Jon Walmsley never knew his grandparents, while Ellen Corby never had grandchildren. The two "adopted" each other, attending events, and visiting places together.
The "goodnight" routine at the end of each show was an actual activity in creator Earl Hamner, Jr.s home when he was a child. He said the activity would go on until his father finally told them to be quiet. One instance of this not happening was the two-part episode "The Outrage"; at the end of part 2, President Roosevelt dies and the family goes to Charlottesville early in the morning to pay their last respects as the train carrying his body passes by.
The series takes place from the spring of 1933 to June 1946.
The "Walton House" was actually located in the northern section of the Jungle area of Warner Brothers studios in Burbank. Walton's Mountain, which could be seen from the house's front porch, was actually a slope of the Hollywood Hills directly south of the Warner Bros. Studios. Interiors of the house were filmed on Stage 26. The roadway leading to the Walton house through the remaining portion of the jungle still existed in 2003 and is visible during the studio tour, although Ike Godsey's store has long since disappeared. The house had been dismantled a few years before to make way for a parking lot and was moved to the Warner Bros. Ranch lot at Hollywood Way and Verdugo Avenue, where it still functions as a workable exterior set. If you check the Season 1 DVD's of "Gilmore Girls" you will note that the old "Dragonfly Inn" that Lorelai and Sookie purchase and then renovate is the exterior of the Walton house. This is also stated in the trivia section for "Gilmore Girls" here on IMDb.com.
In contrast to his character, who rarely attended church, Ralph Waite was a licensed minister in real life and assisted John Ritter in his role as Reverend Fordwick.