- Welcome to another segment
of behind the scenes of "The Waltons."
Today in honor of Thanksgiving,
I'm gonna talk about "The Thanksgiving Story",
the episode from Season 2..
So, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
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I have a special surprise for you
during this segment of behind the scenes of "The Waltons."
Two of my castmates will be stopping by
with a Thanksgiving message for you.
So make sure you stay tuned for that.
A lot of different storylines were happening
in this particular episode.
It was a two hour episode,
so there was a lot of time to cover different things.
John-Boy is hoping to get into college,
and get a scholarship.
His earlier love interest Jenny comes back to the mountain
and he's very excited about that.
Jason has an opportunity to make some money
working for the Baldwins,
but he's making the recipe
which of course does not go over well with our mother.
And then Ben wants to have his first opportunity
to be a grownup and get that turkey for the family,
and he convinces Grandpa
to let him be the one who does it.
And Grandpa helps him build a turkey yelper
which I thought was kind of cool.
I'd never seen one before growing up in the city,
not a lot of turkey hunting out here in LA.
So I loved that storyline.
So a lot of different things happening
for the different characters.
Mary Ellen is going to try out for the school play
and she's hoping she'll get the role,
but she's worried because Martha Rose
is also up for it
and she thinks that, you know
she might have a really good shot at it.
So some specific things that I caught
when I was watching the episode,
early on, Grandma's making relish
and asking various different people to taste it
to see if there’s too much of this, not enough of that.
I don't like relish.
So at the point when, I'm being given the relish to taste
I can guarantee I wasn't eating that relish,
I was faking that.
Which was typically the case,
if you couldn't see that someone was eating,
if it was something I didn't like, I avoided eating it.
In that case, I couldn't avoid taking the bite,
but I probably just pretended to take a bite.
Also with that, at that point,
when Mary Ellen's talking about the play,
she says she has no plan to get married
which was not an unusual thing for Mary Ellen
in those early seasons.
She was certain
that she wasn't gonna take a traditional path.
She wasn't gonna get married and just raise kids.
She wanted to have a career.
In this particular episode
she states that she wants to be a theater actress.
Which she states a few times again in early episodes,
as in the episode, "The Actress"
where she wants to become an actress.
Of course, that didn't last very long
and she transitioned to an interest
in various different other careers
before finally settling on a career path as a nurse
and then a doctor.
This is one of the episodes where I noticed
some other parts of the house.
We actually see people coming out of that root cellar.
I don't think you could go very far into there.
It wasn't a working root cellar where you'd go in
and film in there, but Ben and Grandpa come out of there
when they're going to go smoke hams.
Also, I don't recall any other episode
where we use the smokehouse.
So those were two sets
that we didn't have an opportunity to see very much
but we see in this episode.
There were a number of really sweet comedy moments
in this episode.
The whole storyline of Jason
working for the Baldwin sisters,
and him being afraid to tell our mother and rightly so
but that then when the Baldwin sisters determined,
because there is no heir to the recipe
and their worldly goods, they get this brilliant idea
that they are going to adopt Jason.
And they think that this is a perfectly acceptable solution
because he can still share time with the family
just that he'll live with them some of the time
and he'll be Jason Walton Baldwin.
And I loved that
John's response to them is.
- "That's very nice ladies
but we're not giving up any children this year."
(laughing)
- And of course, Olivia is horrified
that any of this is even coming up and how did it happen?
How did she not know about it?
And everybody's been lying to her,
but John does take it
with a sense of humor
seeing how absurd the whole thing is.
The storyline with John and Olivia
progresses into one of their fights.
They didn't fight a lot on the show,
but I loved that
it showed the realism that there's gonna be times when
in the best of families and the most loving of families
people aren't gonna get along.
And in this case,
John and Olivia just see this from opposite sides
and she's not willing to give in.
And he's trying really hard to get her
to see the other point,
but he understands her point as well.
And they kind of fight it out
but ultimately they also both -
because they love each other so much,
they find common ground and they find a way past it.
So that was a really beautiful moment,
and I think a really good example
for all of us
to just continue to talk and communicate
and find a way past those differences
because that's what - I guess as corny as it is -
that's what love's about.
It's also about acceptance.
I have a lot of fun with my storyline
of auditioning for Pocahontas and being all concerned
because Martha Rose
has the money to get this
custom made costume,
and I'm all worried that she's gonna get the role
because her costume is so cool,
and of course I ultimately get the role.
It's always interesting as an actor to be acting
and then pretending to act as in the case for both of us
both me and Cindy to be auditioning.
And in her case to do a bad audition and act badly.
Whereas for me, Mary Ellen was supposed to act better.
So to pick a delivery that
was an acceptable level of being a decent actress
to get the role.
So I enjoyed that.
Another side note here is in this scene,
this actress that played this other role
was Kym Karath.
Kym Karath played young Gretll in "The Sound of Music".
And I had worked with her
very early in my career when I did a commercial,
and she was the lead character in that commercial.
Another guest star in this episode was Rance Howard
who played Dr. McGyver.
Rance Howard is the father of actor Ron Howard
who also did an episode of "The Waltons".
So we like to keep things in the family.
John-Boy, and Jenny that storyline was a continuation
from the episode "The Love Story".
Many people felt that John-Boy
and Jenny should have ended up together.
I can understand why, they were very sweet together.
And in fact, Richard and Sian Barbara Allen
who played Jenny actually were dating in real life.
So they came by that chemistry naturally.
I loved Sian Barbara as an actress.
She had such a beautiful quality for Jenny,
light and sweet and gentle,
and she was so likable as a character.
So I thought it worked really well for these segments.
Sort of interesting side note that in this episode
because John-Boy gets injured
and ends up in the hospital and having to have surgery,
he ends up in the hospital with his head wrapped up
which is a little deja vu to later years
when all of a sudden they recast John-Boy
and we first see him in a hospital
with his head wrapped in bandages.
I don't know, but it does bring up the question
of the actual potential hazards of that saw mill.
In this case, John-Boy gets injured
because of the belt slipping off.
And in speaking with Eric Scott
about working in that saw mill,
he said that original saw mill was a little dicey
and the way it was rigged together had its hazards.
So I think we're very fortunate
that no one actually ever did get injured.
And of course, John-Boy did recover.
He was able to take his scholarship exam.
And it was a monumental episode
because this is when he got accepted to school.
And it was a turning point for his character in the series.
Ben going out to hunt the turkey.
There's callbacks to the first episode of "The Hunt",
When John-Boy doesn't want to go shoot turkeys.
And in this case, Ben wants to be the one to get the turkey.
And then you can also call back to The Homecoming
with Charlie Snead
who delivers what he says was a turkey
that he shot and yet was actually a stolen turkey.
So there's a bit of an ongoing storyline
about the acquisition of turkeys
for holidays on "The Waltons".
- Hey everybody, it's Eric Scott here.
And I'm so glad we're talking about
"The Thanksgiving Story".
It was one of those fun episodes for myself
'cause I get to spend a lot of time with Will Geer.,
I had a couple of scenes up on the mountains
and it was very cute going out there
and doing all the hunting with him
and everything else.
Working with Will, I've said it before,
he was so crazy and he was so big and so strong
so sometimes he would take me
and he tapped me on the shoulder
it would literally just shake me to the core
but working with Will was just so much fun.
And watching the episode, I thought we were all like
on the same machine - was just, it was working well,
it was well oiled and everyone was just at their top
at that point, it was a very good episode.
So Judy, keep on doing what you're doing.
It's great to share with all these people
our wonderful memories of making these shows.
And speaking of that, I wanna say Happy Thanksgiving
to all of you.
It's been a tough year
and I know it's gonna be tough for a little bit longer,
but stick with it
and just to go embrace the family that you have with you
and make your phone calls and your Zoom calls
to all the people that can't be there, but be safe.
And I love all of our fans.
We have the best fans around
so Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours.
- Hello everybody.
I think I'm a surprise guest here(laughs).
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from all of us.
I am here celebrating a...
Well just me and Don celebrating Thanksgiving this year.
And I know Judy has put together this fabulous video
like her other videos that are all so incredibly fabulous.
What I love about Judy's videos
is that I am reminded of things that I have forgotten
or I learned things that I didn't really even know
about the show (laughs).
So, "The Thanksgiving Story"
is the one we're talking about today.
And I don't have a lot of memories from it.
Except one thing I do remember
is we were on the set and usually we were always a family.
We did scenes alone and apart sometimes
but we were always together as a family
having dinner scenes and the house.
And when "The Thanksgiving Story" happened
and John-Boy gets clunked on the head with the belt,
he ends up in the hospital.
So we shot all of these scenes with no John-Boy.
And then there was worry about John-Boy,
say prayers for John-Boy.
And it was almost like it really happened
because Richard wasn't there
and we were all so used to being together
that I remember thinking, wow
"Wow, it's almost like it really happened."
So that was my one little memory
from "The Thanksgiving Story"
I want to wish all of you, a very, very Happy Thanksgiving.
And I hope you're having safe
and healthy and wonderful Thanksgivings
with as many family members as you can possibly Zoom(laughs)
Happy happy Thanksgiving from our house to yours.
- I hope you've enjoyed this behind the scenes
of "The Thanksgiving Story".
I wish you and your family, a very Happy Thanksgiving
and from "The Waltons" to you, I wish you all the best.
See you next time.