I Smell Pop Culture: Little House on the Prairie

We’re diving into the big world of Little House when we smell pop culture with the stars from “Little House on the Prairie”! In Season 2 Episode 21, Lane runs up behind Lorelai who replies with “Oh look it’s Michael Landon!”. 

Dean Butler and Allison Arngrim were costars with Michael Landon for years on “Little House on the Prairie” and are ready to share all their behind the scenes stories from working with a TV legend. 

Find out why Little House was the favorite show of presidents and dictators, and how the show has remained a pop culture icon 50 years later!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am all in again. Oh it's just you. I
Smell Pop Culture with Eastern Allen and iHeart Radio podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
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.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's me.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
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

(00:56):
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

(01:18):
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

(01:39):
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

(02:01):
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.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Again.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
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.

(02:35):
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

(02:56):
am on podcast. I'm here Dean Butler and Allison Aringrim.
Thanks for doing this, you guys. This is so exciting.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Thank you. Yes so.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
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,

(03:25):
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

(03:47):
like you remember being directed to do a lot like, hey,
we always got to be running and keeping everything moving,
anything like that.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well that that would be probably not so much for
me and probably not so much for runner.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, I didn't run as but the kids when I
flounced and I sauntered.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
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.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
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.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
Because we're outdoors.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
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.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
And so running running was big.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Running out of scene seemed to be people always bounding
and leaping.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
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.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
See how far they get.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, he can get away with you.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
See how far they'll go before they finally figure it
out and stop.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
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.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
Child burned thousand She could have been a miler.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
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.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
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?

Speaker 4 (05:48):
I remember why.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
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.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
I was like, yeah, no, and you I'm eleven. I'm
like no.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
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.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
I'm an idiot. I haven't read the books.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
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.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
I know nothing.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
I know nothing about Ellie Elso and they get no
direction whatsoever. I get the sides and like, oh my god,
this is awful.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
So I ride away.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
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.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
I mean it was his glove and the.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
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.

Speaker 4 (07:01):
And then as soon as I.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
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.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
But he was hysterical.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
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.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
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

(07:55):
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

(08:17):
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

(08:38):
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

(08:58):
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.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
They did.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
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

(09:42):
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

(10:07):
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

(10:30):
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.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
You look at the crew, the crew on Little House,
all of the grips and electricians and well.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
In the cameraman and everybody. They were from Bonanza.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
They just walked going over and followed him, and then
they all followed him to Highway to Heaven.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
How often does that happen?

Speaker 3 (11:06):
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.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
They just followed. He was their leader.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
And this was very, very obvious from day one.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
He had a Midas touch. He really did.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
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

(11:43):
he giving you advice? Was he like, how how did
that go?

Speaker 4 (11:48):
The anti director? He was the anti director?

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Much? Really, he did not say much.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
You had to really mess it up.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
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

(12:18):
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

(12:39):
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.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
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.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Was yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
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

(13:19):
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?

Speaker 4 (13:26):
What is happening? No directing.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
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?

Speaker 4 (13:43):
What are we doing there?

Speaker 3 (13:44):
And he had decided that there were certain things I
did and that is what he wanted do that do
the thing I.

Speaker 4 (13:50):
Hired you to do. Just do that, and that it
was how we were.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
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?

Speaker 4 (14:07):
This all up?

Speaker 1 (14:08):
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

(14:31):
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.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
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.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, we we maybe two cameras and remember an enormous,
enormous size of a car, like enormous yeah thing.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, no, it was all it was Panavision cameras.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
We had.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
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.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
Said, oh yeah, they evisited steady camp actually.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
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.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
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.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, And these are things people take for granted now.
You know, you can put your phone and.

Speaker 4 (15:53):
Film whatever nothing now.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
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.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
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

(16:32):
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

(16:56):
absolutely gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
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.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
We were, as far as we were concerned, we're all
making a movie.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
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

(17:27):
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.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
So how was Michael like in the editing day too?
He was just the entire process.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
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

(18:14):
of the show was under his room.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
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

(18:39):
this character to be.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
Well, he was serious down to the hats.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
But when he wasn't serious, I wanted to worry about
these pranks. He went, Paul, So.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
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

(19:11):
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

(19:32):
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.

Speaker 4 (19:52):
The setup took a long.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
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.

Speaker 4 (20:07):
I got the fake blood on the nose and I'm dying.
It's so quiet, and.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Again waiting for cut, waiting for cut.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
It's not coming.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
My eyes are closed, but I have no idea what
the heck is happening, and I just hear the ground.

Speaker 4 (20:16):
I was like, net's very quiet.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
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.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
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

(20:52):
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

(21:13):
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

(21:35):
cut the show in the camera basically. I mean, there
was not a lot of extra film.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
Because in today's world he would have been the show runner.
Oh he was the director of the producer of the start.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
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?

Speaker 4 (22:04):
I think that was good? I don't know. I felt
kind of good.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
I have no idea if that's good.

Speaker 4 (22:07):
And that was thinking.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
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.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
Now you go.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
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.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
It was like, now we do the next one, just
to say yeah, he he.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
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

(22:54):
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.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
When you want to be.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Able to trust the director, I compared to the ship's captain.
Once you're at sea, just do what the captain say.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
To trust, someone has to.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
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.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
And that's what's great.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
And I remember it freaked out Katherine McGregor because he
was so young, you know, he said, in his thirties.

Speaker 4 (23:37):
And she was like, this.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Thirty something cute boy actor. I mean, he's little Joe.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
He's a little Joe. What the hell does he know?

Speaker 3 (23:43):
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.

Speaker 4 (24:03):
Said it, what wait here? Try how?

Speaker 3 (24:05):
He just looked at into How many job breakers can
you fit in your mouth?

Speaker 4 (24:08):
I went, I don't really know?

Speaker 3 (24:10):
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

(24:31):
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.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
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

(25:00):
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

(25:23):
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,

(25:45):
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

(26:08):
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.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
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.

Speaker 4 (26:31):
You were going to be them. And that was what
he counted on.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
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,

(26:56):
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

(27:17):
character doing that.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
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.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Absolutely. We have so much more to get into ry.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
Quest of Michael London. It was amazing.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
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.

(27:58):
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,

(28:19):
Like like you get these changes at the last minute,
and you're like, okay, what would what would Nelly do?
What would Almanza?

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Do you know?

Speaker 2 (28:26):
So Allison specifically, I was I watched Country Girls the
other day, so.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Good, great, so good. It's a great episode.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
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.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Girls my very very first episode, and I was thoroughly vile.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yes, how did you find the character that quickly?

Speaker 1 (28:51):
That?

Speaker 2 (28:51):
It's just remarkable, Like you're Nelly right away.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
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.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
He read it. And when I get it as soon
as he read it once when I know who.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
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.

Speaker 4 (29:22):
They told me nothing. I showed up.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
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.

Speaker 4 (29:34):
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.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
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.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
We have.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
It's hysterical and I'm ready going this is hilarious. But
my god, she's just like the worst person.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
In the world.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
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,

(30:30):
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.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Me on this.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
We got home, we got in the car, drove home
and the agent.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
Was on the phone the deal and was being made
like while I was in the parking.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Incredible done.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
So yeah, she jumped off the page. What wow, she's terrible.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
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

(31:21):
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.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
And let it all all the n out.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
And then I've talked openly in interviews in my book
that I was abused as a child, and the key
element of.

Speaker 4 (31:37):
That is terrible buried rage.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
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.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
Do you have any idea what that did for my
blood pressure and my well being? And it was fantastic.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
It was like they were saying me to have therapy
for seven years. It was fantastic, incredible.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
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.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
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.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
Don't touch this here.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
You can pull the drapes down if you want you
we can put that back these, but you can throw these.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
Don't throw this.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
And I'm like, got it, got it, got it, checking
these off my head and then I did it and
was completely.

Speaker 4 (32:32):
Screaming out of control, but like, don't touch three antique, keep.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Moving antiques and that's crazy.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
Don't break that. Oh wait, don't break that.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
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.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
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

(33:08):
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,

(33:29):
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

(33:52):
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.

(34:15):
But Allison touched something primal about being human that people
absolutely love. Everyone can you can't not enjoy it.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
Everyone has an elite their school, everyone has a Missus
Olsen at their job.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
You don't have you think of Nelid school, it's probably.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Get it's you.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
And this is also the original Karen.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
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,

(34:54):
they're running it there.

Speaker 4 (34:55):
It's they're running it everywhere.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
In forty countries around the world. Wow.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
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.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
Mean when you're living in a small.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Town in Sri Lanka, who they had electricity so many
hours a day they used to watch a Little House
in Umar and what.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
How what does this mean? What does this mean to you?

Speaker 3 (35:20):
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

(35:43):
had a Missus Olsen in the village at our job,
we all had an Elliot school.

Speaker 4 (35:46):
We can identify with these people. We get it. And
I said, you're right.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
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.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
Hussein, Saddam Hussein's favorite show at.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
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.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
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

(36:56):
and it was really obsessed with Michael Landon wanted him
to be his father.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
Horrible, complicated, insane story.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
Daddy issues.

Speaker 4 (37:03):
Yes, clearly something was the.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
Matter, but he was obsessed with Little House. Would stop work,
like I got to go watch Little Perry.

Speaker 4 (37:11):
Now.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
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,

(37:33):
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.

(37:57):
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

(38:18):
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.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
It pulls you in.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
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.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
What a special role to play in people's lives all
over the world. I mean, that's incredible.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
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

(39:14):
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,

(39:39):
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.

(40:03):
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.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
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.

Speaker 4 (40:23):
That's right yours.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
I'm just taking my job from jopping. It was like
sixty eight, what on earth away?

Speaker 1 (40:29):
You can see it here.

Speaker 4 (40:31):
I'm just turned sixty three and hanging in there. Everybody
from the show.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
Looks actually pretty good if you see all of it.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
I mean, Karen Karen, Karen Grassley is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.
At eighty two.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
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.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
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

(41:21):
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.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
Generally underestimate the power of television and it's different than
the movies.

Speaker 4 (41:42):
And we love the movies.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
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.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
It's different. You're in their living room, you're in their house.
The calls are coming from inside.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
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.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
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

(42:34):
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

(42:54):
you know, and I think they hope, hope, hope that
you are when they meet you.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
They hope that you are what they fall in love
with unless you're me.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Unless you yeah, yeah, but you give them a taste
of that.

Speaker 5 (43:11):
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?

Speaker 1 (43:23):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (43:23):
Absolutely, you know, I'll do.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
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?

Speaker 4 (43:40):
Yes, yes we can do that. Yes that's okay. It's like,
what the heck I.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
Mean to be asked fifty years later as a grown
woman stick your tongue out again?

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Please?

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Because people are that excited about it, like sure, why?

Speaker 1 (43:55):
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

(44:15):
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

(44:38):
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,

(45:01):
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.

Speaker 4 (45:09):
Walking down, because this is a good thing.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
It's grilling.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
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?

Speaker 1 (45:24):
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.

(45:49):
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.

(46:10):
It was clear. The storytelling was absolutely crystal clear and
sort of primal.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
They didn't have to decode anything, right.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
It's right in front of you.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
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

(46:41):
Brothers a lot. And however, Wannut Grove filmed in Seami
Valley at Big Sky Ranch, a real place in Minnesota.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
Lovely place.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
I'm sure you visited many times.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
Starlin, great museum, adorable you.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Should good times.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
Do people often do you hear from people that visit
and go, oh this is really film? Did and yeah? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (47:03):
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.

Speaker 4 (47:16):
Laura actually lives.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
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.

Speaker 4 (47:27):
The town.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
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?

Speaker 4 (47:43):
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.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
It did look very real.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
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.

(48:12):
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.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
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,

(48:53):
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

(49:16):
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

(49:36):
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?

Speaker 3 (49:50):
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.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
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.

Speaker 4 (50:14):
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.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
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.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
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

(51:03):
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.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
Yeah, it's just today.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
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.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
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.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
Some of the seats.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
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

(52:10):
as well.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
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.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
So this is a scene where we eat.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
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.

Speaker 4 (52:40):
I have people.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
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

(53:03):
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.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
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.

Speaker 4 (53:25):
Allergic.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Yeah, whatever, whatever you're gonna do, it's got to be
what you what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
Now.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
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.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
It's true.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Wendy lu Lee who was sister Brenda, who were baby Grace.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
Brilliant, fabulous baby Grace, and they've grown up to be loved.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
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,

(54:26):
and the Wendy pushed back and would never take anything
from Michael ever again.

Speaker 4 (54:32):
And that's what they wanted.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
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?

Speaker 4 (54:42):
Not really, but I was a bay soon as I
tasted it, I hated it.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
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.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
I am okay.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Now.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
So when you're filming a scene where I'm so fascinated
by eating scenes act like so.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
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.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
And to eat your food but not eat your food.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
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.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
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.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
So if you take a big chunk of food, you're
eating a bunch in that master shot, well.

Speaker 4 (55:46):
You're gonna be eating. You're gonna be eating hearty today.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Eating that. You will be very careful about it.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
You gotta paste yourself.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
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.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
They eat Every episode had three dinnersolutely.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
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.

Speaker 4 (56:23):
We are.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
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

(56:44):
challenge was not to just go wow and just like
shove it in your face immediately. We had to pace ourselves.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
Now.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
The prop man always said.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
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?

Speaker 4 (56:57):
Yes, you get that when we're done. Because our food
was right.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
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.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
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.

(57:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
But that's what's the first thing was now the Little
House fiftieth anniversary podcast.

Speaker 4 (57:55):
Okay, because we went so far past doing for.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
The idea, we also say Little House and online is
the Little House Little House fifty podcast dot com.

Speaker 4 (58:05):
Okay, yeah, because we're going to get like fifty episodes.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Hot, We're going to go well beyond me. I love it.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
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.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
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.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
She know.

Speaker 4 (58:42):
So she yeah, she gets it.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
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.

(59:06):
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,

(59:26):
the mindset of the fan, and she's able to bring
that and she brings it lovingly, sweetly funny every single time.

Speaker 4 (59:35):
She's really funny.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
And she's the one who came up with calling him
hashtag imaginary boyfriend.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
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

(01:00:05):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:00:29):
They just did. We found them correct, they're coming on.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
So it's going to be Bananas.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
That's good again. That's the Little House fifty podcasts and
you can get that on anywhere you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
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

(01:01:58):
you ever want to do a new Gidget podcast, I
will be a listener. And overall, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
My god, I sign you.

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
I think you need to do a new Gidget podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
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

(01:02:29):
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

(01:02:54):
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

(01:03:14):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
Character, Judy Bluemes forever, Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
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

(01:03:50):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:04:28):
He's the dude in Laura's life, in Buffy's life and
gets its life. He's that how.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
Who comes up with that? And then you were you
were a Punzels.

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
The guy and I'm like, how how did you?

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
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,

(01:05:08):
it's just been a great time. I've absolutely loved it.
What a gift. It's been an amazing gift.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
So incredible. But okay, before we rat off into the
sunset here, I want to ask this is such a
hard question.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Good little house reference to riding off into the sunset.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
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

(01:05:43):
favorite moment from your experience? Is there something that kind
of bubbles to the top.

Speaker 3 (01:05:47):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:06:00):
On the damn show. You know. It was so crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
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

(01:06:26):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:06:42):
These people were amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:06:44):
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?

Speaker 4 (01:06:53):
Did I just get on?

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
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,

(01:07:19):
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,

(01:07:43):
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

(01:08:07):
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

(01:08:28):
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

(01:08:51):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:09:06):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
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

(01:09:29):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
I didn't know what I was doing. Man, I look
back on Little House. We were amazing. We were all
freaking amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
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

(01:10:12):
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,

(01:10:34):
what it means in their life. You know, who could
not be happy with that?

Speaker 4 (01:10:39):
What you're doing work.

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
There's still people posting on Facebook pictures of Laura and
all moms with big hearts around.

Speaker 4 (01:10:45):
If you guys didn't generate.

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
Some kind of sense of love and wrote, they wouldn't
be doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
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

(01:11:11):
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

(01:11:34):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:12:13):
We're like, yes, yes, yes, we get it. We were
in we're into it. Bring it, bring it. We're good.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
It'll be like it'll be like Galaxy quests.

Speaker 4 (01:12:30):
Yes, yes, yes, it's beamed into space.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
Already seen it. Well we'll find out.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
It's a great show.

Speaker 6 (01:13:10):
Yes, thanks Houston, Thanks against.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
Everybody adult again. Follow us on Instagram at I Am
All In podcast and email us at Gilmour at iHeartRadio
dot com.