I am all in again. Oh it's just you. I Smell Pop Culture with Eastern Allen and iHeart Radio podcast.
Hey everybody, Eastern Allen. I am all in podcasts. iHeartRadio, iHeart media, iHeart podcast one of all of them productions. It's I Smell Pop Culture. My name's Easton Allen. I'm here. I'm hosting this.
It's me.
It's not Scott Okay, it's me. I'm here. I can do whatever I want. I'm the host of this dang show. We're gonna have a lot of fun this week. We're going to a place in time, a place in space that you might be familiar with. If you haven't seen this show before, I guarantee you've heard of it. It's one of the most iconic shows in television history. We are going to the world of Little House on the Prayer.
That's right, Little House on the Prairie. And the reason we're doing that, we're talking to two of the stars of Little House on the Prairie, Dean Butler and Alison on Grim. Dean Butler played Almonzo Wilder, Alison on Grim played and Nelly Elson. That little brat Nelly Elson. We all know her. But the reason we're going there is because in season two, episode twenty one, Lorelei's graduation day, there's a reference. Baby, there's a Little House on the
Prairie reference. Okay, check this out. I know you know the scene. It's the opening scene of the episode. Laurel and Ryer are walking down the street. They're going to a mystery breakfast and Lane comes up riting behind them, and Laureli says, oh, look, it's Michael Landon. Michael Landon obviously the star of Bonanza Little House on the Prairie.
And if you didn't get this reference when he saw it, it's because in Little House on the Prairie, characters were always just kind of running in and out of scenes. That was just something that happened a lot on the show. And Michael Landon, I mean, just an absolute legend in the world of television, one of the most memorable roles and actors in oll of TV. We sadly lost Michael Landon in nineteen ninety one to pancreatic cancer, but we're gonna hang out with two of his co stars on
Little House on the Prairie. They worked with them, they knew him well.
Again.
Allison Arngrim, she played Nelly, and Dean Butler, who played Almonzo. And if you're a bonnet heead or you know, a bonnet head, grab him close. Get your Johnny cakes ready, lay out a blanket. This is gonna be a fun one. Okay, we're heading straight to Wannut Grove, Missouri. You know we call that the stars hollow of post Civil War, the great planes. This is gonna be a lot of fun. It's I smell pop culture and let me get him in here. I can hear Dean and Allison just banging
on the door outside this room. Hang on, let me let them in and we are going to have some fun. It's I smell pop culture. Where this is the I am on podcast. I'm here Dean Butler and Allison Aringrim. Thanks for doing this, you guys. This is so exciting.
Thank you. Yes so.
Little House on the Prairie fiftieth anniversary, congratulations huge. We're going to talk all things Little House. We're going to talk about you guys. The reason we brought you here today is, uh, there is a reference to the great Michael Landon and this is in season one episode or sorry, season two, episode twenty one for everyone keeping score at home, and I just want to run the reference by you
guys really quick before we dive in here. Laurali, one of the characters, is walking down the street and another character named Laane runs up fast behind her, and then she says, oh, hi, Michael Landon. And the joke is that she's like kind of running into the scene, as many characters on the Little House on the Prairie would
run into the scene. You know, is that something that like you remember being directed to do a lot like, hey, we always got to be running and keeping everything moving, anything like that.
Well that that would be probably not so much for me and probably not so much for runner.
Yeah, I didn't run as but the kids when I flounced and I sauntered.
But it's with the kids. If you notice that the school has always run into the school, I was run out of the schools.
And I was just watching it the other day with Bob and I said, you know, that probably was five or six takes. He said, what I said, that's why we're always exhausted by the end of the day. I said, they're down the stairs and run, I said, but they had to go this side of the camera, that side of the camera and then like a bird flies by, something goes wrong.
Because we're outdoors.
It could be five times all that running. And then, of course Laura famously her conflict resolution move a was to simply run, screaming away to the distance, braids flying up a hill somewhere and just disappear.
And so running running was big.
Running out of scene seemed to be people always bounding and leaping.
Yes, Michael had a perverse trick that he did on particularly on the kids running away, is that he would have them running away from the camera and simply not call cut. Yeah, keep running and running and running.
See how far they get.
Yeah, he can get away with you.
See how far they'll go before they finally figure it out and stop.
So he liked to do that a lot. Melissa. I mean, of all the characters on the program, nobody ran from place to place more than Melissa.
Child burned thousand She could have been a miler.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the energy we love from a little houseland Prey. And I have so many more questions about Michael Landon's sense of humor on the set, but I want to go back to the beginning. Do you each remember the first time you met him.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that's he was an indelible kind of presence. You would not forget the first time, Allison, since you met him first, what did you remember?
I remember why.
I came into the audition and uh, the the infamous Nellie Olson An audition. And I get there, it's like, oh, read for producer, because I'd come in and read for the pilot, for the part of Laura and for Mary, which I knew I was wrong for not a country girl, not not.
I was like, yeah, no, and you I'm eleven. I'm like no.
And then of course they made the pilot and I was like, yes, of course, these two girls that make sense. Of course they're playing Laura and Marry. And then they call me back and I don't know.
I'm an idiot. I haven't read the books.
I don't know, and I like, who, come back to Paramount and read again, and I went what for? Well, turns out there's an Elle Elsa.
I know nothing.
I know nothing about Ellie Elso and they get no direction whatsoever. I get the sides and like, oh my god, this is awful.
So I ride away.
I pick up on him, like this is great. And I go in and it was I was Kent was there and Michael was there, and I think it was ed friendly because they were lined up on a couch and yeah, Michael, you when people say someone has a five thousand watt smile and lights it, yeah, he actually could do that.
I mean it was his glove and the.
Shirt is open and there's a gold chains and it's very seventies, very seventies, the boots and the tight jeans and the shirt and the tan and the and the huge huge I loved his glasses. They're back in style now, those aviators. There's enormous glasses. They were fantastic as we had the fabulous glass and the fabulous hair and the big grin.
And then as soon as I.
Started, and of course Nelly is very funny in this episode, the first one infamous, My home is the best home in all of Walnut Griff, he starts laughing. They were all laughing, and I realized, like, okay, I've hit a nerve.
But he was hysterical.
It was that high pitch giggling and did have quite the giggle his mind. And then of course he asked me to read it again, and I, yes, what would you like me to change good little child actor? And they said no, they just read the thing about the hose again. But yeah, his laugh right away. That was day one I got to meet the laugh.
Yeah. I had a very similar experience, not in terms of the giggle, although he was so gracious. This is a voice, you know when you were growing up during that time because of Bonanza, Michael was this presence on American television that was absolutely enormous. Now I had seen him as little Joe Cartwright, and I had seen him in pro as Charles Ingalls. I was unprepared for the Michael Lyndon I walked in and met in the final audition that I had, and very much the way Allison
described him. It was the Carrera sunglasses, the cigarette and the teeth, the denim shirt sprayed on with a gun opened down to his table. It was the gold belt buckle, the gold chain around his neck, snake skin boots. I mean, it was just and hey, how you doing? Was the was his opener, and that you know, he was very He was a very powerful presence to meet. And so
when you read for him, what was wonderful? And this was before monitors and for all that Michael would sit on the couch, she'd sit on the floor, whatever was going to be unobtrusive for the actor, and he would watch so attentively as to what you were doing. And I always remember it, and your audience won't see it, but I always remember as I'm reading, he puts his hands up and I'm seeing him out of the corner of my eye. I'm looking down to my left and there he is, and he's got his hands up to
his eye, framing me. And it's so cool.
They did.
Yeah, I mean, that was a very very cool moment for me. And he just he could not have been more gracious to welcome you. And he didn't really offer any correction. He just he just had a you know, he that was terrific and blah blah blah blah. And I remember him saying, as I was going out of the door, I thanked him, and what are you doing in early May? And I and I said, well, I'm finishing college. I'll be you know, taking my finals at the University of the Pacific. He said, well, we can
wait another week. And I thought, oh my god, he's hired me in the room. Yeah, and oh my god. But it took two weeks for an offer to pop and I really thought I was ready to slit my wrists before that, and because I thought, oh my god, this guy completely jerked me around. Yeah, well no, he he did make the offer. And I have to say, you're going to ask about all of these things. But Michael's presence was so enormous, and he had everybody's confidence at this very high level, and you just knew that
he knew what he was doing. And you look at the shows, you look at the at the ratings, you look at the enduring qualities that the show radiates for audiences all over the world. He did know what he was doing, and that's why we're celebrating fifty years this year.
You look at the crew, the crew on Little House, all of the grips and electricians and well.
In the cameraman and everybody. They were from Bonanza.
They just walked going over and followed him, and then they all followed him to Highway to Heaven.
How often does that happen?
People were like, if I'm never working for this producer at canam My Guns, guys driving me crazy, they leave, they go get other jobs. These guys all had huge resumes that could have worked anywhere, and they just followed him.
They just followed. He was their leader.
And this was very, very obvious from day one.
He had a Midas touch. He really did.
It's so important and speaks so much the legacy of everything's worked on to have like a strong leader and someone who is This makes me so happy to hear that, like behind the scenes he's this great guy too, you know, because like you see him on screen. Was and what was that like when you so, you get the job, you start working on the show, you start filming, was he giving you advice? Was he like, how how did that go?
The anti director? He was the anti director?
Much? Really, he did not say much.
You had to really mess it up.
I think, like so many directors who are really good directors, ninety five percent of their work is done in the casting. If they get if they find that person that they think is the right vibe for what it is that they're doing, if they just bring that. If I did get notes from him, it was just just be here, just be here, just react in this environment, be authentic in this environment. I asked him if I should read anything, you know, different that was separate and apart from little house.
He said, no, just read what I write. That's all you need to read. And he was absolutely right, because the world he created was so complete unto itself, and if you just were able to step into that world, you were gonna be fine.
Wow.
That's why I believe. He said, can you read the part about the house again? They wanted to see if it was a fit.
Was yeah, exactly.
I was just turned twelve and probably looked eight. I was very this tiny little girl. So they went, Okay, was that a complete freak accident or can that kid do that twice in a row? And I apparently could. I got I got the joke, so I got the job. I knew why it was funny, and I knew why Nelly was saying these things, and it was just and they were like, okay, so that's the thing. He would make sure this person could easily reproduce this thing and then he wouldn't have to do any work when they
showed up. And I remember once after not like directing me for years at a stretcher, like, oh you see speaking to me?
What is happening? No directing.
One point there was a scene with Sarpinigosa and he would start it was directing. He said, now I want you to kind of do this, and then you could do more of this. And then he came up to his said, you know, you come in and you give him one of those you do that thing you do and walked away. And I was like, in number twenty seven, what what?
What are we doing there?
And he had decided that there were certain things I did and that is what he wanted do that do the thing I.
Hired you to do. Just do that, and that it was how we were.
I mean, he would say, let's try one for blocking and then go no, no, no, no, that's too complicated. I don't want you to walk all the way over there and picked that. Just go straight to her. And that was generally. It was all about like cut, cut, cut, how can we shorten titan?
This all up?
He kept it. He kept things very simple, he really did. And you know this was in the days when one hour drama was generally shot with one camera, maybe two. I don't know how say Gilmore Girls was in terms of multi cameras. You go on sets today there are four or five cameras rolling and they're multiple masters and you've got dollies and cranes and all this. It was a single camera on a tripod. Now for Katherine Gregor, who played missus Olsen so brilliantly that Catherine was unrestrained
by concerns about continuity. He he ultimately started working with two cameras with her so we could get the over the shoulder and the single at the same time. For continuity.
They invented the steady cam for Katherin McGregor. I think, just follower to follower. Where's she going? I don't know, just follow her. So there was that.
Yeah, we we maybe two cameras and remember an enormous, enormous size of a car, like enormous yeah thing.
Yeah, no, it was all it was Panavision cameras.
We had.
The inventor of the steady cam, Garrett Brown, brought his original steady cam to our set. It was one of the first places the steady cam was on Little House and I.
Said, oh yeah, they evisited steady camp actually.
Show football where he could run down the field where and Garrett was a big guy. Garrett was six five six six gazelle kind of athlete, and he could run with this thing and get these shots that nobody had ever been able to get before.
And they were very heavy back then. I mean now I could carry a steady camp, but I mean it was a lot back then. Yeah, big deal.
Yeah, And these are things people take for granted now. You know, you can put your phone and.
Film whatever nothing now.
Yeah, But but you watch especially a little House. It looks so good still because has Panavision cameras and everything. I mean, it's equality, well, the Panavision cameras, but it was the men behind the Panavision cameras, Ted Boydlander, buzz Bogs, the light.
Yeah, our gaffers. These people lit. The show was lit cinematically. In its era, it was the most beautiful show on television because it was lit like a movie, and that quality is held up and in fact, when the show was restored in twenty fourteen by Lionsgate for the show's fortieth anniversary, they did a color correction pass through the show, taking advantage of all the color correction technology that exists
today that wasn't available then. The show is absolutely more beautiful today than it was when it was new because the new one and the screens. The screens are better, the detail of data is higher, the pictures are just absolutely gorgeous.
Still, when you say it's cinematic, I mean it truly does. Like every episode looks like a movie. It's it's so we were making a movie.
We were, as far as we were concerned, we're all making a movie.
Now. It was slower because of the number of cameras and because it was not cut. It was not cut on a nonlinear editing system. It was cut on movieola where the razor blade and the tation. So you made a cut, you really you had to know you were going to make that cut. There was no undo. Let's just do that again another way. Those editors had to make those decisions. And if they had to put those frames back, they could because they were in a trim bin with the number with the frame numbers on them,
and they could put the frames back. But cuts were made not capriciously at all. It was very deliberate.
So how was Michael like in the editing day too? He was just the entire process.
Watched the daily Back then you had to watch daily. You never a monitor in the sets. The next day you had to take your lunch hour and go to a theater and watch the daily. And he watched the day. He watched them, and he oversaw editing, He oversaw the music. I would get a new costume for that season. They'd march me into making it to improve the costume. He approved the props. I don't like this prop, take it away,
bring me another way. I mean, literally every freaking detail of the show was under his room.
He picked, Yeah, he picked my I had costume initial costume session with him. He picked. He approved all the wardrobe. He approved the hat very specifically that I was to wear because he believed that hats said a great and it's true in Western's hats say an enormous amount about the character, and he chose the hat for a very particular hat to communicate, to help communicate what he wanted this character to be.
Well, he was serious down to the hats.
Yeah.
But when he wasn't serious, I wanted to worry about these pranks. He went, Paul, So.
We're doing this show, and well, obviously we had episodes we're extremely distressing and upsetting and heart wrenching, dramatic, and so he had to break the tension because you can't mean you got to finish the show. You got to get through the rest of the day after he'd been sobbing for hours and every time, and so there'd be some terrible scene, and five minutes later he's cracking jokes and making everyone laugh at even terrible things, and I of course got you. Also didn't want to give him
a setup. I would make a terrible mistake of giving
him a giant setup. He could drive a truck through and nobody coul drive out through the one with the screen door where we would Laura had stolen the Olsen screen door to use it for panning for gold, because of course he did, and then put it back, and of course we're idiots, we don't notice it's back, and Willie and I run and I crashed into the door and smashed through the screen door hanging and the scene is being set up, and so he sets it up and I have to hang in some one bow is
a kimbo kind of thing. And we set this up and I'm hanging in it, and he already had made the joke about it being my screen test, but then I was foolish enough to say since I was hanging in there for the setup was taking forever customer making a movie.
The setup took a long.
Time, I said, why didn't you get a dummy for this? We did, shut up and get your head back in the door, and it was causing. Yes, when I crashed into the branch and I'm lying or bleeding out my nose, Bunny before, I'm going to pretend to be paralyzed, but I'm unconscious.
I got the fake blood on the nose and I'm dying. It's so quiet, and.
Again waiting for cut, waiting for cut.
It's not coming.
My eyes are closed, but I have no idea what the heck is happening, and I just hear the ground.
I was like, net's very quiet.
No one has said cut, So I'm just not moving until I feel a finger up my nose. Stuck his finger up my nose so he'd have good outtakes for that.
I doing a scene in an episode and it was going from a chair to a front door to open the door, actually going from the kitchen to a chair, and I did sort of a creeping thing stepping to the chair, and when I finished, she said, I wish I had done that way. I'm trying to save your career, and you know it's just but I felt fine about I felt fine about what I had done, and he really hated it. We were to reshot it. Now. That was the thing with Michael is that if he saw it,
he didn't need to do it again. And as long as the cameraman or the first assistant, the camera assistant could say, gates clean, there's no hair, No, there's nothing that's interfering with this. If he saw it and they tell him they got it, he got it. He did not need to shoot it again. He didn't need and he wasn't shooting for anybody else. He was shooting for the network. You're shooting for another executive producer. He was shooting for himself. And if he saw the thing, he
cut the show in the camera basically. I mean, there was not a lot of extra film.
Because in today's world he would have been the show runner. Oh he was the director of the producer of the start.
He would have been showrunner, which nobody called anybody a show runner back then, but he show runner because he was doing everything. But yeah, the most common words were cutprint, moving on in the magic words, because you do something and you do it and maybe he was one to maybe two. And of course outdoors a birdfly spy, so it's five takes round. So you do things and you do it, and you've done, he's cut and you're like, was that good?
I think that was good? I don't know. I felt kind of good.
I have no idea if that's good.
And that was thinking.
He'd look at Teddy or the guys to see if they were okay technically, and they'd not and go cut print, moving on. You go, wait, well, and they'd start dismantling the set and they come, go change into your other outfit because we're shooting page forty seven.
Now you go.
But I just literally finished doing the thing. Yes, yes, that was lovely, good move, but go on and yeah. There was like a long discussion after about what it all meant.
It was like, now we do the next one, just to say yeah, he he.
He had great confidence in what he was doing. I think that anybody who was around Michael, and I've said this so many times, I never saw a moment's doubt in his eyes. I never had any I ever never had the feeling that Michael wasn't absolutely certain about everything
that was happening. Now, he may have had inner doubts and anxieties about things, but he would ever have shown that to anybody, and I think that it just bred this enormous sense of confidence among everybody, among cast and crew that if he says it's okay, it's okay.
When you want to be.
Able to trust the director, I compared to the ship's captain. Once you're at sea, just do what the captain say.
To trust, someone has to.
And then this thing he had paid very close attention during Bonanza. He had just absolutely sponged that up everything they did directing and watched it very closely. And so when he said I know what I'm doing, he did know what he was doing.
And that's what's great.
And I remember it freaked out Katherine McGregor because he was so young, you know, he said, in his thirties.
And she was like, this.
Thirty something cute boy actor. I mean, he's little Joe.
He's a little Joe. What the hell does he know?
And it's like, actually, he kind of found he was on a bananza and he treated it like film school, and so that's what he did. And and she's like, why is he because he actually does know what he's doing. It's weird, but he knows what he's doing. And he would come up with crazy ideas. He would change that should be in the middle of filming, I mean the Wolves episode. I think this line would be funnier if you had four job breakers in your mouth When you.
Said it, what wait here? Try how?
He just looked at into How many job breakers can you fit in your mouth?
I went, I don't really know?
He says, well, let's find out. And then it's like, try to put a fifth one and oh too many? Sorry, now say it again. You will your book perfect, Okay, let's roll. And he would just decide things, but he did know what he was doing. He'd look at it and go, it's supposed to be funny. It's not funny enough. It needs something and he would do that or no, no, no, I know it, and he would do it and he did know. And sometimes he would tell you to do crazy things. He was like, no, just do it, just
do it, just do it. And then you'd see it and you go, well, yeah.
I'll add something else. There would be you know, you hear your shooting outside, you're shooting on the stage, but really outside is where where you would have challenges on
locations and weather and all these things. And what was so one of the other things that was amazing about him is that if something wasn't working, or you couldn't get to a particular location and you but you needed to have a scene, Michael could come up with the scene, whatever it was, in a completely different location that was never in the script. He could come up with the scene that would add something wonderful to the episode. He jotted down on his yellow legal pad. It would go
up and go out and get typed up. The pages would be there. They hand you the pages. Learn this. We're going to shoot this in fifteen minutes. So there was really no what was great about that? And I'm sure Elson would concur with this. You're really loose if there's no time to If you know that he's just written it and everyone's seeing it for the first time, what's there to get nervous about. You just do it. You just do it because he's trusting it and we're
just gonna go. There's no like you didn't have it for three days. You haven't had a lot of the things on it. But that again comes back to casting. He's hiring people who are delivering the feeling, the flavor, the color that he's looking for in the In the in the show, and so you could throw material at someone at the last minute and they're going to do it because they do what they do.
Well, you saw how real our character The thing that gets to how real our characters were, because that was the key thing is once you knew who you were, once you knew what Nelly would do, what Nelly would not do. Was there anything I wouldn't do? I don't know what Nelly would do, and you knew who your character was that it didn't really matter what they were going to have you say or do, because.
You were going to be them. And that was what he counted on.
Because and Steve Tracy, the late great Steve Tracy Percival, he talked about this because he said, well, really, it really messes with your acting technique because if you come in and you have this very set method where you're going to break down the scene beat by bee and you're going to make notes, and you're going to do this, and you've already worked out which memory you're going to use for your sense memory and your substitution, except now
you've just been handed the yellow pages in the book pages, and we're shooting a whole new thing. Go and so he says, your improv training way more important than any of this other stuff you learned. So he said, you have to come up with something else. You have to come up with something else that you can use in that situation you have. And what it is is that you're staying so in character all the time that if they go surprise, you're like, well, now I'll be that character doing that.
Okay.
He made it. He made it very simple and it easy to succeed, and I think the show's longevity is testament to the fact that he really got it.
Absolutely. We have so much more to get into ry.
Quest of Michael London. It was amazing.
I love it.
I want I have so much more to ask you about it. Dean Butler and Alison Argham, we're here with us. This is the Ice Small Pop Culture Podcast. We're gonna take a quick break, play some commercials. We'll be right back. Everybody. Dean Butler, Alison Ingham with us. It's Ice Mooll pop Culture. This is the I Am On Podcast Extra being here everybody, We're we're going into the world of Little House on the Prairie this week. We are traveling to Wannut Grove, Minnesota.
And uh, I have I have so many more questions for you guys. So you kind of told me. I've found it so interesting how you had to becoming the character, Like like you get these changes at the last minute, and you're like, okay, what would what would Nelly do? What would Almanza?
Do you know?
So Allison specifically, I was I watched Country Girls the other day, so.
Good, great, so good. It's a great episode.
I mean, yeah, truly, And for anyone who isn't familiar with Little House on the Prairie, I mean Nellie Olson is one of the iconic TV brats I think of all time, and Country.
Girls my very very first episode, and I was thoroughly vile.
Yes, how did you find the character that quickly?
That?
It's just remarkable, Like you're Nelly right away.
It's so crazy, And you know, to quote the fabulous Sir Anthony Hopkins, you know, when he read the script for Silence of the Lambs, which everybody had turned down, he said, it jumped off of the page at him.
He read it. And when I get it as soon as he read it once when I know who.
This person doesn't have to do this and called his agents, it just make the deal because it was that kind of thing. I had nothing going. I hadn't read the Little Housebooks. I didn't know who Nelli Elsen was. They hadn't told me you're reading for the back nothing.
They told me nothing. I showed up.
Besides, and I thought, wow, that's a lot of sides. It was every single piece of dialogue for the entire episode. You're just gonna read the whole thing, like, okay. My father was with me, and as soon as I started reading it, I mean almost, I don't think.
The country girls have a penny. What do you think? Well, if she's every word out of her mouth is some kind of an insult and she's just terrible.
And then my home thing and the big joke being we have three sets of dishes, one for every day, one for Sunday, and one for when someone very special and important comes to visit, which we have never even used yet. She doesn't even realize that you just said, hi, nobody's coming, that we live wal to Grove, the Queen's not coming to dinner.
We have.
It's hysterical and I'm ready going this is hilarious. But my god, she's just like the worst person.
In the world.
And when do you get a part like that for a little girl? Did the little girl parts? I read there, well, it's his sweet little girl. Yes, mother, yes, father, And this girl's like I do not care, please all kindly drop dead. And I'm like, this is brilliant. And so I started reading it from my father and he starts laughing. I said, I said, this girl's a total bitch. My father said, what are you talking? And then I read it and he's like, he actually said, there you go
school of Michaelan. And my father said, don't touch it, don't move, don't do anything, don't read it again, don't go over it again. In fact, put the pages face down. I don't want you to even look at them again. You go in and do exactly whatever that just now wants. I went right then, and that's what I did, and Michael Annon lost his tiny little mind and they had and he hired.
Me on this.
We got home, we got in the car, drove home and the agent.
Was on the phone the deal and was being made like while I was in the parking.
Incredible done.
So yeah, she jumped off the page. What wow, she's terrible.
And we all know someone like that, we've all I mean, I was bullied. This was the great revenge on bullies everywhere. I got to send them all up and mock them because we've all met that girl, We've all had her terrorize us. And I said, okay, well, we know how it goes. And as a teenager, you're full of all kinds of angst and hostility and things you need to get rid of. And where can you You have to behave yourself at school, and my god, you have to
go to work. But here I had this thing where I could just go and just be hideous.
And let it all all the n out.
And then I've talked openly in interviews in my book that I was abused as a child, and the key element of.
That is terrible buried rage.
People suffer their whole years to develop physical problems. They have nowhere for that anger. Where does that anger go? It turns in with I had a job where I would come in and smash things and scream at the top of my lungs and throw things and hit people all day long.
Do you have any idea what that did for my blood pressure and my well being? And it was fantastic.
It was like they were saying me to have therapy for seven years. It was fantastic, incredible.
The scene at the Bunny scene where you're just trashing the room. I mean I had to watch it three times in a round.
It's okay, and does it does it look like I'm out of control? I'm so controlled. The prop men is said, this is a reproduction. You can break this. We have four more of these. You can break this. Don't break this. This is a real ntique.
Don't touch this here.
You can pull the drapes down if you want you we can put that back these, but you can throw these.
Don't throw this.
And I'm like, got it, got it, got it, checking these off my head and then I did it and was completely.
Screaming out of control, but like, don't touch three antique, keep.
Moving antiques and that's crazy.
Don't break that. Oh wait, don't break that.
It's real. Yeah, And I'm still like, just had that in my head while I was completely screaming out of controlling a banjee.
It's incredible. It's again, it comes back to it comes back to casting. Allison was just the perfect little monster for that moment. What's what's what's really good? I mean, I think what's really great, and because Allison is I'm just talking. I'm talking about you like you're not here. Allison is wicked, wicked smart, and and she gets the joke. Allison always from the time she first read it. Oh
this girl's horrible. She knew the deal. I think that's one of the reasons why people have loved this character, love to hate this character, is because they're on the inside they're laughing a little bit with her. They get they get that she gets it. And yeah, I think she was very Allison was very special. There's a reason why she's been voted the most effective villain in the history of television. Yes, and I mean who what little girl in pin curls in with her lace and is
the biggest villain in the history of that. It's not j R. E Ing, It's Nellie Olsen, which is just incredible when you think about it. I mean, he was, he was incredible. It was delicious as this as this villain. But Allison touched something primal about being human that people absolutely love. Everyone can you can't not enjoy it.
Everyone has an elite their school, everyone has a Missus Olsen at their job.
You don't have you think of Nelid school, it's probably.
Get it's you.
And this is also the original Karen.
I mean she's just like so it's the people know these people they recognize. And that's something I noticed because in traveling around and around the world and meeting people, I mean when we had people from Peru and from Afghanistan and everyone came to the reunion, I mean we met people all over the world. And I meet people from literally Borneo, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Israel, and they all watch the Little House in the Prairie And I'm like, really, they're running it there.
It's they're running it everywhere.
In forty countries around the world. Wow.
And they all say the same thing, because, of course, like the guy from Sri Lanka, I said, Okay, what does a show about a bunch of very very white American people with blonde air, blue eyes in covered wagons on the prairie of the United States.
Mean when you're living in a small.
Town in Sri Lanka, who they had electricity so many hours a day they used to watch a Little House in Umar and what.
How what does this mean? What does this mean to you?
It's so completely different than the life you tell me you were living there. And he said, oh no, everybody. He said, the anglestn't have any money, and they live in a tiny place with a lot of children, and they wonder are they going to make it? Will the harvest come in? Are they going to make it? And this is how most people. They're not Most people aren't living in that big apartment on friends. They don't have any money. They're not living like these people in these
fancy shows. Right, they're living like that. And we all had a Missus Olsen in the village at our job, we all had an Elliot school.
We can identify with these people. We get it. And I said, you're right.
You know, the Iyatolahmioni. During the Iran Revolution, Lill Loos was the only American program allowed in WOW time. And I think one of the interestingly, Little House was the favorite show of the Iyetola, the favorite show Saddam.
Hussein, Saddam Hussein's favorite show at.
The same but I think in many ways, for very different reasons. I think. I think I think the Ayatola liked Little House as an example for his people because he could say, what do we have to fear from this? If this is what America is we have no problems. We're We're as good as they are. They're just like us.
And it was popular in many countries where they said, well, all the dresses, the sleeves go down to the rest, and the dress go down to the ankle. So if you said, we can't show you Western shows because there are are you know, dressing guidelines and our religious values and the thing. But it was so wholesome that in countries where everything was terribly restricted, what we show this perfectly if I look at these people and and then
I don't know. They said Saddam Hussein had daddy issues and it was really obsessed with Michael Landon wanted him to be his father.
Horrible, complicated, insane story.
Daddy issues.
Yes, clearly something was the.
Matter, but he was obsessed with Little House. Would stop work, like I got to go watch Little Perry.
Now.
We always talk about it as this safe place. Little House is a safe place no matter what's going on in your life. We've met people through the years that have gone through really horrible experiences in their lives and they come to us and oftentimes with tears in their eyes, telling us that Little House. The Ingles specifically represented the family they wish they'd been a part of that. Mon
pa Ingles were their parents. For all practical reasons. Michael and Karen have been historically through the years voted among the most beloved parental figures in the history of television. And it just keeps coming back. And I think one of the reasons why it lasts is because it was old when it was new. It's never gone out of fashion because it was never in fashion. It's just it
is in its own world. And I think people feel safe going there and stepping into this world because it is so totally apart from the world that anybody who's living today in our country basically is living in. And I think that makes it very attractive to people.
It pulls you in.
I've heard from people who went through chemotherapy, various confusions. Someone who's in a body cast for like six months and could move, and they said, but I could watch Little House and I could just it took me completely. I didn't feel a thing, didn't feel a thing while they were doing procedures. I could just watch that and I had no anxiety, and I didn't even feel anything while the doctors did what they had to do.
What a special role to play in people's lives all over the world. I mean, that's incredible.
This an incredible gift. It has been this amazing, amazing gift. Michael knew it was going to last. He said, this is going to be people are going to be watching this and loving it long after we're all gone. Now at twenty five, when he said that to me, I'm thinking, you know, when you're twenty five, you're immortal. That just couldn't happen. I'm never not going to be here. There
is no beyond me. Now it's sixty eight. After the experiences that we've all had, you know, it feels very clear that Little House is going to go on long after we're all gone, because it does touch something in audiences that is fundamentally human and decent. And it's not that, look, bad things happen on the house Little Houses love, But what it is, I think it's how the bad things
are coped with. It's the grace of recovery. It's how people gave come together as a community to deal with the horrible things that happen to everybody from time to time. And I think that's just been an amazing gift of the program, and for all of us who are a part of it, it's it's an amazing gift to be the personification of these characters that mean that much to the tow people who watch it and love it, it's amazing.
And for those who can't see as the person who just said I am sixty eight does not look sad, I'm like he says that, I got you're sixty eight.
That's right yours.
I'm just taking my job from jopping. It was like sixty eight, what on earth away?
You can see it here.
I'm just turned sixty three and hanging in there. Everybody from the show.
Looks actually pretty good if you see all of it.
I mean, Karen Karen, Karen Grassley is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. At eighty two.
We think there was something in the water in Walnut Grove because every from the ship from the show is freaking amazing. But it's true the number of people who said, I just if my parents were Mom pow Angles, they would have understood me. They would have understood me. It would have been okay, yes, over and over again.
Oh my god.
That's powerful here, that's and that's something that I think everyone listening to everyone listening to this is a fan of Gilmore Girls. And that's something that we hear from our listeners and from the fans, is that you know, Stars Hollow is a place that they like to They rewatch the show every year. It's a place where they feel safe. They Luke and laurelize this beautiful love story that they love to revisit. And I think that's such an important part thing for a television show to play
in people's lives. It's so important for there's people that don't feel safe always. You don't know, there's things happening in your world you can't control. And I think it's so special that little house on the prairie exists to you know, people.
Generally underestimate the power of television and it's different than the movies.
And we love the movies.
But even if you're a movie star and people say this to me to go, well, I know, I don't really but you were in my living room, we're in their living room. Exact Father Crazy throw Ingram used to always say.
It's different. You're in their living room, you're in their house. The calls are coming from inside.
They know you, and that is a thing that all TV shows, even when you say, all that was a silly fluff show, but to somebody somewhere, somebody somewhere who was lonely or sad or something, it was there in this house and those people were their friends.
Yes, they they The program comes to them in their most open, revealed I mean not just the living room, people watching, in their bedrooms, in their bathrooms, in their kitchens in there. And so people feel like, because the people watching are in such an open place in their life as they're watching and unguarded, we just come in and we become these characters, become part of people's lives.
And there's a reason. I think that's the reason why people really genuinely feel like they know you and and you know, and I think they hope, hope, hope that you are when they meet you.
They hope that you are what they fall in love with unless you're me.
Unless you yeah, yeah, but you give them a taste of that.
But they also hope it'll be a toll, be slightly naughty. Yes, yes, yeah, does that have If you're like at a convention or something, yeah, people are like, come on, can you be mean to me for a second?
Oh?
Absolutely, you know, I'll do.
Even the cameos, they're like, can you give them a hard time in the cameo They're like, oh my god, it's so silly, but I I do. I still like, you know, I'm terrible. I like making faces and sticking my tongue out and everything. And the number of people post for a picture. Can we have a nice one? And then can we have when we make the horrible faces?
Yes, yes we can do that. Yes that's okay. It's like, what the heck I.
Mean to be asked fifty years later as a grown woman stick your tongue out again?
Please?
Because people are that excited about it, like sure, why?
Hell? And people want warm, loving decent for me. They know they are looking and all of us people want something different that they want that thing. It's through these years, Easton, it's been very important to me to feel like when someone meets me in this public kind of public situation, that they get what they thought they were going to get. That's really really important because you have touched them in
this very basic place. And I think if we can be that, if we are that thing, one of those things that they trust you want, I want them to be able to continue to trust in that, and the gift I get for that is this incredible well of affection and warmth it comes at me. I mean, that is an amazing gift. And anybody, any of us in this world who have received that, we know what that is, we know what that feels like. It's extraordinary. It's a beautiful,
beautiful thing to get. So I want to take care of it, you know, so that it keeps, so that it keeps coming as long as I'm.
Walking down, because this is a good thing.
It's grilling.
Bob said to me once he watched me sign autographs, and he said, if I thought I could make people that happy by writing my name, why would do it all day?
Yeah, yeah, no exactly, Or to standing up and taking a picture with people. It's it's it's remarkable. It's remarkable what the program has given us. And as you're suggesting, I mean, the Gilmore cast has this same effect on people. Different time period, different place, maybe different slightly different tone. Little House was Little House was pretty on the nose.
It was always on the nose, and it was I think that was part of its disarming quality is that you you when you saw something you were getting it was you were getting what you were getting. There was no hidden message, there was no I mean you got that. It was clear. The storytelling was absolutely crystal clear and sort of primal.
They didn't have to decode anything, right.
It's right in front of you.
Yeah, I have some questions about, uh, the fake Walnut Grove in Seam Valley. So I noticed some similarities between Stars Hollow and Wannut Grove. And for everyone listening, stars Hollow not a real place in Connecticut, filmed in Burbank, mere blocks from where we sit right now. The water Brothers a lot. And however, Wannut Grove filmed in Seami Valley at Big Sky Ranch, a real place in Minnesota.
Lovely place.
I'm sure you visited many times.
Starlin, great museum, adorable you.
Should good times.
Do people often do you hear from people that visit and go, oh this is really film? Did and yeah? Yeah?
The poor people in Walnut Grove have a lovely gift shop and museum and lovely attractions. It's it's a darling little place. Anyway, hit that dairy queen. It's a great place. They go there and they film it doesn't look like the shower and they go well, because this is where.
Laura actually lives.
No, it's and then they got the people, I get grown, grown people. And sometimes in the industry, you go, I just I want to go to you know the town.
The town.
Now, when you see the town, what do you mean you know the town where we film? Yeah, I said, well that's not very mean more well the no, no, the town do you mean Walnut Grove in Minnesota? And then they're brows knit And I really I go, whoa did you all thought that was a real town?
It wasn't. I'm like, god, dude, you're forty five, and it's it's it's hard. We made it. We made it look very real.
It did look very real.
But yeah, and then the town it's not actually laid out like the real Walnut Grove. I mean, uh, Oddly, I think the distance of the Ingles home to the town in school is actually the correct distance. Wow, within a quarter mile at least, because it was like, yeah, because it's like two and a half miles. And then somebody looked it up and we checked Laura's books and it's it's like two and a half miles bare rely.
So it's that part I think we got right. The house in the barn, that's like laid out like if you described the books, but the mercantile and the school, and Elie didn't have a hotel. We just kind of shoved everything in there so that that doesn't bear any resemblance to really anywhere that she actually lived with.
It was this idyllic setting that was laid out beautifully by someone who I think understood the romance of a small town. Now there's production design is a very powerful thing, and it's created that way. Now. One of the things that is one of the most distinctive things about our television Walnut Grove versus the real Walnut Grove. Well, one, there's no topography in the real Wallet Grove. It's flat
as a pan can there. And secondly, I think probably most dramatic if you live on the East Coast or sort of central country east, is that the country is green in the summertime. In a great deal of the country in the western part of the United States, because
of the lack of water and rain, it's dry and brown. Now, people could you could have pushed back on that, but I think as a tribute to the program, people just bought in to what they saw Now, look, there was a sprinkler system that was around the little house, and so you got this sort of ring of green around the little house and barn in this little bowl, but twenty feet up beyond that, it's dry as a bone. Now, how does that happen?
And then the one hundred year old oaks, which never changed, doesn't matter what the heck's happening. They're great, which created promt is uh no snow and Minnesota course has enormous blizzards and many many feet of snow. So the piles of was it gypsum gypsum powder? And then okay, there were three rings of snow. If it was in the shot and someone's going to be touching it, it's crushed ice, fake snow.
Wow.
If it's a few feetback and no one's going to touch it, but needs to be shiny, it's the gypsum powder on a white bed sheet.
If it's all the way in the back towards the back of the school, it's literally just bed sheets over rocks. We're not going to get that close. And so the three kinds of fake snow and so it's all fake.
And then the trees are green and you can even see green grass in the distance while we have all these piles of snow around the store. And some people went, oh, come on, but no people bought it. People thought there was and the blizzards are people still like, are shock that that was wax flakes and a fan.
In the day when television was four hundred and eighty lines of resolution, you could put a sheet over a rock. Beautiful and from a distance with a sauce, slightly soft depth of fields situation. You bought it in HD. That stuff shows up. Oh, people just accept it. And HD is beautiful. It's also highly revealing, and you know, you just sort of you just have to accept it. It's a vintage it's a vintage program. I love that throwing a sheet, a white sheet over a rock.
Yeah, it's just today.
You can see that. If you're watching it on the DVD or if you're watching more remastered version on on Cozy or whatever, you're going to maybe see the sheet. If you're watching it on a fifty inch television, you'll see it.
You can't even get away with the pile of gypsum looks like a big pile of gyps our. Wood paneling looks a little some of our wood, that beautiful wood grain. In the high depth, you can see that in the school someone has just taken brown paint and painted big swirly lines, and that's a little more evident in.
Some of the seats.
It's not like watching Star Trek where you can see of the stars stretch table on the bridge, which is just a crack up to me that you can say, but you buy it because because the story is working. Okay, you accept maybe okay, it's wrinkled, doesn't matter. The story works, and that's we have that. We are blessed with that as well.
The crazy believing is and we just talked about this today on our podcast. Okay, so the famous cinnamon Chicken episode where Missus Olsen is like, oh, it was because you sell Nelly to him, and of course Laura sabotages it with Kai and Pepper.
So this is a scene where we eat.
This chicken that is allegedly covered in kaien pepper, and about the third chew, we lose it and start turning red in the face and our eyes water and we're choking down glasses of water and run to the sink and the pumping and screaming, bloody murder were're just saying, we nailed that so incredible.
I have people.
Today fifty years later ago. So what did they put on the chicken? I go with real life nothing. It was lovely herbed baked chicken. But but come on, you guys must have had pepper on the chicken to do that. Heaven forfend, we should be acting, but somehow we were, I mean exactly, but we nailed that so well. And I just watched it recently and wow, I mean you go right red in the face like you are dying in that scene. We we went all out and it really is impressive. And I people today say, you know,
you weren't acting. There had to be pepper on that chicken.
I always say to people, you you want the actor to be in control of these moments. You don't want to really choke the actor. Want, you know, the actor has to be in command of the moment.
Allergic.
Yeah, whatever, whatever you're gonna do, it's got to be what you what you're doing.
Now.
Look, there are people who occasionally will slip a little adult beverage into a glass of something, and that can cause the eyes perhaps to pop open unexpectedly, but generally you want it to be a moment that works because the actors are making it work. You do not want to manipulate. Now they manipulate small children. They like that.
It's true.
Wendy lu Lee who was sister Brenda, who were baby Grace.
Brilliant, fabulous baby Grace, and they've grown up to be loved.
But they tell stories about how in a scene where Pa is supposed to be having made them breakfast and feeding them oatmeal, it's not supposed to be very good. And they need they need the children, They need Wendy to push back on it. Well, they just they dumped pepper all over it. Oh my one bite of that, and the Wendy pushed back and would never take anything from Michael ever again.
And that's what they wanted.
She only need the one bite, so that from then on, if you put a spoon here, she goes, no, no, you again, a like run away and and she said, look, you know, was it a lot of pepper?
Not really, but I was a bay soon as I tasted it, I hated it.
And she said, but she has clarified, I am okay, I eat oat meal as an adult to this day. It was not beverly scarred I made the oatmeal and I did recover from that.
I am okay.
Now.
So when you're filming a scene where I'm so fascinated by eating scenes act like so.
Many you some of the hardest scenes to do. And to shoot them and cover them and cut them is a really is a big deal.
And to eat your food but not eat your food.
Don't be too fast because then they have to fill up your plate again and know no continentary magic. But then you have to eat a little bitter than everybody and head home. Goes Oh, they're just pushing it around on the plane again, for God's sake. So you gotta get it's a fine line.
And you have to cut the meat, pick up the fork, put it in your mouth in exactly the same place every single time. Or you can you can push yourself, blow yourself right out of the scene if your continuity is not good.
So if you take a big chunk of food, you're eating a bunch in that master shot, well.
You're gonna be eating. You're gonna be eating hearty today.
Eating that. You will be very careful about it.
You gotta paste yourself.
I think of the you know, the kids that they when we know this cast, the Walton's cast, and there you know, there were ten people around the table every time they got expert at eating on camera and not just a lot and not eating exactly.
They eat Every episode had three dinnersolutely.
Yeah, they spent hours shooting these scenes. Now we had our dinner scenes, but you know you didn't have a lot of Olsen dinners. There were definitely well scenes, there wasn't a ton of them.
We are.
Our challenge was because we really good food. You guys kept getting stuck with Dnty Morbi. Yeah, but the but at the Olsen's we had the our lovely prop men were such chefs. We had a roast leg of lamb and a roast beef and a roast turkey and all this fabulous food with like the mint jellian and the biscuits and the We had seriously good food. So the challenge was not to just go wow and just like shove it in your face immediately. We had to pace ourselves.
Now.
The prop man always said.
We will give you a plate after this, so we could eat delicately and then go, do I get with this when we're done?
Yes, you get that when we're done. Because our food was right.
So I it's yes, try to play a rich person on TV if you can. Especially it's just gonna be a lot of eating. Because yeah, well.
I mean I personally meeting this up. We have I know we're runn out of time here, but if I have a couple more questions about your podcast. Yes, we have so much more to get into. We're gonna take one quick break. We're here with Dean Butler Allison on Grim from Little House on the Prairie. It's the ice small pop culture podcast. Stick around Dean Butler Alison on Grim. It's the Ice small pop culture podcast here and I
am all in. We're having such a good time here in the audio, Walnut Grove, you guys have your own podcast. We're celebrating fifty years of Little House on the Prairie. It is the Little House fifty for fifty podcasts.
But that's what's the first thing was now the Little House fiftieth anniversary podcast.
Okay, because we went so far past doing for.
The idea, we also say Little House and online is the Little House Little House fifty podcast dot com.
Okay, yeah, because we're going to get like fifty episodes.
Hot, We're going to go well beyond me. I love it.
And so in the podcast, You're you're looking back on the show, you're interviewing some past stars. I listened to some episodes. Great stuff, so much fun. You're You're chemistry with Pamela Bob is great.
She's about Pamela Bob of New York, who's a Broadway actress and absolutely hilarious. But she's also a true die hard Bonnet Heead fan, so she has what she knows. She's like, Okay, I know what's important about this episode because I'm one of those people that we the fans, this is the part of the episode we found upsetting that we need to know about.
She know.
So she yeah, she gets it.
She did her web series Living on a Prairie, and she invited a bunch of us to come on. Allison guested on the show. Charlotte Stewart guested on the show. Mary. I did not. I just couldn't see going across the country to stick my head in the gym and you know, say one little line in retrospect, I wish I had because it would have been fun to meet Pamela then. But there was something so wonderful, gracious, warm, she just
has this bubbly, welcoming quality about her. When we set out to do this, I had a conversation Elson and I had a conversation. So we've got to do this with Pamela Bob because she is she is the sensibility, the mindset of the fan, and she's able to bring that and she brings it lovingly, sweetly funny every single time.
She's really funny.
And she's the one who came up with calling him hashtag imaginary boyfriend.
We've had a great time with it. So the first season we really focused, We focused the lens through personality. In this second season that we just recorded our first two episodes of today, we are focusing. It's a more episode centric approach and we're going to be looking at and we will bring in people who are parts of specific episodes. But we have a lot to say about a lot of things related to this, and we do have a good time together doing it.
It's really fun and we do have a good and we have some people coming in I won't tell them, but people who've never been on like anything, and people who are either rare interviews, and we have a couple of people who guest start on the show who just have never just nobody's doing interviews with them.
They just did. We found them correct, they're coming on.
I love it.
So it's going to be Bananas.
Are like Gilmore Girls fans. If you are a devotee of a program, you want to know everything. Oh yeah, so it's we can't go wrong. I mean, the more we share, the more they love it. Yes, so it's it's it's been a really great thing. I love it.
That's good again. That's the Little House fifty podcasts and you can get that on anywhere you get your podcasts.
The Apple podcast, the whole thing. So on YouTube and then all our social media. We are on we are on Facebook, we are on Instagram, we're everything on YouTube, We're on absolutely everything. And we have a Patreon account too, so you can sign up and for a couple of bucks you'd get the secret like magic, behind the scenes ring.
Stuff that private, that private content for the patrons. All right, yeah, so pay law. Yeah, that's really fun. We've we've had a good time with Well, we'll.
Like interview a guest and then we'll do a patroon thing where they'll answer a couple of questions that they didn't answer on the like super duper personal ones, and it's like, oh yeah, it's great fun.
I love it.
That's it's so fun. I have one more question for you guys, but before we get into that, Dean, But after Lttlehussele the Prairie, I was going through your filmography during research for this and I discovered The New Gidget, a show you did after The Hustle the Prairie. I am kicking myself that I didn't know about the show until now. I love it. It's my new obsession. If you ever want to do a new Gidget podcast, I will be a listener. And overall, oh.
My god, I sign you.
I think you need to do a new Gidget podcast.
You know, Gidget, it was so interesting. We started that as a sort of traditional rom com, and then because it was first run syndication, it was going to go from sort of prime time audiences to reruns on Saturday mornings, and that dictated a radical change in the way the show was conceptualized. It really had to become a live
action cartoon, and this is what it became. And we had a producer named Larry Mallin who had done you know, I don't know he's gone on to do you know, one hundred and fifty episodes of Beverly Hills nine oh two to zero in his career. But he had this great bead on youth culture, and so we were doing all every wacky thing that you could do with Karen and I were wanting, well, this isn't the pilot. Did
this has nothing to do with the pilot. We did, but we but we really did have fun with it and we've remained really good friends, and you know, and Gidget is Gidget is one of those iconic female characters over time. Lour Ingles Wilder is an iconic female character of another time. I played Buffy's dad on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy was an iconic female young female.
Character, Judy Bluemes forever, Yes.
Right, did that earlier. It's really been amazing to be able to be a part of the but nothing has the resonance that Little House has. And I loved doing Gidget, and I loved the few epiods I didn't do a lot of episodes of Buffy because it wasn't about father's It was about a dysfunctional family who and a father who wasn't there. It was about mother and daughter and all the crazy things going on near the hell Mouth. But but I loved that cast. What a talented group
of people they were. Oh my god, Joss Whedon talk about an ear for youth culture. Unbelievable.
We just talked to Julie Ben's who played Darla on Buffy and she because Buffy was mentioneding Goimore girls across the court. We heard a lot of great stories from that.
Oh my god.
Well, I like to tease him that he's that guy. He somehow carved out this niche of being the man in all of these famous, real and fictitious women's lives.
He's the dude in Laura's life, in Buffy's life and gets its life. He's that how.
Who comes up with that? And then you were you were a Punzels.
The guy and I'm like, how how did you?
I've been fortunate to be and it's again, Eastern an incredible gift. I mean, look, I get my DNA from my parents, and I you know, I'm gifted with that. And I've had the opportunity to be able to interface, interact, play relationships with some really special female characters. And you know, it's just been a great time. I've absolutely loved it. What a gift. It's been an amazing gift.
So incredible. But okay, before we rat off into the sunset here, I want to ask this is such a hard question.
Good little house reference to riding off into the sunset.
Good for you, I am a professional. Well do you have is there a one memory that stands out among the rest from your time on the Little House that you think of and go wow, I can't believe this or what you know? When someone asks you what's your favorite moment from your experience? Is there something that kind of bubbles to the top.
And it's so hard because I mean, there was ever yeast seven years I was there, from the time I was twelve to lowest nineteen, which is your entire formative years. All yes, I said, I started junior high, I got a junior high, went all the way through high school, moved out of my parents, and I was still.
On the damn show. You know. It was so crazy.
So it's it's hard to say, but some of it is from that that first day, the first day when I met Melissa Gilbert and when I met all these people, and it's like, what have I gotten myself into and Melissa Gilbert, she was so so tiny that I actually said in my book, oh god, she looked like I could fit her in my purse and she could chew her way out, and she is said, yeah, that was
pretty accurate actually. And it's just the personalities, I mean, casting the personalities Katherine McGregor, the personalities of these people on this show were just unbelievable. I mean, if you thought they were excited on screen, you should have hung out on the set.
These people were amazing.
And have all of them in one room, I mean, the different acting styles, the different this, the different that was just mind blowing. And to walk in the first day meet them all, It's like, whoa, what did what train?
Did I just get on?
Wow? It's amazing. Wow. I'll never forget that. You know. One of the memories couple of memories that stick really really strongly, that arrival the first day, uh, for that first season and seeing the size of this unit, the number of trucks, the number of people, the animals, the wagons that you know, every everything that populated that world, from every stick of furniture to the horses and the bales of hey came in on trucks each day to Big Sky Movie Ranch and that seeing that was just awesome.
And then we had a Blue Max this called the Blue Bax, this bus that had Little House on the Prairies Monday nights at eight on NBC, on the bus, on the on the people do. I mean, look, you see those things around, but when you're a part of that, you suddenly are a part of that. That's really cool
In terms of a moment. In terms of a moment there, I love a moment at the end of an episode called Days of Sunshine Days of Shadow, when Manzo has been paralyzed and learns to walk again and gets up and walks across the yard into Laura's arms, and the world is going to go on again. Their life is going to be okay after ninety minutes for two and a half hours of misery, it's going to be okay. And I love the way that moment was scored. I love the way it was shot. I'd love the Blissa's
reaction to it. It just there was a really wonderful kismet in that moment. And you know, if I could have could have had moments like that over and over and over again, on camera. Those are the kinds of moments I'd love to have, and it sticks out for that reason just because it's it's a very it's just a powerful human moment. And I've been always been very happy with the way that turned out. There are lots of moments that I'm not thrilled with, but that's when I am.
Okay.
How many people, especially okay child actors, And of course I was very young winos on the show, and a lot of my friends with child actors many have terrible experiences and people were horrible to them on the set and their lives were ruined. I was very lucky, really supportive. It was one of the most supportive, loving environments I've ever been in. And and yes I had a trust fund. I got my money, so it's like whoo, So I
like survived being a child actor. But the thing is is so many child actors will look back at their show or they did and they will feel bad. They will feel sense almost of shame. They will say that's not a very good performance. I wasn't very good. I was just you know, mugging or doing a little joke, or even if it's good, they don't see it as good, they go, I was just it.
I didn't know what I was doing. Man, I look back on Little House. We were amazing. We were all freaking amazing.
Yes, that's so generous, that's so jerious. I do have a lot of those moments, oh oh my god, oh my god, what was I doing? But the moments, But as an overall body, you know, I've talked about the fact that Melissa and I were enough different in age that there wasn't really a possibility of having any sort of real relationship with her. It just would have been
completely inappropriate. We made our way through that despite the age difference, and on balance, overall, I look back at that and I can say I feel good about what we accomplished, and the fact that people continue to watch it and love it and appreciate what this relationship means, what it means in their life. You know, who could not be happy with that?
What you're doing work.
There's still people posting on Facebook pictures of Laura and all moms with big hearts around.
If you guys didn't generate.
Some kind of sense of love and wrote, they wouldn't be doing that.
The videos that are done of us that to popizz Country songs. It's the you know, clips cut over and over and over again to different music. I mean, it's really cool that fandom is just amazing. Most people, the vast majority of people who will ever live, will never understand or experience what that feels like. And I think you have to have a sense of perspective about it, and you have to know you can't take it for granted. I mean, if you do take it for granted, it's
going to eventually bite you. Yeah, But if you can appreciate it for what it is, it's this amazing outpouring of love and affection that you have to be in that kind of a position to get that. There are very few other professions will ever experience that.
And no, we never thought and fifty years later anybody would be watching the show or speaking to us or care or that anybody would even know that any of this ever happened, or it's completely blown all of our minds right out of our heads. We're all stunned, but we are appreciative. We're like, oh, wow, Okay, something happened. We did something. We don't even completely understand it, but it happened and it was good, and.
We're like, yes, yes, yes, we get it. We were in we're into it. Bring it, bring it. We're good.
Yeah, and it shall be here long after we're all, after the planet is gone, there are still aliens will be watching and the rebels of planet Earth.
It'll be like it'll be like Galaxy quests.
Yes, yes, yes, it's beamed into space.
I was at the space center in Belgium and they had a thing, you know how, like what was it, the thing voyager where it has bits and pieces of stuffs and they have video that they sent into space and yes, yes, you know what, there's a glip of yes, it's in there. It's in there, Yes it is. Yes, the aliens have already seen it. It's it's okay, the aliens have.
Already seen it. Well we'll find out.
Thank you so much for coming into days. It's been so much fun. And everyone go listen to their podcast. It's great that I've listened to many episodes now. They're just wonderful. And go watch the Hustle and Perry. It's a good show.
It's a great show.
Yes, thanks Houston, Thanks against.
Everybody adult again. Follow us on Instagram at I Am All In podcast and email us at Gilmour at iHeartRadio dot com.