- Welcome back to another segment
of behind the scenes of "The Waltons".
Today, I'm going to be talking about
the episode from Season 2, The Air Mail Man,
with special guest star, Paul Michael Glaser.
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The Air Mail Man follows Olivia's upcoming birthday
and what this is meaning to her.
She's feeling very unsettled in her life
and restless and unhappy,
which is very unusual for Olivia
to be sort of self-reflective
and perhaps even a little pitying
of where she's at in her life
and what she might consider a lack of accomplishment
and seeking to determine what her own personal identity is
away from being a wife and a mother to seven children,
so she's having a little bit of a personal crisis there.
She regularly waits for the air mail pilot,
the airplane that passes over the house
and she's established a bit of a bond with that unseen pilot
who will tip his wings to her as he flies over.
Well, in this particular instance,
the plane has mechanical problems
and ends up having to land in John Boy's meadow.
It was interesting to me that when they realized
that the plane is going to come down
and recognize that it's going to be landing in the meadow,
that there is a scurry of activity to help
knowing that this will be a dark field.
So John says, grab the lanterns
and gets the truck sent out there with the headlights on,
things that will help create light for the pilot
to be able to have a safe landing.
But what I found interesting
was that they go running to the meadow,
which gives the impression that the meadow was very close.
They seem to get there in no time at all,
the truck gets there in no time at all.
It was the only episode I ever remember them
appearing to be that close to the meadow.
There are a few things regarding logistics in this episode
that caught my attention.
One being the meadow seeming to be so close.
In fact, that meadow was shot up in the local location
I had mentioned a few times, Frazier Park,
about 90 minutes from Warner Bros Studios
in Burbank, California.
The other thing I heard the mentioned
was at one point, the mail pilot wants to know
how close the nearest train station is
if he has to send the mail on by train
and they mentioned Rockfish and say it is six miles away.
It's the first time I remember
the distance to Rockfish being mentioned.
Also, when John Boy takes him down to make a phone call
at Ike Godsey's store, he hops in the truck
and they drive down.
It gives the impression
that they were on the road for some time to Godsey's store,
although the conversation is very short.
But as you have probably noticed in other episodes,
frequently, the kids head off to Godsey's store walking,
Olivia does, Grandma's been seen walking over there,
so clearly, Godsey's store
is within reasonable walking distance.
Now, what was reasonable walking distance
at that point in time,
might have been a mile, two miles, three miles,
maybe even as much as five miles, I don't know,
but I have been asked about these logistics
and I don't know that we ever identified
exactly how far it was to Godsey's store
or what was the actual route
when they got to Godsey's store of where they emerged from.
Often, it was one of a couple of paths,
so they seem to arrive there
from different directions at times
(laughs)
and they seem to head off back home in different directions.
(laughs)
So perhaps there were multiple routes
to and from Godsey's store, maybe there were shortcuts.
Early in the episode, as a meal is being served up,
It is spaghetti and meatballs,
which was uncommon as a meal that we had on "The Waltons".
I don't know how common that would have been
in Earl's real family
or at that period of time in the 1930s,
but we were having spaghetti and meatballs and salad,
which does make sense because we did have that garden.
So to put together a salad from what they grew in the garden
would have made perfect sense.
Although, again, I don't recall very often us having a meal
that included salad.
I also noticed that although
we are at the beginning of the meal,
there was no showing of us sitting and saying grace,
which was very unusual
and yet we seem to be at the beginning of the meal.
So we can speculate that perhaps we said grace
and then Grandma got up to serve the spaghetti and salad.
Shooting for a time of day could be tricky
often because we pretty much shot
from, and when we were outside, from sun up to sunset
and then sometimes if it was getting into dusk,
we would shoot night scenes
as it got into the early evening.
We rarely shot late into the night.
We did pretty much 12 hour days for the crew
and for the cast once we were over 18.
So that meant that a lot of the night scenes
had to be sort of cheated during the day
and I am sure I'm not the only one
who in various different shows,
catches those points where it's supposed to be night,
but it's clear that you can see sun in the distance.
Here is a case where we're at the saw mill
and Grandpa and John are cutting wood
and they have it nicely shadowed
so that it kind of in the closer shot
in the angles they're shooting here.
Looks like could be nighttime.
And then when we move to another angle
very shortly after that where the truck is pulling in
and you can clearly see sunshine in the background
until the truck arrives closer to the house
where once again, they can bring it into shadow.
So a real case of
(laughs)
clearly wasn't shot at night.
Because the airplane needs parts,
the family also says
that they will help Todd fix his airplane.
So there's a number of charming scenes at the airplane
as all the men who were very mechanically inclined,
help Todd to repair his airplane.
We also have an opportunity to see more of Jim Bob's
early interest in planes and flying.
He shows Todd a model of a plane that he has built
with the help of his brothers
and he does talk with Todd a bit about airplanes and flying,
so that is very sweet to see.
We gathered together
to create various different things for Mama's birthday.
The women, the girls and Grandma all get together
to make her a cake with candles.
Although we share a birthday song, at that point in time,
we couldn't use the actual song, "Happy Birthday"
because of royalties and rights and things like that,
so Jon Walmsley wrote an original Mama's Birthday Song
which he also performed
and then there were other odds and ends of gifts
that Olivia got.
John Boy reads her a beautiful poem
as a birthday gift for her.
I just, I loved the simplicity of the gifts.
No one had money,
so it wasn't about spending a lot of money
to give her gifts.
It was just about the thought behind it
as it always should be.
John has made her a mirror.
So just a beautiful example of the thought behind the gifts.
In the end, as a very special birthday treat,
Olivia gets to go up in that airplane.
Todd offers her a ride
and she is indeed exhilarated by that experience.
Michael would not have actually been up in the airplane.
This would have been done on, with sort of a green screen,
blue screen, whatever it was at the time
and they would have been tilting that plane
to simulate the movement
and they would have been stunt people
that actually were up and the stunt pilot.
The air mail man, Todd Cooper
was played by Paul Michael Glaser.
Early in his career before he did "Starsky & Hutch"
and before he went on to just a really extensive career,
but he was already had done quite a bit of work
before he came to do our episode of "The Waltons".
I found him very charismatic both on and off screen.
Camera certainly loves him.
(laughs)
So it was great to have him.
His wife, Sue Cooper, was played by actress, Julie Cobb,
who's the daughter also of famed actor Lee J. Cobb.
So obviously a very talented family.
And that's what I have for you
for this segment of behind the scenes of "The Waltons"
about the episode, The Air Mail Man.
I hope you enjoyed this
and I will see you again for more episodes
of behind the scenes of "The Waltons"
and more Ask Judy, thanks for watching.