The Rev. Matt Curry\u2019s parents were children of the Great Depression, just like \u201cThe Waltons\u201d \u2014 the beloved TV family whose prime-time series premiered 50 years ago.\n
When Curry was growing up on a farm in northern Texas, his carpenter father and teacher mother often argued playfully over who had a poorer childhood.\n
\u201cThe Depression was the seminal time of their lives \u2014 the time that was about family and survival and making it through,\u201d said Curry, now a 59-year-old Presbyterian pastor in Owensboro, Kentucky. \u201cMy dad used to talk about how his dad would go work out of town and send $5 a week to feed and clothe the family.\u201d\n
So when \u201cThe Waltons,\u201d set in 1932 and running through World War II, debuted on CBS on Sept. 14, 1972, the Currys identified closely with the storylines. Millions of others felt the same, and the Thursday night drama about a Depression-era family in rural Virginia became one of TV\u2019s most popular and enduring programs.\n
At a time when the networks generally avoided \u201cdangerous\u201d content, \u201cThe Waltons\u201d was notable for taking on difficult topics \u2014 religion, in particular \u2014 said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University\u2019s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture.\n
\u201cI think it was an important show, and I think it actually doesn\u2019t get the attention that it deserves,\u201d Thompson said.\n
\u201c\u2018The Waltons\u2019 really did get down and roll around in some very, very serious spiritual themes,\u201d he added. \u201cFor example, an atheist comes to town, and we get this whole discussion between atheism and spirituality.\u201d\n
\u201cThe Waltons\u201d ran for nine seasons and 221 episodes, ranking as high as No. 2 in the Nielsen ratings. A half-century later it still stirs nostalgia among loyal fans who can\u2019t resist taking in cable TV reruns, binging episodes via streaming apps and keeping up with former stars through social media.\n
Based on the life of its creator, the late Earl Hamner Jr., the show followed a large extended family living in a white, two-story farmhouse and running a sawmill in the fictional Blue Ridge foothills town of Walton\u2019s Mountain. The parents, grandparents and seven children \u2014 John Jr., Jason, Mary Ellen, Erin, Ben, Jim-Bob and Elizabeth \u2014 were depicted wearing overalls and dresses, praying at meals and overcoming adversity through hard work and grace.\n
\u201cThe Waltons\u201d focused on John Jr., known as John-Boy, played by Richard Thomas and modeled on Hamner. The oldest sibling, he aspired to be a writer and experience the world beyond his humble upbringing.\n
Now 71 and starring as lawyer Atticus Finch in a touring production of \u201cTo Kill a Mockingbird,\u201d Thomas said he still hears fans call \u201cGood night, John-Boy!\u201d after each performance. The familiar catchphrase pays homage to the Emmy-winning role that made him famous.\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of astonishing that we\u2019re still talking about a show 50 years later,\u201d said Thomas, who narrates \u201cA Waltons Thanksgiving,\u201d a made-for-TV movie airing this fall on the CW network.\n
\u201cTo have that kind of longevity and then have it mean enough for people to want to do a new version of it \u2014 I\u2019m not sure exactly why,\u201d he added. \u201cI know it affected a lot of people\u2019s lives. But I think primarily Earl Hamner\u2019s writing was just so great and the cast loved each other so much and we were so committed.\u201d\n
John-Boy had a lot to do with the show\u2019s popularity \u2014 and inspired many a crush back then among fans like Jerri Harrington, now 67, of Centreville, Virginia.\n
Harrington still watches an episode every night with her husband of 47 years. During the frightening early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, its characters \u2014 particularly grandma Esther, played by the late Ellen Corby \u2014 brought a sense of comfort and return to childhood.\n
\u201cIt just feels familiar,\u201d said Harrington, a grandmother herself.\n
Another lifelong fan, Carol Jackson, like Curry the daughter of Depression-era parents, sees her own family\u2019s story reflected.\n
She became a fan as a kindergartner and as an adult placed \u201cWaltons\u201d DVDs in the resort cabins that her family operated in the Ozarks of northern Arkansas. The homespun stories still connect with the 55-year-old mother of three.\n
\u201cI just told my kids, \u2018One day when I\u2019m old and in my wheelchair \u2026 just wheel me in front of \u2018The Waltons\u2019 on a continual loop, and I\u2019ll be happy,\u2019\u201d Jackson said.\n
Kami Cotler, who was 6 years old when she first starred as youngest sibling Elizabeth in a 1971 holiday TV movie that launched the series, still interacts regularly with such fans via her Facebook page, which has nearly 150,000 followers.\n
Cotler said \u201cThe Waltons\u201d shared \u201cuniversal truths\u201d that help explain its lasting popularity.\n
\u201cThe show frequently told really simple human stories that resonate with people because that\u2019s what life is like,\u201d said Cotler, now an educator in Southern California. \u201cPeople will joke that it was very saccharine sweet, but I don\u2019t think that it actually was.\u201d\n
On the show, parents John Walton Sr. and Olivia Walton \u2014 played, respectively, by the late Ralph Waite, an ordained minister in real life, and Michael Learned \u2014 frequently clashed over their differing approaches to God. Olivia was a devout Baptist, but John Sr. was not a churchgoer.\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always looked for God in my own way,\u201d he said in one episode.\n
An ongoing theme was the appearance in Walton\u2019s Mountain of an outsider \u2014 a Jewish family fleeing Nazi persecution, a Black boxer and preacher raising money for a new church, a Hollywood actress who smoked and drank \u2014 who met a mixed reception.\n
In 1972\u2019s \u201cThe Sinner\u201d episode, a young pastor played by the late John Ritter arrived preaching fire-and-brimstone Bible verses. But he inadvertently became intoxicated after drinking too much of the \u201csecret recipe\u201d served by the Baldwin sisters, two prim and proper recurring characters who didn\u2019t seem to realize they were bootleggers.\n
After the mishap touched off something of a scandal, John Sr. made a rare appearance at church and pointed to Jesus\u2019 words from John 8:7: \u201cLet him who is without sin cast the first stone.\u201d\n
\u201cThe religious aspect of the show had to do with the fact that Earl Hamner was talking about a time and a place … where those issues were very much in play,\u201d said Thomas, now a grandfather of four. \u201cI mean, in a small community in the mountains of Virginia in the Depression, if you don\u2019t deal with the church aspect of things, then you don\u2019t deal with things as they were.\u201d\n
Over the show\u2019s long run, the Waltons and their neighbors learned valuable lessons about overcoming differences and treating everyone with love and respect. Those lessons, Cotler said, \u201care perhaps even more relevant today.\u201d\n
On a personal note, Cotler, a secular Jew, credits grandpa Zeb, played by the late Will Geer, with teaching her how to sing church songs on the show.\n
Curry, the Kentucky pastor, said \u201cThe Waltons\u201d reflected how Jesus often rebukes religious people for hypocrisy in the Bible, while commending an unexpected person \u2014 such as a Samaritan who helped a stranger \u2014 for showing love and grace.\n
The show \u201ctalked about religion and faith \u2026 in a way that does not demean people,\u201d Curry said. \u201cThere\u2019s something in there that we are missing today, and it\u2019s the sense of community, of unity, of battling through hard times.\u201d\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At 50, TV\u2019s \u2018The Waltons\u2019 still stirs fans\u2019 love The Rev. Matt Curry\u2019s parents were children of the Great Depression, just like \u201cThe Waltons\u201d \u2014 the beloved TV family whose prime-time series premiered 50 years ago. When Curry was growing up on a farm in northern Texas, his carpenter father and teacher mother often argued\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":106957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-106954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/118.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106958,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106954\/revisions\/106958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}