Waltons time period

[pinkbaker07]

Do you think if the show had been set in the 50s or early 1900s it would have been as popular?

Or if set in the depression but in a major city?

I think bc of the area and time it resonates with a nostalgic era.

[Easton]

The whole idea of The Waltons was a large rural family's struggles during the Great Depression with a bit of real history and a smattering of the Dust Bowl thrown in. If it had taken place in a near-by city in the same era, it wouldn't have worked. Nor would it have worked in the same place before or after the depression.

In the time it was first broadcast, The Waltons was a perfect escape for a great many people and a trip to simpler times for a great many others.

[Brenda]

Most of the network “experts” and tv reviewers didn’t think it would work either. It was a total surprise that the show became so popular. They miscalculated how badly Americans needed to escape to this simpler time and place after living through the ‘60s with the civil rights protests, Vietnam war protests, and assassinations of a president, a senator and presidential candidate, and a civil rights icon. Viewers could forget all that for an hour every week.

[Deleted]

 I don't think it was just a simpler time as living through the depression was not simple. Polio was not simple.  I think it was more of a look back of where so many of the audience used to live and how they used to live. 

From what I understand, at the beginning of WW2, 40% of the population was rural. That changed drastically by the 70's. Viewers could find similarity of barely having electricity and unpaved roads because that is what they had growing up. We had just put a man on the moon and here comes this show that brought back cars that had to be hand cranked. 

How many of the audience and had sat in a one room school house and how many of those schoolhouses were even left by the 70's. There was a connection. An appreciation of what one once lived. 

[JessicaGirlSpy]

It might be curious if there was an episode where Jim Bob builds an time machine (after reading The Time Machine by H G Wells,  on a recommendation by John Boy) and find them trapped in the 1970s with the Bradys ( the Brady Bunch) or stuck in Verona, Italy. And John Boy and Olivia try to help out Romeo and Juliet and Grandpa tries to help negotiate peace between the Capulets and the Montagues. ( please excuse this moment of silliness) 

[Johnny]

Oct 14, 2020 21:19:40 GMT -5 JessicaGirlSpy said:

It might be curious if there was an episode where Jim Bob builds an time machine (after reading The Time Machine by H G Wells,  on a recommendation by John Boy) and find them trapped in the 1970s with the Bradys ( the Brady Bunch) or stuck in Verona, Italy. And John Boy and Olivia try to help out Romeo and Juliet and Grandpa tries to help negotiate peace between the Capulets and the Montagues. ( please excuse this moment of silliness) 

I enjoy your moments of silliness Jessica. You give us a chuckle when we all need some. 
Our world can use more jocularity, Father Mulcahy might say. 

[goodnight]

I liked the Walton's because it reminded me of the stories that my Grandmother told me about her growing up years in rural West Virginia. In the 20's and 30's. By the time the 40's came around she was married and had my mom and her older sister.