History YMMV / TheWaltons

** Esther had a habit of complaining about Zeb eating too much at the dinner table because she feared for his health. In "The Birthday," Zeb has a major heart attack right before his 73rd birthday and believes this is it for him, but he gradually recovers over a long series of weeks. At the start of season 7, we learn Zeb [[ActorExistenceFailure recently died]] from a ''second'' heart attack climbing up Walton's Mountain by himself in his advanced condition. Even worse, this was immediately after Esther got the clearance to come home from the hospital, so one can only assume Zeb worried himself so much over Esther's condition that he wore himself to death, and when he let down from it all after she was back home, his aching heart finally gave out.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment:

* HarsherInHindsight:

** In the earliest seasons of the show, the Walton children just about ''never'' wore shoes and were never the worse for wear because of it, as it was a [[BarefootPoverty staple of rural youth and childhood innocence]]. Near the tail end of the show in "The Hostage," when this has fallen away from commonplace and the Waltons all outgrew it, Elizabeth is forced to go without shoes without choice after being made to give them up as incentive to not run away from her hill folk captors, and badly suffers AgonyOfTheFeet when the slippers she stole from them don't cut it on rough terrain, leading her to [[RealityEnsues suffer some nasty cuts of her own.]]

** "The Victims" can also come across this way. Kenny, a neighbor, returns from the war, suffering from massive PTSD. DomesticViolence ensues as he takes out his waking nightmares on his wife Laurie. The sheriff point-blank admits to her that law enforcement is generally reluctant to get involved with domestic situations, implying that it's considered too personal and private. The episode ends well, with Kenny receiving treatment at the VA hospital and once again becoming the gentle and kind person Laurie married; however, to modern eyes, the sheriff's attitude (and Laurie's reluctance to leave her husband even though she's ''terrified'' of him) can be difficult to watch.

* {{Narm}}: Some of the slang from the thirties and forties has aged poorly. To those not around back then, it can sound incredibly corny and near-impossible to take seriously, with one such example being "Rickety Rax".

** "The Ferris Wheel," particularly during Elizabeth's sleepwalking bouts on the ''roof'' of the Walton house and the shocking twist where she remembers being trapped on a Ferris wheel at a tender young age. She was trapped because the Ferris wheel operator was a thief, who rushed to hide his stolen goods when he saw a police officer coming; as Elizabeth watched, he returned in time to be ''killed'' by being struck by a Ferris wheel carriage. She was so traumatized by the whole thing that she repressed the memories, until the return of the carnival caused them to resurface in her dreams.

** Thankfully, the reunion movies of TheEighties and TheNineties brought back Richard Thomas and the Walton elders as well as nearly every other original recurring cast member, invoked a refreshing TimeSkip to TheSixties, and injected a new level of drama into the show, as well as the shocking news that [[spoiler:Erin's crummy luck with lovers came back with a vengeance and her husband philandered his way to divorce, and that Ben and Cindy's baby Virginia had died in a drowning accident]], as well as the uplifting surprises that [[spoiler:John-Boy was ''finally'' getting married and Elizabeth and Drew rekindled their romance once and for all]]. They were faithful enough to the original that it rekindled the old spirit of the show.
* ValuesDissonance: The resolution of "The Violated" is a bit strange by modern standards. [[spoiler:Instead of the young woman's rapist facing justice, he's "persuaded" by John to leave town and never return... meaning that he could do the same thing to someone else.]]