- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons."
Today, I continue on with Season one,
and I'm speaking about the episode "The Deed."
As Grandpa and John Boy are out on the mountain
and looking for the next area to thin trees,
they come across surveyors.
Grandpa is astonished to see them there and says,
"What are you doing here? You're on Walton land."
And the surveyor says he is with Packard Lumber,
and that Packard Lumber has the forest and logging rights
to this parcel of land, and he is there to arrange,
to put in a logging road.
Grandpa is incensed and is like, "We have this land,
we own this land, and we're gonna prove it."
And John Boy thinks, for sure, they have a deed,
and Grandpa confesses that they never got around to it.
When John and Grandpa go to see the lawyer,
he says basically that the Land Act of 1850
allowed all early settlers to file legal deeds
on land they had right to long possession.
Unfortunately, because a lot of people did,
but the Waltons never did,
they're going to have to go to court.
Despite all the various different
paperwork that Grandpa has,
he does not have that legal deed,
and it is going to cost $200
to arrange to go to court.
The lawyer says he's pretty sure
they're gonna win this thing,
but somehow the Waltons, in the midst of the Depression,
have to find a way to bring together $200.
All of the family wants to help
in any way they can, and so
they throw around a lot of ideas from
selling eggs and butter to Mary Ellen offers to
sell this teapot that she has,
that she found someplace in some old ruins
and isn't sure if it's silver or pewter
or what it is but will sell it.
John says, "No, you keep that."
John's figuring out how he can gather up money that's owed.
John Boy wants to go get a job
which John says absolutely not.
It's up to him to find an answer to this.
So I loved how the family was always willing
to pull together as a team
to overcome whatever the family was facing.
I'm not sure that that always happens with families today,
and I'm sorry to know that.
Despite Mama and Daddy having told John Boy,
he's absolutely not taking time off from school
and going away to find a job,
he does go and he leaves a note
saying that he's going to go and he will send back money.
John Boy hitches a ride with Yancy Tucker.
Bob Donner was once again doing an episode.
I always loved working with Bob Donner.
He was so funny, I mean you can see that
whenever you see him playing the character of Yancy Tucker.
Just such great comedic sense,
and Yancy was such a fun character.
So Yancy is heading into town to do some sort of business
which I think involves selling a recipe or something.
There seems to be something, sort of juggling around
in the back of his vehicle.
But he tells John Boy what boarding house he can stay at
and what he recommends, where he can't go, shouldn't go.
When they arrive in town, Yancy has a stop to make
and it's at a tattoo parlor.
And he's gonna go around back and deliver something.
Well, meanwhile, these two criminals
come in to rob the place
and Yancy comes scurrying out and hops in his car and goes.
And John Boy's left there
like, "What, what, where did you go?
You have my suitcase."
And so he's a little stranded there.
When he does make his way to, the boarding house.
Yancy has indeed left John Boy's suitcase on the front porch.
When I first saw this,
Mrs. Van Den Berg's rooming house
and I'm, "Gosh, that house looks familiar."
A little later on in this episode,
there's a point where John Boy's walking along the street
and I'm like, oh, that is Warner Brothers Midwest Street.
And indeed I think that house
that served as the rooming house was ultimately
the house that was used as Dr. Vance's office,
and later on became Curt and Mary Ellen's house.
I'm like, "No wonder that looks familiar to me."
So the house...
Any number of these houses on Midwest Street,
as a lot of the buildings got reused over and over again,
they would just put up new signage.
They do a little bit of exterior green work
or decorating, and it would be a new location.
Back home, Mary Ellen is complaining
once again about never getting to
do anything and about the choices for women at that time,
that she isn't interested in cooking and cleaning and,
and just being a wife and taking care of a house.
And, you know, even Olivia says there's times where
that's not what she would like to be doing either.
But I just, I so love those early episodes
where Mary Ellen was so sure she was going
to go out and conquer the world.
Because of everything that is happening,
and everybody pitching in to help with things.
Mary Ellen is left to take care of supper
one evening and burns the stew
because she is daydreaming or doing something else.
And she's like, see, I'm no good in the kitchen.
And it's a self fulfilling prophecy and
dinner becomes like breakfast.
I think they have oatmeal and pancakes or something.
And everyone's like, well, why are we having this?
What happened? Don't we have any meat?
and Mary Ellen says, "Well we did until I burned the stew"
and everybody takes it in stride.
And you know, it was actually,
they're pretty good sports about it.
And Mama, despite being really
upset with Mary Ellen does recognize
that Mary Ellen is just a different person,
a different personality,
and feels badly for, you know, shouting at her.
Which I thought was rather kind of her.
At the boarding house, where John Boy is staying,
he meets Cissy Brubaker, who is,
from only about six miles from Walton's mountain.
And when he actually has a chance to talk with her,
they learned that they really are
from the same basic area and Cissy is there
trying to get out of the small town,
she came from and forge a life of her own.
But she's not ready for people around there
to know that she's from this little sort of hick town.
John Boy recognizes that and
because of Cissy though, one of the other boarders,
Monty recommends that John Boy
come check out the place where he works
and he helps John Boy get a job.
So John Boy does indeed end up
with a job very quickly in town.
Being somewhat naive to the ways of the city,
on payday, John Boy goes out with Monty to a bar,
or he runs into him there and Monty is like,
"Let's go get a drink", and John Boy
says loudly enough to be overheard by these
same two robbers that he has $18
and what needs to happen with that.
And they talk about where they're going to get a drink.
And when they leave these robbers come
and they attack them, John Boy and Monty.
Monty runs away, says " Runaway. it's not worth it.
They beat up on John Boy and take his money.
So John Boy has a rather rude introduction to the big city.
This episode gives us a really good sense of
how difficult the depression era was for so many people,
even the Waltons who are more fortunate than some,
because they can grow vegetables
and they have the land there.
They can hunt, they can fish.
So it's easier for them in some ways.
But the idea of having to raise all this money,
money was still very scarce.
So you do see the challenges that they're facing,
trying to pull this together.
And in trying to speed up the production
of the sawmill, Grandpa makes a mistake
and the sawmill breaks,
and, John realizes that...
He feels it's hopeless.
They are not going to make this contract and get this piece
of the money that they desperately need.
As John Boy just ignored Mama and Daddy saying,
don't go away and get a job, Mary Ellen also ignores that
they said, "Don't sell your teapot."
And she flags down Vernon, the junk man.
Loved doing scenes with the junk man.
I just thought it was such fun.
Those interactions that,
that I had with the character of Vernon.
So I flag him down, I show him the teapot.
We make an arrangement, he's going to take it
and see what it's worth.
And then, when I go back, he gives me a check.
He says he sold it, and we did well.
And I am able to help out the family by presenting them with
a check for $25. Huge amount of money in that day and age.
So Mary Ellen feels very gratified to have been able
to significantly help the family in this desperate time,
Cissy convinces John Boy to go to the movies.
There is a movie playing. It's the last night
and she wants to go, so she says
that she'll loan John Boy the money until payday
so that they can go.
On their way to the movies, he sees the same two robbers
holding up the movie theater, and he goes on the attack.
Now there's a cut here where you see John Boy moving.
Now we've cut, and you see him
launching himself at one of the robbers.
So in that moment, a stunt person
would have most likely' that's my...
I'd wager money on that,
that it is stunt person who launches at this other robber,
who, very well was also a stunt person.
And then there's, you know, this sort of
wrestling match that they have on the ground.
At what point it became Richard again, when it was,
I'm sure safer, it became, you know,
you just don't want to injure your actors
because then production stops.
So John Boy does tackle the two of them.
Cissy gets in there with her handbag and beats up on them.
And the police come and John Boy saves the day.
In the final outcome as John is calculating
how much they have, what they still need.
They need just about $50, and John Boy comes home
and says that, he has $50 because he had a reward
for capturing these two thieves.
They go and have their court case.
They settle it, they get their deed
and it is a happy ending for the Waltons.
We get to keep the mountain, and the logging rights,
and the trees, and everything else.
So another happy ending on Waltons mountain.
That's what I have for you for this segment of
Behind the Scenes of The Waltons, about "The Deed".
I will be back with more Behind the Scenes of The Waltons
and more Ask Judy. Thanks for watching.