- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons."
Today, I'm going to be talking about
an episode from Season 5,
episode 1, "The First Edition,"
when John Boy publishes the first edition
of the "Blue Ridge Chronicle."
This episode was written by John McGreevey
and directed by Larry Dobkin.
Early in the episode, you see Richard walking with a cane.
Evidently, he was filming a movie, "September 30, 1955"
about the death of James Dean
and he had a motorcycle accident
during the filming and broke his ankle.
And so then they put that filming
sort of on hold for some time
and we were back filming "The Waltons"
and because he couldn't really walk on that ankle,
he used a cane for some time
until it was well enough for him to walk on.
And they explained it in the episode saying
that John Boy had had an accident riding Ike's motorcycle.
- John Boy.
How long you gonna be on that cane?
- [John Boy] Oh, not as long
as it's gonna take to fix a motorcycle.
- Ironic that early in the episode,
there is a car crash.
(tense music)
(car crashes)
Judge Thornbury drives his vehicle
into the front of the soda shop and breaks the glass.
And fortunately, no one is injured.
John Boy, always in search of news,
is interested in what happened.
He talks to eyewitnesses and this sets the stage
for a bit of a conflict regarding what is news,
what should be published, what shouldn't be published,
his feeling that it's his responsibility
to tell the truth and look for the truth
even if it doesn't suit the political or personal agenda
of other people. That he can't play favorites.
And that's very, really the theme
of this episode from John Boy's character's perspective.
There were a couple of scenes
that I noticed in this episode
where we saw some mic shadows early on in Ike's store.
Olivia and Grandma are in there
and at one point, as Olivia goes
over to talk with Ike at the counter,
just up in the upper left hand corner
of your television screen,
you would see a little bit of a shadow.
Now, that would not have dropped
down far enough into the frame
that on TVs at that time, you would've seen it,
but a little later on
in John Boy's "Blue Ridge Chronicle" room,
basically the shed got turned into
where he published the paper,
and there is a scene in there
where the mic definitely drops far enough in
that we would have been able to see it on any TV.
So few spots there of mics making the final edit.
Mary Ellen and Erin are going to be going
on a double date with a couple of boys.
In this case, one of these boys,
the taller with the red hair,
is actually Mary's real brother, Michael.
So he had a little cameo here in this episode.
Couple of subplots in this episode.
One, Corabeth thinks she's pregnant.
She's very excited. So is Ike.
Unfortunately, she finds out that it was a false pregnancy
and she's absolutely crushed
and she just feels humiliated
and that she should run home to Doe Hill,
that she has nothing more to offer Ike.
And what use is she because she finds out
that she can't have children?
Ike of course loves Corabeth
and is crushed to think that she would leave
and initially won't even talk to him.
Fortunately, that subplot does resolve favorably
and I think it even strengthens the relationship
between Ike and Corabeth.
The other subplot involves Ben
who is selling ads for the "Blue Ridge Chronicle."
And in all of that, he has some boys
he's been hanging out with,
they've been playing pool, things like that.
And one evening to play poker,
they end up borrowing the house
of some people that are away.
One of the boys is supposed to be looking
out for their house.
He knows how to get into the house.
Well, it turns out Sheriff Bridges,
with John Boy along for the news,
discover that Ben is amongst the boys
who have now been caught having broken into this house.
Creates quite a bit of conflict for Ben,
John Boy, Olivia, who can't believe
that John Boy would disgrace the family
by printing this news.
So it really does create a conflict for these characters.
And what's important, what's news, what's not?
It's a good question.
A very clever way to put this sequence together.
John Boy is looking for Ben
and we see clearly the pool hall.
We see the sign for the pool hall.
John Boy goes over and looks in the window.
As he looks in the window,
we hear the sound of pool balls hitting each other.
We never see what John Boy sees,
but we get the sense, clearly,
that he's looking inside the pool hall.
We know Ben's not in there.
So in John Boy looking in,
we don't need to see that he doesn't see Ben in there.
We know that.
But that way, the set didn't have to be established,
they didn't have to make sure
that there was a pool table in a pool hall there
that we could see all just for a point of view.
We get that information with sound effects
and other information that we have already been privy to.
So very clever way to handle that
without having to create a whole pool hall set.
As John Boy struggles with the answer
to what to do about not only
the pressure he's getting from Judge Thornbury
about not printing about his car accident,
John Boy thinks the judge was drinking.
It was early in the day and he could smell alcohol on him.
The judge is up for reelection
and would like all of this to go away,
tries to persuade John Boy.
He even goes to John, but John says,
you know, it's his newspaper.
He needs to do what he wants with it.
I can't tell him what to do with it.
And the same thing with Ben.
So at the end of the episode,
John Boy has decided that he's gonna bury both the stories,
like on a back page.
So although he's printing 'em, it's a compromise.
Nobody will really see 'em, particularly.
Olivia doesn't consider that a compromise she's happy with
and Ben ultimately is the one who decides.
He prints the front page
with these stories on the front page
and says no, that's the news
and they belong on the front page.
So even though it paints him in a bad light,
he feels it's important to do it right.
As John Boy and Olivia and John
are out front talking about this,
and the conflict is in search of a resolution,
I noticed in this two shot
that there seemed to be a light.
It looks like a piece of one of our actual lights
for lighting the set,
over in the right side of the frame there.
So I can't figure out what else it is.
And it sure looks like a light.
So another case of camera just didn't catch
that they could see this,
'cause it's kind of shadowed there.
So I don't know if you caught it
without me mentioning it
or whether it was something that disappeared for you too.
I mean, if you're really watching the actors,
you don't necessarily see these things.
And I think, thank goodness
we had so many wonderful performances
going on all the time that some of these little errors
that happen in television,
I just don't think we ever caught 'em
because we were engrossed in the story.
And that's good storytelling.
So I appreciate that we were able to do that
and that these little mishaps
maybe weren't caught all the time.
That's what I have for you for this segment
of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons"
about the Season 5 episode, "The First Edition."
I will be back with more "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons,"
more "Ask Judy" and more with some of our cast members.
Thanks for watching.