This video is part of an ongoing project to build a retrospective TV archive made for the LL community on my Retro TV channel at
http://www.liveleak.com/c/Retro_TV_

Embed CodePlays: 30 (Embed: 0)

The Waltons pilot aired in 1971. The show itself started airing in September of 1972 to 1981, 9 seasons 210 episodes and 7 movies, some as late at the 90's.

You know when you hear people say "There is nothing but shit on TV today, not like it used to be". Well, The Waltons is probably what they're thinking about. An idyllic portrayal of a rural Virginia family over a fourteen year period during the depression and WWII.

Interestingly about a year before CBS had purged a lot of it's rural themed programming, cancelling The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Mayberry RFD and the like. Mostly that change was being pushed by Fred Sullivan an exec at CBS at the time. The thinking was that these shows no longer appealed to younger urban dwellers, although some that were cancelled were in the top 10 shows of the time and all of them still had very good ratings. All cancelled.

The following year The Waltons debuted against shows like the Flip Wilson show and Mod Squad. It was expected to flop according to those executive predictions. Turned into one of the top shows of the time. Mod Squad was cancelled a year later and Flip Wilson bowed out in the ratings race. So all predictions about this show were wrong, the people spoke and they voted for quality stories and "sappy values" over entertainment sensationalism. Waltons was a last hurrah of old TV ending in 1981 IMO. There were a few shows of that type after Waltons but certainly that was a final bright flare out of an age of TV.

View comments (8)