Why should anyone settle for ‘Fear’ when there’s family?

Yes, Earl Hamner created “The Waltons,” but he’s quick to stress he’s no prude. After all, his resume also includes creating “Falcon Crest” and writing eight episodes of the original “The Twilight Zone.”

That said, he can’t help but sound dispirited by how family programming is treated these days and by much of what he sees on television.

“There is a huge audience between Los Angeles and New York, and people [in the TV industry] don’t realize that they’re there,” said the 79-year-old Virginia native, in the soothing drawl that became familiar to millions as he narrated the wholesome drama.

“I get upset when I tune in and, instead of human beings relating to each other, I see human beings eating a cockroach -- which is supposed to be entertaining -- because I find that demeaning. I grieve for television, because it could have been a medium to elevate and educate and energize and inspire people. There is that element, but there’s an imbalance.”

Hamner pondered this from his small Studio City office. The room has two desks -- one with a computer, the other with an old manual typewriter, similar to the one he used to plunk out “Spencer’s Mountain” and “The Homecoming,” novels that provided the basis for “The Waltons.” Occasionally, he works on the manual, just for the feel of it.

Although Hollywood has little appetite for the services of a near-octogenarian, Hamner stays busy. His latest book, “Goodnight, John-Boy” -- a detailed account of the program and the writer’s family, which inspired it -- was released in the fall. Another book, based on his “Twilight Zone” scripts (they include the episodes in which a car drives its owner back to a crime scene and a piano exposes the thoughts of those who hear it), is due out soon.

Hamner is accustomed to being associated with “soft” shows and the baggage that entails. He recalls a meeting of Lorimar TV producers in the 1970s where Leonard Katzman, who was responsible for “Dallas,” jokingly said, “We’re going to talk about ‘Dallas’ now, so Earl Hamner has to leave the room.”

Because of its homespun quality, “The Waltons” also remains a political touchstone two decades after ending its initial run. Conservatives still cite the show in reference to what’s missing on TV, and this fall the Order Sons of Italy in America seized on Hamner’s Italian ancestry with a press release headlined, “ ‘The Waltons,’ Not ‘The Sopranos,’ Are Typical Italian American Family.”

For the record, Hamner says he is a fan of “The Sopranos,” apparently able to discern the topography of the Blue Ridge Mountains from that of the Bada-Bing. Yet he is dismayed by the dearth of family dramas and the dismissive attitude toward them in too-hip Hollywood.

In this environment, it’s no surprise to see Entertainment Weekly quote “Smallville” producer Brian Robbins expressing relief that the show has passed “7th Heaven” -- a “soft” drama about a minister and his family -- as the WB’s most-watched program.

“A lot of people watch ‘7th Heaven,’ but I don’t know who they are,” Robbins sniffed.

Hamner said he understands that producers and executives want to impress friends with cutting-edge fare. It’s just that in focusing on their peers in New York and L.A., he thinks they get disconnected from Cincinnati, much less the little crossroad towns in between.

“So often I tune in, and the vision of the human race that night is of criminal behavior, or sick behavior, or people in need of a lawyer,” he said. “And I wonder, ‘Where is the guy who went to work this morning, and kissed his wife at the door, and the wife bundled the kids off to school, and the kids went to school and studied and learned?’ ”

Hamner concedes there is less inherent drama in those situations, making such programs harder to do, and explaining why networks often shy away from them. Generally, such shows also take time to grow, which isn’t reassuring for executives who might not be around long enough to participate in the harvest.

Concern about the viability of softer shows is nothing new. When “The Waltons” premiered in 1972, the Dallas Times Herald predicted the series would earn positive reviews, “be embraced by a small but enthusiastic audience, collect a number of awards and vanish from the air with hardly a ripple.”

For all the hand wringing about family entertainment, the pendulum has swung a bit in that direction. A consortium of advertisers, for example, underwrites development of family shows to foster a “safe” environment for their commercials.

Then again, if you’ve watched NBC’s “Fear Factor” lately, you know it doesn’t exactly air un-sponsored. “They talk wholesome, and they show us people eating cockroaches,” Hamner said, adding, “I deplore the constant feed of grossness and rudeness,” fearing that climate will “numb and degrade the audience.”

Perhaps nothing underscores how much the landscape has changed more than the fact that “The Waltons’ ” time slot now belongs to “Survivor,” which exalts a different golden rule, rewarding those who “outwit, outlast and outplay” unto others.

Some would say that ethic has something to do with the way the TV industry itself has been transformed. Consider Lorimar, the company “The Waltons” helped put on the map, which merged with Tele-

pictures, was acquired by Warner Bros., then merged with Time and again with AOL.

Hamner has enjoyed a varied career, writing the animated “Charlotte’s Web” and TV version of “Heidi” that NBC infamously broadcast in 1968, cutting away from a football game when the Raiders dramatically rallied to beat the Jets.

All that experience has brought him wisdom, he feels, that he’d like to share with TV’s power brokers, though not as gently as John-Boy might.

“I always said that when I got old, I would be very tolerant of young people. I find I’m not the least bit tolerant of young people,” Hamner said, without any acrimony.

“I want to shake them. And I want to tell them we old folks have gifts too. I would like to meet with all the young people in television, just sit down and chat. Not to preach to them, but just to share some of the things that come to you with age.”

A lot of young TV executives and producers wouldn’t benefit from that conversation ... but I don’t know who they are.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.