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Corabeth, Mr. Godsey and the Recipe Sisters- Non Walton Regulars

Blergh

By Blergh
in The Waltons [V]

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Blergh

Blergh

As the kids outgrew the cuteness, the show relied on the other characters more and more to the point of listing them as regular cast members the last season or so. So here's a place to discuss them

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Blergh

Blergh

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I liked how each of these characters evolved over time.

 Ike started out as a rather complacent businessman who was perfectly happy with how the store and his life had turned out. Moreover, his store was regarded by all the Waltons as a nearly magical place  stocked with exotic foods and goods, the center of the community AND with its Post Office and telephone, their only link to the outside world. Yet, it wasn't just the Waltons become more worldly and sophisticated that knocked down Ike a few pegs even though they had mutual admiration to the end.

 

 Corabeth entered the picture. However; she started out as the Waltons' sheltered cousin who was suddenly jolted to the outside world with her mother's death and considered the stay at Casa Walton a pitstop before she was ready to venture to Richmond to try her hand at joining a secetarial pool despite no experience. Then she met Ike and despite crying over her saying yes to his proposal, married him and the rest was history.  It's interesting that Corabeth was supposed to be a one-shot character but Ronnie Claire Edwards impressed the suits enough to have them change the episode's ending AND have her become a regular once they could write her into more scripts. It didn't take long for Corabeth to transform herself from a frumpy wren into  wanting everyone else there to believe that she was more sophisticated and genteel than everyone else including her family. Yet, despite her being often unfair to Ike and often treating their adoptive daughter Aimee as though she was a toy to be neglected unless Corabeth was bored with other stuff, Corabeth was not entirely unsympathetic and did bring some needed comic relief to the show.

 

  With their sumptuous mansion and comfortable pension, the Baldwin Sisters seemed to have the least problems of any of the community yet they couldn't help but make mischief via The Recipe.  They supposedly were ignorant of it being moonshine despite themselves and the other [most men] partakers getting hammered  by it. Yet, even though Miss Emily often mourned the departure of Ashley Longworth, they never became 'mean drunks' or self-pitying but merely sillier with the consumption. It's interesting,too, that they regarded the Walton children [especially John Boy and Jason] as having potential that they were happy to help nurture. Earl has said that these characters were based on female moonshiners he knew [which was virtually unheard of for that time and place] yet, unlike the TV characters, they were mother-and-daughter rather than sisters, wore overalls and knew EXACTLY what they were brewing.LOL

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GrtGzu

GrtGzu

Cora Beth also had a drinking problem too.....'Member that? She was never to sip another drop again, and it was never mentioned again either....Didn't it say something like that during the ending narration of the story?

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DoughGirl

DoughGirl

How the hell old was Miss Emily when she kissed Ashleigh Longworth? I saw an episode recently where Miss Mamie tells Emily that she hasn't seen him for thirty five years. Now if Ashleigh was a university student that makes him maybe twenty or so. If Emily was his age or a bit younger that means she was supposed to be about fifty five in that episode??? I thought the sisters were about Grandma and Granpa's age. They certainly seemed older than in their fifties. And everyone talks about them in terms of being little old ladies.

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GrtGzu

GrtGzu

I think they're supposed to be around Grandma's age, because remember that ep where they wanted to rehab that old ass house and Zeb wound up saving the glass-stained window? Well, Grandma and the sisters talked about how they went to that house for dance parties when they were young girls....

 

Which would make sense because Grandpa talked about how the Judge would come around with the recipie and do some "sippin' with Zeb's daddy......

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camom

camom

Although she wasn't in a lot of episodes, I liked the character of Cissy, Yancy Tucker's wife.  She loved Yancy, but just couldn't put up with his antics and the animals in the bed.  I felt like they could have done more with her.

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GrtGzu

GrtGzu

Anybody ever notice how Prohibition was never mentioned on this show? Not even when the Revenooer came to bust up the Baldwin ladies still, he just said it was against the law to make it yourself....Not one word about Prohibition....Boone made his own too, but nobody ever mentioned that pesky word.....Ike sold 3.2 beer in his store (I saw a sign saying so) but Prohibition might have been overwith by then....

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Tim McD

Tim McD

Those very few last episodes were REALLY REALLY bad.

 

 

It's hard to get past the opening credits; "Starring Jon Walmsley." NOOOOOOOOO. Actually I watched it long enough to see Guy Who Played Hank Kimball on Green Acres do a pretty bad Hank Kimball impression.

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oceanblue

oceanblue

Ike did have some kind of affair, but they never really explained the gory details.  Did he slip her the big one?  Well in Ike's case, the medium-sized one?  I don't know for sure but that was my sense.  If not, he at least dated.

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DoughGirl

DoughGirl

It's hard to get past the opening credits; "Starring Jon Walmsley." NOOOOOOOOO. Actually I watched it long enough to see Guy Who Played Hank Kimball on Green Acres do a pretty bad Hank Kimball impression.

I was thinking the EXACT SAME THING! "Judy Norton-Taylor" ..... At least they didn't put John Boyd Walton's name up there.

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Tim McD

Tim McD

Overall I like her but the way she just threw herself at Harley seemed out of character, like she was desperate for a man and all; goes against her proud independent nature. One moment that stood out for me was when Verdie described her church to Olivia as "my people's church" and the viewer is reminded that Walton's Mountain was a segregated community; it was probably illegal for Verdi to attend the Walton's church.

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DoughGirl

DoughGirl

Yeah, I like Verdie, but sometimes she's a bit much.

I always wondered if it was stretching things when in one episode she's learning to read from Elisabeth's schoolbooks and two episodes later she's well read enough to recognize a line from The Count of Monte Christo. Maybe she made up for lost time?

John did say that if they adopted Josh that they couldn't take him to church. Or that he couldn't go to school.

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DoughGirl

DoughGirl

(edited)

Or to the movies. They stressed that one. When did the Walton's have enough money to take 7 children to the movies's, let alone 8?

Sometimes they just came up with money for unnecessary things, like taking the whole family to see Jason in the amateur hour. All the while paying Doc Vance to make daily house calls because of Livvie's polio.

Then there are the episodes where they don't even mention money because it would hamper the storyline or maybe because they hadn't planned to go in a certain direction. The one that bothers me the most is where they came up with the money to send Mary Ellen to nursing school. It was all about her passing the entry exam and the going away party. From the beginning, finding money for John Boy's schoolin' was a constant worry but they never mentioned Mary Ellen's. I think Mary Ellen's nursing was a later idea and they just didn't bother addressing it as an easy way out. They never even had an extra fifty cents to give her dancing lessons but she decides to become a nurse and they have the money. She couldn't have gotten a scholarship if she couldn't even pass the entrance exam.

Another cop out was when Livvie takes painting classes at night school. She says they don't have the money and of course "night courses are free". Why would they be free? How would they pay the teachers and buy supplies? Then she's got to learn to drive, and I'm pretty sure even in the 1930s there'd be a license fee. In that instance, I think they'd have done better to say nothing, rather than night classes are free.

Edited by DoughGirl
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GrtGzu

GrtGzu

Everything was segregated back then remember? And blacks sat in the balcony at the movie theatre because that was the "colored" section...Funny thing is in RL, Earl said there were no black people living in Scuyler, and his family had never seen any..

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Tim McD

Tim McD

Unless Walton's Mountain was an uncommonly progressive community, I doubt blacks and whites in 1930s rural Virginia would have socialized at all much less go on turkey shoots together.

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oceanblue

oceanblue

I know there was segregation in the 30's, my point was the unusual focus on how it would impact their going to the movies.  Because they never went to the movies as a family.  Church and school would have been the things to focus on.  

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