User Reviews

TITLE: GRADUATION ORIGINAL AIRDATE: FEBRUARY 21, 1974 WRITER: Lionel E. Siegel DIRECTOR: Alf Kjellin

PROLOGUE: "Being a country boy on Walton's Mountain, and looking like one, always seemed as natural and normal as anything to me. But a few days before my Graduation from high school I began to look at myself in quite a different way."

SYNOPSIS: John-Boy prepares for his graduation from high school. The family secretly plots to take him on a trip to buy a new suit for college. When Chance the cow passes away John-Boy decides to return his new clothes to the store to help pay for the new milking cow. He stops by Ike's who is upset that he didn't get an invitation to the graduation. John goes to Henry Cottle's farm to arrange the purchase of a new cow. He wants $20 and needs the money more than bartered services. As a graduation present the Baldwin sister's give John-Boy a tie-pin that had been intended for Ashley Longworth. When John-Boy gives the money from his new clothes to his parents, they decide to alter Grandpa's tweed suit for college. As John and John-Boy bring home the new milking cow John gives his son words of advice on who he is and to not forget where he comes from.

QUESTIONS: Who did John Boy finally say goodbye to? What did Ike Give John Boy?

EPILOGUE: "We could not have known then the great and momentous events that were to happen in the decades to follow. But that small school and those teachers like Miss Hunter had prepared us, and that preparation helped sustain us through those turbulent years, through war, the death of kings and presidents, and through those lesser day-to-day experiences which added together make up the fabric of our lives."

MY THOUGHTS: This episode took me back to the day I graduated and it wasn't a very big day. My parents didn't express their love to me for graduating like they did on the Walton's. I give this episode 8 weasel stars.

This has to rank as one of the memorable key episodes in the series, focusing as it did on John-Boy's graduation from high school. It provides a wonderful look at selflessness as practiced by everyone in the family as well as thoughts about how much our lives change after high school.

Early in the show, everyone is all excited as John-Boy returns home one day. He notices how dressed up they were and asks if they're going somewhere. Mary Ellen responds, "Ask me no questions, I will tell you no lies." John tells him to get changed, they are going somewhere but refuses to answer any questions from John-Boy.

They go to Charlottesville to buy a suit of clothes for John-Boy, which totally stuns him. While he is getting fitted, the other six children go off with Grandpa to buy him all the other clothing items he can use—shoes, a nice dress shirt, argyle socks, etc. Obviously they have been putting money aside for some time to do this for him, but there are no weepy, sentimental scenes showing anyone getting emotional about how wonderful this is.

Meanwhile, Chance, the family's cow and milk source (remember they have 11 mouths to feed) is sick and eventually dies. When John-Boy first offered to return his new clothes so they could instead use the money for a new cow, he is told not to, that they'd find a way. Later, on hearing John say how he couldn't make a deal for a cow, he decides to just return the clothes on his own and give his folks the money.

They realize how much he wanted to help the family and do not insist on buying the clothes back. They get the cow, and an inspired idea on how to get John-Boy a suit by altering the tweed suit Grandpa has been saving for his funeral suit.

John-Boy and Marcia Woolery also are feeling emotional about how much their lives will change and how much they'll miss each other. But they realize they are headed in different directions and will likely grow apart.

There are other scenes involving Ike and the Baldwin ladies showing their affection for John-Boy and wishing him well at college.

Two of the series more emotional scenes involve John giving John-Boy some wise advice, and John-Boy's valedictorian address at the graduation ceremony. I have to believe that a majority of viewers find themselves thinking about their own high school days and how much things have changed since then for them. This makes it a gripping episode for most viewers, and it certainly was for me. Has to be a 10.