The 1916 Project

Count me as a fan of Judy Norton’s “Behind the Scenes of The Waltons” YouTube channel. She played Mary Ellen in the award-winning series that lives on in syndication perpetuity. Her myriad videos supply unique insight into the inner workings of a weekly television show from that very colorful snapshot in time, the 1970s. A recent installment revisited “A Walton Easter,” a 1997 reunion movie—the fifth and mercifully the last of them—that found the Walton family in 1969 and assembling for Ma and Pa’s “fortieth wedding anniversary.” 

That would mean, of course, that the couple tied the knot in 1929, but when The Waltons debuted in 1972, the family was “in the middle of the Depression,” 1933, and John-Boy was sixteen. In The Homecoming, the TV movie that inspired The Waltons, Olivia—Mama—revealed that her blossoming Christmas cactus took root "before the world war"—World War I—the year of her marriage to John. “1916, I recollect,” replied Grandpa. So, got it, Olivia and John Walton should have been celebrating their fifty-third anniversary in 1969, which, by the way, was when the latter passed away. That is, if we accept creator Earl Hamner Jr.’s closing narration in The Homecoming, where he intones, “For we lost my father in 1969.”

What’s the point of all this? It’s a television show after all. Still, we do appreciate a certain consistency and continuity on the small screen and in life in general. Fans remember details. In The Walton’s reunion movies, key people were no shows—like husbands, wives, and children—and went unmentioned. Budgetary savings, I guess. John-Boy was a New York City TV news anchor in 1969, covering the moon landing, which did occur that year, but in July, not at Eastertime. Why couldn’t the reunion movie take place on Olivia and John’s fiftieth anniversary in 1966. John-Boy could have been covering some important news event from that year—and there were many to report. Nowadays, I believe, series are more faithful to all that came before. But in the good old days, it didn’t seem to matter that much.

There are indeed life lessons to be had from The Waltons. And I’m not talking about the storylines and positive messaging. Rather, I’m looking at the broader picture. For one, the show went on much too long. After “John-Boy” Richard Thomas left the series, and “Grandma” Ellen Corby had a stroke, and “Grandpa” Will Geer died, it was probably time to call it a night and exit on top and still in the depression. Dianne Feinstein would have benefited from this life lesson. The later episodes had a stiff, almost soap opera feel to them. Also, you don’t cast a new actor in the role of a character so identified with another actor. Richard Thomas was John-Boy.

Finally, leave the classics alone. The 2021 remake of The Homecoming, which aired on the Hallmark Channel, was ghastly. The original captured the spirit of the Great Depression and hard times with edgy, unsanitized characters. Earl Hamner, Jr., the film’s director, Fielder Cook, and the older actors lived through the depression years. The movie looked the part in studio and on location. The modern version—well—didn’t from the neatly pressed, L.L Bean wardrobe to the all-too smart furniture to the banal Hollywood outdoor settings. You can’t go home again.