- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of the Waltons, Ask Judy."
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So one of the things I've been asked at times
is how aware we were of the impact of the series,
and early on, I wouldn't say beyond getting fan mail,
of which we got a lot,
there wasn't a lot of personal contact with fans.
We were not a show that was filmed
in front of a live audience,
so we just went about our business and did the show,
and unless we were out at some sort of a publicity event,
really didn't have an opportunity to find out
the kind of impact the show was having.
Even during the run of the show,
although we came to realize as we went up in the ratings
and sat in, you know, #1, # 2,
within the Top Five for years,
we were aware the show was popular,
and so when we went out, we would get a lot more attention,
people wanting autographs and pictures and stuff like that.
But I think the real sense
of the long-term impact of the show,
we've gotten more and more since the series has ended
and since we have been out and about
to interact with those of you who have talked about
the impact the show has had on you and your lives,
and that is so heartwarming to all of us,
and it's very humbling to hear
that something that we created now nearly 50 years ago
has endured in this way, so we're very proud of that.
So today I was also going to touch on
some of the different types of publicity events that we did.
One that really stands out for me
was Will Geer had been invited to participate
in some sort of a fundraising event at the Hollywood Bowl.
Now the Hollywood Bowl is this huge
outdoor amphitheater in Hollywood,
and I mean, thousands of seats.
I couldn't even tell you how many thousands of seats
but big outdoor amphitheater,
and he invited the children, the Walton children,
to participate in this event
that he had been invited to be a part of,
and me and Mary and Kami,
So Mary Ellen, Elizabeth and Erin,
the three of us did a scene,
the witches' scene from Macbeth and,
you know, "Double, double toil and trouble,"
we did that scene and it's the first time
I'd ever done any Shakespeare,
so it was like, I have done Shakespeare
at the Hollywood Bowl.
It sounds really impressive.
It's not nearly as impressive as it sounds,
but it was a real honor.
The boys were involved in some other kind of a sketch
and evidently we brought Blue, the mule, with us,
and there was an entrance with the mule,
and so it was quite a deal.
I remember being really star struck by some of the people
that were there at this event.
There was one big dressing room for the women
and probably one big dressing room for the men,
and I remember Jean Stapleton from Archie Bunker
asking me to help her put on body makeup
because she, what she was wearing was sleeveless,
and so parts of her arms and back were showing
and she couldn't get to them.
So I helped her put makeup on,
which was quite, quite exciting.
And I remember meeting Roddy McDowall,
and he was friends with Richard Thomas,
and I think Richard might've been part of this as well,
but Roddy McDowall was there,
and he was going to be doing something
in his "Planet of the Apes" makeup,
which took hours to put on,
but I was so fascinated by that
and seeing him in his "Planet of the Apes" makeup.
So there were those wonderful, wonderful moments,
and that's, I think sometimes one of the things
about being in the public eye,
being a celebrity so to speak,
are those opportunities that you get
to do things and meet people and interact
in situations that would never have come to me
had I not been doing the Waltons.
So it was just one of those really lovely perks
that I've always enjoyed.
Another publicity event I did was with Kami Cotler.
She and I went out to Aurora, Ohio
to open up a section of a SeaWorld out there,
and I remember it was summer, it was really hot,
it was super humid,
which, we don't have a lot of humidity in Los Angeles,
so I wasn't really used to that kind of humidity,
but it was fun.
It was like a new children's section at SeaWorld,
and so we got to cut the ribbon on that.
I did some sort of a, an event at a circus,
and Michael and I rode an elephant
as we made our entrance into the center ring,
and I think a couple of the other Walton kids
were there too.
I think, I'm not quite sure who was.
I think Kami might've been there, I'm not sure who else,
but that was my first time riding an elephant,
so that was fun.
I, in later years, also still during the Waltons,
I had an opportunity to do a guest appearance
at a circus back east, a Shriners Circus,
and I sang a couple songs.
That was really exciting to be in the center ring
and sing to this huge audience.
It made me really nervous
I was not that experienced singing in front of crowds, so,
but it seemed to go well,
so I was relieved about that,
and meeting all the circus performers was really fun,
getting to go kind of behind the scenes of the circus
and meet them, these wonderfully talented athletes
and their animals,
and there were some beautiful horses
that were so well-trained, so I remember that one.
Another event that the, some of the Waltons did together was
it was some sort of celebrity sports competition.
I know I had done three "Battle of the Network Stars"
as part of the CBS team,
and I'd also done a "Celebrity Circus of the Stars,"
I did a couple of those,
so I'll talk about some of those
perhaps in another segment here.
But this one was, it was me and Eric and Mary and David
and Tony Becker who played Drew,
and we competed against some other show teams and stuff,
and again, we didn't do very well in that particular event,
which is probably why I don't even remember what it was.
I tend to block out the things
that weren't triumphant sometimes.
But we had fun, and, you know,
it was a number of different sorts of athletic competition,
some running, some swimming, and things like that.
There was also an event which was really an honor
at the Smithsonian.
The Smithsonian did an evening honoring the Waltons,
and there was a Q&A session,
and both Michael Learned and Patricia Neal
were there with all of us Walton kids,
and I believe at that point was when I had heard
that the Walton, that the radio from the Waltons
was in the Smithsonian.
I don't know if it's still there
or if it was a temporary loan,
but to do an evening at the Smithsonian was quite something.
Shortly after the Smithsonian event,
we embarked on a Walton Cruise
where a number of fans came along to join us,
and a lot of the cast was there,
including Michael Learned and including Patricia Neal.
So that was pretty special to get to spend a few days
with Patricia Neal again, and we interacted with the fans,
we did, you know, autograph signings,
we did a question and answer,
we had two teams and they competed
on different questions about the Waltons,
and I think the only reason why the Waltons beat the fans
was because there was a number of us together
and so collectively, we could get the answers.
But I find most of the time,
you fans know so much more of the details
of the show these days than I can remember
because I haven't watched the episodes for some time.
So I'm loving doing these YouTube videos,
because it's giving me an opportunity, an excuse,
to have to go back and watch some of these episodes
so that I can talk about them.
A few other publicity events I recall,
we, a number of us from the cast,
were at the unveiling at a wax museum
of a W.C. Fields figure, wax figure,
so we went down there and we had pictures taken
with this wax figure of W.C. Fields,
and I think Will Geer was quoting various
different W.C. Fields quotes to us about it all,
so that one was fun.
I remember the Waltons doing Family Feud,
and we played against the Dukes of Hazzard,
and they kicked our butts,
which was kind of embarrassing, but there you go.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
Another publicity event I remember doing
was with Jon Wamsley.
The network, CBS, would send actors,
stars from their various different TV shows
out to do what they called a press junket
with the affiliates.
Jon and I went to Chicago and Atlanta
The local networks from a given area
would set up in a hotel room,
and Jon and I would go from hotel room to hotel room
and we would record like video,
various different little teasers.
So we might say, Jon and I might go,
"Hi," you know,
"I'm Judy Norton, Mary Ellen from the Waltons," and you know, "I'm Jon Wamsley, Jason on the Waltons,
"and we want you to watch the Waltons
"on blah, blah, blah station at, you know, eight o'clock."
But sometimes the things that they wrote for us to say
were a little odd.
The one that stands out to me the most
was one time there was something about,
"Did you ever wonder if when a Walton gets old,
"they wither up and die," or something like that.
"Well, we're all alive and well
"on Thursday night on the Waltons."
I mean, it was just like, Jon and I were kind of like,
really, they want us to say what?
You know, who wrote this?
But we were young and we, so we pretty much
just did what we were told
and hopefully they didn't, they didn't come across
as odd to the audience as they were to us.
So those are a few of the various different
publicity things I remember
besides doing lots of parades and going out
and doing autograph signings at various different places.
Those were some standouts for me.
So thank you for joining me.
I will be back with more behind the scenes of the Waltons,
talking about various different episode,
and I will be taking more of your questions
and expounding on various different topics
related to the Waltons and my life
and some of the rest of the cast and all of that
in future segments.
So thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.