- Welcome back to another segment
of behind the scenes of "The Waltons".
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- The dull and heat-laden days of August vanished
in a rainstorm and September dawned bright.
- Today I'm going to be talking about the episode,
"The Achievement".
It was the last episode that Richard Thomas did
before he left the series.
So it was very special to all of us.
In this episode, John Boy goes to New York to find out
what's happening with the novel
that he sent there to a publishing house.
So early on in this episode
you see segments that are in New York.
You see the skyline of New York, you see skyscrapers,
you see the streets of New York.
Now this was done in editing as an interaction
between stock footage of New York
and the studio at Warner Brothers,
where there is a New York street.
So in these scenes, you'll see shots
of the skyscrapers, that would be stock footage.
And then John Boy walking along the streets of New York,
That would have been shot on the New York street
at Warner Brothers Studios.
So throughout the episode, you will see this back and forth
between these two things to give the illusion
that John Boy actually went to New York City,
where in fact he did not.
At one point, he is looking out the window
of the hotel that he is staying at in New York.
And you see him looking down and out across the city.
Again, what he's looking at would have been stock footage
and this shot of him in the window
would have been shot on ground level
inside a soundstage where they created his hotel room.
I really enjoyed seeing these flashback scenes
from "The Homecoming" and watching as they cut
between real footage of Richard Thomas in "The Homecoming",
and then footage of Michael Learned as Olivia,
recreating the scenes that Patricia Neal
had originally done in "The Homecoming".
And then a little bit later, you see Ralph Waite
then recreating scenes that Andrew Duggan did
in "The Homecoming" at the end of the movie
when he is passing out basically the Christmas gifts
that he has brought for all of his children,
when he admits to John Boy that he knows he wants
to be a writer and that although he doesn't know anything
about the writing trade, that he is willing
to support John Boy in pursuing his dream
of being a writer.
In these scenes from "The Homecoming" of course,
you'll see that Richard Thomas's hair is much redder
than it was in "The Waltons".
In "The Homecoming" they dyed Richard's hair red,
and for the series he no longer colored his hair.
So it went back to his natural sort of sandy blonde,
light brown sort of hair color.
I enjoyed the aspect of this episode when John Boy
goes to visit Daisy Garner who he once did the episode
"The Marathon" with, and she is now trying
to become a dancer in New York City.
And she's working at a dance hall for 10 cents a dance.
That's an interesting concept to me
that there were these places where people could come
and dance and basically pay, get a ticket to dance
with one of the young ladies at the dance hall.
I was sorry that I didn't have more scenes in this episode.
That's sort of what happened once Mary Ellen got married
and then had John Curtis.
And this is actually before I had John Curtis,
but once I was married on the show,
I didn't live at the house anymore.
So all these scenes happened around the house
that there was no reason for Mary Ellen to be there.
They were able to include me in a couple
of the the dinner scenes, but otherwise I really
wasn't around very much in this episode.
And of course, a lot of it took place
theoretically in New York.
So Richard had a lot of scenes there in New York,
walking around New York, visiting with Daisy Garner,
seeing the publisher, and then visiting with
the mother of the writer that Elizabeth was so enamored of.
So all of those scenes, none of the rest of the family
would have been around while that was being shot.
So it was really just the scenes when John Boy
was back at home before he went to New York
and then at the end, when he came back.
So I missed the opportunity to interact
in a lot of this final episode that Richard did,
but I must say that the whole storyline
of John Boy wanting to become a writer
had a lot of influence on me.
Of course Earl Hamner Jr., who the character of John Boy
is based after, it is him in real life.
He did want to be a writer and then became a writer,
moved to New York as a writer, and then ultimately
moved to Hollywood to write for film and television.
And many of you have mentioned things about him
writing for shows, including episodes
of "The Twilight Zone".
So Earl did have quite a prolific writing career
in Hollywood, and it was years before I realized
that he had written a favorite sort of summer movie
that I enjoy called "Palm Springs Weekend",
which I had seen many times before I ever met Earl.
And then one time when I was watching it
I saw that the screenplay was by Earl Hamner,
so I got a real kick out of that.
But as a writer myself, I had had an interest in writing
when I was very young but then never
did anything with it of course, and it would
have just been writing short stories or things like that.
During the course of "The Waltons" I got interested
in script writing because I read so many scripts
and I read really good scripts by really good writers.
So I felt that gave me a good understanding
of what made a character strong
and what was good dialogue and what was good storytelling,
because we had such wonderful examples on "The Waltons".
And there was a point during "The Waltons"
when I actually did write a fair bit of a script.
I never showed it to anybody because
I was a little self-conscious about it and thought,
oh, it's probably not very good.
And who would I show it to?
And so I got a little embarrassed
and never showed it to anybody.
And I don't know that I ever even kept it,
but that was one of my first forays into script writing.
But I always remembered that and along the way,
over the years I started doing more writing
and more writing, until I actually started
having a lot of theater productions,
theater scripts produced and then had an opportunity
to have some scripts produced for film and television.
So I harken back to Earl Hamner wanting to be a writer
and John Boy wanting to be a writer.
And the way in which all of that
influenced me as a writer.
This final episode, knowing that it was going
to be Richard's last, was very bittersweet.
I'd had five wonderful years to work with Richard.
I always enjoyed all my scenes with him
and the relationship between John Boy and Mary Ellen.
Knowing that the scenes we were filming
were the last ones we were going to get to film
with Richard was very sad in many ways.
And when I watch this episode and see the final sequence
and see how as he's on the porch and he's talking
about New York and we see John's face,
Olivia's face, Grandpa's face.
And on each of their faces, we know that they
are recognizing that John Boy's about to leave.
He's going to be moving on and life will not be the same
around the family because he won't live there anymore.
And knowing that this was very much happening
in real life as well, that Richard was leaving,
it was a little heartbreaking to watch.
I was really moved by the expressions
that Ralph and Michael and Will all conveyed in those moments
and even Richard, and I'm sure it was very very bittersweet
for Richard knowing that this was his last episode
and all the love and joy that
we had shared working together.
I'm sure in spite of the fact that he was excited
about his future, it's not always easy to say goodbye,
which I think happens for all of us when we leave home.
If we've had a good home, if we've had a good experience,
if we're close to our family, as much as we want
to spread our wings and get out in the world,
explore and make our own life, doesn't mean
that it isn't also sad that we're leaving,
leaving a part of ourselves behind.
We're saying goodbye to our youth, our growing years,
all the things that were part of who we are today,
and that made us who we are at that moment
when we're ready to move on.
So I hope that your experiences at home were good,
that your experiences moving out into the world were good.
And thank you so much for sharing "The Waltons"
and all that they experienced over the years with us.
We appreciate having you.
- Hey Judy. Hey everybody.
How are you doing? How's everybody?
Okay. Listen, I am so late with this, but
I just want to get in touch
and wish you all a Happy New Year.
Okay. I mean, I could use one.
We could all use one.
I'll settle for an adequate new year frankly,
or even a better than terrible new year would be great,
don't you think so?
Anyway, I just want to wish you and everybody
who's watching your channel a happy, happy
wonderful healthy and safe new year.
You know, what you're doing is so great.
I love it. I think it's very cool.
And I look forward to coming back and saying hello again.
So I love you sweetie.
Everybody out there, good night and have a Happy New Year.
- Thanks so much for watching this segment
of behind the scenes of "The Waltons", "The Achievement".
I'll see you next time.