“Haunted House” recap!

0:01 If you're listening right now to the Little House 50th Anniversary Podcast, we know something about you. We know that you're obsessed with Little House on the Prairie.

0:10 For more than half a century, Little House on the Prairie, the series and the books have been bright lights for people all over the world who seek out goodness, decency, and human connection.

0:22 Here on the Little House 50th Anniversary Podcast, we celebrate everything that made Little House so special.

0:28 The stories, the.

0:29 Characters, the actors, and the messages that have made Little House iconic family television.

0:35 And a perfect counterpoint to a world that feels like it's going off the rails every day.

0:40 Where is Michael Landon when we need him most? I'm your host, Pamela Bob.

0:45 And I'm your prairie bitch, Alison Arncrum.

0:48 And I'm Dean Butler.

0:50 Our hashtag imaginary boyfriend. Join us for our loving, quirky, and often irreverent conversations about the finest family drama in the history of television.

1:01 And the imperfect people who made it that way.

1:04 We are extremely grateful for the support of VisitSeeMeValley.com for their continuing sponsorship of Little House on the Prairie and the Little House 50th Anniversary Podcast. Hello, bonnet heads. How are you doing this week? It's me. I'm Pamela Bob, your host, creator and star of Living on a Prairie.

1:24 Some people still don't know who the heck I am. So I'm just saying it every week.

1:31 Never miss an opportunity.

1:35 Every week, at least five comments. Who's the lady with the red hair? I don't know.

1:41 Who's that lady?

1:43 It's okay. I get it. I get it.

1:45 I'm not mad about it.

1:46 It's just funny.

1:47 I think that lady's great. Thanks. I love that lady.

1:51 Thanks.

1:52 You know that.

1:54 You know whoever he is.

1:55 Yeah, you're awesome.

1:57 Thanks, Stephen.

1:58 Oh, my God. Who's that lady?

2:00 She's awesome.

2:02 Thank you. Moving on, I'm here with our beloved Prairie Witch, Alison Arngrim, and he seems to like me a lot, our hashtag imaginary boyfriend, Dean Butler. Hi, you guys. I love seeing your faces every week. How's it going?

2:22 Good. Well, Alison, so what hole are you in this week?

2:27 I'm in the attic.

2:28 I'm in the attic again.

2:29 I'm in beautiful, fabulous Brittany, Britannia in Western France. But I'm up in the attic with the heat on because it was so hot and now it is very hot.

2:39 It's cold. So I got an electric blanket in the heat.

2:43 Oh, my God.

2:43 I'm all cozy warm.

2:45 How's your health? You sound like you're maybe a little congested.

2:49 Are you?

2:50 It's going around. I had something when I got here.

2:52 I got rid of that, and then I caught the thing that is apparently going around because I, like, got to the show, and my buddy Herve was at the tech table, and I went, hey, how are you doing?

3:02 He's like, don't even talk to me. Oh, no.

3:04 So it's going around, and it's like a bronchial thing. You don't really get it if you get, like, kind of a weird bronchitis thing.

3:11 So I've coughed up everything one can. I'm at the tail end, and I have all sorts of interesting things to take.

3:17 So you've just been sick the whole time.

3:18 I have.

3:19 I have phlegm, but other than that, I'm not dying. I have vitamins and I'm gonna live, apparently.

3:27 You're gonna live!

3:28 Gonna live, very good.

3:30 And I have three more shows, three more shows, three more shows.

3:33 Oh my gosh.

3:34 Oh wow, okay.

3:35 This weekend is your last hurrah?

3:37 This weekend and next weekend.

3:39 Oh my gosh, you've been there for so long, it's crazy.

3:43 Yeah, you've had a lot.

3:43 It was a lot. And they've been exhausted. But all the shows have gone well. The place has been packed.

3:49 Good.

3:49 They have all hooted and hollered and screamed and stamped their little French feet. People just digging it.

3:55 And like I said, I've been bopping around and visiting people. And it's gorgeous here. It's gorgeous. It's beautiful outside. But you will need a sweater if you go out there. It's very pretty.

4:04 And it's been lovely out. And I've been, like, seeing stuff and hanging out and doing things. But I've also been huddling under an electric blanket.

4:12 As Well, and you're sick on top of it. So, yeah, get under that blanket.

4:16 Crease to death in that.

4:18 Poor thing.

4:20 And I'm here in Northern California. I'm back to my collegiate roots this week. I'm at University of the Pacific this week where I was involved over the weekend with what we call a media mash. It was a media production fellowship where a classmate and I are discussing We've been doing this for nine years now. We come back once a year and we do seminars for young people about social communication and just very light production. It's gone from working with sort of reasonable cameras. Everything is done on the iPhone now. So it's like we do everything on the iPhone and You shoot on the iPhone, edit on the iPhone, post from the iPhone. It's a remarkable change that we've seen from huge devices down to these

5:20 tiny little devices. So I'm here this week. And I know I've talked about this before. This location, this is like 30 miles as the crow flies from the location of the original pilot, which we shot like two weeks ago. And so Pacific is very special. It was sort of a, I don't know, when I think about Pacific, it was sort of like foreshadowing what was coming in my life when I came here in 1974.

5:52 It just makes you feel like there is some sort of destiny happening in the universe. I mean, it just can't be coincidences. Yeah, for sure.

6:00 It's fun to be here. It's fun to interact with the kids and be back in this beautiful place.

6:04 Yeah, it's great that you have such loving feelings towards your alma mater.

6:10 I have good feelings towards my alma mater, yes.

6:12 I'll leave it at that for myself, but yes.

6:17 Okay. Well, what else have you been doing? You're not festering over or you're not longing for your alma mater, so what have you been doing?

6:26 I'm not longing for my alma mater. It was a tough place when I was there. I think it has changed quite significantly now. since I was there, but it was a pretty brutal, abusive program while I was there. Anyway, I'm fine, though. Look at me.

6:41 I'm great.

6:42 I'm fine. You survived it.

6:45 I sure did. For better or for worse. What's going on here? Nothing.

6:50 Life.

6:51 Like school, kids, working some. You know, I've been trying to up my social media game, which has been really fun, quite frankly. I was very resistant about doing it for a few years. And now that I'm doing it, I'm having a blast, which also makes me go, why did I resist doing it for so long? This is fun.

7:12 It's very time-consuming.

7:13 It's time-consuming, but my thing, the reason why I'm having fun is because I'm sort of doing. Anyway, I've just sort of found my hook, which is like stupid commentary on bonnethead insider stuff, which makes me laugh.

7:28 Like wigs. It's really good.

7:29 Oh, hair on the prairie, about hair on the prairie. So as long, and I feel like I'm writing, like I'm using my creative juices and I'm, it feels like I'm like mini producing little teeny tiny two minute shows. And that's fun to me. So that's not, if it was just me as a talking head, I'm just like, who cares about me? I don't, I don't.

7:50 I care about you desperately.

7:52 Thank you. But I'm, you know, I just am like, who am I to be anybody like that? So, but now, anyway, it's been fun.

8:00 Alison and I both care about you desperately.

8:02 Thank you.

8:04 Yeah.

8:04 Thank you. I love you guys.

8:06 And I've been watching.

8:06 Look at this love fest.

8:07 I've been watching all your stuff.

8:08 Thanks.

8:09 Thank you. You know, I should talk about this every week to get the luck. You have not.

8:12 I know. I have not. But I'm thinking good thoughts about it.

8:16 That's all that counts, baby.

8:18 He's thinking good.

8:21 Thoughts about it. So, you know, also this week, you know, as we're coming into this episode, we'll drop right before Halloween. I think we want to take this opportunity to say happy birthday to Michael Landon, who, of course, you know, celebrated his birthday on Halloween. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Michael.

8:38 Happy birthday, dear werewolf.

8:40 Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to.

8:42 You, Harmon.

8:42 He was a teenage werewolf who howled at the moon and he loved Halloween like people love Christmas.

8:50 He had so many Halloween episodes. It was his birthday. And if it was.

8:54 Halloween or spooky or kooky or had werewolves or ghosts, he was all about it.

8:58 All about it. Yeah, see, and this is why we, interestingly, That's why we chose the episode we're going to do today, which turns out has nothing to do with Halloween.

9:08 But you know what? But it does.

9:11 It's spooky.

9:11 And I would say, like, this would be like a movie you'd watch during Halloween time. Like, you'd watch The Bad Seed. That's not about Halloween, but you watch it around Halloween.

9:21 You watch certain things.

9:22 That are spooky and creepy around Halloween. I think this definitely is under the Halloween category.

9:29 And you mentioned The Bad Seed.

9:31 I'm sorry, that's one of the greatest influences, obviously, on me of my freaking life.

9:35 Yes.

9:35 How many times I watched that movie as a kid.

9:37 You're a doppelganger.

9:38 I know.

9:39 Oh, my God.

9:40 And I've met her, and she's delightful, Miss Patty McCormick.

9:43 Isn't that something? Yeah.

9:45 Yeah.

9:45 All the, you know, the ones who played the bad ones are really the good ones.

9:49 I know.

9:49 I know. Because if they were really.

9:54 That bad, they'd just be psychotic.

9:54 Maybe it's not always that way, but it feels that way in this case. I mean, look at you. a bad seed, Allison.

10:01 Veruca Salt, Veruca Salt, Julie Donkel, darling, delightful, kind, beautiful. Yes, no, they're all lovely. I've met all the terrible girls. We're all awesome.

10:09 And on the flip side, there are some people that play lovely, lovely people on TV who are not lovely, lovely in real life. So there you go.

10:18 You know, I've always said if I played someone really, really, really nice for a long time on TV, I might be awful.

10:25 Because I think.

10:26 The pressure, the pressure to be perfect, to be perfect, to be nice, would be just brutal.

10:33 It would just be exhausting. And I feel like I was allowed to vent and.

10:37 Just get it all out of my system. So I was relaxed after. But I think it would be very hard, actually, to be... I think the people who play very, very sweet people, it wears on them sometimes.

10:49 Yeah.

10:50 That makes sense, actually.

10:51 Very repressive. It totally makes sense. Because there is... I think, Alison, you're right. There is a pressure that comes with that image that you. That you need to be this particular way all the time. And if you're not feeling it on a particular day, it just really becomes tough.

11:11 Yeah, especially if you have contact with fans who want you to be the person that you are on TV, which most fans think you are the person that you're playing on TV. Of course, of course.

11:21 Well, it's not lucky for you, Alison.

11:23 I know.

11:24 I scored, baby.

11:25 That's why I keep saying, I won the lottery. I won the lottery on this one. It's true.

11:30 You can treat them terribly. They'd be like, yes, Nellie.

11:32 We love her. Oh, my God. I've told you my story. I think I've mentioned my Samuel L. Jackson stories.

11:39 No.

11:39 No, shut up. Oh, oh.

11:42 What?

11:42 Well, we did Samuel L. Jackson on Faraday, and he was a wonderful guest on Faraday. And this is a guy I won't use. We all know his favorite phrases and lines. Yes. He said one of the problems with being him is that he can't insult anybody. Because they love it. Yeah. Because when he tells them to... You know, whatever he always tells people to do. They laugh and they love it. He might be really pissed and no one believes him.

12:12 That is so funny.

12:13 They think, God, that's so cool. He just told me that far.

12:16 Get out of my face, you miserable. And people are like, thank you. Oh, that's so awesome. Do it again.

12:20 Do it again. That's so funny.

12:22 So there's a burden to being like a mouthy guy, I think. And it doesn't mean what he wants it to mean sometimes for people.

12:31 That is so funny.

12:33 We need to get into this episode.

12:34 All right, let's do it.

12:35 Let's do it. I love this episode. Okay, yes, it's weird.

12:38 So take us to the title.

12:39 Yeah, well, it's like, it's weird.

12:40 No, it's great.

12:40 Okay, you guys, listen, from UBN, go and visit SimuVal.com. And you, our patrons on Patreon, this is The Little House on the Prayer 50th Anniversary Podcast, Halloween edition.

12:52 Yeah.

12:53 Boo-bee-woo-woo.

13:06 Okay, guys, let's do this Halloween, not Halloween episode. What are we doing?

13:11 All right, so today's episode sounds like a Halloween episode. Yes. But it's not. So we're doing Haunted House.

13:20 I'd say it's under the umbrella.

13:21 Under the umbrella.

13:22 Yeah, right.

13:23 It has that spooky title vibe.

13:26 And music.

13:26 And it does have elements, for sure. But it's not a Halloween episode in the strictest sense. Haunted House is season two's episode five. It premiered on October 8th, 1975, written by Ray Goldrup. The story, Ray Goldrup and John Hawkins and B.W. Sandifer did the teleplay.

13:48 Sandifer, all the time, yeah.

13:51 Have we recapped anything that Ray Goldrup has done? Because that name is brand new to me.

13:57 Yeah, no, I think this is a first.

13:58 Interesting.

13:59 Okay.

13:59 Yeah, I think this is a first that we've done of him. But this is unusual that there are three people, there are three creatives on this one. The episode was produced by John Hawkins. Obviously, the series at this point produced by Michael Landon and Ed Friendly, directed by... victor french.

14:20 Who did an amazing job yeah it really did oh.

14:26 My gosh so and our the guest star in the episode haunted house really i think it's a wonderful wonderful performance by john anderson as the as the uh as the source of Laura's need to cure and aid people, Amos Pike.

14:46 Girl, not a healthy pattern to fall into, but it worked for her for this episode. You can't fix them all, Laura, because you can't fix all men. You can't fix them all. But this one, she could. That's good. She kind of does.

15:01 Yeah. I got news for you. No, she does. You can't fix women either. I hear you.

15:05 I hear you. I hear you.

15:08 Yeah.

15:09 Definitely.

15:11 Just general life.

15:12 So, you know, they're just, that cuts both ways. We cannot fix people.

15:18 No, we can't.

15:19 Nobody can fix someone. It's only so far you can go.

15:21 Correct.

15:21 You can lead a horse to water, as they say.

15:24 Yeah, yeah.

15:24 You know, but there's only so much you can do.

15:27 But there's something wonderfully aspirational about it. Yes. I think we want to believe in that, that with love and kindness, you can turn somebody's life.

15:37 Yeah.

15:37 Hard to do. Yeah. Hard to do. It has to come from within. And it does, you know, in this episode. Oh, for sure. It does. So, Allison, what's the episode about?

15:50 This is, okay, okay. You know, Pamela was going, it's weird. I think the episode is weird.

15:56 It is weird.

15:57 But I think it is a great episode, actually. I do, too.

16:00 I just had it up on my little screen because this thing's a trip. So, yeah, I mean, and John, this guy, John Anderson, oh, my Lord, IMDB, this guy.

16:10 He's done a lot of work. Yeah, he's done a lot of work. Just in time for Halloween. It is kind of Halloween-y. It is called Haunted House.

16:16 Yeah, it is. And Laura enters the mysterious world of Amos Pike, a frightening old recluse who lives alone in a creepy, dilapidated house that becomes a blind school in several other people's homes.

16:28 But whatever.

16:28 Yeah, I know.

16:29 Every child in the world will grow. I love how that house, which has been beautiful with those stairs, they threw.

16:36 A bunch of dirt and garbage.

16:37 And went, look, it's terrible now.

16:40 It was terrible first and then became a pretty house.

16:44 What is this beautiful, huge Victorian home doing flat in the middle of this prairie?

16:49 I don't understand. I think that question has been asked on a number of occasions.

16:53 Paul answers it because when she, we get a teeny, teeny bit of backstory on the guy.

16:57 Because when Laura, after I, of course, yeah, Mrs.

17:00 Olsen says he's a homicidal maniac. When she does talk to Paul later, he's like, well, he was here before any of the other settlers. So he was there before anybody and apparently built this giant freaking house because he didn't know.

17:13 How?

17:13 Where things were going.

17:15 How?

17:15 That's a very good question.

17:17 How?

17:18 These are questions we just don't answer.

17:20 Just have to accept it and move on.

17:22 As this says, Nellie Olsen never wants to, never wanted to pass up the opportunity to get Laura into trouble.

17:28 Dares her to prove her courage by stealing a piece of wood. What is this? I've heard of Touch the Fence of a Spooky Ass, but go take a piece of it. Who came up with this? So weird.

17:37 And of course, Willie and I and some girl named Jane.

17:42 And I'm like, who the hell is Jane? What is going on?

17:45 We'll talk about Jane in a second. Because who and why?

17:47 And where?

17:48 We've never seen her before and we never do see her again.

17:51 She's like the only character I want in the Vortex series. before she even comes back for her second scene.

17:56 She's like filling in.

17:58 Honest to God, I think she's like filling in for Tracy Savage. Like Tracy Savage, who was little like Kathy Kennedy, is.

18:04 Somehow not there. So we had Jane.

18:06 And Jane is like backing us up going, yes, Gary, like who the hell is Jane?

18:10 Okay, but I love how I talk to her in the thing. It's really great.

18:14 But yeah, so the three of us harass poor Laura into doing this, into creeping up on this scary house. But what begins as his childhood dare turns into something nobody expects because behind the.

18:26 Frightening exterior is a lonely man, a lonely man carrying a heartbreaking secret. And Laura, who's never been particularly good at minding her own business, and.

18:35 Boy, she's bad at this one, promises to be Walnut Grove's answer to a Halloween horror movie turns out to be a tender story about love lost and the ghosts we carry to heart.

18:45 Yeah, there were times in my notes I was like, Is she going to leave this guy alone? Jesus. No.

18:50 She absolutely will not mind her own business. She commits burglary, breaking and entering, trespassing.

18:56 I'm like, what is going on? And somehow this all works out.

19:00 That's the prairie way.

19:03 But John Anders.

19:05 John Anders, he was on freaking Dallas. He was on The Twilight Zone four, four, four, count them, four times. And he played Abraham Lincoln.

19:15 I can totally believe that.

19:16 Oh, I would believe that, too.

19:18 He played Abraham Lincoln.

19:20 Three different times in three different productions, films, TV shows, when they needed Abraham Lincoln, they simply called him.

19:27 Wow.

19:27 He was Abraham Lincoln multiple times.

19:30 Get that gig.

19:31 Which totally makes sense.

19:33 Yeah.

19:33 And he was on three episodes of Bonanza. That's, I guess, where Michael found him.

19:37 Sure.

19:38 And he was in everything. He was so good.

19:40 He was in Psycho.

19:41 He was in the movie Psycho.

19:43 Yes.

19:43 Is he really?

19:44 Wow.

19:44 So it's like, I want to have a John Anderson film festival now.

19:48 I'm ready.

19:49 I want to go through this whole line. and watch every single thing he's ever done because he's amazing.

19:55 Yeah, he's really good.

19:55 I thought he was terrific.

19:56 He's really good.

19:57 Yeah.

19:58 Oof.

19:58 Okay. Let's start. Let's do this thing.

20:03 Yeah. So, so what I've done here, so, well, we, you can, we can look, we can walk through this, you know, well, I, we can walk through it scene by scene if we choose to, but I think what we get here, what we get here in the very beginning of the episode is we get this foreboding presence and David Rose playing someone into sort of, you know, spooky, spooky thing. Yeah. And, and, Mrs. Olsen, washing windows at the mercantile, sees him coming and just flips out.

20:37 Yeah.

20:38 And like runs for cover.

20:40 Children, go, go, run away.

20:42 Yeah. Yeah.

20:44 And you notice Nels does not buy into any of this nonsense.

20:48 Nels just serves the guys like what he's wrong with all of you.

20:51 You know, I think Nels is careful.

20:54 Yes.

20:55 He's respectful. He's not, this guy is clearly not Nels' buddy. No. But Nels is okay. I mean, Nels knows that there's nothing, he's not going to get hurt. but he's very respectful.

21:06 And this guy looks creepy, let's face it. He looks creepy and he doesn't talk and he's not really friendly. So yes, there's maybe a bit of concern.

21:14 They all agree.

21:15 Even Ma and Pa agree he's a recluse, but Nels is like, he knows he's gonna pay.

21:19 He knows he's made a purchase. He's ordered something. He's like, I got your thing. And of course he pays an exact change.

21:24 He's like, oh wait, and now you've left.

21:27 Okay, he is weird. So he does freak him out a little, but he's not mean.

21:33 So then we go to this house, this mysterious, how did this house get built home? And that is also used as every other house that we need it for, like the blind school and everything.

21:43 It apparently was built a long time ago. We are getting the idea from Paul that like this happened ages ago that he showed up and built this huge house and blah, blah, blah, you know, so.

21:53 But it's dilapidated. I mean, it is not in good condition. He walks in, he's clearly a hoarder. There are spider webs, there's trash everywhere, all the furniture is in disarray. It is not well kept up. But then, this is the stuff of nightmares that happens. He has this.

22:11 Is it a music box?

22:12 How would you say it? How would you describe it? Was it the music?

22:15 Spooky, spooky music box music.

22:17 David Rose was really great at writing music box music for some reason.

22:21 Remember with the famous episode, that had a specific theme.

22:26 This one is its own theme and somewhere there's sheet music and it probably had a title and a thing.

22:32 So it was really great.

22:33 But there's some great moments here, like, first of all, who the hell is Jane, this strange girl, who I looked her up.

22:39 Apparently, this is like her only role.

22:40 This is it.

22:41 She was in this. This is it.

22:43 She's a perfect stranger, apparently. And Jane, of course, is the little girl that's hanging out with Nellie and Willie and tormenting Laura along with them. But yes, she's a new henchperson that we've never seen before. We'll never see again. And it's kind of like, what is the.

22:59 I looked her up to see this girl, if she'd been in anything else. No, no, she is this mysterious person who just appears and then goes away.

23:07 Maybe she's a ghost. And it's very weird.

23:09 And when I speak to her, apparently I am the Dowager Empress.

23:14 I do love when I turn and go, yes, and what do you think about that, Jane? And I go, what am I doing here? I start speaking to her as if we're in some sort of Victorian drama.

23:25 But before that happens, we see into his home and we see this music box with this twirling, twirling woman who is identical to the woman in the portrait that he is always looking at.

23:37 Which looks totally Disney Haunted Mansion.

23:40 1000%. And as he's talking to the music box with the twirling twirly girl in the background, we have a real human woman identical to the music box and portrait woman twirling, twirling in the background, which is the stuff of nightmares. This is the stuff that little... This is when little kids think that their dolls come to life at night, which I did. I certainly believed that when I went to sleep at night, all the dolls came alive, and it was terrifying. I know, horrible.

24:11 That's terrible.

24:11 Stuff of nightmares. That's why this is a Halloween episode, 100%.

24:14 Now, this beautiful lady, who we find, yes, of course, is his missing wife, and he's just stuck on her, is Lily Boldwood, played by a woman named Lisa Lyon, L-Y-O-N.

24:28 And I looked her up, and I was a little taken aback by some of the movie titles that she'd been in.

24:33 Oh, my God.

24:34 What type of career she was having.

24:36 But then I found out, She was an enormously famous American bodybuilder, was one of the absolutely leading women in the weightlifting bodybuilding movement, was a grand champion many times over in American bodybuilding.

24:52 She is huge in that particular industry.

24:54 And did, in fact, pose for Playboy magazine when they wished to feature a different type of playmate, someone who was an actual bodybuilder.

25:02 So she was in some films that.

25:04 Were kind of vaguely naughty. because she had like, you know, the bod for it.

25:10 Bod of steel, right.

25:11 Kind of sex romp comedy.

25:13 She looked great in the wardrobe.

25:15 I know, that is just like the last thing I was expecting you to say.

25:19 Precisely.

25:20 What do you think I thought?

25:21 I went, oh, let's see who she is.

25:23 What?

25:24 What the? She was in what?

25:26 I wonder where Victor knew her from. Because this is like.

25:32 Where did they find this gal?

25:34 Where did they find her?

25:36 A stunning woman.

25:38 Yeah, beautiful. Just beautiful.

25:41 And she moved well.

25:42 You could see that she was moving. She was twirling nicely in the mirror. You know, what I love about this is the episode very quickly sets up where the, you know, what that sort of that epicenter of the problem or the challenge or the. strangeness is. It's right there. I mean, you see it when he comes in the mercantile.

26:06 It's reinforced coming into the cobweb-filled dark house that just feels, it does feel like a haunted, it is a haunted house.

26:16 Dean, you often talk about with these scripts about having a B story and so on.

26:20 Am I right? This has no B story?

26:22 No, there's no B story.

26:23 This is what you get. This is the story. The story is about this, the end.

26:27 Yeah. Yeah.

26:28 I know this is a good episode, certainly a lovely episode. I found this episode very peculiar.

26:36 And I.

26:36 You know what it made me think?

26:39 Do tell.

26:39 Well, I was like, what's another episode that's sort of similar to this? And I think the My Ellen episode is similar to this. In the sense that it's another sort of disturbed person and going through trauma and.

26:53 Hallucinating.

26:53 And hallucinating, yeah. And Laura helps to get them to the other side of that. And we realize they're just.

26:59 Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My Ellen is the crazy evangelist woman, right? No, no.

27:06 My Ellen is the one who kidnaps her.

27:07 Her daughter drowns. Her daughter drowns. Sorry, that's a different one.

27:11 Keeps her in the cellar and dresses her up like her child.

27:14 I was thinking about Whisper. I was thinking about Whisper Country.

27:16 Oh, all three of these could be under the Halloween umbrella because they're all very spooky.

27:21 We should have, yes, people who just totally lost it. But yeah, My Ellen, she's in the creepy house and the lady thinks she's somebody else.

27:30 But for some reason, I don't know, I just felt like My Ellen was more, this sounds ridiculous.

27:35 Yes.

27:36 More plausible than this one. I don't know why. There was something about my Ellen that I felt more... I don't know. Maybe it's because there was no B story in this one. I don't know. There was something about this episode that I was like, this is a little bizarre to me. And maybe it was also because I was with a bunch of bonnet heads over the weekend that were talking about the books and the historical accuracy.

28:01 So I was sort of immersed in that. And then watching this episode made me realize just how how drastically Michael Landon veered from the books completely. And this is an episode, the example of an episode that has nothing to do with actual Little House on the Prairie, nothing to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder's books or the historical act.

28:23 I mean, absolutely fantasy, 100% fiction. So I think I was carrying that with me. And it's a super religious episode, oddly.

28:31 It becomes, it's one of the more directly religious Bible quote, seek help through prayer episodes, which is totally another odd term.

28:39 So I'm sorry, you're talking about my Ellen.

28:41 No, this one.

28:42 No, this one.

28:43 Because it was the Bible verse that got him out. I mean, we're going ahead. We're skipping to the end now, but.

28:48 This episode does have heavy religious themes, which is surprising to have in this episode, to be where it finally goes.

28:55 You don't think that's where it's going to go. And that's, yeah.

28:58 It was just such, it's just such a departure from any kind of Little House, any kind of Laura Ingalls Wilder books or historical that I think it was in my head. Not like my Ellen was historically accurate either.

29:12 Yeah.

29:13 I thought it was weird to start with because, like I said, I'm making notes like, you know, my first thought was, oh, it's the house from Great Expectations. It's the old lady with.

29:21 The wedding cake.

29:21 Yes, right.

29:21 Havisham.

29:22 Havisham, yes.

29:23 He's doing Havisham here. But I like that. But, yes, it was so weird. Like, oh, my God, who is Jane? Why am I talking like the Dowager Empress? What is happening? And my favorite moment when we talk about, yes, you have to. And I'm talking like somebody. Yes, everybody knows you have to touch a maniac's house. Where am I coming up with this?

29:42 And then weirdly on top of this, Willie, the brilliant Jonathan Gilbert says, yes, like ladybugs. I will never, as long as I live, know what this means. Did somebody cut a line from the script.

29:55 Or something that explained that?

29:57 Where?

29:57 Out of nowhere. Yes, everyone. He says, yes, everyone knows that. It's like ladybugs. And everybody goes, what?

30:03 Okay. What is like ladybugs? What is a ladybug? What the hell are you talking about, child?

30:08 And I don't know what. So there's a bunch of weird stuff going on. And it just makes no sense. And then she will not leave him alone. She's supposed to. She goes in. Why does she go in? She goes in. She's scared.

30:19 She goes upstairs. I know. What's going on?

30:21 Well, she follows Jack. She follows Jack upstairs.

30:24 She follows Jack. But she will not stop. She won't get out of that frickin' house.

30:28 Yeah.

30:29 And then she talks.

30:29 Yes.

30:30 And I'm like, she will not leave him alone. And I'm like, this is weird. This is weird.

30:34 Okay.

30:34 Ultimately, I wound up loving this episode.

30:36 But yes, it starts off so weird.

30:40 Yes. I don't know what I'm watching. Okay. As I was watching this, I'm thinking, this is... And Pamela, you do the wonderful impression of... Melissa at that stage in her life. Yes, I did. And there's just this episode is filled with those kinds, that kind of earnestness that I think made Melissa extraordinary in the show. Yes. And you, you know, as much as you'd say what kid we don't necessarily, it's, it's challenging to think that a kid would do this, but she absolutely makes you believe that she is committed to this and she steps into it fully.

31:22 And it's, it's heartfelt. And she takes the, you know, she gets hurt initially. And then she, I love it when Pa comes, we're jumping, I'm jumping in, but when Pa comes and sees how he, the old man is behaving and Laura comes out of the house, I think he really likes me.

31:41 I love that moment.

31:44 He really likes me and pause watching him and looking at her and like, wow, really? And I think it's such a great Laura episode because you see this just irrepressible goodness that people love about that character. Yeah. And particularly at that age, she was just amazing at that age.

32:07 She really, really was.

32:07 And it's this seemingly implausible behavior, like, what is she doing?

32:11 And you're right.

32:11 She sells it. Just when you're going, oh, get out of the house. What on earth?

32:15 But she looks at you and you go, oh, well, yes, that's what she'd do. That's what she would do.

32:19 That's what she does. That's great dialogue.

32:23 You do get the sadness of this man because he's talking to the invisible lady in his spinning hat.

32:27 The creepy, creepy doll that comes alive at night, yes.

32:31 What's the good of being beautiful if the truth ain't in ya? That's a great freaking line. I also personally enjoy my line when Laura's trying to trap rabbits.

32:42 And says, be quiet. I said, I don't have to be quiet. That's my box. It's like ladybugs.

32:50 There's so many random lines in this that are brilliant.

32:54 What does he call her?

32:55 He calls her.

32:58 He says she's... Who, his wife or.

33:00 No, no, he calls Laura.

33:02 Oh, a snap, a snap.

33:04 Snippity snap.

33:04 Snippity snap. Snippity snap.

33:06 Snippity snap. And that's sort of like Houston Lamp, who is a flutter, but she, it's a, you're a feisty, plum pure, perfect feisty. I mean, it's like, it's all of that language that's so... A snippety snap. It's benign and it's flustered. People don't know what to call her.

33:28 And yet it totally makes sense.

33:30 Yeah.

33:31 I totally understood what he meant when he said you're a snippety snap.

33:34 He called her a snippety snap, which is, yeah, because, and indeed, Houston Lamb has a similar, he also.

33:39 Called her, I wrote it down because I like it so much, a runny-nosed little upstart.

33:45 That's great, too.

33:48 I'm going to start using that. I need to call somebody up. You runny-nosed little upstart. I'm going to use that in conversation somewhere.

33:56 Well, okay, let's go back for two seconds. So, obviously, Nellie and Willie and this random Vortex girl, Jane. What the hell, Jane? Who are you, Jane? Who are you, Jane?

34:06 And why are you there?

34:07 And your only purpose is to be a bitch along with the prairie bitch extraordinaire. Okay, Jane, go into the Vortex by now, please. Anyway, they taunt Laura, they dare her to go to this haunted house, and Laura does, and that's why she ends up in that. Also, Laura takes the bait so easily for Nellie. Of course. As all kids do, it's just so frustrating to be like, just ignore her, but you can't. There wouldn't be a.

34:32 Story or a plot line. There's no drama if she ignores her.

34:34 Exactly. It would be a very, very boring show if she ignored Nellie.

34:39 It's like if you just blew off all the horrible things that Nellie said. It's like there's no show.

34:43 There's no show.

34:45 It's like I always say about soap operas.

34:48 If on any soap opera, if one character, any character actually minded their own business for like three.

34:54 Hours, it's over. The show would be over.

34:56 The whole show is over.

34:57 I know.

34:57 I get it.

34:58 Constantly.

34:59 I get it. I was watching going like, Lord, don't take the bait. She took the bait.

35:03 No, no, no.

35:05 Anyway, so that's how she ends up in the house and sees the music box and she gets very scared and he catches her and she runs away and it's terrifying.

35:14 But actually, this is when she... I made a short... There's a list here. So she breaks into his house with a dog. Then the dog attacks his pet cat.

35:25 Then she breaks a probably very expensive vase and still doesn't leave and then surprises him, scaring him half to death, nearly giving a heart attack. And then insults him and insults his housekeeping.

35:37 Right.

35:38 Day one.

35:40 Yes, insults his housekeeping.

35:42 Because she snaps back at him. She's leaving and she decides to snippety snap at him before she leaves.

35:50 Yes. And she's so endearing doing it. She's so endearing.

35:57 Yes, but then that night with Pa, she feels very badly about it because she comes out to Pa and says, I feel bad. I want to go back and apologize. And Pa's like, what the huh? Also, Pa's like, okay. And I'm thinking, you're letting her go back to the house of the crazy man who hates you? It's a little house chatter.

36:18 It's day at the fair.

36:19 My nine-year-old daughter has become friends with another elderly stranger?

36:24 Yes, of course. A creepy, creepy man lives in a hoarder house with the spinning wife in the background.

36:29 Okay, sure, Laura.

36:31 Go ahead.

36:33 Go over and see him, but don't bug him too much.

36:36 Sure.

36:37 He has a right to be strange. He's, you know.

36:41 And Pa seems to know, because like Mrs. Olsen doesn't know who he is. He's a maniac.

36:46 But Pa and Ma seem to have the whole backstory. They're like, well, you know, he was here before the settlers.

36:51 He has a right to live.

36:52 Because he was here before anything. It was just him and the Native Americans and the wild animals. And he can do whatever he likes.

36:58 Yes, he keeps to himself. And clearly he's had problems. And they're like, I'm like, do they know this guy?

37:03 Just leave him alone.

37:04 Yeah.

37:04 And clearly the aliens helped him build the huge Victorian house. Just like the pyramids.

37:10 Yeah.

37:10 Okay, so she decides to go back. So she makes the plan that she's going to go back. And Mary is also like, what the what?

37:18 Why? Voice of reason, don't do that.

37:21 Mary. This is when Mary's narkness is actually appropriate. She's absolutely right. Yes.

37:26 She's right.

37:27 Mary is right.

37:28 But Laura won't listen because Laura doesn't listen.

37:31 Because Laura's going to do Laura.

37:33 Yeah. And that's, again... if she listened to Mary, there's no show.

37:42 Correct.

37:43 So... It would.

37:44 Be real boring.

37:45 It would be done.

37:49 He says, I.

37:50 Need to clean it up, and she says, meaning won't make it fit for woolly bears. Ha!

37:57 Wow. Oh, that's cool.

37:58 Who wrote this? Who wrote this?

38:00 Three guys wrote this.

38:02 Three people. It took three people to come up with this dialogue.

38:08 It's like ladybugs. Oh, ladybugs.

38:11 Yeah, and I think this, while we don't know that, Nate, we haven't seen the first man's, right, but B.W. Sandifer and, I mean, these are, You know, this team on this episode was a really strong team. These guys go way back.

38:27 It's just a bizarre... This is why the episode is bizarre, though. It's just sort of like, who are these people? Why are we here? And why are you talking like this? It's just a slight departure from like a normal episode.

38:42 It sounds like it was a standalone script that the guy we're not as familiar with perhaps wrote, and then Sandifer and Michael and everybody.

38:49 Got together and went, hey, we like this. How do we make this into a Little House episode?

38:55 I would believe that.

38:57 Yeah, totally. And I would just say, as we're running on the clock here, and I'm always waving the clock in front of people, but it's a totally satisfying story. Oh, sure. Yes. It's completely satisfying because everyone is doing their job. Yes. I mean, this guy is wonderful. Melissa is– She really is wonderful. John Anderson is wonderful.

39:21 Okay.

39:21 Melissa is wonderful.

39:23 Great.

39:23 Allison, you're not too shabby yourself.

39:25 No, no.

39:26 I mean, you're goading her as always.

39:27 I'm great in this.

39:28 I'm so awful.

39:29 I'm so mean.

39:29 The wonderful little scenes with Pa and Laura, this is where that relationship, it's this time in the series where that relationship is really built. And they're lovely moments between father and daughter in this episode.

39:45 And when she gets to town.

39:47 And we know it's going to hit the fan in Mankato because he's brought up Mankato, she's brought up Mankato.

39:52 Oh, she wants to go on a walk, right?

39:53 It's like Mankato, Mankato. And sure enough, she goes to Mankato.

39:59 Because she's going to play detective and go to the theater and detect the thing because the old man has said, well, she's Mankato. She never came back from her show and she's out there performing.

40:09 In the big city of Mankato. I'm going to get a Mankato. I'm going to do Mankato. And you know it's going to be bad. You know there's going to be a problem.

40:15 The guy at the theater she talks to, another brilliant actor, apparently he's originally from Germany, and he's, like, amazing.

40:22 He was wonderful. You've got to go look up his stuff.

40:24 He was wonderful.

40:24 And he only has this one little scene where he kind of delivers the big bad news to Laura.

40:30 Yeah.

40:30 And he's so good. He's so lovely and gentle.

40:33 He's terrific.

40:33 He's like, I'm sorry. She got cholera and, you know, we all miss her. Honey, she's not around anymore. You can't. And then when she says, oh, it's too bad, I wish you didn't. And he goes, yeah, I wish she was too.

40:46 And he clearly, you always get, this guy only had one scene and you start to wonder like, did he have an affair with her?

40:53 Was he in love with her? When he says, I miss her too.

40:55 This guy had some kind of thing going on. He was her best friend or her boyfriend or something.

41:00 He's great. You totally get that.

41:02 This is your bad, this is your badness coming through now, Allison. No.

41:06 I don't think there's any agenda with this guy. It's called layers on the prairie.

41:13 It's called what on the prairie?

41:14 Layers, layers on the prairie.

41:17 This guy had layers.

41:18 He brought layers to his part.

41:21 But he clearly missed her. For a guy who had one little teeny tiny scene, but he has to deliver this bad news and go, yeah, I really miss her too.

41:29 You go.

41:30 oh, wow, this was like a whole movie just now in this tiny little scene.

41:34 What just happened? This guy's great, he's great.

41:36 Because in the meantime, Laura thinks that this wife Lily is coming back any moment now. So she's getting this old man, Pike, to clean his house and straighten it up and cut out the hoarding and he's doing it.

41:48 Laura's gonna go get her.

41:49 Laura thought she was gonna go have a thing where she was gonna convince the lady to come home.

41:53 She's gonna talk to her and talk her into coming back. She was ready to go.

41:57 Yeah. So I think we should take a little break.

42:02 Here because once the truth is out of the bag, that's what the rest of the episode turns on how Laura handles it now after getting that news.

42:13 Absolutely.

42:14 Okay. We'll come back with the conclusion of The Haunted House.

42:21 From the pioneers to the presidents, explore beautiful wildflowers, hike through iconic Hollywood locations, and end your day aboard the actual Air Force One at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. Throughout the summer, take the Little House 50th Anniversary Tour at Big Sky Movie Ranch. Less than 15 minutes from Los Angeles and 30 minutes from Universal Studios, Simi Valley has small-town charm with big-time history. Go to visitsimivalley.com for more information. We are so grateful to visitsimivalley.com for their commitment to presenting the Little House 50th Anniversary Podcast.

43:05 All right.

43:06 I mean, it really does turn on that scene.

43:08 It does, yeah, for sure.

43:09 Yeah, totally.

43:10 Although I totally knew she was dead the whole time.

43:13 Yeah, no, of course.

43:14 She's like a ghost.

43:14 Totally knew she was dead. Yes, she's a ghost from the very beginning. I think we're back already. We probably need to start. And we're back. We're back. And we're back.

43:24 Oh, here's your science moment. Cholera, it's a bacterium, usually unsanitary conditions.

43:29 Yes.

43:30 There was a big pandemic in India in the early 1800s, and then there was a worldwide thing. And yes, being that time period, yes, it works out. So in 18, oh, yep, yep, yep, there was a big North America. Absolutely, there was a cholera epidemic, a pandemic at that time in the correct timing.

43:47 For her to be dead for a while. It was a thing.

43:49 Isn't it contaminated water?

43:52 It's mostly water, right?

43:54 Yes.

43:54 Any unsanitary conditions, contaminated water, yes. But once it starts spreading, it's like, yeah, bad.

44:02 Yeah.

44:02 It's bad.

44:03 Well, because water just sort of goes everywhere. So it's like.

44:07 And treatable now, not so much then.

44:10 Not so much then.

44:11 Of course. That's why whenever people say, oh, I wish I lived back in that time.

44:15 Yeah, right. No.

44:17 No, you don't. No, thank you. There was no penicillin. There was nothing. There was cholera.

44:22 Yeah.

44:22 Y'all aren't thinking things through. Okay.

44:25 So here we go. We're coming back. And I think if we're just sort of moving forward with this, Laura has got to go back and deliver... The bad news. Here's, I think, so let's talk about Victor as a director for a minute. Brilliant. Victor had a wonderful way of pushing people, just of raising the stakes in these kinds of scenes. And both sides of the scene, with Melissa and with John Anderson, they both are at a heightened pitch coming in. This is very hard news for Laura to deliver. And you can see that this is news he does not want to hear. And I think Victor does a wonderful job of making this very painful for both of them.

45:18 Do you know what he did that I found absolutely which is, it's again, the image of the old man talking to Lily, and you see the human version of Lily in the background twirling, twirling, twirling. And then it cuts to Laura replaces the Lily in the background. And I thought, oh my God, that is genius. It was genius.

45:41 It was such a brilliant device that shattered his fantasy world and. Made him come into reality, and Laura was the reality. Just, it was a brilliant device that Victor French used. Absolutely brilliant.

45:58 And he doesn't take the news well.

46:01 Mm-hmm.

46:02 I mean, he's, you know, he's really.

46:03 Like, freaks. Yeah. But then it becomes apparent that it's like, we're sitting there going, so, did he think she left him?

46:12 Did she die and he forgot? Did he die? He was in denial.

46:15 And then as he starts to rant and rave about it, like that doctor.

46:21 Oh, wait, you mean like the doctor who already told you that she died? Oh, boy.

46:25 And it all starts horribly tumbling out that, of course, he knows that she died of cholera.

46:31 And they told him he.

46:32 Has been fighting in this denial going, no.

46:36 She's alive. She's alive. She's alive.

46:38 This whole. time he was desperately in love with her he was desperately in love with her and his whole built his whole life around her and how he felt about her and and that's a beautiful idea it's i mean it's it's it's obviously not healthy.

46:55 No but it's his entire life stopped yeah.

46:58 But it's But there is a sort of a beautiful idea in that.

47:02 Yeah, absolutely.

47:03 And he really loves her. He talks about, no one sang like you.

47:07 They all came from everywhere.

47:08 Yes, all of that.

47:09 You sing, you dance. She was brilliant. He loved her. She was beautiful.

47:13 Everything, as soon as he's going to take her back, I know you've left me, but please come back.

47:18 I mean, he really loves her. He talked to her, when I proposed, and you said, yeah, this was a great romance. They were madly in love. She loved him.

47:25 Yeah. Yeah. Well, we certainly know that– I'm not so sure I know where she was, but we know where he was definitely in the situation.

47:37 Yeah.

47:40 Maybe you two are more certain about what the nature of the relationship was. But the disease sort of covers– she got ill, she died from this disease. Right. We know he's devastated, and.

47:57 Now Laura has to try and repair him.

48:04 And she didn't abandon him. She didn't walk out on him. She died.

48:07 But the poor man, like a child, saying, but you left me. You left me when someone has died.

48:14 Once he gets.

48:14 It, you know, once she's able to make that case for him, he turns pretty quickly.

48:24 He sure does.

48:25 You know, which is, of course, in a 48-minute teleplay, you've got to turn pretty quickly.

48:32 Well, that's where the religious aspect of the episode comes into play.

48:37 I obviously, that did not resonate strongly with me. So tell me, let's talk about that for a minute.

48:44 Well, of course, when Laura's saying, I don't know what to do.

48:48 I mean, he's so sad and... How do I get him out of this fantasy land? And how do I tell him she's dead? And Pa's like, well, yeah, we turned it off. And she's reading the Bible.

48:59 And she says, Pa, is it true?

49:00 Is it true?

49:01 I am the resurrection and the life.

49:03 Of course. Thank you. Sorry.

49:05 Yes. And then there's.

49:06 A beautiful scene where she says, I don't think he has faith. He doesn't go to church. And Pa says, that's okay. Lots of people have faith who don't go to church. And she says, Does God listen to people who may not go to church or read the Bible?

49:23 And he goes, of course he does, Laura.

49:25 Of course he does.

49:27 Boom, shakalaka.

49:28 Paul, yes, Paul, we love you. Right. Oh, God, of course. What am I? God, thank you. Yes, the scene, she has read the Bible. She goes and puts it in the tree.

49:37 Yes.

49:39 He leaves him a Bible in a log like he's a raccoon or something.

49:43 I left him a treat.

49:44 It's a little weird.

49:46 That was another moment where I went, this show is so weird.

49:49 I know.

49:50 He's leaving a Bible in a log, but yet he goes and gets it. It works.

49:55 It works.

49:56 It's a very strange moment. And then he does take it, though.

50:00 And then she eventually comes back. And Nellie is also back with Nellie and Willie and Jane, who I have more contempt for Jane than I do for Nellie at this point.

50:11 We hate Jane.

50:12 We hate Jane.

50:13 Oh, no, come on. No.

50:14 Not cool.

50:15 This little girl was just doing a job.

50:18 Nope.

50:19 Not okay. Not okay.

50:21 Okay, okay.

50:22 She was aiding and abetting. Okay. Not okay. And then we never see her again. So, oh, well. Bye, Jamie.

50:29 Yeah.

50:30 Paul's exact words, even people who aren't much on religion turn to God in their hour of need.

50:37 True.

50:37 That is true.

50:38 Yes, yes, yes.

50:40 And when she says, but does God listen to them?

50:42 And he says, sure, he does. Paul's like, no, God is there for everybody. You don't have to be all perfect in going to church. God knows what you're going through.

50:50 It's fine.

50:51 And so she goes, all right, well, I guess I can do something for this guy then. And off she goes with her Bible to his door.

50:57 And that is why this show is, if you mind me, is not just for Christians, because it is for every... This message is entirely universal.

51:09 Everybody, yes.

51:10 Everybody.

51:11 And Michael Landon intended it to be that, you know.

51:15 I totally agree with that. This is, I think this is... This is really Michael at one of his, I mean, this is, I think, deeply in the space of where Michael believed. He wanted to, everybody to have a path to peace and to comfort and to some understanding of a larger world around them. And I don't think it mattered to him what that path was.

51:44 No.

51:46 You know, we have Reverend Alden, we have Churchill. But he accepted, he brought everything. Yes. He made it all available in the most holistic, humanistic way. He made these messages available. And I think this is one of the things about the series that people have loved, loved, loved passionately forever because it does not change.

52:13 It's not judgy.

52:13 At its best, it doesn't, and it doesn't limit a path to good.

52:17 Well, and also, the... But I love this episode. That's right. But also, like, the teachings of Christianity, of loving thy neighbor, right? Gener... Loving thy neighbor, right? If that's going to be the basis, who's going to be offended by that? Who and who would feel excluded by that? The way that they presented it on the show was not to the exclusion of others.

52:41 It was completely inclusive of everybody.

52:44 You probably may have heard the story about when our lovely Dabs Greer was in the hospital, the hospital chaplain wanted to talk to him because.

52:53 Hello, Reverend Aldi Hospital, gee, fan base much?

52:57 But when he talked to him, he talked to Pam Roylands, who was visiting there, and explained that he literally became a pastor because of Dabbs.

53:04 Great performance on Little House on the Prairie.

53:06 Because of Dabbs, yeah.

53:07 And he said he had been raised in a home where God was presented as being very hard and very judgmental, and church being a very difficult.

53:15 Thing, and like, you're not included, you're not worthy. And then he watched Little.

53:19 House, and he said, now this man, this Reverend Alden, is inclusive of saying that God loves us, that God wants.

53:26 What's best for us.

53:26 That's the kind of preacher I want to be. And so he said he made him his role model, and then did, in fact, become a minister.

53:34 So yes, he was very, very happy to meet Tabs. And I told you.

53:39 That reminds me, I told you this story before, but, you know, a couple of years ago, I had a pulmonary embolism. It was very serious. I was in the hospital for several, several days. And a priest came in to talk to me, and it was terrifying. But of course, the priest walks into my room, and inside my brain, I was like, wrong customer, buddy. Like, oh, God, here we go.

53:57 But he's going to have the right message for you.

53:59 Well, of course, of course. But in my head, I was just like, oh, boy. And he came up to me, and he said, hello, my name is Father blah, blah, blah, blah. And I work at this hospital, and I'm just here for you. And he went, now, I know you are Jewish, but. It really doesn't matter. And the second he said that, I burst into tears and we prayed together. And it didn't matter because it's a universal love. It is a universal energy. And my gosh, what we do to separate ourselves from each other is insane.

54:36 Being on the right team or the right club or being in the right club or whatever.

54:39 It's just about love. That's all it's about. It's just about love.

54:45 He gets that Bible. He goes to the headstone. That's it. He goes outside.

54:49 Yes, and he clears the headstone.

54:52 Some of us are going, she's dead, right? I mean, where is she?

54:55 She's buried.

54:56 And you go, oh, she's dead. She's in the front yard. The woman's been in the front yard the whole time.

55:02 She's there the whole time.

55:06 And he married her, you know, he did. So all of this denial, she's in a show, she's coming back.

55:12 He literally buried her himself in the front yard.

55:14 She has a tombstone. They had a service.

55:16 They had a tombstone. So, yes, he's just been going, I don't want it to be true. I don't want it to be true this whole time.

55:25 And, yeah, and then he's crying, help me to believe. Help me to believe.

55:33 Right, because he's saying, I don't know how to do this. You're telling me that we can do this. I don't know how to do it. And Laura comforts him. I mean, he puts his head on her shoulder and she is patting his head. I mean, my gosh.

55:48 It's very sweet. It's a very sweet. Laura embracing just being a force for good in the world, in her world. And she's available to anybody who needs that. I mean, I think there's a universality about Laura that's just beautiful in this. What I also love, right after this, as we race for the finish, this is classic Little House where Now she's co-opting him to pay Nellie back for her horridness.

56:30 And Jane, horrible Jane.

56:33 Jane, anything bad can happen.

56:35 Jane, go away. Get rid of Jane. Go away, Jane. Right, so she goes back to the house and Nellie and Jane and Willie are there and they're taunting her once more. God, they really are just so horrible.

56:50 Yeah, no, they're great villains, wonderful villains. We got nothing better to do.

56:53 Yeah, of course.

56:54 And you're in.

56:55 That prissy yellow dress that you, you know, the great yellow dress.

56:59 Love that dress.

57:01 Aren't you wearing that? You were wearing that there. I mean, you're almost wearing that throughout the episode, aren't you? You have other changes.

57:06 Yeah, it seems to be.

57:07 The yellow dress is in that week.

57:08 Yeah, yeah.

57:09 Yeah, so do you know, did you film those scenes consecutively then?

57:14 Oh, I'm sure.

57:14 You did that all just.

57:15 In one day.

57:15 Oh, you wouldn't have gone back to that location twice.

57:18 Right.

57:18 You shot all those things back to back to back to back.

57:21 Yeah, and maybe impossibly out of order, but in that same spot.

57:26 Everything was there, was shot there.

57:28 They weren't moving and then coming back to it.

57:31 No, we don't recapture the same ground twice.

57:34 You came in, you parked, you shot all day there, went, okay, next.

57:39 Right, so then to their dismay, Laura's like, okay, you dare me to go to the house? Okay, them not knowing that she's totally been in the house and transformed this man completely. So she goes to the... Yeah, she redecorates for God's sake. Okay. And they're like, oh my God, she went into the house. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

57:56 And then Laura comes back and they're like, what did he say?

57:59 What did he do?

57:59 And she was like, he wants to see you. And then you see him veering out of the window nastily at them. And then Millie and Willie, they all run away. They're very, very scared. They're wimps.

58:15 Cowardly, miserable wretches that we are. We run away.

58:18 And David Rose plays triumphant, humorous music there.

58:23 Because he's fine now.

58:24 He's all cured. Because everything's good. And he does that.

58:28 He winks.

58:29 He winks at her. He's in on the joke.

58:33 Amos is able to live again. Now, we'll never see Amos again, but I think we can presume that Amos has been cured. Yes. She says, see you in church.

58:44 She says, see you in church. She's going to come to the hands of Reverend Alden now. Which, unfortunately, we never do. Because I would have loved to have seen him as a recurring. Because, wow, this guy was amazing.

58:55 But see you in church. Yes, exactly. Exactly. I just think it's a terrific hour. I think one of my favorite performances that Melissa gave, I just think there's something so irrepressible. about her and so sweet and so decent and just fearless. And she radiates that.

59:18 And this is also an episode that I was watching going, oh my gosh, she is nine or ten years old. And this episode is pretty much all her. I mean, this is.

59:30 It's her and this guy. She and John Anderson were the episode.

59:33 And she is carrying the entire episode, as she does many, many episodes. It's just extraordinary to think that this little girl can do that so successfully.

59:45 And she's going toe to toe with this very classically trained, extremely experienced actor who's been in everything and worked with all the stars. And she's like right up here, just going, giving him back and giving him back and like nothing to it, like a ping pong game.

1:00:01 Totally.

1:00:02 Yeah, no, I think huge kudos to, I mean, this is just one of those episodes that reaffirms Melissa's, just enormous humanity and capacity, you know, to communicate something, to communicate goodness. And she's great.

1:00:18 Yeah, and she just had that innate spunk in her that I think she even says that about herself, just like this.

1:00:24 Oh, totally. She knew what she was bringing. I mean, at a certain point, she just was doing it then. When she was looking back on it, she knew, she had figured out and understood what she was bringing.

1:00:36 Yeah, yeah.

1:00:38 You know, when she talked about her process she was playing in the, it was all real for her.

1:00:45 Right.

1:00:45 At the, you know, at that she talked to, we did a long interview years ago and she talked about her process. It's bonus content. People have this episode, this thing has been on YouTube forever, but I did that interview with her and it's, it went on and on. It was like a two hour interview. And she talked about all of this and she talked about how preparation was so easy then because it was all just truth.

1:01:11 Everything was just, if she read it, that was what it was. There was no substitution. There was no process. There was no craft in that. This was Melissa bringing Melissa fully in. That's why she was hired.

1:01:26 Yeah.

1:01:27 Because she could do that.

1:01:28 Yeah.

1:01:29 And it just paid huge. It paid off huge in this episode that she had all that. Yeah.

1:01:36 Yeah.

1:01:36 Yeah.

1:01:37 Big time.

1:01:38 Well- That's the episode. Creepy Halloween. Happy Halloween, everybody.

1:01:45 I have favorite lines.

1:01:48 I now have a collection of favorite lines. You snot nose. Snippity snap.

1:01:54 You snippity snap.

1:01:57 Because it's like Ladybug.

1:01:59 It's like Carol Channing yelling raspberries.

1:02:02 Why?

1:02:03 It starts out so weird and by the.

1:02:04 End It's suddenly, it's about God. That's right. And it's about, and you're just like, what happened? What just happened to me?

1:02:14 Yeah. Yeah. And it just, it reaches out and just grabs you by the heart. Yeah. You just go with it because it's done so earnestly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just, love it. Love it. And I'm, you know what I mean? I'm not a religious person at all, but these episodes.

1:02:35 Because it is a universal theme. It's not religious so much as it is universal humanity, the universal force of love, which is what all of it is about or should be about.

1:02:50 I agree.

1:02:51 And that reaches to every single person, no matter what race, religion, creed you are. That's what it's about. Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk. And all right, that's our show, you guys. We did it. We did it. What a beautiful message this weird, weird episode left us with. I'm still sticking to it. It's a weird episode, but it was enjoyable. Yeah, no, it's enjoyable. It's just a little spooky.

1:03:22 It's like ladybugs.

1:03:23 Ladybugs! Everybody, it's time, Bob. Let's find out. Bob, get the wig.

1:03:31 Let's fly.

1:03:31 Ladybugs!

1:03:33 I think ladybugs do fly.

1:03:37 Of course they do.

1:03:37 Yeah.

1:03:40 Fly away, fly away home.