Waltons reunion with Martha Nix, abuse discussion

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. How's it going, guys? It's fantastic. It's nice being here. I feel like I'm right here in the middle of television history, which is nice to be a part of. Welcome, by the way. Welcome. Thanks so much. It is a nice little mini reunion of some of the younger kids on The Walton Show. We were on the eighth season of The Walton, second to last season, and had a whole run of The Walton's house and ranch and surrounding territories for a whole year. It was rather fun. It was awesome. And we even stepped foot on the Dukes of Hazzard's lot. Oh, yeah. We beat Ike and Cora's gas station general store, and the general lead would go whizzing by. Really? Yeah, and they had all the trashed ones right there. And we'd slip by where they did Fantasy Island and wait for them to fill the lake. That's so cool. Oh, cool. The back lot was awesome. Now, did you guys know at that age what you were walking into? Or were you just like, oh, it's nice to be a teenager? Or are you pretty much thinking, are you aware where you're walking into basically already set up television history? I think we were just doing another job. That was me. Yeah, and frankly, our family, we didn't watch The Waltons at the time. I mean, we're absolutely aware of the show. You started in a hurry watching The Waltons. Yeah, we started in a hurry. My mom had that. You know, those original big, huge VCRs. Oh, she was taping every episode, but they were like $500 back then. On beta. Exactly. And I knew it was a big show, and it was big for us and our family. Absolutely for the pocketbook. I mean, a regular job, a full year. Best, you know, as a kid actor working, you do several shows a year or maybe work three months out of a year. And the rest of the time, you're in school. But for this, you are. You're doing it. You're doing it five days a week. So did you guys have to take, were you, the tutoring, was that all happening at the same time, you guys on set, getting tutored? That was part of the best part of being on The Waltons. Yeah. That's nice. We had Glenn Woodmansey, who was the... Hold on, say it again. Say, what's his name? Glenn Woodmansey. Okay, I thought you were saying... And we just called him Glenn. He was our teacher. Yes. No, fair enough. And he was the teacher for all the kids on The Waltons for the eight years before we were there. Yeah. And at the time, it was just Cammie Cotler. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we played... Elizabeth. And the two of us. And the front part was the room where we did our book work. And there was a 50-gallon saltwater tank. And Glenn would dive in the Pacific and pull all the animals into the 50-gallon saltwater tank. Actually, I think it was probably 100-gallon. And then we had a small little freshwater. And then we'd go to all the crew guys and we'd say, adopt a fish. Adopt a fish. And we had them adopt each of our fish. So we had money to care for them. And they were like, oh, that's nice. And he took all of the kids on The Waltons through... And part of the reason we were cast was because Elizabeth had turned like 18. I mean, they were literally just getting out of the last of their school. Jim Bob may have been taking a GED at the time and been in the school for... He was in and out here and there. Glenn was helping him get his GED. Yes. And he was... He could do everything. I mean... There was a full science lab in the back of the trailer. Oh, it was awesome. Really? Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Everything. All chemistry, microscopes, the whole deal. Well, now, is an on-set teacher similar to a parent by the time you get... Because like you said, you guys came around. He's already been through most of the cast. By the time you get to the third kid, the kid basically has the run of the house. The parent's like, you know what? Just don't burn anything down. You're fine. Did you have this teacher already broken in? Could you be like, I read a book. I read a book yesterday. You're fine. Or was Woodman's a hard ass? Well, no. He was great. He was one of us. There was things that were already going. They had a magazine. They had a... A magazine? Oh, yeah. We had a newspaper that we... Yeah. Yeah. Published every probably month. Kids of the Waltons published a magazine? Oh, absolutely. He had shit for us to do, man. All right. Oh, it was awesome. Yeah. We would do these things that the kids on the Waltons had been doing for years. And Glenn was really great. He got us way ahead. I'd banked so many hours on the Waltons. Because legally, you only have to have three hours a day. So if you have a heavy work schedule on one day, and then the next day is light, you'll pack in like six to eight hours of school. So then you're kicking it for the next two days. And it sounds like six to eight hours of woodman's-y school is not necessarily the hardest work you've ever done in your life. No. If you're not on the call sheet, you come into the studio anyway, and you go to school. And we worked hard. We really did. So you can bank hours, then take the next couple of days off. You have to minimum one hour. So on an eight, nine hour shooting day for minors, that was really great for them to just do one hour of school. And school can sometimes be kind of recreational. And you could just, you know, really, there was... Throws a ball at your head, goes dodgeball for an hour. They'd be setting up a shot, and they'd go, do we have 20 minutes? Because you could only... They only do 20 minutes at a time. Any shorter, they couldn't count it. And they're like, well, if we have 20 minutes, send the kids off to school. So we're always running back to the trailer, and sometimes in really short chunks. And like my kids, I'm like, you guys, why are we sitting in the car driving, and you're not reading? I spent my whole life reading on the drive. I'm like, what's up? We're double tasking. Mom's driving, do homework in the car. But mom, I only have 20 minutes. You can get a full segment done. You can do a chapter in 20. That is very nice. Oh, I had banked hours. So by the time we finished the Walton season, I had... Left over hours. 30, 40 hours or something ridiculous like that. And we sold them to another show. What? And it wasn't cash, because that was completely amoral, and probably unethical or illegal. But what we did was, they arranged to buy that many hours or something money worth of school books. So I got encyclopedias. Oh, of books. I thought you had all these books. I thought you were selling your school hours to somebody else. What they did was they paid the other production in school books, which went to me. And then they got to take the banked hours. And it all worked out. Yeah. You know, Keith really hasn't changed, I'm sure. You know, or he knows how to work the system. I wasn't even there, and I feel swindled out of that. Somehow I lost three hours, and I don't know what the hell happened. Before the internets, in the encyclopedia was this 24-volume thing of beauty that you could use on all of your reports. The World Book. The World Book. Or Britannica. That's the one I think we had. That is very funny. That's very funny. Rumor has it that you banked so many hours on your last... On the last year. On the last year of the Waltons that you graduated college at the age of 14, I believe. It was actually 16. 16? No, I graduated high school at 16, and I entered college at 16. Really? Yeah. Can you do that through banked hours? I know, I skipped grades. I came back from school, and Glenn Woodmansey was such a great teacher that I'd skipped grades and started in advanced placement classes and was working grade levels ahead because of all of his work. I don't know if that happened to you, too. You were kind of trying to show the rest of us up. I was so precocious and obnoxious. Was he that guy? He was that guy? Yeah. He was so brilliant, and they had to figure out how to entertain Keith in the classroom. Okay, I've got this kid. He's in fourth grade, but... Distracted. Give him Martha's work. He can do French. Entertain or distract is the question. Well, you know that kid who's bored in school? Yes. Yeah, always a problem child for... Oh. Oh, dude, he's right there. He's right there. I did all my work really quick, and I was bored. And he would. He'd run around the trailer, which was our classroom, and Glenn would be like, Okay, what experiment can we entertain him with in the back? Yeah, that's usually what happened. Yeah. How were the other kids? Were the kids that were there beforehand that you guys are now coming in and not replacing, but adding to? Were they welcoming, or were they treating you like Oliver from the Brady Bunch? I was probably a huge distraction, and I remember that Kenny Cotler was very focused on her finishing up her schoolwork, the last schoolwork that she had to do. I totally bugged the heck out of her. She loved me. Fuck up. What a better answer. That is. See, I felt completely, and maybe I was delusional, but I felt completely welcomed. Can it not be both? And you were my distraction. Oh, wait. Well, we played brats, and I want to cover this for the audience and everything. We've got some topics before we get into it. We've got some time, and we're going to get into some more Walton stories and talk with Martha as our official guest in a little bit. But we do want to cover some topics, but we want Martha to join us. And also, for anybody listening, please call 1-800-893-9000. That's 9562 with either your favorite TV show or questions for Martha or myself on the Waltons, other work that we've done. You also have a great other resume, The Days of Our Lives. I was. Right before the Waltons, I spent three years on Days. Three years. Were you the youngest kid on Days? No, Natasha Ryan was. Really? Mm-hmm. I mean, you were very young on there in the first place. I was seven when I started. Wow. See, you had more experience at working the seasons of shows and spending a lot of time. Right. I would much have preferred to be on the set. I hated going back to school. Because I was the weird kid. I was from Orange County. And so I wasn't from L.A. There was nobody else around me. And it's funny because now going back to my high school reunions, they're like, oh, it was so cool that you were on TV. I'm like, you didn't act that way when we were in school. Exactly. Where was that? Yeah, where was that then? Yeah. And they just thought it was the coolest thing, but they sure didn't let me know that when I was in elementary school. So it was, I was hated. When I, they wrote me. They were supposed to bring me back, but they fired all the writers. And the new writers were like, who's that? So then it was like, please, Lord, get me another job. Get me out of Orange County. And I landed in Walgreens. I have all these banked hours. Somebody do something. And see, that was before the Housewives of Orange County. And I still wanted out. Did you commute up to Burbank? Every morning. We left at like four o'clock in the morning. We were out in the poor part of Malibu. And we did like an hour. It was an hour, hour 15 or so. But you really. Oh my God. That's why I said, I did school in the car. I read in the car. That's nice. I did too. And my mom would be, sometimes after school, when I wasn't like working regularly on the Waltons, I'd have two, three auditions after school. Because you have to finish at three. And then you can only really see kids up to like five or six o'clock. They'd be like, you gotta be four o'clock in the Valley. Five o'clock, you gotta be in West LA. And then back in Hollywood for 630. Get on Sunset. Yeah. And so my mom would be driving me to interview. Bad out of hell. And I'm sitting there going over like puzzle books. Yeah. Or reading stuff. And like, she's doing 360s intersections with like semis coming at us. I'm like, everything's fine. Absolutely. Burning over the canyons, Malibu Canyon. She would do record time over those things. Very, very frightening. All during your schooling. Yeah. All the time. That's gotta be really tough though, to do that. And then, like you said, try to go back to school where you haven't been there. You're the new person every time you come back and then you disappear. And then you come back. Tough age. Also tough to go from, hey, I'm in. I'm in the car with my mom, which I was going to be anyway. But it counts as school as opposed to now I got to sit in an actual classroom for the next six hours. I think it's like military kids, brats that move around a lot or go to new schools a lot. It's almost like a new school. You've been gone for nine months or something like that. You come back all another grade. They're like, what? Who are you? Well, and you're in that situation. I remember coming back from the Waltons. I was starting junior high. I was in seventh grade. Arriving in February. And all it was like, I walk in. My classroom is an indoor seventh grade. And I walk into the school. And it's, you know, it's the 70s. So all classroom doors are open. So literally everybody can see you walk in the door. The Chautauqua method. And it was like, I walk in the door and they were like. And everybody froze, turned my way and looked. And I thought, do I take another step towards them or not? And then they all came toward me. And then I was like, can I have your autograph? And I'm like, this is a D&D situation. If I give it to them, I'm a snob. And if I don't, I'm a snob. What do I do? What did you do? Did you give them autographs? No. No. And I was a snob. But this eighth grader came and befriended me. And I just found her on Facebook and we had lunch. It was awesome. That's cool. I said, you made such a difference. Because you said, here's my locker. I'll be your friend. I won't ask you for an autograph. Facebook's great for finding old bullies or like old friends like that. I found you in Facebook. Old bullies. You absolutely did. Yeah. You did find me on Facebook. I did. Yeah. And now we're friends. I'm going to poke you. Oh, please don't. But in school, we're on the Waltons. The Waltons is a pretty family show. But the set. Yeah, that poke you joke would not fly in the Waltons. No. But no, no, it would on the set. Oh, on the set. Absolutely. On the set, it was a completely different world. Really? Yeah. Not what you expect. Oh, I learned how to play Jen with all the drivers. It was awesome. Yeah. There was lots of cards and dice and magic tricks I learned from a lot of the crew. But just the language. I remember one. A crew member daring me. One of the good nights we did. I, you know, I had to say good night, Virginia. And I dare you to say vagina. So there I am on the soundstage. They did this at the end of the day in the kitchen. And the whole crew's waiting around to go home. God. And we're all doing our good nights. I'm like, good night, vagina. That didn't really go over well. Really? Yeah. Nothing. No. And it was there was. Were you the first person to laugh? I don't know if it was because they'd been doing it for so many years. You know, the creator of the show. It was Earl Hamner. He could say some things a little off color. Sometimes you go, really? Creator of the Waltons? But there was. It was. It is Hollywood. It's still the entertainment industry. And so there's a probably a desire to go far away from that image. And, you know, you have to, like, shake that off. The goody two shoes kind of a thing. Any chance it was just the performance of the vagina line that didn't get him? Is there any chance that was it? The performance of all my lines, Gus. But honestly, I have to say, I did look. The DVD came out and I watched as many episodes as I could handle. Because it's hard to watch yourself as a kid. You're just unforgiving. But I was actually proud of my work. This is weird to say, but I do an attitude thing. I sass off Ralph Waite. I'm like, you, you go do it or something. I say something to him. And I'm like, oh, I'd smack that kid. I would smack him immediately. So I guess it was effective. And you know what? I was the character who got to do it. I got to take the ace bandages and wrap his mouth shut. That was the best episode. That's nice. You remember that? Yeah, I do. I do. I do. Nice. Nice. 15 takes of that, did you do? I don't. One was enough. It shut him up. That might be a system we need then, if that still works. But on the goody two-shoes thing, I was reading, and you had a note here. There was a 19-year-old college student who founded the No Cussing Club. Yeah, yeah, no. I don't. I'm not passing any judgment, but I know the cool kids in my high school were all part of the No Cussing Club. No, they weren't. No. That's the empowerment of finding those dirty words and flim, flarm, flarm, and saying them, and like shocking adults. It was great. I barely got through that sentence without dropping an F-bomb. Okay, I'd keep you that way. So they founded a No Cussing Club, and 35,000 of a group tried to get the Modern Family pulled this week because Lily says fudge, and they block it, do false censorship, do a bleep, and you think she says the F-word. Yeah. All two, three-year-olds say whatever language is percolating around. I've totally witnessed it. I've taught three-year-olds how to say the worst things on the planet. So it was totally true, but I can't believe it. This No Cussing Club. Something's never changed. Why? That was just yesterday, by the way. It's harmless, you know, don't you think? There's so many parts of that story that are ridiculous. First of all, the fact that there's a No Cussing Club is ridiculous. What about the Virgin Clubs? He's claiming there's 35,000 people that are in the No Cussing Club. Seriously? I didn't know there were 35,000 people that say cussing. 260 million. However many million people in the United States doesn't surprise me. 35,000. Actually, that's not a lot. The thing that surprised me about it, you're going to try to get it pulled. He says fudge. He doesn't say the word. Just change the channel. If it offends you, change the channel. But you have a hard time with them bleeping out a kid saying fudge. I think you're trying to draw the line. And then you need to get that pulled so nobody can see it. I think you're drawing the line. And I saw it. It was so harmless. She says it a couple times in the episode, but it was totally harmless. It was absolutely hysterical, and that kid's ridiculous. Always room for fudge. Always. That's my pronouncement. Did you watch Modern Family, Martha? Occasionally. That's a great show. Did you see the fudge episode? I didn't. You did not. I was probably doing homework with my kids. I heard it was filthy. It's the homework it was. The homework was filthy. They should get rid of homework. That's what they should get rid of. Do you have to go through the homework with the kids? Yeah. Do you do it in 20-minute segments? Yeah. I told you my kids have not learned the str