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The Waltons creator Earl Hamner Jr. made a sweet cameo in one episode
He sports a big mustache for the small role.
Season two of The Waltons starts with the touching episode "The Journey." Series creator Earl Hamner Jr. states in the opening narration (as the voice of middle-aged John-Boy) that the sad truth that many people live in solitude "brought me close to a remarkable woman and sent me on a journey that I was to remember for the rest of my life."
The story begins with John-Boy planning to take early love interest Marcia Woolery to a dance. But she is not the woman mentioned in the narration, as we soon find out. Old Mrs. Maggie MacKenzie, one of the many memorable single-episode neighbors on Walton's Mountain, needs help fixing her car. John-Boy obliges and is rewarded with stories from Maggie's past.
She speaks longingly of her deceased husband, Michael, and shows an old, black-and-white photograph of him to John-Boy. The mustachioed man in the picture is actually Earl Hamner! It's his first brief cameo on the show he created. Luckily, it's not his only appearance in the episode. We get a much better glimpse of Michael MacKenzie later on.
Maggie convinces John-Boy to take her to the beach, leaving Marcia Woolery high and dry. Mrs. McKenzie remembers setting sail from Scotland with her husband years before. She and John-Boy visit a restaurant called “The Mermaid” which brings back even more memories for Maggie. In fact, John-Boy sweetly asks her to dance and she imagines Michael in his place.
And who do we see playing Mr. MacKenzie in the flashback? Earl Hamner, in a sharp 1800s suit and full curly mustache. It's a poignant, heartwarming moment perfectly appropriate for the man who brought so many to the show.
The quick appearance may have gone mostly unnoticed when the episode first aired but thanks to the enduring popularity of The Waltons, it can be fully appreciated now and for years to come.
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as he opened his mouth it was obviously him, to anyone who has heard the narration on
the Waltons. Tell The Truth runs - 8:30 AM - on the Game Show network and hasn't aged
a bit. Host Gary Moore gives a clinic every day on how to be a game show host.
Improbable as it seems, the panelists DIDN'T recognize Hamner's unmistakable voice. Personally, I don't think any of them had actually seen the show yet. And perhaps it wasn't widely known at the time that Hamner himself was the narrator.
Hamner looked exactly like the black-and-white 1976 photo on his Wikipedia page, so most of the panelists dismissed him as appearing "too young to have lived through the Depression" and voted for another (more mature, gray-haired) contestant instead. Ha!
A fresh-faced Richard Thomas made a guest appearance during the show, sitting with Hamner to answer a few questions at the end of the segment. The bond between the two was evident and heartwarming, and Thomas seemed almost giddy when discussing the show's success. (When The Waltons debuted a year earlier, remember, it was widely panned as being too hokey for cynical '70s audiences and was almost canceled during its first few months. It found an audience just in time, though, and became a runaway hit before the first season ended -- and it's obvious that Thomas was surprised and elated at the show's unexpected turnaround.)
By the way, when the original Popeye was on To Tell The Truth, only one panelist guessed him,
despite the fact he still looked exactly like Popeye, and that voice!
The second he said his name at the start I knew it was him.
I guess we can assume he was indeed the original model for Popeye.
Someone else you should include is Waylon Jennings from the Dukes Of Hazzard. Like the others you listed, he was heard but never, {I don't think,} seen.
