The Waltons (TV Series) The Big Brother (1976) User Reviews

John Boy is Stuck With Big Brother Role

[nlathy-839-300677 · 7/10 · 24 March 2021]

John Boy's big brother impulses get him involved with 12 year old female con artist trying to get her grandfather out of jail. Story is similar to Pilot Episode Homecoming.Doesn't work as well this time around. Hollywood cliches abound. Good thing Grandpa is around. He's on to con artists before other Waltons get wise.

The Goof is THE GOOF

[winowillie · 8/10 · 23 September 2023]

Jim Bob gives Muffin the bird. He does put it on the chair when he leaves the house, but when John Boy opens his car door for Muffin, the blue bird is seen in her right hand (lower right of the screen!) By the way, It is said Jim Bob carved the bird, but several times, when it is handled, it sounds like styrofoam.

Elizabeth is cute in the walnut scene. When John Boy takes Mary Ellen's walnuts, Elizabeth slides around John Boy and takes them back to return them to the pail.

Grandpa is very sharp on Muffin's intentions. He knows a lot of information during the series (he hears a lot of gossip) but he keeps his knowledge to himself.

John-Boy just too generous

[gary-64659 · 4/10 · 22 March 2023]

Why do all of the Walton family's faults turn out to be virtues under the pen of Earl Hamner Jr? The lesson of this story, summed up by the voice-over of writer Hamner (played by John-Boy) at the end, is that he and the family were just too generous for their own good. (Except for Grandpa Walton, apparently the only one with the sense he was born with. You would never know the others in the family were scratching for survival during the Great Depression the way they give away their last dime to a total stranger.) I waited for years for the Walton family to show a single serious character flaw. Now in a matter of two or three episodes there has been John-Boy not owning up to the family that he burnt the house down with the pipe he left lit -- and instead is consoled by Grandpa; and his responsibiiity here of bringing this thieving -- but very appealing -- waif into the family home. John-Boy and the rest of the family write it all off to experience (in contrast to how they treated their old friend Clancy for innocent misdeeds) and John-Boy bathes in the glow of being helplessly virtuous as a "big brother" to all and sundry forever.