THE WALTONS
1971–81, CBS
WHY IT MATTERED It actually started as a stand-alone 1971 TV movie, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, based on the upbringing of narrator and creator Earl Hamner Jr. But audiences responded deeply to what they saw, and a classic TV spinoff about a close-knit intergenerational family in rural Depression-era Virginia was born.
“It was completely different from anything else out there because it showed a family in long-form,” says Richard Thomas, 70, who played John Walton Jr. (“John-Boy”). “It also had a nostalgic lens; it was based on childhood memories, so there was an emotional tug to it.”
SHOW HIGHLIGHT For the two-part season seven premiere, the family mourned the death of Grandpa Zeb (Will Geer, who died during the show’s production hiatus) on what would have been his birthday, planting seedlings at his gravesite.
I’LL NEVER FORGET… “At the Christmas party each year, the crew would show a blooper reel, and it was pretty blue,” Thomas says. “You’d see Grandpa and John-Boy mooning the camera and Grandma [Ellen Corby] sneaking into the cellar to smoke a cigarette. It was a pretty delicious counterpoint to the all-American family.”
DID YOU KNOW? Actor John Ritter, who appeared in 18 episodes of the series as the rural community’s young Rev. Matthew Fordwick, left the show after four years to take another part—the lead in a new network sitcom called Three’s Company.
IT INFLUENCED Little House on the Prairie, Family, Eight Is Enough, This Is Us
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