‘Little House on the Prairie’ 50th anniversary: Why Michael Landon’s classic TV show still endures
Like any child of the 1970s, I hear a certain TV theme and immediately visualize three little girls in prairie dresses frolicking down a hill as their ma and pa look on with amused expressions from their covered wagon. Of the many dramas that have come and gone throughout the history of television, very few have endured like “Little House on the Prairie.” Despite a slow start in ratings, families smartly caught on to the beauty of this series, and many made a tradition of gathering around the TV on Monday nights to take in a show that sometimes tackled modern-day issues in a long-ago setting, and other times told amusing homespun tales. At the height of its popularity, the series made mostly unknown actors household names and became an indelible piece of television history. Read on for more about the “Little House on the Prairie” 50th anniversary.
Michael Landon was fresh from a 14-season run on the popular western “Bonanza,” for which he also wrote and directed several episodes, when he was hired to direct and star in the made-for-TV film “Little House on the Prairie,” based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s second book in her “Little House” series. The pilot film, released on March 30, 1974, chronicles the Ingalls family’s attempts to settle in Indian Country in the 1870s before they are forced to leave and decide to relocate to the banks of Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Landon leads the cast as patriarch Charles Ingalls, whose hearty laugh, sage advice and fiddle playing made him the archetypal TV dad.
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Six months after the TV movie, the series debuted on NBC on September 11,1974. Despite strong ratings for the pilot film, the show struggled a bit in its initial Wednesday night time slot. Its second season was the only time in which it fell below the Top 30, and was nearly cancelled. NBC gave it another chance on Monday nights beginning with its third season, and it soon became a Top 20 series that lasted nine seasons and catapulted a group of unknown young actors and actresses to fame, with audiences watching them grow from fresh-faced youngsters to young adults.
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Melissa Gilbert stars as the child version of the books’ writer, Laura, who grows from a tomboy in braids to a young married woman with a love of teaching. Although the series strays from the books, Ingalls Wilder’s family is represented, with Karen Grassle starring as her loving and resourceful “Ma” Caroline. Melissa Sue Anderson is oldest sister Mary, who, like the real Mary, eventually goes blind, as chronicled in the memorable two-part episode “I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away,” which earned the young actress an Emmy nomination for Best Drama Actress in 1978. Twins Lindsay and Sydney Greenbush play toddler Carrie, whose adorable tumble in the opening credits easily sparks smiles, but is actually one of those happy accidents that becomes part of TV history. In the fifth season, the fourth and final Ingalls daughter makes her appearance when Grace (Wendi and Brenda Turnbaugh) is born, but it’s a Season 1 episode that it is one of the most memorable regarding an Ingalls sibling.
Charles and Caroline Ingalls lost their only son, Charles Frederick, when he died as an infant. In the two-part episode “The Lord is My Shepherd,” Laura is jealous over Charles’s attention to the baby, and refuses to pray for him. When he dies, the guilt-ridden Laura seeks solace in the mountains and is watched over by a kind stranger (played by Ernest Borgnine) until a reunion with her father that will bring a tear to the eye of even the most cynical person.
Perhaps the most entertaining moments of the series are the interactions between the wholesome and hardworking Ingalls family and the self-important Oleson family. As owners of Walnut Grove’s mercantile, the Olesons have a good bit of influence over the town, but whereas patriarch Nels (Richard Bull) is fair and mild-mannered, his snobbish wife and children add spice to a show that could easily become too saccharine-sweet. Caroline is often forced to haggle with Harriet (played brilliantly by Katherine MacGregor) over the cost of flour or materials for dresses for her girls, but it’s Laura’s rivalry with Nellie Oleson that goes down as one of the best of all time.
Laura and Mary are the two new girls in school when they have their first encounter with the snooty Nellie in the series’s second episode. With her curly blonde hair, prim dresses and blue eyes that could laser-cut through the toughest of men, Alison Arngrim creates the one of the most manipulative spoiled brats in all of TV history. She takes an instant disliking to the “country girls,” and the years-long feud between the headstrong Laura and the girl-we-love-to-hate Nellie is born, culminating in mud fights, pranks, tattling and hair-pulling. Ironically, Gilbert and Arngrim became good friends in real life, but Arngrim was often heckled in the real world for her onscreen treatment of Gilbert, which she recounted with amusement in a 2010 autobiography. Arngrim’s precocious onscreen brother Willie, who was coddled by mother Harriet and lured into schemes by Nellie, was played by Gilbert’s real-life brother Jonathan.
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Although the series takes place 100 years before its airing, many of the stories reflect social concerns of the 1970s and 1980s. The Ingalls family and their Walnut Grove neighbors face typical 19th-century crises ranging from harsh winters to a typhus outbreak to outlaws, while also addressing issues such as racism, alcoholism and child abuse. However, there are also many lighthearted episodes, such as the Season 3 Halloween episode (“The Monster of Walnut Grove”) in which Laura believes that she witnessed Mr. Oleson chopping off Mrs. Oleson’s head. For one hour each week, viewers laughed, cried and rallied around this family that had existed a century before and left a legacy of stories from early America.
As all good things must, “Little House on the Prairie” came to an end as a series in 1983. We watched Laura mature into a woman and marry her crush, the older Almanzo Wilder (Dean Butler), and give birth to their daughter Rose. Most of the cast, including all of the Ingalls family except for Laura, had left by the ninth season and the series was retooled as “Little House: A New Beginning,” with a focus on the Wilder family and new inhabitants of Walnut Grove. But it failed to hold its audience, perhaps due to the show’s changes or due to changes in audience’s taste, and the ninth season proved to be its last. However, TV movies kept the series alive for over a year after its demise, most notably “Little House: The Farewell.”
Meant to be the series-ender, “The Farewell” debuted on February 6, 1984. In the surprising finale, the townsfolk blow up the buildings to save Walnut Grove from a developer, thus destroying the beloved and well-recognized structures associated with the show. The series had been filmed on rented property, which the producers had promised to return to the original state, and that meant dismantling all the buildings. The Walnut Grove citizens blowing up the town in order to preserve it not only provided a sentimental ending, but also helped with the demolition and prevented the treasured pieces from being used in other productions; only the church and the little house were spared. On December 17, 1984, a final TV film with a Christmas theme, “Little House: Bless All the Dear Children,” was released out of order, with a foreword that events take place before the destruction of the town.
With the exception of Season 2, “Little House on the Prairie” was a Top 30 show for its entire run, and captured 17 Emmy nominations, with four wins (two each for cinematography and music composition). Half a century after its debut, “Little House on the Prairie” is still beloved by the now-grown children who watched each week, and now share the Ingalls stories with their own children and grandchildren.
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