Nominated for 15 Golden Globes and 25 Emmys, including two for Outstanding Drama Series, The Waltons enjoyed nine seasons of high audience ratings and notable critical acclaim. Premiering on CBS in the Fall of 1972, the hour-long drama series chronicled the lives of a tightly-knit mountain family living during the Depression era. Creator Earl Hamner Jr. based The Waltons on his true-to-life story of growing up in the Hamner family. Noted for its family-oriented subject matter (and absence of torrid sex and violence), The Waltons paved the way for the success of the popular TV series Little House On The Prairie (1974). And, in the aftermath of the cancellation of The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) and Green Acres (1965), proved wrong the assertion of some CBS executives that shows with rural settings were becoming unpopular. Celebrated for its raw depiction of the human experience, The Waltons towers above modern day television dramas by laying claim to the added weight today's critics give to "realism" in a series while simultaneously avoiding the bad language, adult content, and gratuitous violence that often accompany those shows which earn such a designation