The Fox

Episode aired Jan 15, 1976
TV-G
1h

IMDb RATING

7.8/10

137

YOUR RATING

Richard Thomas and Will Geer in The Waltons (1972)

Drama Family Romance

Ben starts to hunt animals for their skins to sell for profit. Meanwhile, the Rough Riders are holding a reunion. Grandpa, for all his talk about charging up the hill with Teddy Roosevelt, d... Read allBen starts to hunt animals for their skins to sell for profit. Meanwhile, the Rough Riders are holding a reunion. Grandpa, for all his talk about charging up the hill with Teddy Roosevelt, does not want to attend.Ben starts to hunt animals for their skins to sell for profit. Meanwhile, the Rough Riders are holding a reunion. Grandpa, for all his talk about charging up the hill with Teddy Roosevelt, does not want to attend.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.8/10

137

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

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User reviews2

7.8137

Featured reviews

8nlathy-839-300677

Foxes, Firecrackers and Friends

This is an odd episode. It makes people look petty then finds ways to redeem them. Story is helped along by memorable Character Actors. It's usually fun to see Frank Ferguson. And it's hard to fault Ben for wanting firecrackers. It is worth distinguishing between promising and dismissive rejection notices for freelance writers. John Boy should have sent proposals prior to writing articles.

7hmoika

Enjoyed it, with just a few reservations

This was a pretty good episode of that stellar series The Waltons.

The story of the fox was decent enough (though I never really enjoy the character of Elizabeth. Sorry)

The other story, of the Spanish American War vets and their reunion, was more interesting because it had---at the center---the wonderful Will Geer. My only complaint with it was the quite unbelievable ending when an elderly couple come to visit Zeb. What are the odds that that particular couple......that particular veteran....would be the one to appear at the Walton's front door?

I know, I know, I should leave my believability factor in the other room sometimes. It's not that the ending was a let down; it was just as bit too far fetched. The kind of ending that this show creates from time to time. Sometimes, it tries too hard to tug at the heartstrings.

My favorite episodes are the ones in which it does not have to try so hard.

Trivia
The poem that John-Boy recites in this episode is "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Goofs
Both Grandpa Zeb and Grandma relate that when Zeb went off to the Spanish American War, she was pregnant with John, but did not tell Zeb. The inference was that John was their first child. However, elsewhere in the series, they both talk about their oldest son Ben, namesake of Ben, who was killed in World War I.

Quotes
Narrator: [narration as John 'John Boy' Walton, Jr. reading from his journal] In the days of my boyhood on Waltons Mountain it was not only home to me, but to the wild animals roaming the woods, and though they were not always welcome guests in our house, they were reasonably free and without fear. Sometimes, though, a threat to their lives would appear.