I'm Not Ashamed To Admit It... I Love "Little House On The Prairie"...

... mostly the early years episodes. The ones before Laura got married, and before Mary went blind, and before Albert died. (Which, by the way, was a serious continuity blunder... as it had been revealed in an epilogue that Albert 'went on to marry and have 5 children and became a successful businessman" or some-such happiness. Instead, his character died young in season eight. Silly writers!)

Are there any other Little House fans out there? Come out of the closet!!! Who cares if people make fun of you?

-- Allen

P.S. I'm always (slightly) shocked whenever I see Melissa Gilbert these days. Even though I know the show debuted THIRTY years ago... and even though I know that real actors grow up in real life... she'll always be forever young and forever 'Half-Pint' in my mind.

Unbelievable. :-)

Terry

I like her better in that role than Ronald Reagan!

Also -- I recently saw an interview with "Laura's" old nemesis, "Nellie" (Alison Arngrim). Now there's a very cool person. Funny thing is, after learning how awful Alison's childhood was (and how she used her villain role as a coping mechanism), it occurs to me that "Laura" did some pretty mean things onscreen too!

growing up. I haven't seen it in years.

Where someone had a problem, then they solved it and everyone learned a valuable lesson.

You owe me a new monitor!

;)

:sheepishgeekygrin:

It's the first chapter book she's ever read. After she's finished, we will rent the first season set of Little House DVDs.

make sure she reads the series, including 'Farmer Boy', which is one of my favorites, mostly because of the incredible descriptions of food that they ate on the farm. (Pie for breakfast, anyone??)

I've finally collected all the Little House books - buying at garage sales. I never watched the series because Michael Landon just wasn't Pa. Not to mention that I was in love with him as Little Joe - how could he possibly be Pa!!??

It comes on at like 3AM on Sunday mornings. Why yes, I am away at that time of the night. :grr:

Sometimes I :cry:

*holding out my wrists so the schmaltz police can arrest me*

Pa with no beard.
Ma's ears showing.
Albert - who didn't exist.

Pa - CRYING?

Playing interracial football in Minnesota before the game was even invented???

HOW CAN YOU STAND THAT ANACHRONISTIC BS? I am on an internet group with a bunch of YA people and they all go ballistic every time that show is mentioned. They should apologize to Laura Ingalls Wilder's memory every time they air an episode.

Don't even get me STARTED on the Anne of Green Gables movies....

But technically, they are only "based on" the Little House books. If they were true to each book, and ONLY the books, they would have run out of plots before the first season was over.

But I know what you mean. It's difficult to see something on screen (big or little) after your mind has lovingly created OTHER characters from ORIGINAL descriptions, that look (and act) nothing at all like the ones you see on TV.

-- Allen

Michael Landon with a beard? No way!

As a preteen living in the Great Lakes region (several hundred miles from Minnesota but a similar biome), I always wondered why the vegetation didn't look right.

Sure enough, the show was filmed in California -- different species and landscape!

Now that part did bug me. Nothing personal against Michael and Co., but I think it's one of the reasons why I became a biogeographer. (And don't get me started on the "Westerns" showing saguaro cacti in Colorado ... those are the ones that started the mess!)

"Little House" loathers may be relieved to hear that the "Little House" built in Simi Valley for the production and preserved (after the rest of the set was blown up, don't ask) was apparently destroyed in the 2003 brushfires. (Luckily, no casualties.)

... supposedly in Connecticut, they drive down palm tree lined streets. HUH?

-- Allen

Is that - - hello! - - the Minnesota prairie is FLAT. And I mean flat the way Kansas is flat. If you got outside of town, the closest thing to a hill was the Red River's bank, which was a slope going down to the river itself. And if there wasn't a major source of water around (a lake or a river), there were no trees.

But on Little House on the Prairie, there are always hills blocking the horizon, and trees standing around independent of any obvious water source. As a child, that really, really bugged me.

:eyes:

"Guys... this is SO not Minnesota."

and Little House was a constant offender.

This alleged little Minnesota town in the sagebrush and mountains was like a miniature United Nations, with black and Jewish families, and a Jewish-Christian marriage happily celebrated by everyone in an era when both families would have declared their children dead for attempting such a thing.

Oh, yes, and then there was the episode in which the black man was reminiscing about waiting for Santa Claus back when he was a little slave before the Civil War. Uh--excuse me, but Santa Claus was not part of the typical Christmas celebration till the 1880s, and a slave family's Christmas consisted of getting a ham and a jug of corn liquor from the master.

One of my former teaching colleagues wrote about his least favorite episode, one in which Pa was all remorseful because he'd been off fighting locusts or a prairie fire or something instead of taking the children on a picnic.

The TV series had nothing to do with the books except the names of the characters, and I used to cringe when my mother and grandmother insisted on watching it. "But it's such a cute show," they would say. (That was their highest form of praise.)

As far as the Anne of Green Gables movies were concerned, I thought the first one was pretty close to the book, but then they started indulging in creative plotting and completely lost me.

... epic style, on the series of books.

A few links for you:

Original Ingalls Homestead Files:
http://www.archives.gov/research_room/genealogy/research_topics/land_records/ingalls_homestead_file.html

also:

http://www.ingallshomestead.com/
http://www.walnutgrove.org/homestead.htm

The dad scared me.

and I loved the Waltons. I know they were rather stupid but I loved them anyway. My brother was a huge Little House fan and he recorded most of the episodes, those and Mama's Family of all things. I think I have them all in the boxes that arrived after his death. SOmeday I will take them out and watch them.

i love ya ar, but you like some of the stuff i hate the mostest.
bewitched....abba....ace of bass?.....and now this?

whenever that show or the waltons came on, i'd knock all the furniture over trying to get to the remote

however, as an american, i support your t.v. viewing decisions, and i'll defend to the death, your right to watch them.

And you have an excellent memory for the smallest details, old friend. Scary.

-- Allen

I haven't seen it in years.....

I didn't know that. How?

Hated the series because it butchered the real story so badly.

... I totally understand.

-- Allen

you should try to visit some of Wilder's homes across the midwest. I know some who've made it to all the sites. Even though she lived there only a year and it's not mentioned in any of her books, Burr Oak, Iowa has a very nice exibit. That was the year they lived in a hotel. De Smet, SD., and a town in southern Minn. really are keeping her memory alive.

:D

It was a fun show, in a way. One of many "let's pretend it's the 1800s"/"simple loving family live"/"let's relive the 1950s"/"go live on a mountain and be extra friendly to lots of big animals" and other kitschy get-away stuff because people got tired of the tribulations of the 1960s and social awareness. They wanted to escape.

Their escape led to what is happening today. If people didn't give up making a better a reality in favor of desire to live in a fantasy situation they'd never be able to live in... :-(

Watched every week when I was a kid .
Every once in awhile I'll watch it now

...to my daughter, and they were magnificent. Laughter, tears, the whole ball of wax. And such a joy to read out loud.

Sorry, but the TV show was well-intentioned dreck.