I Am all In again.

Oh, I guess you.

I Smell Pop Culture with Eastern Allen and iHeart Radio podcast.

Hey everybody, it's Easton Allen.

This is I Smell pop Culture under the I Am all In umbrella.

Thank you Scott Patterson for leaving me the keys to the podcast.

I promise I'll bring it back with a full tank.

Here's what we do here, everybody, if you're just getting on the ride for the first time.

Gilmore Girls has pop culture references.

It's overflowing with them.

It's every other line is a pop culture reference.

We are going to take one.

We're going to expand upon it.

We're going to zoom in.

We're going to pinch to zoom and we're going to talk to the people behind these pop culture references.

The movie stars, the musicians, the artists, the creators, the dreamers that make these things pop culture.

We're going to he learned all about it.

We're going to go deep.

We're going to go behind the scenes.

And that's what we're doing.

Now.

This is a show.

This week, we're going to highlight a television show from the nineteen seventies.

You may not be familiar with this.

A little show called The Waltons.

Have you heard of the Waltons?

Do you love the Waltons.

If you don't, you should.

The Waltons is incredible.

It's such a good show.

Before I tell you the connection to Gilmour Girls, I'm going to explain a little bit about the Waltons.

It was a historical drama set in a Great Depression, the Great Depression era the nineteen thirties, in the Appalachian Mountains Blue Ridge Mountains region of Virginia.

It first premiered on CBS in nineteen seventy two.

This show won thirteen Emmys, including Best Drama in nineteen seventy three.

Paved the way for A Little House on the Prairie.

We've talked to people from a Little House on the Prairie before that premire just a few years later.

It was a kind of a throwbacky show to a simpler time in America, a difficult time for many people.

But this show was full of so much warmth and love of the Walton family.

If you haven't seen the show, you've probably seen the way they say goodnight.

Every episode ended with them saying good night, John Boy, good night Mary Elle, and just going through the house ping ponging back and forth saying good night.

What a fun thing to do.

I come myself.

I come from a family of fours, me and my sister and my parents, and we lived in a small cabin in the mountains.

And you know, if we did that, it would be very short.

It would just be good night, Kimberly, good night Easton.

But the Walton's six kids in the Walton family, they when they say good night, it's a lot of fun.

And every episode ends that way.

But check this out.

Here's the pop culture reference we're exploring this week.

We're going back to season one, episode six, Rory's Birthday Parties.

We're celebrating Rory's birthday.

You probably remember this this season one nugget, Loreli is recounting the magic of pregnancy, the miracle childbirth.

She's laying in Rory's bed, it's early.

In the morning.

She's trying to like paint a picture of what it was like to be pregnant with Rory and to give birth to her.

She's telling this in vivid detail, and she says, and while some have called it the most meaningful experience of your life, to me, it was something more akin to doing the splits on a creative dynamite and Rory says, I wonder if the Waltons ever did this.

Here's the okay.

So that's a question that Rory wonders.

We're going to get the answer to that because today we are talking to Judy Norton.

Judy played Mary Ellen Walton on The Waltons.

She was the oldest daughter and she was in every episode.

She was in the movies.

She is a hardcore member of the Waltons and we're going to talk to her today because the Waltons has another connection to Gilmore Girls that is very, very exciting, and we are going to get into this right away because I cannot wait.

We are going to talk to Judy Orton right now.

She is in the waiting room.

Let's bring her in.

Judy, it's I smell pop culture.

Thank you so much for doing this.

It is so nice to meet you.

Oh, thank you, thank you for having me.

So there's so much to get into.

There is so much in the world of Walton's, the world of television at large.

But first we got to clear something up.

This is a Gilmore Girls podcast where Gilmore Girls uh focused here.

As much as I want this to just be entirely Walton's uh so much in common with Gilmore Girls that blew my mind kind of.

I mean, uh, set in a small town with quirky townsfolk Walton's Mountain Virginia for the Waltons and starts Hallow, Connecticut for Gilmore Girls.

John Boy, Your Maine, your protagonist went away to a university and became a journalist, just like Rory Gilmore did.

And of course both of these shows filmed on the Warner back lot.

We were talking about this before we started The Walton House which people can't see this, but behind me is the is the house and in my zoom window that became the dragon fly in.

Uh?

Is that?

Like?

Do you ever go to the because the dragon fly in I'm saying this in quotes is at the Warner back lot?

Still, would you ever go after the show wrapped or would you ever go back to the Warner back lot and kind of like relive those sets?

Did you ever do that?

I didn't because you can't just get on the lot.

Oh yeah, you know.

You have to passes.

You have to somebody has to send a pass.

You can't just drive up and go Hi.

I used to work here you let me in, They're like, who are you?

That was a million years ago?

I mean it was literally forty years ago that I was on that lot.

So and sadly that back lot that doesn't exist anymore.

That section of the back lot of Warner Brothers was torn down to put up progress buildings and parking lots.

They still have sections of Warner Brothers Midwest Street where we use where we did some of our other shots, and I'm sure Gilmore Girls used that as well.

In fact, I think I've seen certain things.

Midwest Street gets used all the time.

That's where the central park is with the gazebo that they used.

You know what that gazebo was in what famous movie?

I mean a lot of.

Movies, but tell me the music Man.

Yes, that was river City that was marching around and when they went by the whole seventy six Trombones went right by there, and so iconic locations, iconic houses that get reset decorated for other shows.

Was that so fun when you were filming the Waltons?

Was it cool being on like a lot like that?

Did you enjoy that?

I did?

Yeah.

I love studios, I love back lots, and it does make me sad when I hear that so many of the studios, their back lots have been let fall to weeds and ruin, and sets are falling down because it is so anybody on Gilmour Girls who doesn't want to know something about that house, plug your ears right now, because this is a spoiler.

Okay, if you ready.

That is a facade.

There's nothing inside that house.

I mean it goes around the sides and then it's just got sort of you can it's got I think some piece of plywood in the back or whatever inside on the ware.

For us, and I don't know if that was entirely true for the Gilmore Girls.

I didn't study their house as much.

There was a back porch entrance, and for the Waltons, we came in the back porch and that went into the kitchen area.

On that set, you came into a little sort of holding area and then you went around a corner and there was sort of a rough walled room that we used for our makeup room when we were on the back lot filming, so that was where our makeup and hair people would set up in there.

You could go in the front door, but it didn't go very far and then there was a wall there and you could see little stairs heading up, but again they went up two or three steps, and then they turned a corner and there was nothing there to I think, climb a ladder to get up to those to make use of those windows.

And there was like a platform up there in the upper section of the house where if somebody was talking up you know, shouting and you could tell it was an exterior shot, then you could get up onto there and stick your head in the window and talk.

But beyond that there really weren't any rooms in there.

What a trip, you know.

I was thinking about like little house in the Prairie kind of had this too, like like when you when you watch these shows where like they have a town and there's like streets and feel it feels very very lived in.

And with the Waltons, it's the same thing.

But the thing that blows my mind is you guys are so good it like like I would have believed those are full homes, like like furnished homes that you could like just move into.

And thinking about how like the walls just stop after the front door.

It's so crazy to me, but that's acting.

I have a sort of a podcast, a YouTube channel that's about behind the scenes of the Waltons, so kind of like this, and I do it about the Waltons, and I do sometimes have other people on.

So maybe I'll have to grab some Gilmore girls people and we'll.

Call your notes.

Yes, yes, oh my god, you absolutely should.

We'll have to talk and you're at who might want to come do a crossover episode?

Oh my god, the fan Let me tell you, the fans would love that.

And if you guys aren't following Judy on Instagram Official Judy Norton, she drops trivia there all the time and plays plays trivia from the Waltons.

It's so fun.

So one of the thing I I wanted to ask this, this is a question from the world of Gilmore, and I want to see if I can clear this up as a member of the Walton family.

So in one of the episodes, Rory the daughter and Laural the mom celebrating Rory's birthday, and this is in the first season, and Laura is laying in the bed and she's kind of like retelling the night of her other night she gave birth, like how it felt to be pregnant, and she says she's something like.

Some have called it the most meaningful experience of your life, but to me, it was more kin to doing the splits on a creative dynamite.

And then Rory says, I wonder if the Waltons ever did this, would they ever say, have a conversation like that?

Not like that?

No, No, but my character did have a child, and I remember, yeah, shooting that scene, and I wanted to I wanted to have the baby at home, and my husband, who was a doctor, wanted me to have it at the hospital because of the safety aspects of the equipment if there's emergencies, things like that.

But for whatever reason, I went into labor and it was so fast and so advanced that they didn't have time to get me to the hospital.

It's amazing how fast we give birth on TV.

Three pushes, and it's out if life were only like that.

But we did not comment on We didn't get to have that kind of a quirky sense of humor because of the time period.

We had a lot of other cute things that we would say, but at that point we were still just barely into the nineteen forties.

So yeah, limitations and if people listening, if you haven't watched The Waltons.

It's first of all, it's so good.

It's great, it's you can watch it on Peacock now.

It's such a good show, and it captures this moment in history that you don't get to watch television shows like, there's not many great depression shows on right now, and that.

Sounds like an oxymoron.

Great depression show.

Yeah, but you won't be depressed watching it.

No, it's Kleenex, but you.

Know, yeah, it's It's something I wanted to ask you.

I was talking to a lot of people that are fans of The Waltons, and something I kept hearing over and over again is like it made me want to live in the Depression.

It made the Depression look so fun.

You guys have such that the family is, there's so much love there, there's so much warmth, and you forget about this is like the Depression going into World War Two like a very a difficult, a dark time in American history, but you guys made it look so fun.

And is that something you've heard from people A lot.

Yes, a lot of people say they would like to go back and live in that period.

Now.

We did talk about this on the show in episodes about how fortunate the Walton family was, and for Earl Hamner, who created the show and based it on his actual childhood in growing up in Virginia, that it was tougher for people in the city than in the country because in the country we could grow our own vegetables, they could go hunting.

So it wasn't oh, my goodness, can we get.

Food this week?

We might not be able to have everything we wanted because things were and then into the world or things were rations, so money was tight.

But it just showed it was a simpler time and so people were already used to creating their own entertainment in simple ways.

If we went out in the front yard after dinner and caught lightning bugs, or we played There were seven of us, so we always had someone to play with.

So there was there was always that, and there were chores, and so I think it was it was great from that standpoint of everybody had to contribute to that family and they're being food on the table and the chores getting done, so there was responsibility for everybody.

Uh.

And and there weren't eight million electronics.

We got a radio, but we didn't we'd never had a TV because TVs weren't around yet.

We finally got a telephone at one point, but it isn't as if we sat and talked on the telephone to our friends.

Of course, a very different era, and I.

Think that there is a charm to that for a lot of people who feel potentially overwhelmed and stressed by today's society.

And I was going to say when you were talking about Laurali and Rory that I think you could have fast forward if you put Mary Ellen into that time period.

She could have been Laura Lai.

Yes, she I.

Could see her being that type of independent you know, she made a mistake, you know, she was too young, but she said, by goodness, I'm going to raise this child and I'm going to be the best mother.

And I mean I could I totally.

She had similar characteristics of independence and and you can't tell me what I can't do.

And that was very much like my character of Mary Ellen.

I just earlier today, I watched the season six finale when Grandma comes home.

You know a lot of people say it's like it's one of the best Walton's episodes, and we can get into the details of why it's such an important episode.

But there's a part where Grandma Esther, and Grandma Esther in the show has a stroke and it mirrors the real life stroke of the actress Ellen Corby, and this is our first show back right after having that stroke.

There's a part where you come out to introduce your child to Grandma Esther, and it's so it's such a special moment and you're so proud of your child and you're so happy to be reunited, and it was like it was such an emotional moment and I was like, oh my god, Mary Ellen, filming, that was that a heavy moment for you to film that particular scene?

Do you think of it often?

Well, the interesting thing with filming is that you've read the script, you're doing multiple takes, you've rehearsed it.

And that wasn't my first reintroduction to Ellen on the set, yes, because we shoot out a sequence, so I believe we start did on interior scenes on the sound stage.

So it wasn't as if that moment stood out like this is for real when I'm finally seeing my grandmother back home.

And also because I was a nurse I was involved in I saw her theoretically regularly as a character at the hospital.

Yes, so I wouldn't say that that was specific in terms of that moment.

But anytime you did a scene with Ellen when I mean, she was always so present and so engaged in the scene and so committed that any scene you did you felt that from her.

And after her stroke, I just was so in awe of watching her work and admiring how she did so much with no words that you know, a look and a because she literally people think that they were pretend she was pretending she couldn't talk them.

That was she struggled to get those few words out.

She had to work it and practice it, and she'd get somebody in front of me, she go say it again, Sadie, and she'd try and watch your mouth say those words as she tried to form them.

I mean, it was just it was amazing.

Yeah, tremendous.

Uh yeah, it really.

I mean again, if you're if you haven't seen The Waltons, you should watch that episode.

It's the last one in season six.

I have so many more questions for you.

In the Walton Verse, we're talking to Judy Norton, she played Mary Ellen Walton.

We are hanging out here in Walton's Mountain.

It's I Smell pop Culture.

We'll be back in a second.

These are some fun commercials.

Everybody, It's I Smell pop Culture.

My name's Eastern Allen.

I'm hanging out here with Judy Norton.

She played Mary Ellen on The Waltons Waltons, which ran on CBS starting in nineteen seventy two.

How did you get involved with because it was a movie first, right, it was like a TV movie before it was the show.

So how'd you get involved in this?

I had been acting since I was about six or seven, and so it was, you know, you go a new audition and I lost more jobs than I got, but you know that can be the nature of it.

And so I was brought into audition for the Homecoming, which was, as you said, it was a TV CBS TV movie for the holidays.

It was it was going to be like shown around Thanksgiving time or the beginning of December and family of seven children, and so they were basically seeing me bring in the usual cast of suspects, and everybody came in and auditioned, and so I auditioned for that role, and there was just something about me and the way I kind of came in and cut off shorts and my hair and pigtails and barefoot and whatever, and we read a scene from the Homecoming of people are familiar with it when the whole fan all the kids are cracking walnuts in the barn for Mama's apple sauce cake because she's going to make that.

Daddy is we're waiting for him to come home for Christmas.

It's like Christmas Eve, and then he's late and she's going to make this apple sauce cake.

So we're cracking walnuts and it was Mary Allen had a bit.

Of a meltdown.

So it was a great scene because I could really get my teeth into something, which helped because the whole one of the story points in that was that all the children had red hair, and I was one of three of the actors who were cast that didn't have red hair, so interesting obviously they saw redheads for the role, and so I, you know, you never know how much that's going to come into play, of course, so fortunately Earl Hamner said at one point in an article, he said, Judy walked in and that's that's her.

So something about me.

I had a good day and the character fit me well.

I was a tomboy in real life.

I was really comfortable with that.

I could have an I could I could have an attitude big time, you know.

So I mean it was fun to do.

I always say it was.

I was nowhere near as rebellious as Mary Ellen, but I wanted to be.

But I didn't have the nerve too, because I didn't like to get in trouble.

So the great thing about playing that kind of a character, it's guy like playing a villain or a bad guy.

You can do all of that and there's no consequences.

In real life, doesn't agree.

It's wonderful.

So I got I got cast, you know, and then we shot that, and then when they went to do the series, they invited us all to come do the series.

So that yeah, I mean, like, so I'm curious, how when you make the movie and then what's the time frame between making that and doing the series, Like how big of a because you didn't know it was going to be a series, right, you thought it was just a one time thing.

Yeah, over two hundred episodes of your life.

Yeah, I don't know what it would have been if it was an audition for the series, because I never none of us.

We didn't go to network.

You hear about people having to go audition for the network.

We didn't because we were just being doing this TV movie.

So and then since they invited us back in our having done the Homecoming was like our screen test, which was great because it was really directed.

So when we are last week of filming was the first week of October in Jackson Hall, Wyoming, because we there was a lot of snow sequences.

So the rest of what we shot CBS Studios Studio City, Radford.

I don't know if you're familiar with where that is, yes, yeah, So that's where we shot all our interiors.

And then we went to Jackson Hallwayoming and we spent a week there shooting all the exteriors.

And while we were there, in the last few days, started hearing rumors about a series that they wanted to turn it into a series.

Wow, just rumor around you know, around the set.

And so that was beginning of October.

I think around the beginning of January.

They put us on hold, like they put us kind of under contract on hold, so that if it went to series, we were committed and we started filming.

I remember I was I was in ninth grade.

I was just graduating junior high school.

So I remember going to my junior high school graduation, which was about mid June, back when school ended in June, and we started filming almost immediately after that.

Wow, yeah, that's it's.

So it was not super super quick, but they had not sold it to the network yet.

They had not, so Earl Hamner and Lee Rich you know, they had to go to New York and pitch it and do a sales and you know, put everything in place then.

So it was so it was fairly quick, but not not like, you.

Know, a couple of months, and it's fascinating.

I assumed it was like you make the movie, you show the movie, it's a big hit, and then they're like, oh, let's let's make this a series.

But like, even before the movie aired, they were believing in it.

I think the producers had that sense.

I don't know if network did yet, but I mean the other factor that came into play was this was early because we did The Homecoming in nineteen seventy one, so there was a lot of pressure coming down from some of the sort of moral majority groups that were complaining about the amount of sex and violence on TV, that there wasn't enough good family programming, and so that was part of I heard the reason why said yeah sure.

It was kind of like, all right, we're getting all this pressure.

We'll take this nice, wholesome, little corny show.

Put it on in an impossible time slot.

We started out against Flip Wilson and Mod Squad, which were two very popular shows.

Thursday night, eight o'clock, it'll die and then we can go see nobody wants to watch family programming and they just go back business as usual.

We did when we started airing.

Our first show was like way down at the bottom of the ratings, but they had given us a commitment for twenty five or twenty six episodes for season one, all right, so we had that time, thank goodness.

And our producers went out and they did a whole grassroots campaign.

They took out ads and stuff in newspapers, magazines, whatever in the heartland and the parts of America, the rural parts of America, the smaller areas where they felt was really our fan base, and just said, hey, this is this is such a beautiful show.

Please don't let it die, you know, please support it.

And people did and it started climbing and climbing in very soon.

We were like, number one, it's not incredible.

And then I mean, you guys paved the way for like A Little House on a Prairie, which comes out a couple of years later.

And then and if America has rural Fever at that point and we can't get enough with this?

Do you something about the Waltons that stands out to a lot of people At the end of the episodes when everyone says good night?

Can I John Boy?

Uh?

Like, like my parents said that to me and I had no idea what that was.

You know, that was my for introduction to the Waltons.

Is it when you're like, when you meet fans, do you find people wanting to say good night to you?

Is that something that happens but they want.

Us to say it?

A lot of times if we do interviews or we do panel discussions and stuff like that, it comes up or at the end of it, will all collectively say say good night, And.

Yeah, was that something that like what was the impetus of Like was that something that came from from the creator or was that something is that.

From his real life?

That was his real life?

Wow?

That he said that they did.

And the house that he grew up in is much smaller than the one behind you.

I've been to it.

It's in Skylar, Virginia.

It's a two.

Story house, but there were not that many bedrooms and there was one bathroom.

I'm not sure when that one bathroom was put in.

That was downstairs.

I think there were two maybe three bedrooms upstairs.

There might have only been two, and then I think a bedroom downstairs.

So I think all the kids shared two bedrooms upstairs and the parents were downstairs.

The grandparents did not live with them, okay, and then just sort of a fairly small living room area and then a pretty good sized kitchen and the table was in the kitchen.

So that's by the time I saw it, which was not until like early nineteen because we never went back there.

But so yes, so he said, because it was a small house, you could hear all of the house, and so I guess they really did do that.

It's so fun though really quick.

I was fascinated by this.

You are a superstar of Battle of the Network star a super Oh my something I A phrase I kept seeing in my research was the greatest athlete to ever compete on Vala Network.

Starts femail athlete.

I'm saying athlete, Wow, no qualifiers here, greatest athlete.

I mean, where does that athleticism come from?

Like we always athletically inclined.

Did you play in in school?

Like, where does that come from?

I always say that I am I'm a little better than average at a lot of things, but not great at anything.

I was never good enough that I could have pursued anything professionally or you know, to high competition level.

But I just always did a lot of sports, and I was always very coordinated.

I had dance classes when I was little, so that I think helps with coordination, and then just a lot of sports and I just it was stuff I enjoyed.

Those were my hobbies.

They still are.

I mean I still jump horses and compete and you know, so yeah, and so those sports and age wise, I was only like in my early twenties when I was doing that, And that helps too.

So a lot of the other athletes, a lot of the other stars who were celebrities who were competing were playing the grown ups in the shows, not the kids in the shows.

And I have to say, I would have to debate it because I competed against Christy McNicol at least a couple of times, and to me, I think, I think she's the best of the women who competed because I could never beat her in the obstacle course.

So, you know, she was like a monkey.

I mean I mean that in a very respectful way.

She was just so fast and so agile, and she just dove under this like you know thing.

She had to crawl.

I'm like, and she's hand over hand.

I'm like, what are you doing?

You know.

So, but it was nice and I enjoyed it, and I took it very seriously because you know, sports, to me, I didn't want to look stupid.

Yeah, and I was.

I mean, I'd done almost everything, but I never worked with a football, and so I literally I took a football to work set, and I said, I don't have to be able to throw it, but I have to be able to catch it.

So I had guys on the crew, you know, just throwing me a football and you know, and helping me learn how to catch football.

And I did sort of learn to throw it.

I don't have a lot of distance, but I can throw a spiral, all right.

Yeah.

And I used to the Walton's had a softball team and I used to play on that, as did most of the cast.

And then I also played for radio station for a number of years.

I played on UH on their softball team.

Which radio station?

It was some Kiss.

Kiss I work at KISSFM.

Now that was, yes, that I was.

I was hoping it was one of two point seven KISSFM for everyone listening to the Los Angeles area.

When you were on the.

Waltons softball team, who would you play against?

Did you play against other shows or like just amongst each other?

We did the Waltons, I mean we I remember playing against Star Trek Happy Days.

I remember we played against some team that was must have been a mash up team of of like rock stars, because I remember playing that Alice Cooper I met him because you know he was he was playing.

Or I think we played against guys from sean Anah, Oh my god, oh it was.

It was kind of random.

I don't remember all of who we played against, and and Kiss that radio station would play against a variety of different things.

I got to play like they usually had a Hollywood All Star game at like before a Dodger game, but it was I don't remember if it was softball, and they didn't let the girls play.

The girls were just like cheerleaders.

Of course.

But when I played for Kiss, we did a couple of games before Dodger games and I did get to play, so I did get to play at Dodger Stadium.

Wow, that is incredible, Judie Norton a star of the screen and a star athlete as well.

I mean, what an incredible career.

Thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

This has been so much fun.

How can people find your YouTube channel?

Because I want to hang out with you all day along and I know everyone else is going to new as well.

Where can we find you on YouTube?

Well, if you just search my name Judy Norton YouTube channel or behind the Scenes.

Of the Walt And I think if you just pull up my name and you.

Scroll down a little bit, you'll start seeing various different of the of the segments that I've done.

I think I have over four hundred or something like that now.

I started it during COVID as a way to sort of reach out to people when we were all shut in, and of course so and everything else I was supposed to be doing was canceled, so it was just a way to kind of do something creative and keep in.

Touch with people.

So and it's it's sort of group people seem to like it, and so I have continued it, so I think, yeah, you can kind of just find it there and then dig around.

And I've spoken to most of the cast, so if you want, you can when you get on my channel if you want to see you know, when I'm talking with Richard Thomas or Michael learn It or you know, any of the cast.

And then I've been starting to interview people who did an episode or a couple episodes or did a recurring people I can find.

You know, it's hard to after all these years find people.

It's nice.

I'll reach out and never hear back from somebody.

So I'm like, well, either they don't want to do it or I didn't really reach them.

You know.

The agent will go, oh, I passed that along.

It's like, okay, maybe they did, maybe they didn't, and.

It's amazing.

Okay, so everybody go check that out.

And then I have one final question for you.

This it's kind of weird, and I apologize, but I just have to ask it.

What does pop culture smell like to you?

Like, the concept of pop culture.

If you if it had an odor, what would it be?

Wow, Well, the first thing I thought was popcorn, yeah, which is probably nothing related to it other than the word.

I think.

I don't know, maybe like I think of summer picnics, you know, at points in time when like during what we see at happy days or what we see on things from the fifties and sixties, when people are out side and doing things and there's the smells of you know, things grilling and and maybe fresh grass or you know grass ground.

I love it, and so things like that.

Yeah, I love it so much.

That great here, Yes, I want to inhale that now.

Oh my goodness.

Thanks again, Julia nor And this has been so much fun.

You're the coolest person in the world.

I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Thank you

Everybody, and don't forget Follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.