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A WALTONS Thanksgiving to Debut on The CW in November

Screenshot from The CW Network YouTube

A WALTONS Thanksgiving to Debut on The CW in November

By Movieguide® Contributor

The CW announced a new release date for their upcoming movie, A WALTONS THANKSGIVING, the follow-up to THE WALTONS’ HOMECOMING. 

 A WALTONS THANKSGIVING will air November 20. 

The new movie follows the Walton family as they get ready for Thanksgiving in 1934. 

According to Deadline:

The Depression has affected everyone, but John Walton (Teddy Sears) has found a way to provide for his family through the farm and by picking up odd jobs from the eccentric Baldwin Sisters. It’s also the time of year for the Annual Harvest Festival Fair, where carnival rides, talent shows and pie contests become the center of attention for the Waltons. As the story unfolds, John Boy (Logan Shroyer) learns the true meaning of taking responsibility, Mary Ellen (Marcelle LeBlanc) comes to understand patience and collaboration, Grandma (Rebecca Koon) finds that winning can be complicated, and Olivia (Bellamy Young) shares her healing heart with every other Walton family member — at a time when each of them need it most. And when a young boy enters the Waltons’ world, everyone’s life is changed in ways they could never have imagined — transformed forever through love, faith and kindness.

THE WALTONS’ HOMECOMING won Movieguide®’s Epiphany Prize® for Television for Inspiring Content. A portion of the Movieguide® review reads:

HOMECOMING is a well-made, emotional, powerful, retro movie. It has a great sense of jeopardy. Even better is the family’s constant references to faith, Jesus, church, and powerful prayers. A Christmas Eve service has MOVIEGUIDE® friends Marilyn McCoo and her husband, Billy Davis, singing great Christmas hymns. There are some unnecessary “d” obscenities, so caution is advised for younger children. Otherwise, THE WALTONS: HOMECOMING is an emotive movie that families should be delighted to watch.

Sam Haskell, the executive producer for both movies, talked to Movieguide® about his involvement in the Waltons projects:

Emmy award-winning producer Sam Haskell of programs like THE WALTONS: HOMECOMING and DOLLY PARTON’S HEARTSTRINGS recently opened up about the importance of incorporating faith in his programs.

“I love to make you laugh and cry. I love to talk about faith. I love to include God in our programs. I love to create programs that families can come together and watch together,” Haskell told Movieguide®. “Our programming is so diversified in 2022. Families rarely can find something that everyone can enjoy, and I believe THE WALTONS: HOMECOMING brings that back.”

THE WALTONS: HOMECOMING, which premiered last year on The CW, won Movieguide®’s Epiphany Prize® for Television for Inspiring Content.

“It takes me all the way back to being a little guy growing up in Amory, Mississippi,” Haskell said. “Every Thursday night, when that theme song got on, I doubt that it would come on, we’d all rushed to the living room, because we knew it was THE WALTONS. When Warner Brothers came to me, and said, ‘We really think you’re the best producer on the lot to take this format, and do a reboot,’ and it’s the 50th anniversary of the original Waltons homecoming that stared Patricia Neal and Richard Thomas and all the kids. I just thought, ‘This is perfect.’ I loved it so much as a kid.”

The values in THE WALTONS: HOMECOMING are similar to the values Haskell incorporated into his Emmy award-nominated project, DOLLY PARTON’S HEARTSTRINGS, and later, the Emmy award-winning DOLLY PARTON’S CHRISTMAS ON THE SQUARE.

“The attention that I got started with Movieguide®, because Movieguide® was the very first organization to recognize what I was doing, to recognize what we were doing as a company, and what we were doing as a studio,” Haskell said. “You have always been there for us. And I think it gets people to notice us more because it all started with Movieguide®.  That’s why I am so appreciative and thankful to you, [Movieguide® Founder and Publisher Dr.] Ted [Baehr], because of the kinds of programming that you embrace as an organization, and that you want your audience to see.

“That’s what’s so great,” Haskell continued. The audience “wants it if it’s produced the right way. You can’t preach as much as you just set examples. I honestly believe that we attract more goodness with goodness than we ever could with anything else. And the fact that they’re all responding to this kind of programming says that I’m doing it the right way. You’re doing it the right way. And it makes a difference when you do it the right way.”