Trivia / Little House on the Prairie

• Adapted Out: Numerous characters were adapted out between the television series and the books (and between the books and Real Life, for that matter):
  • Two major persons Adapted Out between real life and the books were Freddie, the Ingalls brother who died in infancy (likely during the period of time between the end of On the Banks of Plum Creek and the beginning of By the Shores of Silver Lake), and, in Farmer Boy, Almanzo's sister Laura Wilder in a particularly harsh enforcement of the One-Steve Limit.
• Adored by the Network: UPtv and Hallmark Drama play daily marathons of the TV show.
• Author Tract: There's a great deal of speculation about how much of a contribution was made by Laura's daughter Rose—if she simply guided her mother through editing her books or if she actually ghostwrote them. What is known is that Rose Wilder Lane was a staunch Libertarian who believed her mother's life represented an inspiring account of how independence and determination led to prosperity...and that portions of the Ingallses' lives that didn't live up to those ideals^note such as the incident in which Pa packed up the family and left town in the middle of the night to avoid paying his creditors didn't make it into the books. There's also quite a few sections around the Fourth of July when our young protagonists have some unusually lengthy and sophisticated musings on the meaning of Freedom.
• Breaking News Interruption: The West Coast feed of Season 7's "To See the Light: Part 2" was interrupted by an NBC News special report on the murder of John Lennon.
• California Doubling: The harsh winters of Minnesota (disproportionately represented in the show) were actually filmed in Simi Valley, California as well as parts of the Sierra Nevada. The geography is clearly more California-like, as well. Southern Minnesota is generally greener and has no mountains, as shown in the episode "The Lord is My Shepherd."
• Channel Hop: In the UK, The BBC ran the first season, with the denizens of Walnut Grove moving to ITV for the rest of its first run in the UK. (Channel 4 ran it The '90s!)
• Completely Different Title: In Brazil, the TV show is known as Os Pioneiros (The Pioneers), most likely because the literal translation "Casinha na Pradaria" wouldn't particularly stand out as a name for a TV show.
• Composite Character: In the books and subsequently for the series, Nellie Oleson was a composite of three unpleasant young women Laura encountered at different points of her life. This explains why Nellie goes from a spoiled snob in On the Banks of Plum Creek to a catty teacher's pet in Little Town on the Prairie to a simpering, giggling airhead in These Happy Golden Years.
• Creative Differences: Initial producer Ed Friendly wanted the series to remain true to the books, but Michael Landon was against the idea of cast members going around barefoot in the wild - and of sporting the enormous beard Charles had in the books (neither he nor NBC wanted to hide his face from his fans). Thus, although every episode was "An NBC Production In Association With Ed Friendly," it's clear who the real man in charge was.
• The Danza:
  • Actress Ruth Foster had a recurring role as an all-purpose everywoman who would appear anytime the show needed a customer in the Mercantile, a lady volunteering at a picnic, or any other villager with a line or two who shouldn't be one of the principals but didn't merit hiring a guest star. They simply called this character Mrs. Foster.
  • Dabbs Greer, whose real name was Robert William Greer, plays Reverend Robert Alden.
  • Also Matthew Charles Labyorteaux played young Charles Ingalls in "Journey of the Spring" and "I Remember, I remember".
  • Leslie Landon played several one-shot characters, including a girl named Leslie in Season 1's "Plague".
• Directed by Cast Member: Michael Landon started as he meant to go on by directing the pilot; he ultimately helmed close to 100 episodes, including the Series Finale - which he also wrote (Victor French directed 18 more as well).
• Dueling Dubs:
  • In Japan, the series has two dubs: One done in 1975 and another newest one done in 2019, both broadcasted by NHK and each one with their own set of voice actors.
  • The Brazilian dub makes for a complicated case: The series was dubbed by Herbert Richers studio when it first aired on Record TV, but apparently, only the first four seasons and part of Season 5 were dubbed during that phase. Then Season 5 was dubbed many years later by Centauro studio, with a completely different cast due to being set in São Paulo whereas Herbert Richers was set in Rio de Janeiro, along with the Pilot movie. Then Season 6 to 9 were dubbed in another studio from Rio, Audio News, about two decades after the HR dub, with another completely different cast (none of the cast members of the HR dub reprised their roles, though some were recast as different characters, most notably Laura's first VA, Carmen Sheila, who joined the Audio News dub as Mrs. Oleson).
• Enforced Method Acting: The tearful and forlorn reactions of everybody during the demolition of the Walnut Grove set are genuine, as it was done in one take for pretty obvious reasons, and the brutal manner in which the set was destroyed deeply affected the people who grew attached to the show and the working environment, knowing that once it was gone, it was truly over and done with.
• He Also Did:
  • In addition to editing/ghostwriting her mother's books, Rose Wilder Lane was a successful newspaper writer, political theorist and essayist, and war correspondent. She even reported on The Vietnam War from Vietnam when she was almost 80 years old.
  • Rose's friend and the writer of the "Rose Years" book series, Roger Lea MacBride, ran for President under the Libertarian Party ticket.
  • Merlin Olsen, who played recurring character Jonathan Garvey from Seasons 4-7, had recently retired from a 15-year career as a defensive tackle for NFL's Los Angeles Rams that ultimately saw him make the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In addition to that role, Olsen was also working as the lead analyst for NFL coverage on NBC (This is briefly lampooned in season 5's "The Winoka Warriors"; when Jonathan is suggested as a possible coach for the local youth football team, his son Andrew exclaims "My Pa doesn't know anything about football!").
  • Matthew Labyorteaux, going under the name of Matthew Charles, would go on to pursue a voice acting career. One of his notable roles was as Jaden Yuki in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.
  • Linwood Boomer created Malcolm in the Middle.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • According to Karen Grassle's recent autobiography, she and Landon clashed when she asked for a raise and he refused, resulting in him saying incredibly inappropriate things to her. However, the two were able to mend fences before his death.
  • Many sources state that Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary) didn't get along with most of the cast, including Laura's actress Melissa Gilbert, and her love interest John Jr's actor, Radames Pera. She even refused to kiss him and their enmity wound up spoiling the plans for the Mary x John Jr. love story, resulting in their characters breaking up and John Jr. being written out of the show.
• One-Steve Limit: Unmentioned in the book is the fact that Almanzo had a third sister, also named Laura. To avoid confusion with protagonist Laura Ingalls, Laura Wilder was omitted from the books and replaced by Eliza Jane. (In Real Life, and for much the same reasons, Almanzo nicknamed Laura Ingalls "Bess" for her middle name of Elizabeth.)
• The Other Darrin:
  • Bonnie Bartlett played Grace Snider Edwards in seasons 1 to 3, and one appearance in Season 6. When the character appeared for one episode in season eight, she was played by Corinne Camacho.
  • In the same season eight episode, David Kaufman played Carl Sanderson Edwards, when the character had been played by Brian Part during the second and third seasons.
  • Woody Eney played Almanzo's brother Royal Wilder in "The Nephews" in season seven. When the character returned in "Times Are Changing" in season nine, he was played by Nicholas Pryor.
  • Charles' father Lansford Ingalls was played by Arthur Hill in "Journey Into the Spring". When he reappears in flashbacks of "I Remember, I Remember", he was played by Nicolas Coster.
  • Mary's friend Patrick, first appears at the end of "Times of Change", played by Mike Lookinland. When he reappears in "Meet Me At the Fair", he was played by Michael Morgan, as Lookinland was busy working on the short-lived Brady Bunch Variety Hour at the time.
• Playing Against Type:
  • The man who played the antagonist in the final TV movie, James Karen, had played a similar role in Poltergeist. But to generations of people in the New York metro region, he was known as "Mr. Pathmark", as for many years he worked for the now-defunct Pathmark supermarket chain in their TV commercials. So Pathmark got flooded with letters from people, asking how they could employ the heartless man who tore down Walnut Grove to sell them groceries, apparently not grasping that he was just an actor. Fortunately, the backlash was short-lived, and Karen kept his Pathmark gig through the mid-1990s.
  • Shannen Doherty would be typecast as Alpha Bitches or Lovable Alpha Bitches in her next roles, such as Heather Duke and Prue Hallimel in Charmed (1998). Here, she plays the quintessential Nice Girl Jenny Wilder.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Melissa Gilbert's brother, Jonathan Gilbert, plays Willie Oleson.
  • Carrie's twin actresses' brother, Clay Greenbush, plays one of the schoolchildren.
  • Matthew Labyorteaux (Albert) and Patrick Labyorteaux (Andy Garvey) are brothers in real life.
  • Michael Landon's daughter, Leslie Landon, plays schoolteacher Etta Plum. Landon's son, Michael Jr, also plays a schoolboy in "The Election".
  • A young Sean Penn plays one of the schoolboys in Season 1, and his mother, Eileen Ryan, plays Mrs. Kennedy.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: The reason Charles Ingalls is shaven in the series is because Michael Landon disliked the idea of hiding his face under a beard.
• Science Marches On:
  • Mary's blindness is blamed on scarlet fever in the books. Modern studies suggest that she had contracted meningoencephalitis, a type of brain inflammation, which caused her blindness. The 'scarlet fever' diagnosis was probably a misdiagnosis, common back then.
  • The "fever 'n' ague" everyone comes down with in Indian Territory is blamed on bad watermelons by Ma and Mrs. Scott and on "breathing the night air" by Pa, but by the end of the chapter both theories have been proved wrong and the book explains, "No one knew, in those days, that fever 'n' ague is malaria, and that some mosquitoes give it to people when they bite them."
  • The insects that eat the family's crops in one of the books were likely Rocky Mountain locusts, a species that is now extinct.
  • Both the Ingalls' only son Freddie and Laura's unnamed son died in infancy from convulsions, leading to speculation that this might have been due to a genetic disorder that only manifested in male children. Laura's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, gave birth to a stillborn son in 1909, further adding to this theory. (Sadly, it might also be why the Ingalls' only surviving children were daughters, since any potential brothers might have been miscarried well before birth. Likely Laura, if she ever knew about any unborn siblings, would not have recorded it.)
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: When the series started, the show's producer had signed an agreement that when the show ended, the site of the town would be returned to its original state. When filming the series finale, they were faced with the cost of demolishing the buildings. Michael Landon had the idea of blowing them up with dynamite, making them easy to haul away. He then wrote the memorable final scene where the townsfolk blow up their own town to accommodate the real-life demolition.
• Spin-Off Cookbook: Inspired two cookery books. Sadly, neither has the recipe for Laura's pieplant pie.
  • The Little House Cookbook, which gives recipes for meals mentioned in the books.
  • The Laura Ingalls Wilder Country Cookbook, which is from the author's actual recipe notes.
• Technology Marches On: Although filmed in the 1970s and 1980s, these stories – set 100 years earlier – give viewers a representation at some of the early workings of technological marvels of the Age of Invention, as the 1870s and 1880s were arguably an era where discovery and invention was at its peak. Everything from "talking machines" (an early-type sound recorder that can replay the human voice) to the telephone is seen in its earliest forms. Additionally, although it has nothing to do with technology so much, a form of the trope can apply to sports-related episodes; as such, viewers can see an 1870s-form of baseball, football and professional wrestling, all of them novel during the post-Civil War era.
• Torch the Franchise and Run: The production team had to destroy the Walnut Grove set as part of a deal with the landowners to return the site to its original state. However, according to Melissa Gilbert, the decision to incorporate the set's destruction into the finale's story was due to Michael Landon wanting to end the show in a way that kept the network from doing anything else with the series.
• Write Who You Know: Justified Trope, since the books are partially autobiographical.
• Written by Cast Member: Michael Landon wrote 48 episodes as well as the Series Finale.
• Written-In Infirmity:
  • Alison Arngrim broke her arm right before filming of the episode "Bunny" was to begin. Since her character, Nellie, was injured in the episode anyway, the broken arm was incorporated into the script as an additional injury. Arngrim wore nineteenth-century style wrappings to cover her very real 1970s cast.
  • Averted in the episode "Be My Friend". Melissa Gilbert had broken her arm, but shawls and camera angles were used to hide the cast.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Matthew Laborteaux (who plays young Charles in flashbacks) later plays the Ingalls' adopted son, Albert.
  • Kyle Richards played Recurring Character Alicia Sanderson-Edwards and guest character Samantha Harper.
  • E. J. André played a whopping five different characters. He played Amos Thoms in "His Father's Son", Mathew Simms in "Going Home", Zachariah in "Gold Country", "St. Peter" in "The Godsister", and Jed Cooper in "The Lost Ones" and "Uncle Jed".
  • William Schallert played Snell in "Centennial" and Russell Harmon in "The Preacher Takes A Wife".
  • Ike Eisenmann played Viktor Pyatakov in Season 2's "Centennial" and Erich Schiller in "Harriet's Happenings".
  • Katy Kurtzman played Anna in "The Music Box" and Young Caroline in "I Remember, I Remember".
  • Jack Ging played Marshall Anders in an early episode "Survival". He would later go on to play Willie Oleson's father-in-law in "May I Have This Dance".
  • Cletus Young played antagonist Harlan in both parts of "As Long As We're Together" and Cole Parker in "Goodbye, Mrs. Wilder"
  • Leslie Landon played the recurring role of Etta Plum (the town teacher after Laura) toward the end of the series, but also appeared in earlier seasons as a girl sick with typhus in ""Plague, Laura's fellow dishwasher Pam in "A Wiser Heart" and the pregnant woman riding in the ill-fated carriage with Mary in "The Third Miracle."
  • Geoffrey Lewis played Sam Galender in the season 3 episode "The Bully Boys", and would later portray Cole Younger in season 9's "The Older Brothers". Lewis has the distinction of portraying one of the eponymous characters of two different episodes.
  • Dee Croxton first appears as Mrs. Fisher, the intimidated housewife with whose family Mary stays in Season 4's "Whisper Country." She shows up again a few seasons later in two significant two-part episodes: in a bit part as a secretary in Season 6's "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" and as Mrs. Jackson in Season 8's "Days of Sunshine, Days of Sorrow."
  • Michael Pataki first appears in Season 4's "To Run and Hide" as Stanley Novack, and later in Season 6's "The Family Tree" as Albert's biological father, Jeremy Quinn.
  • Adam Gunn first appears in Season 4's "I Remember I Remember" as Harold Watson and later in Season 5's Winoka arc as Jeb Standish.
  • Richard Jaeckel first appears in "The Long Road Home" as Murphy, and later in Season 7 "Sylvia" as the blacksmith Irv Hartwig.
  • Royal Dano first appears in Season 6's "Crossed Connections" as Harold, Alice Garvey's ex-husband, and later in Season 7's "Sylvia", as the title character's father Hector Webb.
  • Don Barry first appears in "Fred" as Rufe Parsons, the title goat's owner, and would later reappear in Seasons 4 and 5 as Jud Larrabee. Ironically Parson's wife was played Joan Tompkins, would also play Larrabee's wife.
  • John McLiam first appears in Season 3's "To Live With Fear Part 2" as Harris, then in Season 4's "Whisper Country" as the darkly domineering patriarch of the Fisher family, Caleb Fisher, and then in Season 9's "Sins of the Fathers" as Sarah Carter's father, Elliot Reed.
  • Jon Lormer first appears in Season 6's "The Preacher Takes a Wife" as Jeremy Tyler, and later in Season 9's "Marvin's Garden" as Jedediah Thoms.

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