they basically traced the path
that Olivia would've gone.
They come across the same detour,
and they do discover at that point
that Olivia and the children had passed this way.
They continue along.
They do not see where the truck went off the road.
They continue to the next checkpoint
and find out that they never arrived at that checkpoint.
Now point of interest,
this particular flagman was none other than Eddie Villa,
who was actually our craft service person.
So a nice little cameo there for Eddie Villa.
Backtracking, they do find where the truck
went off the road,
and figured, since they're not there,
they must have wandered off someplace
so they go and start searching.
They do at one point start finding these markers,
these rocks with arrows and things
that Jim-Bob has put together
so that he can lead the way to where they are going
and figure somebody will come looking for them.
So they will leave a bit of a path and some directions.
As Olivia and the children are trying to search
and find their way back to the road,
they come across an area that Jim-Bob says
looks like someplace a bear has been staying,
laying down, or whatever.
So that danger is established.
Then when John, Grandpa, and John-Boy are searching
and realize that they are going to need some sort of an edge
and realize that they should get Horace and his hound dog
to potentially track the scent,
get something of Elizabeth's that they can track.
And John Boy reminds Daddy that this is the spot
where he had shot a bear,
referring back to our first episode, "The Hunt,"
when John Boy shot a bear.
So John also says, "Bring shotguns."
Olivia and the children find an old cabin
where there's a still setup
and some pretty scary looking people
led by a mountain woman, played by actress, Helen Craig.
Olivia wants to leave, Elizabeth is thirsty,
so Olivia approaches and they do ask for some water.
The mountain woman and the two boys, men with her,
she's concerned about the law showing up
and them being arrested for running a still.
So what they decide to do is take Olivia and the children
and drop them off in the middle of nowhere
and pack up their still and get out of there.
John Boy arrives back home
and starts gathering together everything that he needs.
And Jason and Ben are also gonna go out and help search.
I kind of thought that Mary Ellen
should have been able to go.
I mean, she was pretty handy.
She, I think, was old enough.
And I think that I should have gotten to go search as well,
but I was not allowed to go search.
And Erin and Mary Ellen are left at home
to wait with Grandma.
And of course, all we can do is worry.
And Grandma decides that we're gonna go to work,
that we're gonna get things done,
we're gonna clean the kitchen floor.
We're going to wash and do all kinds of things like that.
Of course, Erin and Mary Ellen are,
"We can't do that, we're too worried."
And Grandma's smart enough to realize
that sitting around worrying is not going to be good
for our state of mind.
And that working will be distracting
and accomplish something.
Once dropped off in the middle of nowhere,
Olivia and the children continue walking.
Olivia looks at where the sun is,
says that the shadow should be to the east,
that's what direction they should walk.
And they start walking.
At one point when they need to stop and rest
near a little water area,
that water area on the back lot of the studio. (laughs)
You've seen that little creek before.
Anyway, Jim-Bob is going to see if he can catch fish.
He glances over to where Mama
is sitting with Elizabeth and gets startled,
says, "Don't move."
And Olivia looks over and there is a snake there.
It is, however, a king snake.
Olivia recognizes it.
And I thought it was really cool that Michael was like,
"Oh," and that she picked it up.
She showed it to Elizabeth.
So I was impressed that Michael was not at all concerned,
didn't seem at all backed off by handling this snake.
So good for her.
Throughout the episode,
Grandpa's teachings were very much on display
with Jim-Bob creating those markers
because Grandpa told him how to do that.
And then he's going to catch fish
because Grandpa taught him about tickling fish
and getting them to go to sleep so he can grab them.
And he does indeed catch a fish.
So we get to hear all along the way
Jim-Bob sharing knowledge that he got from Grandpa.
So really, the generations passing along their wisdom
to the younger generation.
The weather is turning stormy
and they wanna find a place where they can hunker down.
Initially, they see a hollowed out tree
but Jim-Bob warns them against that.
Because, once again, he says Grandpa warned against
what he calls a widowmaker tree.
They continue on, they find a little hollow
that they can hunker down in.
And when lightning strikes that tree and collapses it,
it proves that Grandpa's knowledge was indeed wise
and saved them.
As they are in this little cave-type area,
they hear noises.
And Jim-Bob peaks out to discover a very large bear.
Now, this bear was Bruno, the bear,
who was the same bear that we used in the episode,
"The Hunt" and thought I would share
a little bit of information about Bruno.
He was seven feet tall.
He was a Wisconsin American black bear
and the biggest working bear in the world,
and yet so gentle.
He received awards for his work on the film, "Gentle Giant"
and the TV series, "Gentle Ben," which he was the bear in.
He was credited with over 400 television appearances,
weighed 650 pounds, and he had a brother named Smokey.
So that was Bruno, the bear, who we were fortunate enough
to work with in this episode and the episode, "The Hunt."
So when Jim-Bob sees this bear, he grabs a couple rocks.
He bangs him together.
He scares the bear off,
something else Grandpa taught him how to do.
In the end, of course, John, Grandpa, and John Boy,
do indeed find Olivia, Jim-Bob, and Elizabeth,
and they are safe and they all are able to go back home.
That's what I have for this episode
of "Behind the Scenes of 'The Waltons,'"
about the Season 4 episode, "The Search."
I will be back with more behind the scenes of "The Waltons,"
more Ask Judy, and more with Mary McDonough coming up,
as well as an interview with Eric Scott.
So please do stay tuned.
Thanks for watching.