The first time that Will Geer and Ellen Corby, who would later play the grandparents on The Waltons (1972), were castmates. Twenty-one years later, they would co-star in another movie, Napoleon and Samantha (1972), before the series would take off later that same year. The show's pilot TV movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971) from the previous year had a much different cast including Corby in her role but with Edgar Bergen in the Grandpa Walton role.