Hi everyone,

My Blue Ridge Chronicle arrived this week with a wonderful interview with Richard Thomas, who spoke to Raymond Castro Jr. It's 3 pages long and gives a fairly full listing of his work. He has done so much and such a lot of different work too. Fantastic. Now before you all rush and ask me how I got it...it's from the Walton's Fan Club and you can find the contact address on Ralph's <www.the-waltons.com> site.

A couple of very interesting things written in the article were:

1. Sian Barbara Allen was in fact Richard's girlfriend when she was cast as Jenny. They had worked together in "You'll Like My Mother" and he says in the article:

"Well she was my girlfriend and they were doing one with a girlfriend and they wanted to use my girlfriend and that's how it worked."

Perhaps that's why we all like Jenny so much!

2. The limping of Richard during the first few episodes of one of the seasons, starting with The First Edition. Richard explains:

"I was doing 9/30/55, I had broken my ankle during filming and they had to stop filming and then I had to go back to work on the series and I had a broken ankle. Then they had the whole season before they can resume filming on the movie."

I took that to mean that 9/30/55 took quite some time for the filming to be complete. Anyway they were just a couple of things that digest members have commented on in the past so I thought I would share some of the relevant comments with you.

For those of you who get the Blue Ridge Chronicle, I hope you enjoyed the full version just as much as I did.

Now I hope all the Australian Waltons viewers managed to catch the missing season 1 episode this week. Right in the midst of season 2, Foxtel suddenly remembered that they hadn't shown "The Sinner" so we had it twice in 2 or 3 days! Now we only have to wait and see if we ever get "The Easter Story". I have all of season one now anyway, so my collection is certainly growing.

Well it's almost Christmas and this will probably be the last digest before Christmas Day so I'll take this opportunity to say thank you to all who have contributed to the digest in some way this year, and to wish all digest members and their families a really happy and safe holiday season. Christmas is such a lovely time to catch up with all of your family and friends, even if it does seem to be such a rush beforehand.

God bless and goodnight everyone,

Karen.

Hi Karen

Merry Christmas everybody!!!!

I was at the reunion in Oct. I commented on Mary McDonough's appearance in ER last year and I ask her if she was to be in anything coming up soon. She told me she had just completed 5 Honda commercials that were to start airing after Thanksgiving. Yes indeed it was Mary in the Honda commercial!!! Look for more others to come soon!!!

Take Care Just thought I would share my info with everyone after last weeks comment in the digest.

Scott

KAREN'S COMMENT: I wonder if her lines increase! Thanks for the info Scott.

Good evening from Ohio

Hi everybody. I just wanted to say that I saw the Honda commercial this morning, and I believe it was Mary McDonough playing the mother. She did have one line, "Timmy?", at the very end of the ad when a baby was brought into the room by his attorney. If I hadn't been warned to look for her, I probably wouldn't have seen her.

Gotta go for now. Keep up the good work, Karen.

Robin

KAREN'S COMMENT: What exactly are they advertising? A car?

Dear Karen

I know this has been talked about before but I will mention it again as I just can't understand the logic in this programming. Here it is the holiday season and TNN will replay many of the same shows they played at Thanksgiving but for some strange reason will not be showing The Homecoming. If they were truly showing the shows in order or by season this show, above all the rest, should be aired this season. This is the beginning of all the shows and a family that we all hold dear, and it's just being tossed aside like an old shoe. Please if any of you friends out there have any "pull" with anyone in TNN it would be worth mentioning.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Vivien

KAREN'S COMMENT: Someone has mentioned this further on in relation to Foxtel here in Australia Vivien. My feeling is that The Homecoming rights must be owned by someone different to The Waltons. Someone in the know might be able to confirm or deny that.

David has written in response to all the problems our UK viewers are having:

I sympathize...TNT Does something similar with it's prime time line-up-I watch Babylon 5 on TNT all the time (any of you like Babylon 5 as well?) but while they have the dogs, at least their announcer doesn't engage in stupid worthless dialog. WTBS is a little better- Little house on the Prairie's credits are intact, but just after the last commercial break an announcer comes on and makes stupid comments like: Next up...Laura Half-Pint Ingalls takes a trip into town!" or "Mr. Ingalls makes sure no one messes with his family...next on....etc. Neither of these are as bad as what you're experiencing in the UK, but maybe the rest of us may want to write TNN and thank them for not editing, dog tagging, or weighing down the Waltons with useless dialog and unwarranted modifications.

David.

KAREN'S COMMENT: Has it improved any over there? They've certainly had enough complaints from many of us.

Hello Karen,

If we are to believe the dates that Earl Hamner gives in the shows' intros, John Curtis was born in late 1939. The show before "The Grandchild" and the show after it both give the dates as being 1939. This obviously doesn't make sense since John Curtis certainly wasn't 2 in "Day Of Infamy".

I love arguing over the timeline in the Waltons since in reality it makes absolutely no sense to argue about fiction!

Rob

KAREN'S COMMENT: I love discussing it too, Rob even if it doesn't make much sense!

Karen,

Nancy Drew books first came out in 1930 with "The Secret of the Old Clock", "The Hidden Staircase", and "The Bungalow Mystery". Then several a year were produced after that. There would have been plenty for Elizabeth to read by the time of the episodes with the mentions of Jessica Girl Spy. In fact, in the (later) episode where she breaks her legs, somebody is on their way to the hospital to visit her and Erin stops them and hands them a book and says something to the effect of "Take this, it's the Nancy Drew book she was reading." I remember that line because I thought it was really neat that she read them too. (I can't decide if I'm a bigger Waltons fan or Nancy Drew fan...)

A bit more FYI - the first couple dozen Nancy Drew books were written by Mildred Wirt Benson under the pen name Carolyn Keene. She also wrote books under the pen names: Julia K. Duncan, Don Palmer, Frances K. Judd, Helen Louise Thorndyke (Honey Bunch series). She also wrote the Penny Parker series. (These don't mean anything to me but maybe to someone else?) She wrote for Edward Stratemeyer whose syndicate owns the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series. As an aside which I think is pretty cool, Millie Benson (born 1905!) *still* writes weekly columns for my town's paper, The Toledo Blade. I'm impressed!

G'Night Everyone,

Larissa

KAREN'S COMMENT: Thanks for this Larissa. I had thought that Nancy Drew was around in the 30's but I didn't realise there was even a reference to them in The Waltons. Isn't it strange how one writer can have so many pen names?

Hello Karen and everybody,

I've been reading the Digest for awhile. It's a lot of fun to hear your comments and questions! I've loved the Waltons since the show originally aired and was thrilled to find it still has a following. I'm gearing up for the Christmas marathon on TNN. My small comment this time is related to comments in the last digest; I always thought that during the episode where Curt supposedly dies at Pearl Harbor that Grandma put her hand on Mary Ellen's shoulder not because of Zeb, but because she, too, received a telegram when Uncle Ben was killed in WWI... I had assumed it was her way of saying that she understood exactly what it felt like to receive this news in the same fashion...

Anyway, I'll be watching for things I never thought about before (mistakes, etal)!

Lorraine

KAREN'S COMMENT: That's an interesting interpretation Lorraine. Since I haven't seen it for many years I'll leave it up to all of you to comment on this. What do you think?

Hi Karen,

I'm throwing this question out to anyone who might know the answer. My husband and I have been Waltons fans for many years, but in the course of watching the repeats, we've never seen the episode where the phenomenon called "ball lightning" occurs, and supposedly John-Boy is in it so it was probably from the early years. Did this ever occur in any episodes or did we both imagine the same thing erroneously? I've looked at episode guides on the Internet, including yours, but nothing is indicated. Are you aware of any such episode?

Susan

KAREN'S COMMENT: There's an episode early on about a meteorite falling, and there's also one where they are putting up a lightning rod...I think it's The Burnout. Could either of these be the one your thinking of?

Howdy everybody!!!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Holiday season. Christmas certainly is a wonderful time of year. We get to see family and show true love one to another. Today on TNN, the Waltons were celebrating the season with Olivia wishing that the whole family could be together for Christmas Eve....The plans were made, but things didn't quite turnout as everyone planned. Sometimes things get in the way, but just because things may prevent us from being with loved ones at Christmas, doesn't mean we can't be happy.

Last year, my wife Dianne and I planned to be home for Christmas with my momma and daddy and brothers and sisters....Money, however, was short and we didn't get to go. I look back on that Christmas with deep regret this year. You see my Momma and Daddy died the following January and July, respectively. So this season will be harder than not having spent last Christmas with them. But as we all know, thanks to our favorite television family, we can go home again. Even if it's just for a moment. You see, we can always go home in our hearts and memories. Just as Earl Hamner, Jr. reminisced about memories of his family and childhood in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so can we.......and as i lift my cup of cheer, I say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from my family to yours.........

Thanks,

Larry

P.S. Please visit my webpage at http://www.oocities.org/nashville/opry/8776 where you will find many new improvements and additions...including The Waltons' Mountain Chat and a new Waltons poll.....THANKS for everything Karen and to all who visit...please sign my guestbook so I'll know you stopped by......

KAREN'S COMMENT: I think you've made such a good point here Larry. We really should treasure our family members while they are here because you don't know what the future holds for you.

I'm updating my page at the moment...big time...and I'll make sure that I add your link.