The Thanksgiving and Easter Movies

[tammusc]

I have several questions.
1. The Thanksgiving Movie where John Curtis talks to grandpa in the woods, It was said to be 1963, John Curtis was born in the 40's.. In the show he was all of 7 I guess...
2. In the Easter Show that I seen for the first time every last night was 1969, John Curtis was not even mentioned in it but Mary Ellen's other two kids were..
3. What happened to Virginia? She would had been a teenager when she died?
In the Thanksgiving show they had a son named Charlie but in the Easter one he never existed.

4. Did they ever day Elizabeth ever married Drew or that Jim Bob ever married.

5. How many grandchildren where all together..

[punkin]

I watched the Walton's labor day marathon and was confused about some of the stuff. It said that Virginia had died, but no mention of Charlie. Also, MaryEllen has 2 kids named Clay and Katie I think. what happened to John Curtis. Just wondering.

[tammusc]

That is my thoughts also. First we see Charlie as a baby, and Ginny. Then the Easter show, she has passed away Charlie was not born. The way I got it was John Boy has 2, Jason 5, Mary Ellen 3, Erin 3, Ben 2, I really thought they would had made Elizabeth getting married movie.. I think the last one was the Easter One we seen last night it was in 1997. So I have no idea.

[grtgzu]

Something else I noticed - When Papa John was talking to Ben (?) I think - he said "I'll kick your (word was bleeped out by Hallmark), but when he said the word "dammit" when he really blew his stack, they didn't bleep that word out....How was one word worse than the other?

[tammusc]

Wow my husband and I were talking about that too. That was the firs time I ever even heard of a bad word in the show.. when Ms Emmily said DARN I was like wow but it was wrote in 1996 so you see the times and how it changed from the writers view.. in another form they were talking also about characters who have vanished .. I wrote on that form this.. below

We were just talking about this after seeing the Thanksgiving which was 1963 cause Kennedy was killed and then the Easter one which started off as John Boy on the news talking about the moon landing and that was July 69 but this show was Easter.. We to were talking about what happened to Ginny they never said how she died, never said a word about Charlie.. Another thing with Ben was when John was gone to AZ in the Thanksgiving one in 63 Ben was the soul runner of the mill yet in 69 John treats him as if he has no say so. Another thing was were was John Curtis? He was the first Grand and in the Easter Show from 1969 he was not even mentioned. He should had been born what 1944 or 43 25.. Mary Ellen's husband was in the Easter show, but not in the Thanksgiving one he was in Vietnam. Cindy was in the Thanksgiving and Easter ones. And Jim Bob he just seemed to be nothing in the shows.. he has no family not married and they just kinda left him out. Why wasn't Elizabeth's wedding if she ever married Drew ever shown. It does seem like they would had a show about when Grandma passed. The writers really needed to get on the same page..

[JeriJet]

As we've said before, you just can't go by any of the dates in these movies. They made no attempt to stick with history of the original story....

And, it's not just the dates, it's everything else, too -- like grandchildren !!

These are the reasons I don't like any of the "reunions." I avoid them like the plague.....

[Brenda]

I don't avoid the specials. I actually did watch them yesterday. I don't like them as well as the series however.

I would have done the timelines differently if I had written those movies. If I wanted the characters to be the ages they should have been, then I would have set the movies in the 1950s. The only reason I can see for having them in the 1960s is so they could base them around two significant historical events - the assassination of President Kennedy and the 1969 moon landing (was Easter in July that year?!?)

Here are a couple of questions and answers from the FAQs at the-waltons.com:

Q. Am I wrong or is something messed up with the time-lines on the specials?A. If you punch in all the dates from the original series and try to compare them with the dates in the specials, you will, indeed, find that they do not make sense based on the characters' ages. The writers chose to place the family in storylines reflecting a certain national event regardless if that time line reflected correctly everone's age. That's Hollywood.

Q. What happened to Mary Ellen's son, John Curtis, and Ben's children?A. The writers simply chose not to mention John Curtis. In one special it was mentioned that Virginia, Ben and Cindy's daughter, had died but no explanation has been given for their other missing child, Charles Benjamin.

[Brenda]

Sept 4, 2012 9:45:11 GMT -5 tammusc said:

Another thing was were was John Curtis? He was the first Grand and in the Easter Show from 1969 he was not even mentioned. He should had been born what 1944 or 43 25..

Actually, John Curtis was likely born in 1940 or '41, since he was a baby in the Day of Infamy episode (Dec. 7, 1941). He should have been the one serving in Vietnam in the 1960s, not Jonesy.

Also, Mary Ellen supposedly couldn't have more children after she was in an accident.

I guess the writers don't take these things as seriously as we do.

[goodnight]

Sept 4, 2012 9:35:07 GMT -5 @grtgzu said:

Something else I noticed - When Papa John was talking to Ben (?) I think - he said "I'll kick your (word was bleeped out by Hallmark), but when he said the word "dammit" when he really blew his stack, they didn't bleep that word out....How was one word worse than the other?

This is one reason why I don't like the last three reunion movies. John is still talking to Ben like he is five years old and does not know what he is doing. If you think about it, Ben would have been about the same age in 1963 that John was when the series started.

I wonder if you noticed that when John walks off in a huff, he actually says, "It's been 15 years since you died, Pa". Well, I got a D in one semester of math in the 8th grade, but even I can do the math in my head that there are more than 15 years between 1963 and 1941. It was 1941 on Zeb's tombstone, right?

[tammusc]

It is very confusing with the reunion movies and these later shows.. I was thinking to when he said it had been 15 years more like 22 years. John always did treat Ben like he was not stupid but not to bright when it come to running the mill. As with the other boys he always treated them as smarter. Grandma came back in 1940, (in the show) John Curtis was a baby Grandpa died in 1941 so yeah he would had been 23 when the Thanksgiving one was made. Not 6 or 7.. I guess they just throw things up there, they do not care of the ages and things like we notice..

[Tonyray]

Their was two thanksgiving reunion movies A Day for Thanks on Waltons Mountain and A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion They were released back to back but that were 11 years apart the first took place in 1947 and it was in A Day for Thanks on Waltons Mountain that John-Curtis was going into the woods to meet his friend that turned out to be Grandpa so being around 7 would be about right and It was A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion that took place in 1963 that's the one no mention is made of what happen to John-Curtis also Virginia had died, but no mention of Charlie and Mary Ellen supposedly couldn't have more children after she was in an accident. In 1963 They could have just said that John-Curtis was in away in med school or something like that.

[dfnmeows44]

Yes the episode in which JohnCurtis goes looking for his friend who turns out to be his great grandpa took place in 1947. John Curtis is born the end of the summer of 1940 and Grandpa dies in the spring of 1941. So
John Curtis did not have a chance to know him. Charlie was born in May.1947(remember Cindy goes into labor while she is eating lunch with the woman who we fouond out was her mother on The Carousel) Virginia
dies either in the late fall of 1961 or else the spring of 1962(Walton's Thanksgiving 1963--'It's been almost two years}

[goodnight]

It's silly I guess nitpicking over a TV program, but honestly sometimes I think the producers/writers, etc. think the viewers are not smart enough to notice things like this.

Also did any of the three later movies give Grandma's age? Because in the 1960's she should be approaching 100 or maybe past it.

[carol]

Another inconsistancy is in Mother's Day On Walton's Mountain Mary Ellen's uterus is damaged in an accident and she is told that she can't get pregnant anymore because it was too dangerous. In the Later reunion movies she has two kids by Jonesey.


My own personal nitpick about MDOWM is they probably would have removed the uterus rather than repair if if it was that badly damaged that pregnancy could be fatal to both mother and child especially since there probably wasn't much in the way of birth control back then.

[goodnight]

Well someone that I knew who was born in 1932, was born by C-section because her mother had suffered from polio when younger. They removed the uterus when she had the C-section. I do not know if this was the common practice or not.