Sometimes episodes of The Waltons are about family and responsibility, and sometimes John-Boy’s dad gets into a fight with a bear. We’re not judgmental; we love all Waltons episodes, especially the bear-related ones.

Fans of the series might remember an early episode of the popular series titled "The Hunt." In it, John-Boy must leap into action after his father is confronted by a black bear during a hunt.

It seems that the episode stuck out in the memory of actor Ralph Waite, who played John Walton Sr.

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“I remember that ‘The Hunt’ was the first show we filmed, although it was not the first to go on the air,” Waite wrote in Goodnight John Boy by Earl Hamner, Ralph Giffin. Though the actor was a consummate professional, he didn’t deny he had a healthy dose of fear after learning there would be a real bear on set.

“I recall my shock and anxiety that on my first Walton episode, I was going to have to wrestle a bear,” wrote Waite. “When I read the script, I kind of skipped over the part about bear wrestling, and then I got to the set, and there was the bear, and he was huge! I was about to run off then and there when I was told that the man who trained the bear would actually wrestle with me. He would be dressed in a bear suit, and the scene would be shot in such a way that it would appear that I was actually wrestling a bear.”

Once the confusion had died away, Waite actually enjoyed his time on set filming. In retrospect, the actor looked back on the memory as a humorous anecdote of an otherwise delightful career.

“I’m glad now I didn’t run off,” wrote Waite. “It was the beginning of a lifetime of memories from those extraordinary years we all spent together.”