Customer Reviews

Goodnight John-Boy

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a fan of "The Waltons" since I was 11 when the show premiered in 1972, this book is a must have for ALL fans!! It is truly insightful with many wonderful photographs.

The best part of the book of course are the season by season synopses of the episodes but some of them are inaccurate. For example in the synopsis for "The Thanksgiving Story" there is a subplot with Jason helping the Baldwin Sisters making 'The Recipe'. The sisters decide they want to adopt Jason. However, in the brief synopsis given in the book it is mentioned that BEN is the ONE they want to adopt. Any TRUE BONA FIDE WALTON FAN knows this is wrong. It is Jason whom the Baldwin Ladies had affinity for. THe research for the synopses could have been better as they are brief but I appreciate the commentaries that have been included with some of them. There could also have been more interviews with the cast. I have read and re-read the book many times and have no interview to find with David Harper who played Jim-Bob. Everyone else was included, why wasn't he? Maybe he just didn't make himself available. Another piece of information that should have been addressed but was not was the fact that Richard Thomas was NOT the ONLY John Boy. During the last 2 seasons the show recast the role with actor Robert Wightman in the part. Of course, Richard Thomas was the definitive John Boy and the show wasn't the same after the fifth season, when he left. Why they recast the role will forever remain a mystery. This, by no means, is a reflection on Robert Wightman who brought his own sensitivity and depth to the role....but it WAS a role that COULD not and SHOULD NOT have been recast. It would have been interesting to read Hamner's explanation as to why this was done to give Wightman some credit. He did the best he could given the circumstances. Also, I would have liked to have read more about why Michael Learned left the series during its 7th season and Ralph Waite during the beginning of the final one. These issues weren't talked about, either.

These are minor quirks for a fan like me. All will find this book enjoyable despite the minor flaws mentioned above.

What I have been waiting for and wondering about is when are they going to release all 9 seasons on a DVD boxed set. This show would make a mint!!!!!!!!!! Classic series like "Gilligan's Island", "Lost in Space" and "Little House on the Prairie" are selling like hotcakes and "The Waltons" should be right there with them.

Columbia House has put some episodes out on VHS but they are a waste of money. They pick episodes at random and never offer a complete series.

I have most of the episodes taped off the "Family" channel when it was airing them years ago. But the problem with them is that they are butchered and incomplete. What we "Waltons" fans need now is a complete season by season boxed set on DVD and then we can truly say "Goodnight John Boy".

Earl Hamner I hope you're reading this. Thank you for the precious gift you've given us with "The Waltons".

At the beginning of this summer I can honestly say that I was not a fan of the Waltons. I hadn't really watched it when it was on every night or in reruns. In fact as a kid I avoided it like the plague!
But after this summer I have a new found appreciation for The Waltons. In June, my wife and I visited Schuyler, VA. In that small mountain town, we found the Walton's Mountain Museum. Schuyler, VA is the town that Earl Hamner grew up in. I now have a new found joy for this wholesome show!

If you have a chance visit this town and see where it all began. It is well worth your trip!
This book is a memoir of the years Earl spent writing his books and contributing to the show. It gives you some great insight into what went on behind the scenes, and also why Earl wrote what he wrote.
There is also a handy episode guide with many comments about the show. Each episode is listed in chronological order by air date.
This is a great book for those who love the television show.

Goodnight John Boy is all I hoped it would be and more. This book answers most of my questions about the Waltons, the characters and the actors behind them. It tells about individual episodes and how actors felt about them. Someone in the book talks about the series as for writers and he or she was very correct. The character John Boy is the one that got me started journaling and then writing poetry and essays. It is also for families and anyone else who wants to read it Every video of the Waltons I have seen and now this book pushes my inner writer to write for the enjoyment of it as well as the hope to get published. Now I just want to meet Mr.Hamner, Richard Thomas and the actors who played those parts. I love storytelling also and will definitely recommend it to writers and storytellers.

I enjoyed this book that gives the background of the creator of "The Waltons" and also the background of the TV show. I enjoyed reading the summaries of each episode and the specials, since I'm not at the level of fandom where I've seen every one. I also enjoyed reading about the museum, which I hope to visit one day. The only drawbacks are that I would've liked to have more included about the cast (the glimpses of them as they were when they were hired was the best part of the beginning of the book). I wished there were more quotes from the actors (there are some accompanying the episode summaries). I wished there could've been photos of them today (when the book was published) and more about their lives post-"Waltons." Also, it upsets me that you can't look up the shows by title in the index. If you're watching one in syndication on TV and you try to look it up, you have to page through the episodes section (and there were nine seasons)! This is a lovely book but it feels like it was put together a little hastily. Improvements could've been made.

Reading this book is like drinking hot cocoa on a snowy day-it warms you right through. It begins with a touching foreword by Richard Thomas who played John-Boy on The Waltons. In his preface Earl Hamner sets the tone of the book when he describes driving through the back lot of a movie studio to visit the replica of the house he grew up in as a child. He recalls the family that he re-created in his books and on television-a warm and caring family that many of us came to know watching the series. Goodnight John-Boy is a reflection on the literary and television career of a sensitive and humble man whose life's work has been a tribute to his parents, brothers and sisters, and a fading way of life. The book is sprinkled with pictures of Earl's own family and the actors and actresses who were cast to play them. In real life the two families have mingled so much over the years that it's hard to tell them apart. Thirty years after the show began, there are still reunions of some of the real family, cast members, and fans every year. In fact, plans are underway for a new Walton's Mountain Museum in Lovingston, Virginia, the county seat of Schuyler, where the "real" family lived. If you are a fan of The Waltons, you will love this behind-the-scenes look at the people who were involved with the show. Of course, I'm a little biased. The last chapter of Goodnight John-Boy contains an essay I wrote contrasting the family values of the series with the base reality shows of today. Since it began in 1972, The Waltons has appeared almost continuously on television and fans continue to find solace, inspiration, and enjoyment in it. Read this book and then start watching the series again on the Hallmark channel starting in January 2003.

An must for all Waltons fans, Not only does this book give background from Earl Hamners family life and show the inspiration behind the classic serial, but a synopsys of every Waltons episode ever showed. It also includes quotes from the stars and Hamners own family. Excellent compainion for any Waltons Fan.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It felt like a family reunion. I grew up watching the Waltons and reading this book brought back memories of sitting with my family and enjoying the show. Photos are fun and stories inspiring!

This is a wonderful book if you want to take a walk back in time to Walton's Mountain. A nice way to be reminded of all that was good about this homespun show. The "extras" are all the interesting photos and facts from Earl Hamner himself and others involved with the show. The writers and actors comments on "behind the scenes" is interesting. I do think you have to be a pretty big fan of the show to really value this book. Overall, a fascinating read about a show that we could use on the air now.

I have re-established my love of The Waltons after watching the reruns on The Hallmark Channel the past few months - so I decided to geek out completely and buy this book and the Spencer's Mountain and The Homecoming novels and movies [in case you're wondering, Earl Hamner wrote those 2 novels, and Spencer's Mountain was made into a film with Peter (?) Fonda and Maureen O'Hara - then a few years later The Homecoming was made into a Christmas TV special movie. It is The Homecoming that directly inspired the TV series - the original cast of kiddos was in it (so little and cute! it was a few years before the series got started) but the parents and grandparents are different (Patricia Neal was the mom).

Anyway, needless to say if you are a big Waltons fan the book is great, meaning better than not reading it, but as other reviews have alluded to, this book COULD have been really great, and it's just ok. There are a couple of typos and mistakes in the episode synopses, which makes it seem thrown together, and there are hardly any 'behind the scenes' photos of the cast, just a few here and there. How about an 'epilogue' saying what the whole cast has been up to the past 25 years - married, kids, writing, any more acting, etc.? And the big mystery as far as why Michael Learned and Ralph Waite were totally MIA the last episodes is never adressed. They each wrote something tiny for the bok so I would assume they didn't leave the series on a bad note - EVERYONE IS WONDERING! Why didn't they tell us? Also the guy who played Jason called the girl who played Toni, his Walton wife, the 'love of his life.' Does that mean they are married now? He even alluded to the fact that he dated a 'Lisa' during the show (Toni's real name) but never comes out and says it was her - why thy mystery? The best behind the scene stuff is from 'Elizabeth' - funny little nothing stories the fans love to hear. And 'Ben', 'Erin' and 'Jason' make a lot of comments, which is nice. Would really have loved to hear a lot more from the cast, though.

The other nice thing is that Earl talks about his real family, what real facts inspired the series, and for hard-core fans there is info. on the Waltons museum in Virginia.

For more Waltons stuff, you can buy the 2 novels like I said in the beginning, and the movies they made them into (I got all on Amazon). I do believe the also have seasons 1-6 on DVD now, if not all 9. Ye-hoo! :)

When I found this Book I was so pleased and excited. Being stuck way out here in Australia we don't always get everything from America. This especially is the case if the TV Stations don't get ratings on a show they don't show it and this was the case with the Waltons. It ran for awhile and then stopped and I never saw the end of it. The Book was interesting as it listed the episodes I never saw and brought me up to date on the Characters. I am a real movie buff and I also love biographys so this book was a great source of information and reading for me.