- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes at the Waltons."
Today, I'm talking about the episode, "The Thoroughbred."
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It means a lot to me.
"The Thoroughbred" was an episode in Season 3,
and it guest-starred actress, Kathleen Quinlan,
who did this episode as Selena Linville,
and then returned in season four
for the episode "The Collision."
I'm a huge fan of Kathleen Quinlan.
It was really special to get to work with her.
I didn't have a lot of scenes with her,
but her career has been really extensive.
And - I mean, she was nominated for an Oscar for "Apollo 13."
She did the TV series, "Family Law."
She did some breakout movies that I just thought
her performances were brilliant.
"I Never Promised You a Rose Garden."
One of my son's favorite movies when he was young,
was "Zeus and Roxanne"
about a dog and a dolphin who become friends.
And although it wasn't what I'd call a major film,
it was really sweet, and so her career and her filmography
has really touched me a lot over the years.
And here she was doing two episodes of "The Waltons."
Selena Linville was a fascinating character.
She was well-to-do from a well-to-do family,
and yet she wasn't a snob.
In "The Thoroughbred" she's more interested in John-Boy
than in the other young man who is oh-so willing
to let everybody know how prominent his family is,
and how much money they have.
And she's just thoroughly unimpressed by it,
which said a lot about her character.
And then she goes through quite a lot in the episode
"The Collision" when she doesn't want to deal with the fact
that her family has lost its money,
and things are going to change for her.
She's struggling with all of that and wanting to run away,
and wants John-Boy to run away with her
to deal with the political issues around the world,
and what-not, and is really harping on him
because he's not willing to drop everything and run away.
And, ultimately, she finds a way to come to terms with it.
A really fun thing in this particular episode is
since John-Boy will be riding the mule Blue in the race,
he wants to be able to ride him with a saddle on,
so he has to introduce that to the mule,
and the mule is supposed to be just horrified,
scared at the saddle, runs away.
Well, the only thing that scared this mule was a camel.
I'm not sure how the trainers knew that,
but they brought a camel to the set that day,
and they hid it behind the barn.
And when John-Boy comes out with the saddle
they bring the camel out,
and the mule freaks out and runs away.
So I thought that was a very clever way to deal with
that instant that they needed to create for the mule.
I talked a little bit about that
in the segment about the animals, but it beared repeating
since this was the episode it actually was a part of.
This episode touches a lot on the question of class,
and the hierarchy within a class system, or a social system.
In this case, John-Boy is feeling very competitive
with his classmate, Carl,
and Carl is feeling very competitive about Selena,
the character played by Kathleen Quinlan
because Carl is trying to use his money
to sort of sway Selena into dating him rather than John-Boy,
and is using that to make less of John-Boy.
And he's riding a mule,
and John-Boy very much feels that
when Carl flaunts his prized thoroughbred,
and how much better that is.
He does have an awfully nice car that he drives.
It is gorgeous.
I have no idea what it is, what this car is,
but it was really a nice-looking car as was that horse.
Being a horse person I can really appreciate
a nice-looking horse when I see one, and that was indeed,
so I was very jealous that I never got to ride that horse
in this episode.
And, in fact, never really during this show
got to ride a horse that was that impressive.
The horses I rode up in the mountains
they were good solid work horses, but not flashy, so.
It would have been fun to get on that nice flashy horse.
Stunt work comes into play in an episode like this
where you're dealing with a lot of horses and racing,
and things like that.
I'm not sure exactly where and when
different stunt riders were covering for the actors.
Obviously, if you can see the actor's face
then you know that that's the actor,
but in some of the longer shots where you can't tell
I am sure that the actor playing Carl,
and I know that Richard were both being doubled at times
for that - just for safety reasons and stuff.
So this particular point where John-Boy falls off of Blue,
and into the mud,
that was a stunt person who came up and took the fall,
intercut then with this closeup of Richard
actually in the mud.
So there's an example of editing
to accomplish the safety of the actor -
and, also, then being able to see the actor.
This episode was directed by Harry Harris,
who always seemed to get the episodes that involved animals,
but he dealt with them really well in this episode.
There's obviously a lot going on with this race,
and with John-Boy training for the race,
and all of the kids involved with
preparing Blue for the race.
So he would have had his hands full
dealing with all of that.
And I think he brought it together beautifully.
Of course, there's a lot of squabbling.
I love the squabbling between Ben and Erin.
That was not something that you saw as much of specifically.
So here, to see is really cute.
Mary Ellen has a little bit of a turn in this episode.
Notice that I have my hair in a bun.
In Season 3 I started thinking that,
well, Mary Ellen is getting a little bit more mature.
And there was probably a point where young women
went from keeping their hair down to wearing it up.
So I thought that would be appropriate.
Then I don't remember if it was in this season,
or another season I got tired of it being in a bun, and
started wearing it down again.
And I know a lot of people have commented about
some of the hairstyles on the men and the women,
the boys and the girls.
And, yes, it's true that they did for some reason
let us get away with a lot that wasn't particularly period.
I think as the series went on it became more lax.
I don't know why,
but if we were not being told
we had to be specifically period then we weren't.
And in some cases I don't know that I could have told you
exactly what it should have been,
but I do know looking back
that some of those very '80s hairdos
were clearly not period, so.
In this case, though, for a while I wore the bun.
And there were comments within this episode about
how Mary Ellen seems to be more agreeable
when asked to do something she's like, yeah, sure.
She argues a little bit about
what she's gonna do to be able to help John-Boy.
She wants to help with preparing Blue,
but feels that everything's already been given to somebody.
And he says, well, maybe you could make a saddle blanket.
And she feels that she's not well-equipped to do that
because sewing is not her forte,
but she agrees to let Grandma help her.
And she does a creditable job of it.
When she's getting frustrated, Grandma's very supportive,
and says that she'll get better with practice,
and admires that she did a really good, solid job on it.
And John-Boy really appreciates it.
So Mary Ellen has a little win there,
and she has moments of being more mature.
And somebody makes a comment about the change in her,
and says they like the new Mary Ellen,
and they hope she sticks around.
I recently came across this picture of me on Blue.
And when I came across it
I didn't remember what episode it was from,
when we might have been shooting
that I had this picture taken.
And when I watched "The Thoroughbred" again,
I realized that it was taken on location
up in Frazier Park during the filming of this episode
because clearly that's what I was wearing up by the tree
when the horses and everybody circled around.
This was my hair in the bun,
and this is Frazier Park.
So I now have the answer to where that picture was taken,
so I thought I would share it with you.
I hope you've enjoyed this segment about
the episode "The Thoroughbred,"
and a little bit about Kathleen Quinlan.
Please join me next time for more
"Behind the Scenes of the Waltons,"
and more segments of "Ask Judy."
Thank you so much for watching.