Line #32 Funny/LittleHouseOnThePrairie


1	!!Books
2
3	* ''Little House in the Big Woods'':
4	** Pa shoots a bear and brings home the meat. Mary excitedly claims the drumstick. The narration points out that Mary is unaware of just how large a bear drumstick is.
5	** In another bear encounter, Ma finds one blocking the gate. Thinking it's their cow, she gives it a slap on the shoulder to move it along, only to realize her mistake. After she (and Laura) run back to the house and safety, she's giddy with amazement that she slapped a bear.
6	** The petty rivalry between Mary and Laura can come off as this in the early books. Since they're not allowed to be overtly hostile towards each other, a lot of the rivalry is passive-aggressive and there's a lot of Laura-the-narrator complaining about how insufferably good Mary is all the time. For anyone with sisters, it's a pretty familiar read.
7	** After Laura goes stir-crazy one Sunday (because they're not allowed to do anything very active), Pa tells her a story about his father and uncles doing something similar. Despite not being allowed, they took a new sled on one ride down the hill, thinking that nobody would notice...and then a pig ran out in front of them, got scooped up by the sled, and squealed all the way down.
8	* A running joke in the earlier books is Pa nonchalantly pointing out how close to doom either himself or the family has come, only for Ma cut him off, at which point he adopts a lighter tone so as not to frighten the girls.
9	* In ''On the Banks of Plum Creek,'' Laura and Mary engage in some LoopholeAbuse after being reprimanded for sliding down the haystacks Pa has assembled for the livestock. Laura is tempted but knows she must not slide down. But Pa never said anything about climbing the haystack. And he never said anything about jumping off of it once she reached the top. Or rolling down. They, of course, get caught and Pa asks them if they'd been sliding down the haystack. Laura and Mary reply earnestly that they ''hadn't'' been, despite all evidence to the contrary. When they reveal that they'd followed his ExactWords, Pa has to turn away to [[ActuallyPrettyFunny hide his laughter.]]
10	* In ''These Happy Golden Years'', Nellie manages to weasel her way into joining Laura and Almanzo on their Sunday buggy rides, Almanzo being completely clueless as to her actual motives (she's out to drive Laura away, either because she's sweet on him herself or just to piss Laura off, or both). Laura, unwilling to cave, lets the edge of the dust-robe (basically a blanket designed to keep dust off the riders' clothes) flap like a sail and scares the horses into bolting. Nellie freaks out along with them - grabs Almazo's arm 'which he very much needed to use just then', throws a fit, and declares she'll never ride behind those maniac horses again. When Laura and Almanzo later take her friend Ida for a drive, Ida is surprised anyone could be afraid of such gentle horses, at which Almanzo looks at Laura, who just smiles and tucks in the dust-robe a little more securely.
11	** Not just that, but shortly after the incident in which the horses bolt, during the same drive, Laura suggests following the road they're on a little farther - because she knows that the first opportunity that they'll have to turn back towards town will take them past the Olesons' claim first. What makes this really amusing is that she makes the suggestion while they've stopped for a brief visit at the claim of some family friends, and Mr. Boast, clearly catching on to Laura's intentions, helps out by cheerfully assuring that "it's a good road straight north." Nellie is ''very'' unamused.
12	* At the point where Mary is attending a school for the blind, during a visit home she relates a story of a shopping trip she took with a friend who, while legally blind, can make out colors. They devised a series of signals to use so that her friend could indicate the color to Mary, leading the storekeeper to believe that the two of them (not knowing the other girl could see) could tell color by ''touch.''
13	** It becomes a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment\|s}} when Laura decides everything she's gone through teaching school is worth it, because when Mary tells the story, it's the first time she's actually laughed since before she went blind.
14	* In ''These Happy Golden Years'', a kitten wanders into church one Sunday morning, and winds up chased by a dog. The kitten runs off and apparently disappears, until Laura realizes it's crawled up beneath her dress and is scaling her hoop skirts like a little mountain climber. When she imagines what might happen if the dog were to find it, she tries so hard not to laugh that Mary elbows her and tells her to behave herself. This just makes things harder for Laura, and when, after church, Mary scolds her for it, she laughs until she cries. When she tells Pa and Mary why, even Mary has to admit it's ActuallyPrettyFunny.
15	* Also in ''Little Town on the Prairie'', the two drunks that walk arm-in-arm down the street, solemnly singing hymns and kicking the screen doors of every store they pass. Particularly amusing is when they break Royal Wilder's door, and he "yanked it open and [[ParentheticalSwearing said what he thought]]." Ma doesn't find the story amusing, but Pa (quietly) does.
16	* The Ingalls' adorable tiny kitten grows up to be [[CatsAreMean a holy terror]] to everyone except the family. Strangers have to be warned not to pet her, and if a dog approaches her, she'll jump on its back, sink in all her claws, and ride it down the street like it's a bronco.
17	* Almanzo Wilder is faced with the task of proposing marriage to a Tsundere. He rises to the challenge. Keep in mind that, as Laura later points out, they've been courting for ''three years'' by now.
18	---> '''Almanzo''': Your hand is so small... [collecting himself] I was wondering if you would like an engagement ring.
19	---> '''Laura''': That would depend on who gave it to me.
20	---> '''Almanzo''': If I should?
21	---> '''Laura''': Then it would depend on the ring.
22	** The next weekend, when he picks her up for a drive, he slips the ring on her finger-- a gold band with a pearl in a garnet setting. She liked it enough to marry him.
23	* In one of the later books, when Laura and Carrie are walking to school, the wind blows Laura's hoopskirts around her legs and she has to constantly stop and twirl around to untwist them. All the while talking about [[{{Irony}} how silly fashions were when Ma was a girl.]]
24	* When Laura points out that she won't be able to make a wedding dress in time if they get married in a week:
25	-->"Wear the one you have on. It is pretty," Almanzo urged.
26	** She then points out that it's a ''work'' dress.
27	* When Mary and Laura eat wild greens, Mary, who is blind, always asks to make sure there are no bugs on it.
28	-->'''Laura:''' There are never any bugs! These prairies are so ''clean''! There never was such a clean place.
29	-->'''Mary:''' You look, just the same. I don't want to eat the only bug in the whole of Dakota Territory.
30	* The fact that Laura takes so long to realize Almanzo's courting her. The ''reader'' can see it right off the bat, but Laura's completely [[ObliviousToLove oblivious]] until Mary Power points it out -- almost a ''year'' into their courtship. Made even funnier by the fact that Almanzo was himself clearly unaware of her oblivion.
31	** Made [[DudeNotFunny substantially less funny]] by the fact that Laura is still a fairly young teenager at the time as compared to Almanzo being in the latter half of his 20's by then. She might have been just too young to realize that a grown man was trying to court her. Also of note here is that her own mother took issue with him courting her for precisely that reason.
32	* In ''These Happy Golden Years,'' Almanzo takes on the job of driving twelve or so miles to pick Laura up and take her home for the weekend while she is away teaching school. One of these trips was made in weather well below zero (in the vicinity of forty below), and most of the people they run into on the trip think Almanzo was crazy for making the trip. When Laura asks him why he did it, Almanzo tells her he was looking at the temperature and considering whether it was wise to drive out. Cap Garland walks by, smirks at his obvious romantic dilemma, and tells him "God hates a coward."
33	--->'''Laura:''' So you came because you wouldn't take a dare?
34	--->'''Almanzo:''' No, it wasn't a dare. I just figured he was right.
35	* ''The First Four Years'':
36	** Laura finds adjusting to being a farmer's wife difficult. When she is tasked with cooking a meal for the threshers, she is so stressed and harried that she forgets to put sugar in the pie. And since it was rhubarb pie, Laura is horrified at how it must taste without sugar. (In a heartwarming moment, the first man to taste the pie, a neighbor of her parents, has spent the entire meal being cheerful and jovial and generally making Laura's first taste of being a farmer's wife look successful. He is surprised, and Laura feels awful, but he quickly covers by saying it's better this way, putting a few spoonfuls of sugar on it and saying every man can sweeten it to his taste without hurting the cook's feelings.)
37	** Laura is home alone when a group of Native Americans descend on the farm. Laura is nonplussed, until they head for the barn and her horse. She marches over and ''slaps'' one of them. Their leader appeared to be [[AmazonChaser so impressed with her bravery that he proposes marriage.]]
38	* During ''The Long Winter'', Pa starts talking up a good game about how much better potatoes are with just salt, as salt will bring out the flavor of a potato, instead of hiding it under butter or gravy. Laura slyly suggests, "Don't put sugar in your tea, Pa, and you'll get the full flavor of the tea," and Pa comes right back with, "Tea brings out the flavor of the sugar, Half-Pint."
39	* In ''Prairie Girl'', Laura and Almanzo go and visit the Boasts, and mr. Boast decides to play a prank on them. When they announce they are going to leave, he asks them to stay until the moon comes up, knowing that this won't happen until past midnight (and that Laura and Almanzo thought it would happen much earlier in the night). They end up staying, and the joke ends up being on the Boasts, when mr. Boast can't stay awake and falls asleep in his chair, and Mrs. Boast almost does the same. Laura and Almanzo remain wide awake, and they do indeed stay until the moon comes up. Ma is not best pleased when Laura tries to sneak in that late, but Laura and Almanzo have a good laugh about the whole thing.
40
41	!!TV Series
42
43	* In "The Reincarnation of Nellie," Mr. and Mrs. Oleson go to an orphanage to find a little girl to adopt. Mrs. Oleson decides the troublemaking Nancy is the perfect [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute substitute]] for her daughter, prompting Mr. Oleson to try to catch the girl as she runs off. Nancy darts in a building, where the following exchange takes place:
44	--->'''Nancy:''' Help! There's a man chasing me!
45	--->'''Man (to Mr. Oleson):''' [[MistakenForPedophile What kind of man are you?]]
46	--->'''Mr. Oleson:''' Please, [[DoubleEntendre I'm trying to catch a little girl!]] [Mr. Oleson gets punched]
47	* Season 4's "The Creeper of Walnut Grove" saw aspiring private detectives Laura and Andy Garvey attempt to solve a slew of petty thefts of foodstuffs an small livestock, perpetrated by a person they designate as "The Creeper". They set a trap on the Ingalls farm designed to dump a bucket of green dye on the perpetrator, but when Charles trips the trap, he is doused with the dye and his hair is turned green. As even Caroline is unable to stifle her laughter at this sight, Charles is mortified and refuses to enter public with his head uncovered. But at church service, where he obviously cannot wear his hat, all of his friends and neighbors burst into uncontrollable guffaws upon seeing him. [[GoodShepherd The Reverend Alden]], at first perplexed as to what his congregation finds so hilarious, enters the church and has to stifle his initial surprise at seeing a pillar of the community and one of his devout church members and with a shock of pine green hair. To his credit, Alden recovers, and (with some slight stammers), begins his opening oratory, taking care to state that he chose the subject of his sermon (the 23rd Psalm) well ahead of that day (and Charles' [[ThisIsGonnaSuck expression when he immediately recognizes that passage is just priceless]]): a Psalm that just happens to begin with "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want- he maketh me to lie down in ''green'' pastures". And when the Reverend (along with the rest of the congregation) [[NotSoAboveItAll explodes into uproarious laughter]], Charles [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere opts to leave immediately]].
48	** Another hilarious instance in this same episode occurs earlier, when the overly exuberant private dicks Laura and Andy enlist Nellie and Willie Olsen in their campaign to trap "the Creeper". The [[EpicFail plan goes awry]] when they all tackle a shadowed figure in the Olesons' store, that turns out to be [[SarcasmMode (shock of shocks)]]: Mrs. Oleson! Poor Nels has to heft four children off of her while declaring "That's no Creeper- that's my wife!".
49	* Season 3's "Fred" is a cornucopia of hilarity. The episode begins with an ornery billy goat butting its master for virtually no reason. After the goat's master successfully dupes Laura into taking ownership, the rest of the episode becomes a montage of the so-called "Friendly Fred" [[PainToTheAss butting several of the show's main characters]].

Context Funny / LittleHouseOnThePrairie