100 Fun Facts About The Waltons

The Waltons was created by Earl Hamner Jr., based on which of his novels?

Spencer's Mountain called its eldest son Clay-Boy Spencer; after a 1963 film with Henry Fonda, the story moved to television and he was renamed John-Boy Walton.

On which network did The Waltons air its original nine seasons?

CBS gave it what looked like a death slot, up against two hit shows; instead it ran nine seasons and outlasted both rivals.

Before creating The Waltons, Earl Hamner Jr. wrote eight episodes of which eerie anthology series?

The Twilight Zone gave Hamner his Hollywood break when Rod Serling accepted his scripts, a decade before the same writer created the gentle world of Walton's Mountain.

Who is the youngest of the seven Walton children?

Elizabeth is the baby of the family; the seven were nearly eight, because Jim-Bob's twin brother Joseph died at birth.

Walton's Mountain sits in which fictional Virginia county?

Jefferson County is fictional, but much of its map is real: the characters drive to Charlottesville and Rockfish, genuine neighbours of the Nelson County village where Earl Hamner grew up.

John-Boy wins a reporting trip and witnesses which real event of the 1930s?

The Hindenburg disaster: John-Boy wins a trip to report on the airship's arrival in 1937, sees it burn and comes home unable to write about it.

Which president's death is mourned on Walton's Mountain in the final season's opening episode?

Franklin D. Roosevelt pardons the Waltons' neighbour Harley Foster shortly before his sudden death in 'The Outrage', and John says goodnight as the funeral train passes.

How does John Walton Sr. earn the family's living?

Running a lumber mill keeps John on the mountain; in the pilot he worked in a distant town and came home only at weekends, a job he gave up after one fraught Christmas Eve journey.

The Baldwin sisters distil moonshine that they insist on calling what?

Papa's Recipe is pure whiskey, but the Baldwin sisters make it to honour their late father, the judge, and genuinely believe it is medicinal.

What does the snobbish Corabeth insist on calling her storekeeper husband?

Mr. Godsey is how Corabeth addresses Ike in company; Ronnie Claire Edwards, who played her, later put the line in the title of her memoir.

Which Walton's Mountain local is revealed as a First World War hero who holds the Medal of Honor?

Sheriff Ep Bridges keeps his medals locked away until John-Boy uncovers his war record; Ep tells him he should never have been called a hero for killing other men.

Which fictional college does John-Boy attend after high school?

Boatwright University is modelled on the University of Richmond, where Earl Hamner studied in the 1940s and where a drive and the library honour long-serving president Frederic Boatwright.

Which two Waltons characters' storylines changed to mirror what had really happened to their actors?

Grandma and Grandpa: Ellen Corby's 1976 stroke was written in as Grandma's, and when Will Geer died in 1978 the next season opened with the family mourning Grandpa.

Mary Ellen's first husband Curt, a doctor, is reported killed in which event?

The attack on Pearl Harbor: Curt is reported killed there, but years later Mary Ellen finds him alive in Florida, living under another name and unwilling to come home.

Olivia is written out of The Waltons when which illness sends her to Arizona?

Tuberculosis sends Olivia to an Arizona sanatorium; Rose Burton, a relative, moves in to look after the family, and John later goes west to be with his wife.

Which Happy Days star guest-starred on The Waltons as Seth, Jason's musical friend who is dying of leukemia?

Ron Howard played Seth Turner in 'The Gift', which aired just nine days after Happy Days made him TV's sunniest teenager, Richie Cunningham.

Which future Three's Company star played Reverend Matthew Fordwick on The Waltons?

John Ritter's young preacher arrives fresh from the seminary, gets drunk on the Baldwin sisters' moonshine and is sacked, until the congregation agrees to forgive him.

Who played Olivia Walton in the 1971 pilot movie The Homecoming, before the role was recast for the series?

Patricia Neal had survived a serious stroke before filming, and Earl Hamner and the producers doubted her health could stand a weekly series, so Olivia was recast.

Which famous ventriloquist played Grandpa Zeb in the 1971 pilot movie The Homecoming?

Edgar Bergen played Grandpa only in the pilot movie: when it became a weekly series every adult role except Grandma was recast, and Will Geer took over the part.

Which future Blazing Saddles star played preacher Hawthorne Dooley in The Homecoming, the Waltons pilot movie?

Cleavon Little's preacher helps John-Boy search for his father on Christmas Eve; three years later he was Sheriff Bart, riding into a town that did not want him, in Mel Brooks's comedy.

The Waltons looked doomed in 1972 when it was scheduled against which hit variety show?

The Flip Wilson Show was one of television's hottest hits when The Waltons arrived opposite it on Thursday nights; two years later it was off the air and the mountain family sat second in the ratings.

Ralph Waite's agent talked him into auditioning for John Walton by promising what?

The show would never sell, his agent promised: do the pilot, pick up a couple of bucks and go back to New York. Waite stayed for nine seasons.

Which Walton sibling marries in the first of the six reunion movies?

Erin marries Paul Northridge, her brother's business partner, in A Wedding on Walton's Mountain, but only after her old flame Ashley Longworth Jr. turns up to complicate things.

A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion, made in 1993, revolves around which real event of the 1960s?

The assassination of John F. Kennedy overshadows a Thanksgiving already heavy with grief: Ben and Cindy have lost their daughter Virginia and cannot agree about adopting another child.

Which Primetime Emmy did The Waltons win in 1973?

Outstanding Drama Series went to The Waltons after a single season, months after it had been scheduled against two hit shows and written off.

Which Waltons star won a fourth Emmy for the drama Nurse?

Michael Learned was billed as 'Miss Michael Learned' in the early seasons so viewers would not think a man played Olivia; her 1982 win for Nurse brought her lead-actress Emmys to four.

Which actress, James Stewart's mother in It's a Wonderful Life, won a 1977 Emmy as Martha Corrine Walton?

Beulah Bondi had played James Stewart's mother in four films; her Martha Corrine first appeared two years earlier, ready to take up arms rather than leave land wanted for a mountain parkway.

Which president vowed to make families "a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons"?

George H. W. Bush said it at the 1992 Republican convention; he had drawn the same comparison that January, and Bart Simpson answered on air, 'Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too.'

Which original Waltons star narrates the 2021 remake The Waltons: Homecoming?

Richard Thomas, the original John-Boy, appears on screen to introduce the film and narrates it as the older John-Boy looking back, while Logan Shroyer plays the teenager.

In which Virginia community was Waltons creator Earl Hamner Jr. born and raised?

Schuyler was a soapstone company town; when its mill closed in the Depression, Hamner's father took a factory job in another town and came home at weekends, the journey behind the Christmas pilot.

Earl Hamner Jr. later created which long-running 1980s prime-time soap set in California?

Falcon Crest traded the Waltons' close-knit mountain clan for a feuding wine dynasty ruled by Jane Wyman's tyrannical Angela Channing, and ran from 1981 to 1990.

Which role did Earl Hamner Jr. personally perform on nearly every episode of The Waltons?

The narrator's voice-over is Hamner speaking as the older John-Boy, the character he based on himself, so the author is in effect remembering his own boyhood aloud.

Richard Thomas played Bill Denbrough in the 1990 miniseries of which Stephen King novel?

It cast Thomas as the grown-up Bill Denbrough, a bestselling horror writer who goes home to face Pennywise: John-Boy, the boy who wanted to write, had grown up to play another author.

Before turning to acting, Ralph Waite had trained and worked in which profession?

Presbyterian minister: Waite studied at Yale Divinity School and was ordained before he turned to acting, then spent nine seasons playing the one Walton who stays home from church.

Ralph Waite later had a recurring role as Jackson Gibbs, father of the lead character, on which series?

NCIS cast Waite as Jackson, father of its lead agent Gibbs; when Waite died in 2014 the show let Jackson die too and dedicated that season's finale, 'Honor Thy Father', to him.

Earl Hamner Jr. wrote the screenplay for which 1973 animated film of a classic children's book?

Charlotte's Web became a Hanna-Barbera musical from Hamner's script; author E. B. White complained that the story stopped every few minutes 'so that somebody can sing a jolly song'.

Ellen Corby, the Waltons' Grandma, was Oscar-nominated as a lovelorn aunt in which 1948 film?

I Remember Mama brought Corby an Oscar nomination as Aunt Trina, her breakthrough after twelve years on the other side of the camera as a studio script girl.

Will Geer, who played Grandpa, was blacklisted in the 1950s for refusing to do what?

Called to testify before HUAC, Geer refused to name names and the studios dropped him; he moved to Topanga, sold vegetables and opened a theatre for other blacklisted actors.

Which folk singer did Will Geer befriend and tour work camps with in the 1930s?

Woody Guthrie and Geer toured Depression work camps together in the 1930s; in 1956 they shared a Folkways album, Bound for Glory, with Geer reading from Guthrie's writings between the songs.

Jon Walmsley, who played the musical Jason, also voiced which Disney character?

Christopher Robin spoke with Walmsley's voice in Disney's Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, years before he played Jason; off screen he married Lisa Harrison, the actress who played Jason's wife Toni.

Jason Walton lands a job playing honky-tonk piano at which local roadhouse, which he later owns?

The Dew Drop Inn horrifies Olivia and Grandma, who disapprove of drinking, when Jason becomes its piano man; after the war he buys the place.

Which future Oscar winner played Sarah Simmonds, John-Boy's overly protected date, on The Waltons?

Sissy Spacek played Sarah twice in 1973: she runs off with a rich boy in one episode and, in the other, John-Boy finds her hiding in a mountain cabin and has to deliver her baby.

Which Star Trek: The Next Generation actor played young sailor Ashley Longworth Jr. on The Waltons?

Jonathan Frakes, later Commander Riker, played the son of Miss Emily Baldwin's long-lost love; the confused Miss Emily takes him for her own Ashley, come back at last.

Judy Norton, the Waltons' Mary Ellen, posed for which magazine in 1985?

Playboy was Norton's bid to shake off her goody-goody Waltons image; she later said that had she known interviewers would never let it drop, it would not have been worth the trouble.

Waltons actress Kami Cotler moved to Virginia in the 1990s to do what job?

A teacher: Cotler taught in Nelson County, the real-life home of the family she had grown up playing, not far from Earl Hamner's boyhood house, and later became a school principal in California.

The actor who played which Walton brother became a messenger after the show and ended up owning a courier company?

Ben's Eric Scott started as a delivery driver, once carrying a package into the show's old production office where his own photo hung in the lobby, and rose to own the messenger firm.

The Waltons was the first major hit for which television production company?

Lorimar was a young company making TV movies when Lee Rich bought the script of The Homecoming; the hit series that followed paid the way to Eight Is Enough and Dallas.

What is the title of The Waltons' 1981 series finale, built around a party thrown by the Baldwin sisters?

The Revel is the Baldwin sisters' grand class reunion; when nearly every invitation comes back marked unknown or deceased, their neighbours on the mountain come as the guests instead.

What is the name of the Walton family's dog?

Reckless shares the farm with Chance the cow and Old Blue the mule, and dies of old age in season eight while romping in the woods with young Jeffrey, who had grown attached to the dog.

On which Hollywood studio's back lot was the town of Walton's Mountain built?

Warner Bros. kept the Walton house, barn and Ike's store in a wooded corner of its Burbank lot called the Jungle; the mountain itself was the Hollywood Hills, rising just beyond the studio.

For the first five seasons of The Waltons, which word did the credits place before the name of Olivia's actress?

Miss was added because producers feared viewers would be confused about the gender of an unknown actress with a man's first name; it was dropped in season six.

Jon Walmsley, the musical Jason of The Waltons, was born in which country before moving to California aged two?

England was home only briefly: Walmsley was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, to a grocer and his wife, who moved to California for a healthier climate.

What did the parents of the first actor to play John-Boy Walton do for a living in New York?

Ballet dancers with the New York City Ballet, his parents also ran the New York School of Ballet, and their son was on Broadway by the age of seven.

Which disease strikes Olivia Walton in An Easter Story, the two-part first-season finale of The Waltons?

Polio leaves Olivia facing life in a wheelchair until, just before Easter, she dreams her youngest is calling for help and gets out of bed unaided.

Which Walton child, unable to find a birth record, learns of a twin brother named Joseph who died at birth?

Jim-Bob suspects he was adopted when no birth record turns up, then learns the truth about Joseph; he is also the only Walton child born in a hospital.

Ronnie Claire Edwards, Corabeth on The Waltons, sold her Los Angeles mansion in 2008 to which rock bassist?

Flea, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist, bought the house, and Edwards moved to Dallas to live in a 1911 church she had restored.

What was Zeb Walton doing on Walton's Mountain when he died suddenly, as revealed in the seventh-season opener?

Planting tree seedlings high on the mountain was Zeb's last act, and the family buried him there under a plain marker dated 1865–1941.

What is the name of the newspaper John-Boy Walton launches after buying a retiring newsman's printing press?

The Blue Ridge Chronicle causes trouble at home from its first edition, which reports that one of John-Boy's own brothers was caught breaking into a house.

Grandpa Zeb Walton of The Waltons loves to boast about his soldiering days in which war?

The Spanish–American War supplies Zeb's favorite story, his charge up San Juan Hill, yet in one episode he is oddly reluctant to attend a reunion of its veterans.

Which actor took over the role of John-Boy Walton for the final two seasons of The Waltons?

Robert Wightman played John-Boy once the character came home from the war, and bowed out in a 1982 Thanksgiving reunion film before the original actor returned.

Which composer of the Planet of the Apes and Chinatown scores wrote the theme music for The Waltons?

Jerry Goldsmith had scored the 1971 pilot movie too, but producers found that theme too gentle and asked him to write a new one for the weekly series.

Ralph Waite, John Walton Sr. on The Waltons, lost a 1998 race for Congress to the widow of which entertainer?

Sonny Bono's death left a Palm Springs seat vacant, and Waite, a Democrat who had first run for the House in 1990, lost the special election to Mary Bono and lost to her again that November.

Olivia and Esther Walton are devout members of which church that John Walton Sr. refuses to join?

Baptist services draw every Walton except John, who was never baptized. In one episode Esther threatens to turn Methodist rather than share the church organ with a rival.

Excerpts from which book does John-Boy Walton print in his newspaper, provoking a book burning on Walton's Mountain?

Mein Kampf ran in his paper as a warning about events in Germany, but neighbors took offence and the local preacher led a bonfire of German books.

Which country music star guest-starred on The Waltons as Red, a bandleader who quit performing after his son died?

Merle Haggard played Red, who is coaxed back to the stage by Jason Walton, newly hired as the piano man at the local roadhouse to his mother's dismay.

What really starts the fire that guts the Walton house's upper floor, though John-Boy blames his own pipe?

A space heater Zeb forgot to switch off was the culprit, and the blaze destroyed the manuscript of John-Boy's novel, forcing him to start it again.

Lynn Hamilton, Verdie on The Waltons, also played nurse Donna Harris, the lead's on-off girlfriend, on which sitcom?

Sanford and Son cast her as Fred Sanford's on-again, off-again fiancée Donna Harris from 1972 to 1977, overlapping with her years as the Waltons' proud neighbor.

For which US military newspaper does John-Boy Walton work as a war correspondent during the Second World War?

Stars and Stripes sent him hunting for stories aboard a plane that was shot down off Britain; pulled from the sea, he lay in a long coma and woke with partial amnesia.

Will Geer, Grandpa Zeb on The Waltons, held a degree in which science before he turned to acting?

Botany stayed a lifelong passion: at the Theatricum Botanicum, the outdoor theater he founded in Topanga, he grew every plant mentioned in Shakespeare's plays.

Robert Donner, a regular on The Waltons as a local handyman, later played the prophet Exidor on which sitcom?

Mork & Mindy made him an audience favorite opposite Robin Williams; his screen career had begun with an uncredited part in the John Wayne Western Rio Bravo.

The Baldwin sisters' late father, seen on The Waltons only as a parlor portrait, held which position?

Judge Baldwin's portrait hangs over the fireplace until his daughter Emily learns he drove away her suitor decades earlier, and banishes the painting to the broom closet.

Which career does the youngest Walton brother dream of from boyhood but finally have to give up?

Aviator was his dream from boyhood; grounded by his eyes, he studied aircraft mechanics instead and opened a repair shop across from the general store.

Where do John and Olivia Walton finally take the honeymoon they never had, 19 years after their wedding?

Virginia Beach was paid for by Zeb, who sold his 1864 two-cent piece to Ike; the couple built a sandcastle, then hurried home on news of a fire on the mountain.

Peggy Rea, who joined The Waltons in its eighth season, went on to play Boss Hogg's wife Lulu on which series?

The Dukes of Hazzard featured her in 19 episodes as Lulu, wife of the corrupt county commissioner, while on Walton's Mountain she kept house as a stand-in mother.

John-Boy Walton wins a local race against a wealthy classmate's thoroughbred while riding what kind of animal?

A mule named Blue carried him to a narrow win in a race Zeb had been the last Walton to take, while the two students also competed for the same girl.

Earl Hamner Jr. wrote which 1968 TV movie, infamous for cutting off the end of a Jets–Raiders football game?

Heidi began on schedule at seven, so NBC viewers in the East missed two Oakland touchdowns in the final minute; it still became the most-watched TV film to that date.

Which Hollywood star played the father in the 1963 film of Earl Hamner's family novel, nine years before The Waltons?

Henry Fonda starred opposite Maureen O'Hara, but the film moved the family from Virginia to Wyoming's Tetons because its director wanted more imposing mountains.

Ellen Corby, Esther on The Waltons, spent twelve years in which behind-the-camera Hollywood job before acting full time?

Script girl was her post at RKO and Hal Roach, often on Our Gang comedies, where she worked alongside her future husband and took acting lessons on the side.

Which ten-year-old girl do Walton's Mountain storekeepers Ike and Corabeth bring home from an adoption agency?

Aimee came home in place of the baby boy the couple had gone to collect, and she soon became the best friend of the youngest Walton daughter.

What does John-Boy Walton sell back to pay for a new cow after the family's beloved Chance dies?

His graduation suit went back to the store, so Olivia and Esther altered the tweed suit Zeb had been saving for his own burial.

Which wartime outfit does the red-haired third Walton son join before being taken prisoner by the Japanese?

The Seabees, the Navy's construction battalions, send him to the Pacific, where he is freed in the war's last days by a guard who surrenders to his own prisoners.

Jason Walton and his wife Toni give all of their children names borrowed from which kind of performer?

Country singers supplied the names, fitting for a roadhouse piano player who met Toni, a musical WAC sergeant, while he was an Army drill instructor.

In which state does Mary Ellen Walton find her supposedly dead husband alive and living under another name?

Florida is where she tracks him down as Curtis Packer; changed by his war wounds, he tells her to move on, and she goes home to marry Jonesy.

In the final season of The Waltons, storekeeper Ike tries to get rich quick by prospecting for what?

Uranium fever sends Ike and the youngest Walton son into the hills with a Geiger counter, in the same episode that introduces Paul Northridge, a rich lumberman's son.

Joe Conley, storekeeper Ike on The Waltons, grew wealthy off screen by running agencies in which business?

Real estate was his second career from 1961, and he was running three agencies in the San Fernando Valley by the time he was cast as the Waltons' storekeeper.

The father of which Oscar-winning actress played blustering factory boss J.D. Pickett on The Waltons?

Patricia Arquette's father Lewis played Pickett from 1978 to 1981; his own father was the comic Cliff Arquette, and Rosanna and David Arquette are his children too.

What secret ingredient does teetotal Esther Walton admit to using in her sponge cake, to her granddaughter's shock?

Homemade whiskey from two elderly neighbors' still went into the batter, a secret that surfaces when her youngest granddaughter compiles a family cookbook.

What do the Waltons do from their beds as the house goes dark at the end of almost every episode?

They call out goodnights in voice-over, name by name, until the last upstairs light goes out. A BBC retrospective called the sign-off one of the most common catchphrases of the 1970s.

Paul Michael Glaser, a stranded air mail flier on The Waltons in 1973, soon became famous as which TV detective?

Dave Starsky made him a star two years later; on Walton's Mountain his runaway flier mends his plane, faces up to fatherhood and gives Olivia a birthday flight.

Which animation studio made These Are the Days, a 1974 Saturday-morning cartoon inspired by The Waltons?

Hanna-Barbera, better known for comedy, made the turn-of-the-century family drama for ABC as one of the very few dramatic series it ever produced.

Which future Cocoon star played a blacksmith on The Waltons who shared the actor's own surname?

Wilford Brimley had been a real blacksmith, shoeing horses for film and television crews, before his recurring part as Horace Brimley gave him his screen breakthrough.

Ralph Waite, John Walton Sr. on The Waltons, earned an Emmy nomination as a ship's mate in which landmark miniseries?

Roots cast familiar television faces against type as slavers, so the gentle father of Walton's Mountain became Slater, a mate aboard a slave ship.

What does proud neighbor Verdie Grant secretly ask John-Boy Walton to teach her to do before her daughter graduates?

Read and write is what Verdie had never learned, a fact her pride kept hidden; she finishes the lessons in time to travel to Richmond and watch her youngest graduate from college.

Richard Gilliland, Mary Ellen's second husband on The Waltons, met which Designing Women star on set and married her?

Jean Smart met him when he was cast as the boyfriend of another of the show's four leads; they married in 1987 and later appeared in the same season of 24.

Which future sitcom child star played Josh, the orphan adopted by Verdie and Harley Foster on The Waltons?

Todd Bridges played Josh, who is found hiding in the Walton barn after travelling from North Carolina, the year before Diff'rent Strokes made him famous as Willis.

Will Geer, Zeb on The Waltons, played the eccentric trapper Bear Claw opposite Robert Redford in which Western?

Jeremiah Johnson cast Geer as a grizzly hunter who takes Redford's greenhorn under his wing and teaches him how to survive in the high country of the Rockies.

The father of Waltons creator Earl Hamner Jr. lost his job when the Depression shut local mines of which stone?

Soapstone had made the village a company town; when the mines closed he took a machinist's job 30 miles away and came home only at weekends, the journey behind the Waltons' pilot.

Which short-lived 1974 drama did Waltons creator Earl Hamner Jr. make about a Los Angeles family moving to Iowa?

Apple's Way sent an architect and his family to live in a working grist mill in the town his ancestors founded, with a young Kristy McNichol among the children.

In the 1963 film made from Earl Hamner's family novel, what is the John-Boy Walton character called instead?

Clay-Boy takes his name from his father, plain Clay, but his mother is already called Olivia, a first name she kept when the story moved to television.

Besides selling groceries, which public service does storekeeper Ike run from his general store on Walton's Mountain?

The post office sits inside the store, so Ike is postmaster as well as grocer, party-line message-taker and, at first, the mountain's only garage mechanic.