- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of 'The Waltons'".
Today, I'm talking about the episode "The Separation".
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Interesting note on this episode, "The Separation",
the story was by Ellen Corby,
and then the teleplay was by Richard Carr,
and directed by Phillip Leacock.
Ellen was involved in the writing of,
I think, a couple episodes.
I'd have to check back as to which ones they were.
But I think it's only appropriate that the storyline
really focused on Grandma and Grandpa,
and her jealousy and how that impacts their relationship,
and Grandpa just being done with that,
and feeling like he doesn't have to keep explaining
his actions and that she should trust him
after all these years.
And her inability to just do that.
As much as she loves him,
that she finds herself with this compulsive need
to know where he is and to worry about him,
and to feel jealous when she feels
that he is spending time with, particularly, the Baldwins.
All of these misunderstandings
are brought about because the Waltons
can't pay their electricity bill,
so the electric company comes and shuts off the electricity.
Olivia sends Grandpa down to Ike's to get candles.
Along the way, he gets this idea.
He knows that the Baldwins
have some pipes that need to be fixed.
He goes there and he proposes to fix them
for what he knows is the cost
of having the electricity put back on.
So, he says he will fix the pipes
and then could they go with him,
or could he go into Charlottesville
to pay this bill.
So, they get all excited and they're like,
oh, we would love to go into Charlottesville.
Can we come along with you?
And so he does the work,
and then he goes into Charlottesville
and they make however many stops they're going to make.
And it all takes much longer than he thought it would.
And then they stop at the soda shop,
and he finds this toilet water
that reminds him of Esther and he buys that,
and they all have a chocolate soda.
So it takes some time before he gets back home,
or is on his way back home.
And then in the meantime,
Grandma is terribly worried because, where did he get to?
They send John Boy down to Ike's.
Ike hasn't seen him. So nobody knows where he is.
And they literally go out looking for him
because it's now dark, and Grandma is terrified
that he, you know, is off in a ditch somewhere
on the side of the road.
And she can't just relax and trust that he's fine,
and that he'll get home when he gets home.
Another case where Will is theoretically driving,
and yet, as I have mentioned, Will did not drive.
So, whenever we supposedly see him driving,
he would not have actually been driving that vehicle,
which means it was somehow a set-up shot.
It was a camera car, it was a processed shot.
It was something that was happening.
And when you see the vehicle driving along,
you do not actually see that it isn't Will driving.
Often when we are in interior sets,
as in the case of Mr. Harper's store,
those tended to be done on the soundstage.
But in this case,
it caught my attention that this seems to have been
the actual location, like the exterior location.
The store appears to be on Midwest street.
But I can tell that it actually,
they used the actual interior of that location.
Sometimes there was enough space
within some of those buildings, like the school house.
We often shot that actually in the school house,
there on Midwest street.
But here, because through the windows,
you can see people walking,
and you can actually see that gazebo
that was part of Midwest street
that you saw when cars drove around there,
or when John Boy was going to Boatwright University
and he parked outside there.
So that gazebo was a location that we saw
quite often in episodes, not just of "The Waltons",
but other things that were shot at Warner Brothers.
So in this case I went,
oh, that was probably an actual building
where they could shoot.
The tiff between Grandma and Grandpa escalates.
When he comes back, she doesn't even let him explain.
She's angry with him.
He doesn't feel that he needs to explain then.
So he gets in a huff. So he goes and he packs and he leaves.
So, just a real example of the lack of communication
that sometimes if we give each other the opportunity
to speak, we can work our way through it.
And as an audience, we're like,
oh, just explain what happened.
Or, Grandma, why don't you listen?
And even when John Boy knows, or John knows,
it's, you know, Grandpa doesn't want them to tell her.
He wants her to recognize that she has no reason
to be jealous and that she should listen,
and let him explain.
And that, unless she apologizes, he's not coming back.
I thought the scene was really cute here where,
because the electricity's out and they're burning candles,
they make shapes in the candles.
I remember doing that at school,
and at other times when I was young,
whether it was in front of a candle
or in front of a light when it was dark,
but it just made me smile to see them creating
these little figures with their hands and fingers.
John Boy goes to see Ike to pay for the candles
and finds Grandpa sleeping on the pool table.
It doesn't sound like a very comfortable place
to be sleeping to me,
but at least then they know where Grandpa is.
Throughout the episode,
Mary Ellen keeps asking Mama about this upcoming dance
that she wants to know if they can go to.
And Mama's like, I'll let you know.
And Mary Ellen keeps ragging on her, going well,
could you let me know soon?
When can we know? I need to know.
I would have to iron my dress.
And Grandma gives her some great advice at one point.
She says, you know,
if I really wanted to get my mother
to let me do something,
I would do everything I could to,
you know, to help her.
To find out what she needed.
Sort of butter her up in a sense.
Give her a reason to want to reward you in a sense
and have that dress all ready to go.
So Mary Ellen does actually take that to heart,
and does all kinds, does all the ironing
and gets her dress ready,
in hopes that she will get to go to this dance.
When I saw this scene and the way I'm sitting there
on the stairs, I went, oh,
that's that still photo I have that somebody took of me
on the set.
And if it wasn't there,
then it's interesting because clearly,
that was a position that I sat in.
So I have this still picture
that reflects that position on those stairs.
When Grandma does find out the truth
about Grandpa having gone to the Baldwins to fix the pipes
to be able to pay to have the electricity turned back on,
she does own up to it, and is,
you know, is embarrassed and says,
"There's no fool like an old fool.
And, I mean, me." - You know, basically.
So, she does recognize
that she has blown it out of proportion
and has not given Zeb the opportunity to explain,
or to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I thought it was a very sweet scene
as John Boy drives Grandma to Ike's
so that she can apologize.
She asks John Boy's advice
on if he were writing the scene in his book
about Grandma going to apologize to Grandpa,
how would he script it?
And she tries to get his advice
on how she might to go and speak with him
and how he might react.
And she's hoping,
she's hopeful, that it's going to go well,
but then he arrives and finds out that,
they find out Grandpa isn't there.
And so now she's upset again.
So, all that work, all of that recognition
that she was wrong goes right back out the window.
So there you go, a little more conflict for the story
before Grandma and Grandpa can resolve their differences.
There has been talk about Fred Hansen, or for some reason,
they call him Oglethorpe or something like that.
The caller for this dance that Mary Ellen wants to go to,
and evidently it was someone that Grandma knew
back in the day, and that he always wanted to dance
with Grandma, but that she always saved this one dance,
"My Wild Irish Rose", for Grandpa.
So, when they decide they're going to go to the dance
and the idea starts popping in people's heads
that perhaps, if Grandpa had his own reason
to be a little jealous, that perhaps
that would give him a different perspective
on Grandma being jealous.
So everyone's gonna go to the dance
and they make sure that Grandpa knows
that Grandma's going and that, you know,
Fred, Oglethorpe, is going to be there,
so Grandpa decides that he is indeed going to go
to this dance.
And here we are at yet another dance.
So we had a lot of dances and a lot of fun things like that.
Fun scene sequences during the course of The Waltons.
So here we are at this barn dance and everybody's dancing.
I dance with John Boy and Grandpa dances with Miss Emily,
and then Grandma dances with Fred.
But then, the song comes on, "My Wild Irish Rose",
and at first Grandpa is dancing with Miss Mamie.
But then when he realizes
that the song that's being played was their song,
he turns Miss Mamie over to, I believe John Boy.
And he goes and asks Esther to dance.
And so, they have this special moment
and it helps draw them back together.
And then we've got everybody,
all the family's out there dancing.
Let's see, we've got Grandpa with Grandma.
John's dancing with Olivia,
which we don't always see that often.
So that's sweet there.
Ben's dancing with Erin,
and Jason is dancing with Mary Ellen, with me.
And Jim Bob and Elizabeth are dancing.
So the whole family's out there,
we're all dancing,
and it's a happy ending.
That's what I have for you for this episode
of "Behind the Scenes of 'The Waltons'"
about "The Separation".
I'll be back with more
"Behind the Scenes of 'The Waltons'" and more "Ask Judy".
Thanks for watching.