- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind The Scenes of The Waltons."
Today, I'm talking about Episode 8 from Season 3,
"The Spoilers,"
when a family from New York comes to Walton's Mountain
and finds out the city is very different
from life in the country.
Early in the episode,
Olivia and Grandma are leaving Ike's store
when they sense smoke.
They smell it, they see it
and they think that is coming from the Hanover place.
They go there, they find Mrs. Susan Hanover
sitting on the front porch
just beside herself because her house is on fire,
her stove is on fire.
Grandma goes and finds out
it was simply that she hadn't opened the damper.
But she is from New York,
turns out that she is the daughter-in-law
of Bertram Hanover who was a beau of Grandma's at one point.
She has arrived with her husband
and her two children from New York.
The children are none too happy to be there.
Mrs. Hanover asks Olivia about her children.
Olivia says she has seven
and Susan says, "How have you kept your figure?"
I love this moment
when Grandma basically checks out Olivia's figure
and Olivia's sort of...
A cute moment between the two.
Back at home, Grandma has dug through
her various different things
and found an old picture of her and Bertram
when they were courting and she shows it to Olivia.
Grandpa is a little jealous
and makes a few snide remarks about Bertram,
but Grandma thinks he was a handsome man.
Feeling badly for Susan being so out of her element,
Olivia invites her and her family to dinner.
During dinner, Alicia chats up John Boy
about what he's doing in college, what his plans are.
Meanwhile, Charles checks out Erin.
A little later, a really sweet scene
between Erin and John Boy.
She goes to ask John Boy about dating and boys
and what about kissing
and what does she do if Charles wants to kiss her,
but she doesn't want to kiss him?
And John Boy thinks it's awkward
and asks Erin if Mama has had a conversation
with her about kissing.
And he does his best,
but basically, John Boy says,
"Well, as long as it's just kissing."
And Erin's like, "Well, what else is there?"
I love the innocence of that.
I also found it fascinating that Erin went to John Boy,
rather than going to talk to Mama about it
or even Mary Ellen.
Mary Ellen drops by the Hanover's after school
because Miss Hunter has said
that if Charles would like to, and Alicia potentially,
would like to attend the school,
that they would be most welcome.
So, Mary Ellen has arrived to relay this message.
Then Mrs. Hanover sends her upstairs to find Charles,
instead she ends up finding Alicia who is unpacking.
She tries to get some information
from Mary Ellen about John Boy.
Mary Ellen isn't particularly helpful,
but she has this beautiful dress that Mary Ellen admires.
And she said, "Oh, this is from Paris
and yeah, here, try it on."
So Mary Ellen does indeed try it on
and I had not remembered this dress.
It's a lovely dress
and clearly it was originally fitted for me,
so it fit me very well
and I thought it was very fun
getting to wear something so elegant.
But then they put my hair up in a turban,
which I thought looked kind of stupid on me.
I'm not fond of having my hair up,
but it worked in the moment
and Mary Ellen thought
she looked very beautiful and sophisticated.
And they give her a purse to go with it
and they send her off home.
When I get back home,
of course, all of the boys make fun of me
and really, it upsets Mary Ellen
because she so wants to be more elegant
and more sophisticated
and to have the boys continually teasing her
and making her feel like she isn't beautiful,
it's really tough.
I do have a conversation with Mama
where I do express my unhappiness
and how I am tired of wearing just junky clothes
from cloth from Ike Godsey's store
and Olivia is beginning to sense
that the influence of the Hanovers
is changing some of the children.
And then Erin finds herself uncomfortable
because Charles is continuing to push her
and she thinks she likes him, but she's not sure.
But she isn't really all that comfortable
with the advances that he's making.
Alicia comes by to try and find John Boy
and she is very snooty with Olivia
who puts her in her place.
She said, "You can't treat me,
you can't speak to me like that."
She wants to see John Boy,
she's gonna go up to John Boy's room
and Olivia stops her and says, "No, wait."
And she calls John Boy down
and John Boy and Alicia go out walking instead.
At dinner, things escalate.
Many of the children are out of sorts,
Erin is out of sorts, Mary Ellen is out of sorts,
John Boy is out of sorts
and just not behaving the way they normally would.
And Olivia sees more of the negative influence
of the Hanovers on the family
and she's not happy about that.
As things progress,
Charles makes more advances on Erin
and she does end up saying no and pushing him away
and he grabs her
and ends up getting the sleeve of her dress torn.
Meanwhile, John Boy has been arguing with Alicia
because she has read some of his writings
and feels that although there's potential there,
that he needs to be selfish and go to New York
and that he is gifted
and the gifted people are privileged
and that the rules don't apply to them.
But then she also tells him
that he needs to make changes to his writing
that would be more appealing to the audience.
John Boy feels that, no, he's writing what he knows.
He's not interested in just writing to a formula
because that's what everybody's doing.
So they argue as well.
So there's a lot of tension in the family.
After Olivia talks with Erin who tells her
that she didn't want to do anything
more than kiss Charles once and Michael...
Basically, she tells her, "Well then you don't need to
and you should always say no
and you are perfectly within your rights do that."
Concerned, she does go and talk with John
and explain what's going on with the children.
John goes and he confronts Mr. Hanover
and basically says
he needs to pay attention to his children,
that his children are out of hand,
that they're not really happy
and what is Ted really doing here?
What's his objective?
And while he is undecided about his future,
his children are suffering.
Ted, I think, begins to realize
that this was a bit of a whim,
it was a dream, it was an idea,
but it doesn't really work for the family.
In the end, the Hanovers decide to go back to New York,
that that's really where they belong.
And there's some wonderful lessons learned all around
as always in our episodes.
We also had some wonderful guest actors,
Barbara Cason who played Susan,
Mark Miller played Ted,
David Gruner played Charles
and Linda Purl played Alicia.
Now I have known Linda Purl for a long time.
I met her on "The Waltons"
and then she came back and did another episode
in Season 6, "The Heartbreakers,"
which I will talk about soon.
And we were in a musical theater class together.
Linda is a beautiful singer
and that was demonstrated a bit in the other episode,
"The Heartbreakers."
And she is actually been touring,
doing a lot of concert work
and she's about to head over to the UK for a month. (6 months)
She said she's going to be seeing Jon Walmsley
and that perhaps they would get together
and shoot a little video to share with all of you.
So I'm hoping to have that to share with you
sometime in the next month or so.
That's what I have for you for this segment
of "Behind The Scenes of The Waltons"
about the episode from Season 3, "The Spoilers."
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I look forward to seeing you the next time
for more "Behind The Scenes of The Waltons"
and more Ask Judy.
Thanks for watching.