Damn you Little House on the Prairie!!!

[nadine_mn]

Damn Damn Damn you and I curse you too Half-Pint!

One of the perks of prolonged unemployment is channel surfing w/out hubby making me stop to see every sports score - and I have found happiness in the Hallmark Channel. Normally this is a channel I zip on by on my way to Bravo or MSNBC but a familiar sound made me stop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhHrOgOkXZw

I admit it... I love LHOTP - as a kid I read every book until the pages wore out and watched the tv series faithfully. As I grew older no matter what - if I saw it on tv I always stopped to watch (no matter if it was the beginning or the middle). I am sure I have seen every episode at least a dozen times. Whenever I traveled for work I always laughed when I had to go through Sleepy Eye or Mankato.

And no bad girl ever compared to Nellie Oleson. I wanted to be Half-Pint...wanted to have a Ma and Pa...I never liked Mary..too goody-goody, and I am sure I begged my mom to adopt me a brother just like Albert.

So why the angry title to my post...because no matter how many times I have seen the episodes I always cry...not just a sniffle either, big fat tears and hiccups. Its not just a girl thing - my uncle cries too. So here I sit tear-stained cheeks watching Almanzo break Laura's heart, then come down with pneumonia and I am crying away.

:cry:



Course the beuaty of LHOTP is that a show like that could never be made today - nope instead it would be called "The Prairie" or "The W.G". Every episode would have a Laura/Nellie mudfight - this time with barely anything but bloomers on, everytime the crops failed and Pa had to go out of town, Ma would have a roll in the hay with some handsome bodice ripping "handyman". Harriet would carry a riding crop and we would see Nels clad only in a harness being made to obey, people would start to wonder about those Doc Baker house calls and why so many kids in Walnut Grove look like him. Gone would be the sweet sentiments only to be replaced with outhouse humor and lurid tales of how Pa had a different family in every town.

Sigh... oh well... I will always have the Banks of Plum Creek

[Deja Q]

1. I too miss television that's more than mudfights and gross words...

Of course, those are profitable so that's all that gets made. And Gen-Y is the target audience.

[nadine_mn]

2. which begs the question - why market to Gen-Y

The fact is America's population is getting older and 70% of the country's domestic wealth is in the hands of those 50 and up. The money spent by GenY isn't real anyway - its all on credit. I am 35 and never imagined having the kind of debt kids have now.

But there is a reason Nick at Nite is so popular and why so many aging celebs are being re-invented on celebreality shows... we miss the good old days of nice tv.

[MrsBrady]

3. meeeee tooooo

love this show!!!

[realisticphish]

4. wait, what?

ok, i didn't watch the show that often, but i've read the books a bajillion times. When did almanzo break laura's heart? i seem to remember them getting married without a huge deal of drama

[nadine_mn]

7. On the show,,, Manly didn't want to wait

2 years (for Laura to turn 18) to marry her so he left town and started working in sleepy eye... it was a 2 part very special Little House

[zanne]

5. You want to cry? Come see my house.

The lawn hasn't been mowed for so long, it looks like the Little House on the Prairie.

[Critters2]

6. "The W.G"! LOL!! nt

[Arugula Latte]

8. Oh, man, I totally related to Laura.

Agreed, Mary was too goody goody for my taste.

And Laura was my idol. I mean, come on. Especially on the cover of "The Shores of Silver Lake" -- she's riding a galloping chestnut horse, as I recall (I think its name was "Bunny"). For a horse-crazed preteen such as myself, that was the ultimate in cred.

[badgerpup]

15. Mary was too 'good' to be really likeable.

I read all the books...many times.
Especially liked the part where Laura and Mary are taking a walk, and Laura's thinking how if she walked away Mary would be stranded out in the middle of the prairie...and Mary confesses that she really wasn't 'good'. I love this bit: I was just showing off to myself, what a good little girl I was.

Some brutal self-honesty there. I liked Mary better after she lost her sight.

Only saw a few episodes of the show...thought they were a bit self-conciously over-the-top icky-sweet.

[Arugula Latte]

24. Yep ... Those books were a huge part of my childhood.

I read each one several times, too. The one I didn't like was "The Long Winter" because it just seemed to consist of them sitting by the fire eating brown bread. But, it did convey the boredom and darkness of a never-ending winter on the prairie with no radio, TV, computer or even newspaper to break up the monotony.

My favorite book was actually "Farmer Boy" even though it was about *GASP* a boy. Almanzo's family was more prosperous, and that book was chock full of good descriptions of the food they ate -- a much more varied diet than the Ingalls had, it seems.

[WolverineDG]

25. The Long Winter is my favorite

that walk home from school in the blizzard still gets to me.

dg

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. I hated that show, and it had nothing to do with the lack of mud fights

I loved the books, and I felt that the TV show was a travesty.

Yeah, it was harmless for kids, but it transplanted twentieth century attitudes to the nineteenth century, especially modern attitudes about religious and ethnic relations, and I lost track of how many anachronisms.

It was self-consciously "heartwarming."

Besides, it made "Hollywood" changes in the real story. Mary did go blind, but she never married. There was another daughter after Carrie. The Ingalls family moved several time and was in DeSmet, South Dakota by the time Laura qualified as a teacher.

A Jewish-Gentile marriage in those days would have resulted in both members of the couple being disowned by their parents. Nobody would have been likely to know about Santa Claus, and former slaves definitely would not have known about Santa Claus during a childhood when Christmas meant nothing more than getting a jug of corn liquor from their master.

Great books, sickeningly sweet TV show.

[nadine_mn]

10. Why do you hate America?

j/k
I know it was romanticized...but then so were the original books which were a fictionalized autobiography. Come on though....could anyone play a better Nellie Oleson...really?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. I'll grant you a great Nellie Oleson on the TV show, but

while the books were romanticized, the characters at least acted as if they belonged in the nineteenth century.

[WolverineDG]

26. Actually, they did know about Santa

Laura recounted a story of how her father came across Santa on his way to town in LHOP.

Yeah, I'm a LHOP nerd.

dg

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. But there was an episode about the African-American family

in which the father recalled how, as a young child living in slavery, he had always waited for Santa Claus.

Santa Claus wasn't known nationwide until about the 1880s, and for pre-Civil War slaves, Christmas met nothing more than a jug of corn liquor from their master and no field work (although the house slaves were as busy as ever).

(That was an episode I caught while visiting my parents, who were true-blue fans of the show, but then, they'd never read the books.)

[WolverineDG]

32. Okay

I didn't catch that part about the show. While I did watch the show from time to time (I got really annoyed when they never moved on to DeSmet), I don't recall that episode. :)

dg

[Maddy McCall]

12. I always wanted Mr. Edwards to adopt me.

Whatever happened to Ol' Man Tucker, he's to late to eat his supper, supper's over and dinner's cookin' but Ol' Man Tucker just stands there lookin....

or somethin like that.

:D

[SeattleGirl]

17. Oh Maddy!

Now ya got me singin' that song!

(Which I love, btw).

:)

Ol' Dan Tucker is a fine ol' man
Washed his face in a fryin' pan
Combed his hair with a wagon wheel
Died with a toothache in his heel!

Edited to add (just for you, Maddy):

Bruce Springsteen singing Ol' Man Tucker!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9M5SOqi1n0

[Maddy McCall]

20. LOL...THANKS!

:rofl:

[SeattleGirl]

22. Thought you'd get a kick out of that!

I actually love Springsteen's Seeger Sessions.

[nadine_mn]

18. My Uncle was just like Mr Edwards

scruffy beard like some kind of mountain man...showing up out of nowhere always ready to help when needed

aww crap now I am getting all sappy again

[SeattleGirl]

19. Look at my post just above yours.

Springsteen singing Ol' Dan Tucker.

[nadine_mn]

21. Damn and it looks like they got Willie Oleson to play banjo

seriously...that was awesome

[SeattleGirl]

23. OMG! I didn't even notice that until you said it!

He really does!

[newmajority]

13. Cheesy cornball show, but probably the best ending of any TV series ever

The people of Walnut Grove rebelled against the corporate pigs and blew the whole fucking place up! How cool was that?? :nuke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ne4ZOL4wlw

[VenusRising]

14. I don't remember posting under a different screenname.

;)

I am the same way with that show. I don't know why, but I boo-hoo over all the episodes, too.

:hug:

[SeattleGirl]

16. I love it too!

Cornball-iness and all!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

27. LHOTP?

Isn't there another forum for that?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

28. hahaaha it always made my eyes leak too

[Whoa_Nelly]

29. I beg to differ with you

In today's TV world it would simply be called, "Ingalls".

One word show titling is so in right now :P

[nadine_mn]

34. The Prairie=The Hills?

oooh or how about the Real Housewives of Walnut Grove

[Blue Diadem]

31. I love LHOTP

We bought the books for my daughter and have now passed them on to her daughter. Granddaughter and I often sit in the afternoon and watch the show and yes, sometimes I still cry.

[Auggie]

33. How about some acknowledgment for producer Michael Landon?

The man was a class act

[QueenOfCalifornia]

35. Remember

Hallmark is very pro BUSH. Very. And Melissa Gilbert grew up to be a big John McCain supporter.

Next time you watch her running through the field try to get the image of McCain out of your head.:D

[AwakeAtLast]

36. OMG, we could be sisters! I'm watching it right now!

How about we be the sisters on "The Waltons"? They've got their father's 'recipe'! :D

:hi:

[driver8]

37. I saw Nellie Olsen in the grocery store a few years ago.

In Burbank, CA.