If you remember The Waltons, you probably remember Judy Norton as well. She played Mary Ellen, the oldest of the family’s daughters. The series ran for nine years. Judy Norton found herself right in the middle of the Walton family action for that entire run. Then, she returned to reprise her role in the subsequent made-for-TV movies and specials. As a result, she has a wealth of knowledge about the series.
Luckily for fans of The Waltons, Judy Norton isn’t hoarding that knowledge away. Instead, she shares it with her fans on a fairly regular basis. She does so through her YouTube-based web series. In that series, she tells us what it was like to live on Walton’s Mountain. However, Norton doesn’t just give out trivia. She takes time to give her perspective. At the same time, she shares tidbits of behind-the-scenes knowledge that fans can’t get anywhere else.
She covers a wide range of topics in her web series. Sometimes, Judy Norton will talk about a specific episode. in those installments, she does a full breakdown of all of the most interesting aspects. Other times, she will talk about broader topics related to The Waltons. For instance, she once talked at length about the food on the set. However, some of the best episodes are the ones where she answers questions from her fans.
In an installment of her web series earlier this week, Judy Norton answered a series of questions about the show and her time on the set. At one point in that episode, she opened up about whether or not the actors ever accidentally called one another by their real names on set.
Judy Norton on If the Waltons Cast Ever Used the Wrong Names
A viewer named Michael asked, “During the filming, were there times any of the actors called each other by their real names instead of their character names?”
Judy Norton wasn’t completely certain about this question and was honest about it. “You know, I think it happened occasionally. I believe people have commented that they maybe caught somewhere where it slipped by editing.”
Judy Norton went on to explain that if a mistake like that did slip past the show’s editors, there was probably a reason for it. For instance, she said that it could have been because they didn’t have an alternate option to use in place of the flubbed line. So, they just had to roll with it and hope no one noticed. On the other hand, it could have just been a mistake. After all, editors are only human. Everybody makes mistakes.
Sometimes, Judy Norton said, the cast would catch it when it happened. They would immediately call it out so that they could do another take. However, she said that it didn’t happen often. The cast of The Waltons were all pretty good about staying in character while shooting.
