- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of the Waltons."
Today, I'm going to be talking about
the two part episode, "The Grandchild."
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So, "The Grandchild," it's an interesting thing
playing pregnant on TV.
I was not pregnant in real life.
I didn't have my son 'til many years
after "The Waltons" was over.
So I was wearing a lot of padding,
which was not all that comfortable,
and I felt really self-conscious, and awkward like that.
And then working on trying to move, and walk,
and deal with what I imagined it would be like
to be pregnant.
And looking back at it, having actually, since then,
been pregnant and had a child,
I thought it worked out pretty well.
(laughing) I thought it was pretty believable.
I've actually given birth twice in shows,
once on "The Waltons," and once in a TV movie
called "Valentine," that was actually also directed
by a director who did a number of episodes
of "The Waltons," Lee Philips.
So, I guess it was something
that I had a lot of practice about,
before I actually had my own child.
But it's definitely, for all you women out there,
you know it's a whole lot different pretending,
than for real.
But Mary Ellen had her challenges in this episode.
So, the whole storyline of Cassie, and the superstition,
and the way in which Mary Ellen
got really freaked out about all that,
I thought it was interesting.
But I can see how being pregnant,
a lot of things that might not normally bother you, might.
It's easy to be more sensitive to things, more paranoid.
There's always the concern about
is your child going to be okay?
So Mary Ellen does get caught up in that.
Now, that whole night sequence, out in that storm,
that was a created storm,
and created storms come with their challenges.
We shot that whole sequence up when I go to Cassie's house,
in the middle of the night, we shot it on a Friday night,
so we could shoot late, and we shot in the dark,
which made it much easier.
They had these big rain birds that they used
to create the rain coming down.
And then they have another machine
that creates the lightning strikes,
those flashes of lightning, but it's very loud.
So the combination of the two meant
that we weren't able to record any of that sound live.
So all of what we shot there was just
without any kind of sound effects,
or any of our dialogue or anything like that.
Also, because of all the rain, once we started filming that,
that sweater that I'm wearing was wool, and as it got wet,
it got heavier and heavier.
And of course, I'm wearing padding, which got wet.
So it was really pretty miserable.
So for about three or four hours,
I was wet and uncomfortable.
And between takes, they would come
and put a blanket around me, but didn't really warm me up,
because my clothes were pretty well soaked.
Not one of my favorite evening
four hour extra, 12 hour (actually it was 16 hours) day shoots. (laughing)
Such as - what goes with the territory
of being an actor sometimes.
It's freezing, sometimes it's super hot.
You're having to wear
whatever wardrobe you're having to wear.
Our lives are not always as glamorous as they can appear.
So because we weren't able to shoot any of that audio live,
that meant that later on, both I, and Tom Bower,
who played Curt, we had to go into the,
what we call the ADR, or the looping studio,
to record all of that audio.
I remember when I went in, it was the silliest thing,
because they needed things like breathing,
and yet I was supposed to be running.
And then I start screaming, or I'm startled by things.
So there I was, and they had the visual
of me running through the woods,
and the timing to when I started screaming.
And so I would hear these clicks in my ear
that would cue me when I needed to do certain things,
like that scream, so I'd hear,
"Click, click, click, scream."
So I did that a few times,
and then they just needed the heavy breathing.
And it's very odd to sit there, in front of a microphone,
and just do a lot of heavy breathing, (laughing)
or distressed breathing.
So those often feel pretty silly,
but ultimately when they layer all that sound in at the end,
with the rain and the lightening,
and the breathing and the screaming, it's pretty effective.
And then of course, Mary Ellen works it out
so that Curt has to deliver the baby at home,
which is what she wanted,
and which he said wasn't going to happen.
It was gonna happen in the hospital.
A lot of pieces to that,
but we shot it pretty much in part of a day,
all of those aspects of the length of the delivery.
And there was conversation,
because in the script it said something about,
"Oh, this delivery's going on too long,"
and yet it really hadn't been all that long.
For those of you who've been through long labors,
you know that was like nothing.
So, we talked about that,
and it was shifted to different types of concerns
than just the length of it.
So that made more realistic sense.
I loved the whole thing about Elizabeth boiling water,
pots and pots and pots of water.
- Elizabeth, what are you doing?
- Boiling water, that's what they do in the movies.
- So I thought that was really sweet.
Working with tiny infants is always fascinating.
There are very specific rules about working with infants.
They can only be under the lights for 30 seconds,
so everything is prepared.
All the lights are set, everything's rehearsed with a doll.
And then when they're all ready,
and there is literally a nurse, with a stopwatch,
and they will turn the lights off,
the nurse will bring the baby in.
They'll put the baby wherever the baby needs to be.
They will roll the camera.
And when they're ready, they'll turn the lights on,
the stopwatch starts as soon as that,
as soon as the lights go on.
And then we'll shoot what we need to shoot.
We'll cut as soon as we can, or 30 seconds are up.
The nurse will call it, and it'll cut anyway.
So, in working with infants,
you have to work in very, very short pieces.
And whenever you can't see the baby, it's a doll wrapped up.
So that's how you deal with working with infants.
There were some really varied elements in this episode.
There was the really creepy stuff about Cassie,
those points when she is outside the Baldwin's house,
and in the bushes creeping around, that was just creepy.
And there was another Raggedy Ann doll.
I talked about that in the episode, "The Changeling,"
where I just thought that the Raggedy Ann doll was creepy.
And when I saw the Raggedy Ann doll in this episode,
I was like, "Oh my goodness, there's another one."
(laughing) But in this case,
the Raggedy Ann doll wasn't the creepy thing.
But Cassie had some pretty intense stuff there.
And she was a wonderful little actress.
So, I thought that she really brought that element
in what was involved there.
On the other side of the spectrum
was all the fun stuff with the boys,
Ben running a baby pool, which of course I was horrified by.
Mary Ellen just thought that was the most offensive thing.
And it, you know, she just didn't have much
of a sense of humor about it.
I don't know how I felt personally about that,
if someone were doing that.
I might be on her side on that one.
Jason had the whole storyline
about playing at the music hall, for the burlesque show,
(laughing) and not knowing that's what's happening.
And here comes this burlesque dancer,
and there's this leg in his face.
And then scarves are being dropped on his head,
and then Grandpa, and Ben, and Jim Bob go to see the show.
And (laughing) so I thought that offset
all of the creepier elements of the show really nicely.
I also loved Jon's little dance,
when he found out that he was going to be playing,
and Jon's not what I'd really call a dancer,
but I thought he had a lot of fun with this moment,
and made the most of it.
So those are my reminiscences about the episode,
"The Grandchild," and I hope you enjoyed this
"Behind the Scenes of The Waltons."
I will see you next time.
And also for more of "Ask Judy,"
so continue to post your questions,
and I'll either answer 'em in the comments,
or take some of them up in another episode of "Ask Judy."
Thanks for watching, see you next time.