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<\/a><\/p>\nScreenwriter William Goldman once said of Hollywood, \u201cNobody knows nothing.\u201d That\u2019s as true today as it was 40 or even 100 years ago. \u00a0The biggest hits frequently come as a complete surprise, even to those that made them.<\/p>\n
When \u201cThe Waltons\u201d premiered on Sept. 14, 1972, nobody gave it much hope of survival, and that included its network, CBS, which scheduled it\u00a0on Thursdays at 8 p.m. against ratings powerhouses \u201cThe Flip Wilson Show\u201d and \u201cThe Mod Squad.\u201d<\/p>\n
The show, created by Earl Hamner Jr., who based it on his book, \u201cSpencer\u2019s Mountain,\u201d was hopelessly out of step with its times. The Vietnam War was still raging; the Watergate break-in was dominating the news; and Richard Nixon was about to get re-elected in a landslide. The convulsions of the Sixties were starting to give way to the disco hedonism of the \u201970s. Certainly no one would be interested in watching a wholesome drama about a rural Virginia family during the Great Depression and World War II.<\/p>\n
Ten seasons \u2014 plus three NBC movies in 1982, and three more CBS movies during the 1990s \u2014 later, \u201cThe Waltons\u201d cemented its position as one of the most successful and influential shows on TV (who hasn\u2019t heard a parody of \u201cGood night, John-Boy\u201d and \u201cGood-night, Mary Ellen\u201d?).<\/p>\n
But try to find a wholesome, rural drama \u2014 or comedy, for that matter \u2014 on network TV today, and you\u2019ll come up empty. The odds are a smidgen better on cable, but not if you take out Hallmark Channel and UPtv. Clean is out; edgy is in, and downright deviant is no longer relegated to the HBOs and Showtimes.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Aug. 3, five cast members of \u201cThe Waltons\u201d dropped by Hallmark Channel\u2019s daytime (10 a.m. ET\/PT) magazine show \u201cHome & Family,\u201d<\/a> filmed in a whole-house set on the backlot at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. They were Richard Thomas (son John-Boy); daughters Judy Norton (Mary Ellen), Kami Cotler (Elizabeth) and Mary McDonough (Erin); and Michael Learned (mother Olivia).<\/p>\n Click here <\/a>for a previous post that includes clips of the episode.<\/p>\n Before taping commenced, I had a chance to chat briefly with the cast about the show\u2019s appeal, and why there\u2019s no 2015 version of \u201cThe Waltons\u201d on network TV.<\/p>\n Michael Learned:<\/p>\n Things come and go. I don\u2019t think the people who make decisions in Hollywood thought it was going to be successful. They were under pressure from Congress to do something [about the quality of TV], honestly. Maybe it\u2019s the same thing now \u2014 the people who make the decisions in Hollywood don\u2019t know the people in America who love shows like \u201cThe Waltons\u201d \u2026 because they\u2019re still there.<\/p>\n There was one woman who said, \u201cEight to nine on Thursday night was the only time I felt safe in my childhood.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hollywood always claims that money is the prime motivator \u2014 but if that was the whole story, we\u2019d have multiple network follow-ups to such hit shows as \u201cThe Waltons,\u201d \u201cMurder, She Wrote,\u201d \u201cTouched by an Angel,\u201d \u201cHighway to Heaven\u201d and \u201c7th Heaven\u201d (the most recent of these ended in 2007). NBC did recently try to reboot \u201cMurder, She Wrote,\u201d but it never made it on the air.<\/p>\n There\u2019s money to be made in family and faith-based entertainment, but few seem willing to make it.<\/p>\n Kami Cotler:<\/p>\n \u00a0You think money is the only and ultimate driver; that\u2019s not true. There\u2019s a bigger cultural component. In the culture of people who are making these decisions in the industry, there\u2019s nothing cool about [family shows]. You might get an Emmy, but your friends won\u2019t be impressed.<\/p>\n I work a lot in the indie-film market, and they were saying that the biggest moneymakers were family films and faith-based films.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Unfortuately, a lot of faith-based projects are of substandard quality, but an audience starved for content is prepared to lower its standards \u2014 but it shouldn\u2019t have to. However, as Richard Thomas points out, calling yourself a \u201cfaith-based\u201d film or some other label, can backfire.<\/p>\n Anything that calls itself a particular kind of entertainment is always doomed to a niche market. If you\u2019re tying yourself to a particular genre or niche, you\u2019re going to be stuck with that. If [the genre\u2019s] big, you\u2019ll make money; if it\u2019s not, it won\u2019t.<\/p>\n If you cut yourself apart from the general culture into a particular thing, you\u2019re going to pay for that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the end, quality wins out. A \u201cfaith-based\u201d project may be a tough sell in this market, but as Netflix\u2019s critically accaimed \u201cDaredevil\u201d <\/a>showed, the mere fact that a character is willing to discuss his faith out loud (Daredevil, a k a Matt Murdock, is a cradle Catholic) isn\u2019t a dealbreaker for the audience \u2014 even the hip comic-book audience.<\/p>\n Hollywood seems to believe that projects that feature orthodox Christianity and traditional families are ratings buzzkills (and won\u2019t get them backslaps at cocktail parties).<\/p>\n But just remember, in Tinseltown, \u201cNobody knows nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n And now, some shots from the set:<\/p>\n Images: Kate O\u2019Hare<\/em><\/p>\n Don\u2019t miss a thing: head over to my other home at\u00a0CatholicVote<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>and like my\u00a0Facebook page.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Screenwriter William Goldman once said of Hollywood, \u201cNobody knows nothing.\u201d That\u2019s as true today as it was 40 or even 100 years ago. \u00a0The biggest hits frequently come as a complete surprise, even to those that made them. When \u201cThe Waltons\u201d premiered on Sept. 14, 1972, nobody gave it much hope of survival, and that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2174,"featured_media":1804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-media","category-television"],"yoast_head":"\n\n<\/div>\n