The Waltons is an American historical drama television series about a family in rural mountainous Western Virginia of the Appalachian Mountains / Allegheny Mountains / Blue Ridge Mountains chain, during the economic hardships and mass unemployment of the era of the Great Depression of the 1930s and subsequent wartime homefront of World War II of the early 1940s. It was created by screenwriter / author Earl Hamner Jr., based on his 1961 book Spencer's Mountain and the 1963 film of the same name. The Waltons aired almost a decade later from 1972-81, however relocated from the Spencers family 1963 film portrayal of the geographic site in the Grand Teton Mountains of Wyoming and late 1950s era to creator Hamner's real-life memories and home turf of western Virginia (born and raised near Schuyler, Nelson County) and appropriate time period of the Depression era '30s and wartime '40s of fictional village of Walton's Mountain, Jefferson County, near the town of Rockfish in Virginia.

The TV film special The Homecoming: A Christmas Story was broadcast on December 19, 1971. Based on its high ratings and critical responses success, the CBS network ordered the first season of episodes (to be based on the same characters, with some changes in the participating cast) which became known in the autumn of the following year as the television series The Waltons. Beginning in September 1972, the series was broadcast on the CBS network for nine seasons in total. After the series was canceled ten years later in 1981, three television film reunion sequels aired the following year in 1982 on competing NBC (National Broadcasting Company), with three more in the subsequent decade of the 1990s back on CBS. The Waltons was produced by Lorimar Productions and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution in later syndication after 1981.

The show's end sequence featured the family saying goodnight to one another before going to bed for the night. According to the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) which broadcast the series overseas in the United Kingdom / British Isles. "Goodnight, John-Boy" was one of the most common catchphrases of the 1970s long run of the show.