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Richard Thomas said that Waltons creator Earl Hamner Jr. was on a search for truth
"We weren’t perfect, and Earl never wanted us to be."
Though The Waltons had many fans during its years on television, the cast who had acted on the series loved the series perhaps most of all. Richard Thomas, who starred in the series as John-Boy Walton, recounted his time working on the show in creator Earl Hamner Jr.’s memoir, Goodnight John-Boy: Behind the Scenes of a Beloved TV Classic.
“It’s significant that The Waltons celebrated familism and healing during the tough times of the Great Depression,” wrote Thomas. “That it was aired in the early seventies, a time when alienation, cynicism, Watergate, and the last years of the Vietnam War made its brand of family programming and deep-rooted optimism truly unique and even daring.”
However, Thomas urged viewers of the show not to look back on the series with rose-colored glasses. The Waltons frequently discussed controversial topics with a level head.
“But those who thought of The Waltons as an escape into a perfect childhood that never was should remember that public issues such as book burning, prejudice, abuse, illiteracy, and poverty were frequently on the agenda, alongside the usual psychic struggles of growing up, growing old, and having a family,” wrote Thomas. “We weren’t perfect, and Earl never wanted us to be.”
Above all else, it seemed that Hamner Jr. was interested in telling a sincere story about American life.
“What he [Hamner Jr.] wanted, I think, was truthfulness,” wrote Thomas. “He gave all of us the characters with which we could accomplish that. They were characters that evolved over time, people who grew and learned and changed.”
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