I was going to clean today. But I got a cold. I also got my present for my mom late, after I had given her another and decided this would be for her birthday in February. It's S1-3 of The Waltons. But did I mention I have a cold? Well, I do. So I was weak. Weak, and also thrifty, so I thought I should watch The Waltons first, before giving it to my mom.

A bit of backstory: When I was a kid, The Waltons was the only show my mom would regularly let me watch. I loved it, but dreamed of watching other shows. Visions of Little House on the Prairie, Mork and Mindy, and The Dukes of Hazzard danced in my head, but pretty much it was The Waltons. Even when we had no TV, my mom would search out friends with TVs to visit on The Waltons night so that I could see it and not be a DEPRIVED CHILD. You might think that this would make me hate The Waltons as a form of rebellion or something, but instead, for years it was the One. True. Show, until it was eclipsed by the True. One. True. Show: Firefly.

At this point, I hadn't seen The Waltons for ages. I expected that watching it would be a little like watching Little House on the Prairie reruns - kind of fun, but not as satisfying as the original. OMGWTF The Waltons is freakin' fantastic!! I don't know if I'm going to be able to give my mom these DVDs. If I learned anything from this show, it would be that I would be selfless and give them to her, but I may have learned a bit too much from watching Firefly.

xposted with Bitches, because I just can't help myself.

Aw libkitty, you're adorable, and you made me want to watch The Waltons, and the movie Spencer's Mountain, too.

Aw, shucks, Cindy, thanks.

I wasn't familiar with Spencer's Mountain, so I went to IMDb. It lists it as a working title for The Waltons. Is there something else called Spencer's Mountain, or is this what you're talking about? I know that IMDb is not always reliable.

Also, have you seen The Homecoming? It has mostly the same cast, but Patricia Neal as Olivia. I love Michael Learned, but always thought that Patricia Neal (at the age she was when she made the movie) was much more believable playing the mother of 7, the oldest of which was 17. Ok, by always I mean always since I first saw The Homecoming, which was about 8-9 years ago.

I was a huge Homecoming and Waltons fan! It was definitely required viewing in my house. The whole family once drove 4 hours to go picnic in the actual town the Hamners lived in, which was the model for Walton's Mountain. I went to college with Scott Hamner, son of Earl. I was secretly incredibly impressed by that, although I managed to be cool about it.

God, I loved "The Homecoming". Used to watch it at the holidays every year. The tv show wore on me, but The Homecoming felt so true and real.

Also, Patricia Neal rocked.

Project: Take a script of a Walton's episode. Use it as a basis for a Firefly fanfic. "Good night, Jayne."

I also watched the Waltons in its first three or four seasons. Much later in life, after I'd moved to San Francisco, I got to personally know the actress who had played Elizabeth. She was very very smart and cool, and teaching ESL. She was dating a friend of mine - a British cartoonist.

Before I was even formally introduced to her, she introduced herself to me on the train because I was wearing a Krazy Kat button.

Spencer's Mountain. It's a movie starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara and is sort of the mother of Homecoming and The Waltons. It was based on Earl Hamner's novel.

Here, wiki has a little more on it: [link]

It's just beautiful. And Henry Fonda is beautiful. Maureen O'Hara is beautiful. A very young, pretty frisky James MacArthur is just beautiful.

Mimsy Farmer. Oh goodness, I'd forgotten about Mimsy Farmer. And yes, young James MacArthur is beautiful.

I haven't watched it in ages, but Spencer's Mountain has this wonderful quality to it, I'm not sure I can explain, but it feels different from The Waltons. Maybe it's just the difference between a feature film and a serial drama. Some films and shows about country people (and really, maybe family drama in general) seem(s) to dull down the characters.

The Waltons was decent about respecting its characters' humanity, to be fair. But it seems to me that even in it, a certain sort of vitality is missing from many of them. I don't know how to put this. Maybe Beverly can help me out, because she often says things so well.

The country people I know well are differently alive, sharp, and I can feel this sort of lust-for-life thing going on, when I'm with them. A country lifestyle may be different from an urban or suburban one, but the people are no more innocent or unsuspecting, or simple, or wholesome. From what I recall of Spencer's Mountain, the characters are really rich in that way -- they really crackle on screen, you know?

I don't want to over-simplify all rural people in the other direction, and what I've already posted is probably a stereotype, in itself. Someone stop me, or help me.