"THE PILOT EPISODE" 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.

0:09 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 Arncrow.

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. Well, hello, bonnet heads. How y'all doing? It is I, Pamela Bob, your host, creator and star of Living on a Prairie. Let's get right to it, you guys. We have a lot of show today. I am here with our beloved prairie bitch, Alison Arngrim. Bonjour. Bonjour. And our hashtag imaginary boyfriend.

1:35 Dean Butler.

1:36 Hi, guys. Good morning.

1:38 I left an element of suspense as if it might be someone else other than Dean Butler, but of course it's not.

1:43 Alison, did you put on your sexy secretary glasses there for a second? Yes, yes.

1:48 Aren't these great? Are these awesome? I love these. These are great.

1:51 Those do look really good on you. You have those and the gold ones. They both look so good.

1:55 I have the gold ones, but I have to get them fixed. They had broken. I had taken them to a very nice man who fixed them right away. And then they broke again. So they're in.

2:04 A little box.

2:05 Luckily, we have these. So I can see.

2:08 Yeah, those are great.

2:09 This is the new blouse. This is the new blouse.

2:12 French?

2:13 I got it 20 minutes ago. Jimmy handed it to me.

2:16 Oh!

2:16 This is the house of free clothes. The house of clothes. The house of free clothes.

2:22 I want to move to that house.

2:23 Stile Elegance. It's Instagram. You can look it up. Stile Elegance. And you can order clothes.

2:28 Yeah. Oh.

2:29 Oh.

2:30 Another fabulous Jimmy Martin, Steve Lilligant.

2:33 Okay, so you are still in France doing your shows. And it's going very well, I am assuming. Bananas, sold out, bananas. Insane. The French, baby, the French. We'll talk more about the French.

2:49 Yes, there's lots of French to talk about.

2:51 Lots of French to talk about. Dean, how are you doing?

2:54 You know, just plugging away with stuff.

2:59 I mean, it just, it's, and what I'm really involved with now is not so much little house related as it is life related.

3:06 So it's just- Your actual house related.

3:08 Yeah.

3:08 I mean, my actual house.

3:09 My family's house where I'm dealing with a lot of that right now.

3:13 So, you know, so.

3:17 I'm not going to go into too much detail about that.

3:20 No, of course not. It's just like, it's, It's stuff that we all go through.

3:23 Yeah.

3:24 And hopefully watching an episode. Yeah, of course. And hopefully watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie in the midst of all of that is a comforting thing. Hopefully.

3:33 And this particular one that we're going to talk about today is very comforting, very important because it really defines everything.

3:44 Oh, my God.

3:45 It's so good. That this show is about.

3:47 It's full of firsts. It's full of firsts. That's the thing I get made up like, and this is the first time we do this? And this is the first time we see this? And I'm so excited.

3:56 Yeah, okay. Okay, so should we just get to it? Okay, you guys. Today we're talking about an episode.

4:02 We're just starting at the very beginning.

4:04 Oh, I sure will. I'm just giving a little teaser, Dean Butler. Here we go.

4:09 From.

4:10 It's okay. Listen, yes, we're starting at the very beginning today. And I can't believe we haven't done this one yet, which is bizarre that we're in season four and we're just doing this one now. Anyway, better late than never. From UBN Go and Prairie Partners. And what is it? Visit settingmevalley.com. And our patrons on Patreon. You guys, what are we? We're the Little House on the Prairie 50th Anniversary Podcast. Ba-dow-bow. Okay, guys, let's get to it. What are we talking about today?

4:54 So, well, in honor of Allison being in France and the news, The Little House is once again starting over again because it just does that. We're going to talk about the show that started it all. We're going to talk about The Little House on the Prairie pilot.

5:10 Because in France, it's, well, you're saying it's the big rewind. Pamela was explaining it.

5:17 Yeah, well, in Jewish tradition, I said, because Dean was like, what do you mean it's starting over? What do you mean? I was like, you know, when you're watching it, the reruns, like in syndication, they go through the entire series. And when it's done, they start all over again from the very tippy top. So that's what's happening in France right now.

5:35 And I said, it's like the Jewish holiday, Tu B'Shvat, where you get to the end of the Torah and then you have to scroll it all back and start at the very beginning and the next year begins. So that's where we are.

5:46 And in France, they have just scrolled back To the beginning. Last weekend shows, people said, you know, they're starting over at the beginning again this week. This is the big thing where they go back to the beginning.

5:56 It's always exciting when it flips back to the beginning. Okay, let's do it.

6:01 The Little House on the Prairie pilot premiered on March 30th, 1974. So this is months ahead of the actual series beginning. This was the test that determined whether or not there was going to be a series, as pilots really were in those days. Yeah.

6:17 And I was just, sorry, I was just doing the math. I was like, oh, it's only six months until it premieres. That was quick.

6:23 To go from that to what started in September of 1974.

6:28 That's ridiculously fast.

6:31 Okay, go on.

6:32 It premiered on March 30th, 1974, written by Blanche Hanalis, executive produced by Ed Friendly and Michael Landon. The music, very important by David Rose, as was the entire series, but this really established it.

6:47 I'm sorry, my phone.

6:49 Someone's dinger is on.

6:51 We turned everything off and you still got a dinger.

6:53 You guys, I promise you, before we recorded, we said everyone's phone's off and we all checked. I know, I know, I said it.

6:57 And I obviously was wrong.

7:00 So the music by David Rose, the associate producer was Kent McRae, who went on to be the full-on producer of the program in later seasons.

7:09 Oh, interesting. And the pilot, of course, was directed by Michael Landon. So Allison, what is the Little House on the Prairie pilot about.

7:18 This is epic. It's the book, Little House on the Prairie. You got your house in the big woods, and then you got your little house in the prairie. And in this one, they leave the big woods. And as you said here, with a little more than a covered wagon, their few possessions, and an unshakable belief in a better tomorrow. Well, very unshakable, because it gets shaken. Charles and Caroline take their three young daughters west in search of the new life in the prairie. It's interesting. I'm like, I was like looking for somebody. Nobody says anything or very little for the first part. You see them leaving the family.

7:49 There's hugging and kissing and there's like a yes, bye. And like, and then the first voice you hear, there's not really dialogue. Pa doesn't say nothing. He's just standing there kind of scowling by the wagon, which again, Let me just say, a lot of people watching Netflix one were said, hey, what's this thing about Caroline's family not liking Pa and not wanting to leave and being suspicious?

8:11 What was that whole back story? But that didn't happen. He's standing off by the wagon. Nobody's hugging him. Nobody's hugging him when they're leaving. There's clearly a problem. They really don't want her to go. They don't want her to go. They're afraid. They're taking her and the grandchildren that they're not. And they know. It's the 1800s, the likelihood that they will see them again. is slim. There's no phones. So yeah, they were mad. So there you go.

8:34 But the first voice you hear set in the tone when this whole thing starts, boom, there's the voice and it's Laura. And the very, very next thing you see is Michael Landon. First voice you hear is Melissa Gilbert. The fourth face you see is Michael Landon. That sets the tone for the next nine years plus TV movies that that's what this show's about, baby.

8:59 I totally agree. And before we start recording, the first thing I said was, I love how the second this pilot starts, you know exactly the POV. You know exactly whose story this is. You know exactly the tone of it. You know, you just, it is established in second one of the thing. And also, I found fascinating is that, you know, they're traveling, they're traveling, and so many shots with no music. I mean, it's very, very rare that we don't hear some David Rose music to help the drama along, or the comedy along, or whatever the tone is.

9:37 In that first sequence, we just see, without any music, just scene after scene of this wagon, wagon going across these plains, the prairie, the prairie, the prairie.

9:48 And bad things happening, like things break and things go wrong.

9:50 And it establishes, yes. And just by doing that, without the music, It establishes how long and tedious and difficult this journey is in the first two minutes. It's incredible.

10:07 I don't know. I didn't count, but man, I finally was like, okay, oh, look, music. I mean, it went on. That show goes on really long time with no music. And there's also big chunks of new dialogue. It's just, you're just there with them watching this going, are they going to make it? Oh my God, they're not going to make it. It's heavy. It's a little dark. And I'm like, mm-hmm. And like I said, it's all about Laura and Pa. It's just in your face.

10:32 You know what else I really liked too is that, this sounds silly, but it's not silly. You establish how much they love the dog too from the very beginning and how important the dog is to them without having to say or do much. It is established immediately that this dog is beloved and an important part of their family.

10:53 Yeah, yeah.

10:56 I just think this is so, it's so beautifully crafted. Audiences did not have to wonder what they were caring about, who they were going to care about.

11:10 I think that the casting.

11:14 Of everybody, you've got emotional resonance from everybody, like right off the bat, you knew who everybody was.

11:28 You could instantly care.

11:31 And you believed them. You believed that this was a real family. And I'm going to say it.

11:35 There's no music going for the credits.

11:36 No, I know. There's no music on the opening credits. It is serious.

11:39 They're rolling credits and there's nothing but creaking of the wagon wheels.

11:43 It's terrifying. I just want to say for the record, I think the casting of Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls Wilder is the best casting in television history.

11:53 I mean.

11:53 It's insane.

11:54 It's insane how she is this girl.

11:57 Yeah.

11:58 Yeah.

11:59 She is this girl.

12:00 I agree.

12:00 And I know it's in our notes and we'll talk about this, but like how the children are so believable as actual children. There's no kiddie acting going on.

12:09 There's no....

12:11 Commercial anything going on i mean michael landon is commercial he doesn't have a beard he looks gorgeous but okay maybe that's like the the one thing he's the.

12:20 Most commercial person in it.

12:22 But i'll take it yeah the kid.

12:25 That was the thing in the casting he would that was the whole thing he would ask the kids some like offbeat kooky question to throw them you know because he didn't want the children who came in you know how it was especially back in the 70s the stage parents were like Be nice, do the, and the children would come, hello, my name is, and they'd be like little robots. It was awful. And so he would try to snap them out of it. I mean, that was the famous story. Melissa came in and she did the whole reading and then he said, wait, how tall are you?

12:49 And she went, I'm this tall.

12:52 It's like, I'm about so tall.

12:54 Yeah.

12:56 And he was like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

13:03 Now it's, you know, I just, I made note of, the qualities that are very apparent right up front.

13:12 Resilience, hope.

13:13 It's also, I was laughing, because it is the first and last time we see real snow. I don't know how many episodes we had real snow later. I know we went to Sonora. Did we go to Sonora during snow? This one, you got real snow.

13:26 And we really.

13:27 Don't see a lot of snow later.

13:30 There's a great story behind this too. So you opened the door to this.

13:33 So I'm going to share this right now. I, you know, I did so many interviews with Kent McRae in the latter part of his life to capture his story for the television Academy.

13:42 And for the Emmys and all of this.

13:46 And, um, He told the story about there was no snow planned for that scene. No, that was that was not the plan. There was no snow in the forecast. He and Kent McCrae are he and Ted Voigtlander are wonderful cinematographer, as they were probably inclined to do when they were getting ready to start something were up really, really late before the first night of production.

14:18 And they're in the.

14:19 Hotel room in Sonora playing cards, as Kent was inclined to do, and talking and probably having a little adult beverage along the way. And all of a sudden, Kent looks out the window and he sees snowflakes starting to fall.

14:36 This is like two in the morning.

14:38 Oh, my God.

14:39 They see this before they're starting to shoot.

14:43 This was not in the plan, and it was starting to come down heavily. Kent called a driver who had a 4x4 pickup, and he's saying, he says to they decide, I've got to see what's happening in this location because we have a whole unit rolling in there tomorrow morning at 5.30 or something, and I need to know what this is looking like. And he got in this truck with this guy in the middle of the night, and they made the drive, and I think this was.

15:13 I'm trying to think about the location. I don't remember the location. It's definitely up a little higher.

15:24 They got there and it's really coming down now when they get there. And so in the middle of night, Kent calls a snow plow. The plow is brought in in the middle of the night to clear the road to get everything.

15:39 They don't touch anything around the house.

15:41 This is all like They're looking at this saying, oh, my God, is this perfect or what?

15:46 But this was not the plan.

15:49 That's incredible.

15:50 This was right off the bat.

15:52 And there are other stories about there's so many stories about this unit led by Kent McRae that could adapt to circumstances that were unexpected.

16:04 The snow was not expected.

16:07 But what a beautiful addition that was to that opening sequence. You notice that, I mean, that little scene is the only place you see snow. As Alison said, it's like the first and only place.

16:19 You don't see it again for years.

16:21 And I literally wrote in my notes, like, where did they go where they knew that there would be snow for this location?

16:27 That's insane. They didn't know, but they adapted to it.

16:31 They didn't look like the big woods. They were in Sonora, so they had big trees. It would be, oh, it's Wisconsin.

16:36 Yeah, no. But where were they? It is probably the most perfect-looking location.

16:41 That setup, big woods, the high trees, the snow on the ground.

16:48 I mean, what a.

16:49 Perfect setup to start this and fading up with this beautiful light coming through the trees, backlit.

16:57 It was just absolutely perfect.

17:00 Dean, you were about to say there were some main, I don't know if you had like a list of main points you were going to say before about what this episode was.

17:09 So resilience, hope, optimism, boundless optimism in the face of hardship. and the absolute conviction that life could be good even when it was hard. And I think that this was, in that opening montage that Alison brought where there's no music.

17:27 The opening montage is extraordinary.

17:29 Just the sound of the wagon rolling across the open, it establishes.

17:34 How totally alone they are, how solemn this journey is. So it's not until.

17:46 I mean, we really don't start getting serious underscore until one last shot before, I think before it leads them to the river.

17:54 But basically, it's almost like, yeah, they get all the way to the river. Because I remember I'm like flipping through my notes, like, when do we get music? When do we get music? I wrote like, finally, music.

18:04 And it's really, it's a.

18:06 Big wide open shot is that. The wagon is rolling across the crust of a hill, and all you hear is this very big... I mean, it's just.

18:16 It's the resolving phrase of the title. And it's big. It's very big.

18:26 And that title card, that image of that wagon going across the prairie in silhouette... Yes, it's beautiful. with the sunset and then that title card coming up, I mean, it actually brought me to tears. I couldn't believe what I was... And Alison said this before we started also, like, this is an episode of firsts. Like, this is the first time we're hearing the theme music. This is the first time we're seeing certain phrases or certain things or certain... Yeah, it's really special.

18:54 First time we're seeing... Well, it's the first time. I think what's so amazing about this... Of course, now, look, we have the advantage of having 50 years of being attached to this. So it's like we.

19:04 So we can ascribe, but just if you go back and you think about what people saw, stripping away all the knowledge, if it's possible even to strip away all the knowledge, but there was just such an earnest purity about the way this was done. You got a very clear sense of the emotional life that was going to populate this, that was going to be driving this forward.

19:31 And it still holds. It's not dated.

19:33 No, it's not.

19:34 You know, we've gotten more sophisticated than ever.

19:38 It is.

19:38 And I know we've gotten more sophisticated with the way we film things. And certainly we'll talk about the Native Americans in this when we get to it. It's problematic and we know that. But in terms of Does it still stand the test of time?

19:52 Yes. Oh, no question.

19:53 It just does.

19:53 No question, it does.

19:54 And it tells you, you know who everybody is right away. Some of the stuff in the character, like the first for everything, first of all, he plays the fiddle by the fire the first time, this happened the first time, that happened the first time. And there's a scene when they're kind of packing up, they go and they're getting the horses and everything. And he says, oh, we're going to have another one. And Laura goes, they're going to have a baby. and what's going to name him and then she looks at this one's a boy and caroline kind of goes whoa hey whoa hey and he goes cool really charles yeah yeah and he says that would be very strange if she couldn't tell different right she is a farm child she's absolutely tiny she's really young

20:34 And they make it clear. She knows perfectly well where baby horses come from. And she knows what a boy horse is and a boy cow and girl cow and a steer. She knows. She knows exactly which animals on the farm are boys and girls. And she knows where baby animals come from. And she's still sweet and innocent.

20:50 This is life on the farm. She is sheltered. She's not sheltered from the reality to the point when the horse is born, he says, come, come, you can watch a life come into the world. And this is treated as a wonderful thing to bring the children into. It's like, wah! I mean, for 1974, when we'd gotten so modern, so away from everything, and this was like things people talked about doing, well, hundreds of years ago, to have that, thrown in, this kind of innocent in nature, but understanding these things. Yeah, it was mind-blowing in 1974. It blew people's minds.

21:25 I think it's mind-blowing in 2026, too, when you see all that.

21:30 And let's just jump back for a minute to think about where we were coming from.

21:34 As a country.

21:35 In 1974, yeah.

21:36 The pilot arrived in America in a country struggling.

21:40 With disillusionment at that time.

21:42 Vietnam, Watergate, huge inflation going on at that time. And obviously because of Watergate, distrust of public institutions.

21:51 Sounds familiar, yes.

21:55 It was such a throwback to another time and people felt so beaten up by what was going on.

22:04 I think the simplicity of this just jumped at people who were, look, it wasn't, as Michael knew, and we've talked about this endlessly, Michael knew this wasn't going to be for everybody.

22:16 But he did know it was going to be for a lot of people. And so I think.

22:20 His commitment, based on everything he had done for years beforehand with family and kind of an earnestness about the way things were done, he just continued to believe in that. The networks weren't believing in that anymore.

22:36 They weren't done with that. But Michael believed. And this pilot, when it ran.

22:42 In 1974 was the highest testing pilot in NBC's history.

22:47 I mean, it is extraordinary. I mean, how many television movies, because this was a TV movie.

22:56 It was a TV movie.

22:57 How many TV, I mean, maybe we could count on our hands, like how many standout TV movies that have stood the test of time that were just extraordinary? Like Roots? Sure, Roots, but that was... And that was a multi-series, right?

23:12 I think of Brian's Song as being one of those movies, but I haven't seen it in years.

23:17 I don't know how it holds up today. Yeah, does it stand the test of time? Right, exactly. I have no idea how it holds up.

23:21 Today, but it was absolutely enormous in that moment in time.

23:28 Do you know where this was filmed? Not the big wood scene, but the Kansas stuff, because it looks like Kansas. Oh, Stockton. It does not look like CME Valley.

23:35 I can tell you.

23:36 It was filmed about 30 miles from where I went to college at University of the Pacific.

23:43 If you go on IMDB, it mentions there's a farm and I'm like, oh, that's, yeah.

23:47 Yes.

23:48 And it jumps around because it's like, that's Seamy, that's Sonora, that's Seamy, that's not Seamy, that's not Sonora Ware.

23:55 It's a ranch outside of Stockton, California.

23:57 So why didn't they keep it there? Because having just gone to Kansas myself, just having visited Independence in July, I mean, this looks like Kansas.

24:07 Yes, it does.

24:07 It looked authentically like Kansas. Simi Valley is gorgeous, but it doesn't look like Kansas.

24:13 Well, I think also.

24:14 There was another location they wanted before Simi, but they went, no, you can't film here. You can't set up shop and be here every freaking day for years. No, you may not.

24:23 The cost of being on location would have been so high to.

24:29 This was not that.

24:31 Today, of course, that's what you do. You take an entire company and you go to Canada.

24:38 Right, right. And you shoot the middle of the.

24:40 Prairie in Canada.

24:41 Now, they've hired a lot of Canadians to be part of that, so a lot of people are home. But that show is on location. This was a time still when most television was shot in Hollywood.

24:54 In studio.

24:55 Or in the Los Angeles region.

24:58 And that's just the way it was done.

25:00 It was, yeah.

25:01 It was a big deal that we were outdoors. When you think of Hawaii, the old Hawaii Five-0s on a soundstage.

25:08 That's crazy.

25:08 And if you watch old Bonanzas, they're standing around going, well, and there's a freaking scrim. They're out there nowhere.

25:14 Yeah, yeah, no.

25:16 It's so bizarre.

25:16 Well, no.

25:17 All right.

25:19 I mean, I think of Hawaii Five-0. I mean, there was a lot of that that was shot. outdoors, but I'm sure they had, to your point, they had studio space.

25:27 But the first one, the Jack Lord one, they went to the beach. The original one in the 60s, they never go anywhere.

25:34 Well, they were in Hawaii. They shot it in Hawaii.

25:36 Yeah, but it's so bonkers. Okay, here's your pop quiz. So, France, it usually takes a while for an American TV show to then air in another country. Two years, three or four years. So, when did... The pilot, the air date, March of 74 in America, air in France.

25:58 Go ahead.

25:59 Have a wild guess. Air date, March 30th, 74 in US. French pilot air date, August 8th, 1974.

26:10 1975. 75.

26:13 75. That's really, when does that happen? Dubbed into French and everything, boom, year later. And they ran it here in France and they ran it like, you know, it was a TV movie. People went nutso bonkers and wrote into the station and said, we need this show. French series premiere date, December 18th, 1976. Oh, wow.

26:34 So it did take a whole, more than another year.

26:40 Immediately. Well, no, you said, wait a minute, you.

26:42 Said December 76, so the pilot in 75, then like.

26:47 A year and a half later, the series.

26:50 But that's quick compared to.

26:51 Nowadays, everything's worldwide. In the 70s, shows that they didn't show, it was like 1982, half these things didn't show up in another country. It was, the other shows that were on in the 70s did not air here in a year. And Little House did. La Petite Maison, I mean, they jumped at it. And it's been a hit and on every day around noon the entire time.

27:16 Can I, let's, let's get to the river cross, the little, is it a river? The crossing, the water crossing. What is that?

27:24 That's the first big, huge emotional moment.

27:27 Yes. I also want to know how did they film it? But yes, no, it's our first emotional, oh my gosh, these people could die at any moment.

27:40 And you see the big wetsuit that Michael had on under his, uh, under his bulky.

27:45 Oh my God. I totally did not notice. I'm going to have to go back and look again.

27:49 He's definitely got a wetsuit on underneath that, underneath that, that, uh, the.

27:55 Shirt and the trousers.

27:56 But I also want to know, like, what were the safety regulations? Like, were there people in the water around Michael Landon when he is attempting to like go under the wagon and almost get swept under?

28:06 I don't know.

28:07 If he had a protective line on him. I think that Michael sort of trusted that he would, be able to go through and Michael was very strong.

28:17 It's hard for me to imagine that they wouldn't have had some, there's no.

28:19 Way a kid would have gotten in the water without a huge amount of safety around him.

28:23 But Michael never let go of the wheel. He was never, you know.

28:28 Yes, he was hanging on.

28:29 But I think that there certainly would have been people below the wagon if something, if he had.

28:34 I would hope so.

28:36 Come loose from that.

28:37 There would have been people there.

28:39 Yeah.

28:40 Yeah, when Melissa and I were in the river, probably the same river as Honora. Half the crew was in the water to protect you. Half the crew was in the water. But we weren't trying to do anything. They were like, just, but you only have to swim from here to here. It's like nothing. Feet will touch the bottom by the time you get to that. We're like, okay, but there is a hell of a current and you could get caught in it.

28:57 That was cold.

28:58 That was a cold, cold river too.

29:02 I mean, that was... But they had the guys. There was a rope there, and that was the whole thing where they said, if you miss the second rope, we pick up your bodies in the next town. So it was not without danger. But they had the crew. The crew were there like this, that if something went wrong, they would catch us.

29:16 And the dog, too! The dog going down the... Oh, my gosh, you should have seen Margo's face when she saw that dog and that current and that water. My God, it was awful. Yeah, it's so authentic how they did this. It's really impressive.

29:33 So I think in the, how did they do?

29:37 I'm trying to think of how this happened in the new.

29:42 One as a comparative. Oh, it's very scary.

29:44 Didn't they address whether the dog should be in the wagon or not?

29:48 In the OG, they just started across.

29:52 No, Laura says, before they get to the water, she says, can't we put Jack in the wagon? He's like, he'll be fine. He'll figure it out. Oh, before they cross, Laura says, can we put Jack in the wagon? And Paul's like, he'll be fine. He'll figure it out.

30:05 Okay.

30:06 That's what they did then.

30:07 Yeah.

30:08 And the Netflix one, I now want to go back and watch there. I think theirs went on a little longer.

30:14 It did.

30:14 Yeah.

30:14 And it was pretty scary.

30:15 The water was deeper. For sure.

30:18 The wagon almost goes over.

30:19 And the wagon almost goes too.

30:21 The Netflix one, it almost goes all the way over. But this one is very frightening. Karen, when she sees that he might, and she screams, it's like, it's really scary. It's very scary. And for 1974, this TV movie, it had to be. Freak people out, no end.

30:37 I think it showed, you know, it showed enormous emotional accessibility that Karen had to take herself to that place where he could, where she could play the absolute terror.

30:52 Of the risk of losing Pop. She's so good in this. If something happens to him, they have no shot to survive.

31:00 Her portrayals of terror throughout this episode too. It's just so darn good.

31:10 It's so good.

31:11 The structure is so, because yes, there is, the wagon is obviously the first of those moments.

31:16 There is the wolves that comes later, the fire after that.

31:19 These calamities are spread out through the episode. And then you have this wonderful reliefs or relief of, grace or gratitude that they have survived.

31:33 They've made choices. And I just think it gives the audience.

31:38 There's real, there's a real arcing of emotional life in this pilot that is, that gives the audience, it gives the audience the full range of emotional life that the characters are having is if they become vested, I don't know, you don't become vested in this. If you are into it, you're, you know, you, you're, you're going to go along for the ride and it's going to be very exciting. And you, you experience this with the family and you become so vested, um, in them. Uh, I just think it's so beautifully structured. Um, Right from beginning to end, it's beautifully, beautifully structured.

32:23 I will say this. It reminds me of, and people compare these two all the time. They're both really beloved, which is that the Megan Follows Anne of Green Gables, you know, the Colleen Dewhurst Megan Follows Anne of Green Gables. It reminds me of that in the sense that you are invested from the second it starts. You know these people, and it's also perfect casting. Like, you believe this girl is Anne. You're in love with her the second it starts, just like you believe this girl is Laura Ingalls Wilder, and you love her the second it starts. And you're invested in it from the beginning.

32:57 Yeah, yeah.

32:58 And the way that it's shot and the point of view that it's coming from, and it's just... And the music, also, very similar in terms of the music helping the story move along.

33:07 Well, there's... David Rose, as we talk about this endlessly, I certainly believe in this so strongly as we talk about these episodes. David Rose's contribution musically to this series is such a huge part of the emotional.

33:21 It's another character.

33:23 The emotional impact that it has because that subtext.

33:26 Is so strong for the audience.

33:29 And he's telling you what you should be feeling here. And so everybody, there's no ambiguity. You know where everybody is.

33:38 As you watch this.

33:39 And you have to wait for the music in this one, so it becomes the first time I hear this theme. Oh, it's the first time I hear that theme. Like, I couldn't believe it when Jack the dog, they find him and everybody flips out. There's no music. I'm like, where'd it go? Where's the music? Where's most TV shows? And the next thing is Paul playing the fiddle and it's just the quiet. And so then when the music starts sneaking in, like, oh, my God, wait, there's music. And then it's that theme that you know. And then the next time it comes up, oh, there's that theme that we know. It's almost the do-do-do-do. You know, it's almost that.

34:07 And it's all the first. It's all the first time. But there's, like I said, they don't waste it. It's not like one of these TV shows where there's just like a dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee through the whole darn thing. That music is there for a reason, and it's a certain scene for a reason.

34:22 Yes, yes.

34:23 Can we talk about Jack coming back and how well done that was and how absolutely gutting it is and beautiful it is and just, you know, animals and children, man. Like, if you're going to nail it, you better nail it. And they nailed it. They just nailed it.

34:40 Wasn't it now, did the tracking of the scene remind me here, because I watched this last night, but so.

34:48 Do Laura and Pa, they talk about, and then Jack comes back, and then Charles is able to admit that he's guilty about the way that he didn't put Jack... And he felt badly that he hadn't handled that better. Well, you're... We talk about... You talk about the fact that this establishes... Those little scenes establish where the core of the show is between Pa and Laura.

35:19 Yeah.

35:20 The scene when they talk after when he admits, yes, he was really worried about Jack too. That's the screen test. Because there's that screen test with Martha and Melissa that's out there online. And I'm like, oh, it's the screen test.

35:33 It's the audition.

35:34 Yes, that is the screen test scene.

35:36 The chemistry between those two.

35:38 You can't fake that.

35:40 You can't act that. That is something. Of another universe that's touching down on those two together.

35:49 Yeah.

35:49 For sure.

35:50 Yeah, no, there's no question.

35:51 You can't manufacture that.

35:52 It's very, very special.

35:58 You talked about it earlier, Pamela, where the kids get to be kids.

36:03 I mean, there's no cutesy thing here. It's just, it's so honest. And you look at Melissa.

36:11 I mean, she's got the, the freckles and the, the, the teeth and the whole thing. I mean, she's just such a real little girl with this wonderful empathy that comes.

36:24 Through her eyes.

36:26 You know, it's just, it's, it's so spectacular and it's, it's that energy that, that cemented people to this right from the very beginning. They knew they were looking at something they could be experiencing at home.

36:40 In their own homes.

36:41 I would say, ironically, Melissa Sue Anderson did not have a whole lot to do in this pilot. I mean, she's there and she's definitely a supporting character. But dare I say, Baby Carrie had more emotional screen time than Melissa Sue Anderson. Baby Carrie was incredible. She did.

37:01 She's amazing. It's the first time Baby Carrie runs to the outhouse.

37:07 There he is. Dumping Baby Carrie in the muddy water.

37:11 Santa. She stole the show. She said Santa, and I went, and we're done.

37:15 And the piece de resistance is when she's hiding under the table when the Native Americans come into their house, and she's just.

37:23 I wonder what they said. I mean, my God. Did we talk about this with her?

37:27 If they said something horrible to her?

37:29 Yeah.

37:30 She was talking about that, you know, that. And it was hard because they were saying, no, it's not real. But it was because she was so little that these people have come and they might hurt your mom, which is what's happening. And she got really weirded out because, like, how old is she? Like, are they actually going to hurt my actual mom? Wait, what's going on? Yeah.

37:52 She was wonderful as she was sitting there looking frightened. And they put her in the water and she was clearly.

37:58 Oh, my gosh.

37:59 That emotional life was really good. No, I agree with you.

38:02 The two girls, I'm not sure who's who in that moment, but they were wonderful throughout.

38:08 Carrie was awesome.

38:08 I love that she's right there in Ma's arms.

38:12 I mean, Melissa Sue Anderson was awesome, too, because you absolutely believed that she was just a real little girl. And also what I appreciate about this there was a distinct difference between Mary and Laura.

38:24 Totally.

38:25 Mary had a very different personality, a totally different vibe than Laura did. As she always did.

38:29 Big sister.

38:30 Exactly, exactly.

38:32 Oh, she goes all big sister, and remember the jack-tied up thing?

38:34 Oh, she narced her out. Yes, she narced her out hard.

38:39 She goes, Laura, I'm proud. I said, the pot said, bless the dog, and I'm like, okay, well.

38:43 That's actually in my notes. Melissa Sanderson narced.

38:47 That's a real thing. Because everything was a matter of life and death. Everything was a matter of safety. And she's like, Paul should lure a dog. And she's getting it because there's probably a really good reason involving not getting killed.

38:59 Right.

39:00 And so, yeah. So she knocks her right down.

39:03 So they get to Kansas and Pa's like, this is it. This is the place. And he just knows it in his gut. Little does he know it's actually not going to be the place. But they are building the home.

39:16 I mean, oof.

39:18 And we get that first of that theme that reoccurred throughout the entire scene.

39:26 It's happy and busy. Yep.

39:30 Working, working, working. Happy worker song.

39:32 Yeah, yeah.

39:33 Until Carolyn hurts herself.

39:34 I'd just like to say, lesson one, when you build a house in the middle of frickin' nowhere, one of the first things you want to build is the door with a lock on it.

39:43 I know. Well, they didn't know. They were alone on the prayer. I will say, I'm so happy I visited Independence, Kansas while I was in Wichita this summer because... that did look like the log house that they lived. I mean, it was very authentic to actually, I think the log house they built in the show was bigger than the one that they actually lived in in Kansas. But in terms of the authenticity of it, it really was true.

40:08 I actually was wondering while watching this what historians or people true to the books thought of this pilot. Because it seemed to not veer away from the accuracy of it all. Although, I thought they were in Independence, and in the pilot, it seems like they're many miles out of Independence.

40:30 You're talking about in the OG pilot?

40:33 In this pilot. The OG pilot, it seems that they're not in Independence proper. They're outside.

40:38 Pom makes the point that we're here to find this land, this 160 acres that we're going to true up over the five-year period.

40:48 Right.

40:48 They... He has no interest in being in a community.

40:52 And this is the duality of here.

40:55 And here you have Ma who says, but the girls need to go to church to.

40:58 Grow up to be really well-developed young women.

41:02 This is one of my favorite lines.

41:04 They need people around them. And that's not where Pa's thinking is. Pa's thinking is creating this place that will be self-sustaining for them.

41:14 Right.

41:15 So, yeah, it's a.

41:16 You have to be closer to God than this.

41:18 Exactly. That was my favorite line in the whole thing, that moment.

41:22 Really?

41:22 Which line?

41:23 Yeah, well, when she's like, the girls can't have a proper upbringing if they don't go to church. And he was like, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but he's like, you can't get closer to God than right here. And I love that concept.

41:37 It's like, first I record, first prayer when he gets that dog back and he thanks God. Oh my gosh.

41:44 Oh my gosh.

41:46 Unbelievable moment. And I went, oh, first prayer, first prayer of the show.

41:50 And that was so... beautiful and amazing so that's very different than the netflix series though because the netflix series they're really involved in the town and yes right away they're not as isolated in the book.

42:03 They go to town in the book if you go back to the book they do go into town and you see the town and laura's kind of like oh my god a town and you know he's kind of freaked out because she was in wisconsin but they don't spend much time there but they do go there in the book and they don't go there at all in this pilot.

42:17 No they don't it's just pa gets to go I know we have to take a break in a minute. I just want to say, and maybe we can talk about it when we get back, I had very conflicting feelings about Pa. As the historical Pa, people have many conflicting feelings about him as well. And I thought in the pilot, that actually came to light in a way that it never does in the series of Pa sort of, these are his decisions, right? I mean, Ma goes along with it because she's loyal to him and she loves him, but she doesn't want to go. She wants to have a community. She wants the, you know, this is Pa.

42:55 This is all Pa. Yes, it is. For better or for worse. But that is truer to the historical Pa than in the series.

43:07 Yeah.

43:07 And that's because there are a couple moments where I was like, no, Pa, no. Like, this is bad. This is wrong.

43:14 But, you know, I love when she says, well, she makes it okay when she says to him, my.

43:21 Home is where you are.

43:22 Yeah, you are my family.

43:24 You are my family. Our girls are our family. I mean, that's, you know.

43:29 It's still painful, though.

43:30 So she's vested. She's vested. Yes, of course.

43:33 In the Netflix series, you don't get the sense that Ma is as vested. She has to come to it. But Caroline, O.G. Caroline is... vested all the way she's struggling with it but she's fully vested yeah she's.

43:51 Where right she's completely freaked out and by episode two or three is like should i leave and her family clearly would prefer she was home and then she has the crazy fever dream where she goes i don't like these people what am i thinking and then says no i'm with you that's it i'm gonna i'm gonna take the money they gave me to go home and spend it on you we're gonna make this And she goes all in, she goes all in because they have eight episodes to like do.

44:16 Right.

44:17 You know, interestingly jumping to the, to the new series briefly, it was that point. It was that episode where the Netflix show started to work for me because, because, because she was.

44:33 All in at that point. She said, I'm going to be your partner.

44:36 I'm here with you all the way. I, you, you can't protect me anymore.

44:42 You've got to, you've got to be engaged.

44:44 I've got to be engaged in this with you. And that's when, that's when it really started to work. So I, I, you know, I sort of feel like it was implicit that Caroline in the, in the OG, I mean, Caroline had her anxieties about it, but there was no doubt that she was going, there was no doubt.

45:04 That she was there with him and with.

45:06 The children all the way.

45:08 And she was never, she was always best foot forward for the children. She was always giving them, she may have had her anxieties, but she was always supporting what needed to happen for the family to be there and survive.

45:28 Where they were.

45:28 And I think that was very affirming for people when they watched that.

45:33 Because you could see, she showed you.

45:35 That she struggled, but she also showed you that she knew the children needed her to be.

45:41 Strong in that, in those moments, those challenging moments. And she was, she was very strong in those moments.

45:48 Let's take a break. And then when we come back, we'll start, we'll talk about Mr. Edwards. The first time. Oh yeah, very good.

45:54 Mr.

45:54 Edwards.

45:54 Excellent. Okay, okay. We'll be right back.

45:56 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 visitseemeevalley.com for more information. We are so grateful to visitseemeevalley.com for their commitment to presenting the Little House 50th Anniversary Podcast.

46:40 Okay, hi, we're back. So let's talk about the next big thing, which is the introduction of Mr. Edwards, which is fantastic.

46:48 The first old Ann Tucker performance.

46:49 The very first.

46:50 The very first. Nothing left but a piece of squash.

46:53 But it wasn't the first, I mean.

46:55 Isn't one of the first times we see Victor is when he's teaching Laura to spit?

47:01 First scene, boom, right in.

47:06 Because Pa comes and is like, hey, I met someone. He's going to help us with the house. And Ma's so excited and happy. Now I know I'll love him. And then the next thing we see is Mr. Edwards trying to teach Laura to spit. And Ma is not amused whatsoever. She's very prissy, Ma.

47:26 Well, ma'am.

47:27 And Mr. Edwards, from the very beginning, the charm, the comedy, the warmth that he exudes, the connection he has with the children.

47:37 Yes.

47:37 And to see Victor so.

47:39 Young, young baby Victor French. Oh, he's so young.

47:42 I know.

47:43 I know. Looking a little handsome, too, that Victor French.

47:46 He's like what he is today.

47:49 30s late 30s well they both must have been in their mid to well how old was michael and in.

47:53 34 michael was 35 like i think so i'm.

47:57 Sure victor was around the same ish age yeah wild.

48:02 Um i think that's well they okay they both died at 54 so yeah at the age of 54 so.

48:10 Victor was a little old.

48:11 I got to look everything up here, Victor. I know. He was born in 34 and died in 89.

48:14 Okay.

48:22 And Michael, da-da-da-da, was also born.

48:25 In the 30s.

48:26 Like 31 or something?

48:28 1936.

48:29 They're only two years apart. Michael was two years younger, and he died in 91, exactly two years later.

48:34 I knew that they were close to each other, their deaths.

48:37 And I knew that they were both the same age. He was born two years later, and he died two years later. He died exactly the same age, two years apart. Yes, that's right.

48:43 That's crazy.

48:43 54 is sort of that 54 Shannon Doherty passed at 54.

48:49 Oh, this is awful.

48:50 It's terrible.

48:52 Way early for all of them. And they all, you know, all three of them lived hard. But Michael and Victor in that time lived very.

49:02 Hard, for sure.

49:03 Yeah, they had a good time. Yeah. So Mr. Edwards is awesome.

49:07 Yes, right off the bat.

49:09 And we get the relationship he builds with the kids immediately. And what I love also is how over time you see Ma understanding who this guy actually is. actually is by his good deeds that he does for his family. Christmas, baby. I mean, yeah.

49:26 Well, the Christmas scene is sort of the, yes, that's the scene that really cements who Mr.

49:31 Edwards is for sure.

49:33 And from what we know.

49:34 And when he comes in, you see Pa take it a little seriously because Pa's like... Um, he's actually freezing to death. We need to get him in the house. Everyone's just in shock. And you see Pog going, he's going to die. And gets him in the house and gets the ice off him.

49:47 And as the Greenbush twins told us last week, that he really did go in the snow and really did go in that freezing cold water.

49:56 He was not acting. Absolutely he did.

49:58 For sure.

49:58 So him.

50:00 Yeah.

50:00 People don't do that nowadays. I bet nobody did that in the Netflix show. I'm just saying. That's our show.

50:06 Maybe Leo DiCaprio in the, what was that movie? The Revenant?

50:11 The Revenant.

50:12 Yeah.

50:13 He did all of that crazy stuff.

50:15 One of the darker, depressing movies I've ever seen.

50:19 Yes.

50:20 Oh, yes.

50:20 Oh, my God. But yeah, so he really did it.

50:24 Victor had his little flask of whiskey in his.

50:29 with him as.

50:30 They were waiting for the sun to be right on the water for this crossing.

50:35 Oh my gosh. Oh, you mean in real life he had a flask to keep himself warm?

50:39 I think they all did back then.

50:42 Yeah, well, right. Whether they were in the snow or not, they just had a flask. It's the 70s, man. The early 70s.

50:49 No, but Victor did, yeah, Victor did go, he had, I'm trying to think, it doesn't look, when I'm looking at Victor, it doesn't look like There's a wetsuit, but there's got to be a wetsuit.

50:59 There's no way he put him in that water without a wetsuit.

51:01 He would have died. He would have actually gotten out of it.

51:04 Having been in that river, everyone in that river is in a wetsuit or they're not around because it's that cold.

51:09 I guess the wetsuit was bulky, or rather the long john was bulky enough so that maybe it wasn't as obvious.

51:17 With Michael... in the river.

51:19 It's obvious that he's got a wetsuit on underneath the wardrobe.

51:23 Dean, I so did not notice Michael Landon's... I just wasn't looking for it.

51:27 So I.

51:29 It's a visual trick.

51:30 They pulled you in. They totally pulled me in.

51:34 Yeah.

51:35 Well... That's how I think of Michael Landon anyway. So it was... Okay, so they're bringing.

51:43 And the Christmas scene is Baby Carrie screams Santa, and I'm like, and now Baby Carrie has officially established... I mean, give the Emmy.

51:50 Give the Emmy to Baby Carrie.

51:52 I know. It's Baby Carrie now. And the sweet potatoes... We all love Baby Carrie at that moment.

51:56 And he pulls out the sweet potatoes, and can you just... You can just imagine how a delicious, sweet, warm, ooey-gooey sweet potato must have felt for them eating. I mean....

52:11 It's a little fruit.

52:13 Oh, my gosh.

52:13 So, Alison, you're a cook.

52:15 So it looks like the turkey or the chicken. It looked like a chicken to me, but on the spit.

52:21 It'd be a small turkey.

52:23 But a small turkey. It could be a small turkey. But how long would it have taken... The turkey's ready. How long would it have taken to cook the sweet potatoes?

52:31 Yeah.

52:31 Sweet potatoes.

52:32 Because he's right. If the turkey's already done and they clearly have a pie and a bunch of other food, those potatoes, I mean, yeah, they're going to shove them right in an open flame in the fireplace.

52:41 Yeah.

52:42 So it's not going to take hours. You have to cut them up.

52:43 Cut them up into small pieces.

52:44 If they cut them up.

52:45 Yeah.

52:46 If they cut them in chunks and threw them in like a big cast iron skillet and stuck them in there, yeah, they could pull it off.

52:50 Okay. They cook them fast.

52:52 They could pull it off.

52:53 We'll get them right in that fire.

52:55 So you see in that, you see in that, those moments when the girls, when the tin cups come out and the candy canes and... Karen is so lovely in that scene as she's experiencing her such gratitude and.

53:16 Pause, just see, this is, you know, this is.

53:20 Michael had such generosity about the way he did things. he created this wonderful moment, or they created, the script created this wonderful moment for Mr.

53:31 Edwards. And Pa just sat back and allowed this to happen.

53:35 And he just takes it, and you see his emotional response to it, but he's very.

53:40 Quiet during this whole thing.

53:42 And it's really the interplay between Mr. Edwards and Ma that is this really sweet moment. And of course, the girls are all in.

53:49 He's just, Mr. Edwards is just the great guy.

53:52 He met Santa.

53:54 And yeah, I love the story of meeting Santa.

53:55 What I also love is, and of course.

53:56 We know this now, 52 years later, but what I love is, is that we find out about Mr.

53:59 Edwards when the series begins, not.

54:00 In the pilot. And I think that's really fascinating that we don't know his backstory in the pilot, and yet we still love him. So that by the time this, I mean, Michael Landon had to have known that this was going to pick up. I mean, it was too good not to pick up.

54:28 He knew everything.

54:29 The fact that he saved it. The fact that he saved the Mr. Edwards backstory.

54:34 Yeah, he didn't telegraph everything.

54:35 Didn't need to. No, he didn't. But then also, Victor.

54:38 He had Victor, who proceeded to tell us that he had a backstory by breathing. Right.

54:43 Because all he said was, oh.

54:44 He's a bachelor. Whereas, like, the Netflix, they go more, you know, he's a widow. But you don't know that he had a family or lost them, that anything happened.

54:51 Right.

54:51 Except he tears up when he's with the kids. And, like, when he has to say goodbye to Laura. And he's, like, almost losing it.

54:58 Such a full emotional life. Why would a frontier.

55:01 bachelor wildcat from Tennessee and they mention all that in the version why would he be quite so distraught and so attached and get this far away look in his eyes and look so sad Victor put that there and you went this man has a terrible past he is so happy to be with his family because he has had a hard life and something bad happened to this guy and you don't know what it is but.

55:23 You know I think you're a thousand percent correct. And even in my notes, I just wrote, with the goodbye scene between the children and him, I just wrote, Edwards is wonderful. He just, it is fully loaded. It's exactly what you just said, Alison. It's all there without you knowing what it is.

55:43 Well, and this is, you know, and I think we've talked about this before.

55:46 We've had, well, we had Tracy and young Victor on with us and there was such joy in Victor at having an opportunity to play in this space emotionally where he never.

56:00 Got to play as an actor.

56:01 Because of his look.

56:02 The full spectrum.

56:03 He looked like the villain.

56:04 He was sort of characterized as a villain.

56:07 And Michael turned him into some, allowed him the space to be this.

56:12 Warm, lovely, funny, which he was, all those things. Victor was also dark too, but he had this warm side.

56:22 Yeah, he made him like this beloved, you will be the most greatest beloved children's character in history.

56:27 Totally.

56:28 You'll probably be Santa himself.

56:30 Yeah, yeah. So Victor is amazing.

56:35 He's the best.

56:35 When you realize, Victor only made something in the life of the series, only something like 40 different appearances.

56:43 He's only in 40 episodes.

56:45 Really?

56:46 Yeah, something like that.

56:47 Seriously? I'm like, what the who?

56:49 He feels so much more present Oh, yeah.

56:53 But I think the deal was when he was there, Michael had him.

56:57 He wasn't just there.

56:58 When Victor was there, he was there to deliver something really important to the story. So he wasn't just like a guy in church.

57:07 A supporting guy.

57:10 He was really, really present.

57:12 So Victor's life in the series is so, so important to the impression that the series creates.

57:20 Let's talk a little bit about because we could go on about Mr.

57:24 Edwards, but let's talk a little bit about the Osage Indians.

57:28 Yeah, that sort of elephant in the room.

57:30 Not very Indian Indians. This is 1974 now.

57:33 It's a different time.

57:34 I know. It's a different time.

57:36 It just is. The new Netflix show is getting huge accolades because they have actual, real, live Osage.

57:41 Persons playing Osage.

57:43 And then they have Canadian First Nations people also playing. So everybody's either Canadian First Nations or American Native American in this thing. They had real linguists come in, so they're speaking actual Osage. It's like, In 1974, it was a miracle if you had a real Native American person in your movie or TV show. Once in a blue moon, you got someone. A lot of people were Latino. A lot of people were Italian. The gentleman who is Saudat Deshen, the lead guy, is a nice man from New York of Puerto Rican descent. And I think the other guy was half Mexican, half Greek.

58:17 They were very clearly not Native American. Yeah.

58:20 Also one of them was Hal Burton, Michael Standen, who played one of the soldiers and one of the Indians. It's Hal Burton.

58:27 I didn't see them as an Indian.

58:28 I certainly knew he was one of the soldiers.

58:30 He and Jack Lilly were the two soldiers.

58:33 Yeah, they're the most, but his credit is one of the Braves and one of the soldiers, I guess, has been the Braves.

58:40 But here's also the issue that I was like, you guys, what are you doing? Is that, you know, so he speaks, the chief is speaking French, which historically, yes, that would have been accurate. That would have been accurate at that time. But his French is terrible. I mean, it's just so clearly a bad American accent. I mean, it's just so not authentically French. And it's just kind of like, what?

59:02 And I know it was the time.

59:05 It would have been the French trappers who came down through Canada. So I don't know. Would it be? kind of like a Native American Osage person trying to speak Quebecois? Maybe that's how it got there. But the kicker is I'm sitting here in France and I finally corner my friends and go, what the heck, guys? I said, so in our country, they're all speaking English and the natives first don't say anything. And then the chief shows up and he speaks French. Panma sort of recognized, Panma says, that's not Osage. What is it, Caroline? And Caroline, who's been to school, goes, I do believe it's French, Charles.

59:37 And I think he said, she's translating a little bit. So you go, ah, and it's very glamorous. The Indian is speaking French. And then later he's translating and he speaks French again. The amulet of vos bon fortune, et cetera, et cetera. He says, merci, et merci. So what do they speak in French when it showed in France what the what?

59:55 Right, because it's being dubbed in French, right. So when they're speaking French.

59:59 The English are all speaking French. The translating guy, he's speaking French. So what does the chief speak that people aren't understanding that is Osage or something? And my friends here were like, I don't know. Is he speaking Osage? I go, no, it's 1974. They go, I don't know. We actually put it on.

1:00:17 Oh, God.

1:00:19 What's he saying? And we have, like, edge receipts. And then he says, he puts on the amulet. Instead of saying, cet amulet, vous protéger, bonne fortune, en français, he says something about, amulette, ti, buono fortuno. And I went, did you say, like, buono fortuno? And I start pulling out the translator. Apparently he's speaking Italian. It's so bizarre. The Sicilian translation sounded the closest. But for some reason the chief speaks Italian in France.

1:00:50 Okay, so you're talking about what the French experience of this.

1:00:55 Because the show is being dubbed.

1:00:57 Right.

1:00:58 Right, of course. In the French TV, the Ingalls speak French, and the chief of the tribe speaks apparently a Sicilian dialect.

1:01:06 But Carolyn doesn't then say, no, he's speaking Italian. It's still, oh, no, he's speaking French. But the French know that this is Italian, obviously.

1:01:14 They translate it, look, they translate it word for word.

1:01:21 They had to do it. It's probably an interesting conundrum that they were in as they were doing this.

1:01:25 It is a conundrum.

1:01:26 It's like, how do we do this?

1:01:28 Stop.

1:01:29 In France, when they showed the episode where Mrs. Olsen teaches French in the school.

1:01:34 Yes. They had to do something.

1:01:38 She can't be teaching French because everybody's already speaking French. She was doing a class in diction. She said, and now we will be having a class in diction. So she says all the same stuff.

1:01:49 That makes sense.

1:01:52 But this is a huge problem. When they've done things, what if somebody speaks French?

1:01:55 Right.

1:01:56 No, French pig Latin would have made a better choice than them speaking Italian. That is wild. That is so strange. Okay. Anyway, back to the Native American. Listen, I know it was of the time that they weren't authentically doing this. I know that they didn't care whether it was authentically ethnic.

1:02:15 I get it. I get it.

1:02:17 But mamma mia, you watch it back now and it is, it is cringe to watch a lot of this.

1:02:22 You walk to the room and you're like, no.

1:02:25 No, no. It's just a big, yes, no.

1:02:28 The nice man from New York. He worked a lot.

1:02:31 I think there's obviously a much higher degree of sensitivity towards that kind of authenticity today.

1:02:38 There has to be now. As it should be, as it should be.

1:02:42 I would say the 90s went for it because the 70s were still like the 60s. And in the 60s, 70s, there were a handful of people who were actually Native American, or at least part Native American somehow, who were working in the industry. And even then they kind of had made up cute names that made them sound more... But most of the really major people pretending to be Native American in film at that time were absolutely not. The guy with the famous PSA where the Native American, he's crying as he's in the litter.

1:03:11 Wasn't he Native American?

1:03:12 He was not Native American. No?

1:03:14 He certainly, boy, the look was very much.

1:03:16 He was really good. He worked a lot. And that's the thing is that several of the people who were completely unknown worked like mad.

1:03:22 So wasn't his name in the industry Iron Eyes Cody? I mean, wasn't that?

1:03:26 Iron Eyes Cody. I believe it was Iron Eyes Cody who was not.

1:03:28 But he wasn't really needed.

1:03:29 And there was also Eddie Little Sky was big. I think Eddie Little Sky was big. But none of them, they all created like backstories of what tribe they were from and all this whatnot. And just things were not true. People just made up resumes.

1:03:43 That PSA, I believed him as a look.

1:03:46 I did too.

1:03:47 I believed.

1:03:48 Cody was an American actor who, real name, Espera Oscar de Corti. Let's get into these towns again. American actor portrayed Native Americans, including Chief Iron Eyes and Bob Hope's tail face, Native Americans shedding a tear about pollution, etc.

1:04:05 I'm sorry. I just want to apologize to all Native Americans out there.

1:04:09 In his private life, he insisted that people use a Native American overtime claiming membership in several different tribes.

1:04:16 Oh, that is crazy.

1:04:17 And in 98, his half-sister said, no, we're Italian. And he said, no, no, no, I'm not. He was Sicilian.

1:04:25 So Italian was the right choice in France.

1:04:28 So awful. We just weren't there yet. No, we weren't.

1:04:37 I think this is important that we can talk about this and that there is a greater commitment to that kind of authenticity.

1:04:47 I think the first time I ever saw authentic Native American representation was Dances with Wolves.

1:04:55 Yeah.

1:04:55 What was that, 93, 92, something like that? People started popping up.

1:04:58 They started saying, well, we could.

1:05:00 That's the first time.

1:05:01 Native American actors start coming forward going, you know, there's many of.

1:05:04 Us here in L.A.

1:05:05 Who are actors. We'd be happy to come in and audition. We have people who can do this.

1:05:09 Mary McDonnell was not a Native American.

1:05:12 But she wasn't supposed to be. She was a white.

1:05:14 Oh, that's right.

1:05:15 She was a white girl that was taken in by the tribe. Yeah, she wasn't supposed to be. Of course. But Rita Moreno tells an amazing, amazing story when she was doing West Side Story. And, you know, she is Puerto Rican. She is 100% Puerto Rican, as were, I think, most of the, was it the Sharks?

1:05:34 Well, that's Jerome Robbins. He would have insisted on that.

1:05:37 But the makeup department made them all darker. So they put, and you can see they have these flat, dark makeup. They weren't ethnic enough. They weren't dark enough. And Marina Moreno tells the story. She's in the makeup chair and says to the makeup artist, like, why are you, I'm Puerto Rican. Like, it's a wide variety of colors, right?

1:05:59 It's a spectrum of skin tone in Puerto Rico. Like, I'm Puerto Rican. Like, why are you making me darker? And the makeup artist just went, What are you, racist? So you just can't win, right? Like, what do you do with that?

1:06:16 Yeah, that's interesting.

1:06:17 Anyway, I mean.

1:06:19 Eddie Little Sky, who did a bunch of Westerns, and most people thought, oh, he's putting it on. Eddie Little was indeed a citizen of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He was absolutely Lakota. So he actually, Eddie Little Sky was real. Iron Eyes Cody was not.

1:06:38 Well, I also appreciate that I don't think the Native Americans were in this pilot were made out to be in a very negative light. I liked the balancing act of they were a threat to the Ingalls just because they were felt threatening and you didn't know what they were going to do. And yet you also understood the plight of the Native Americans going, what are these people doing on our land?

1:07:06 Sure.

1:07:07 Sure.

1:07:08 And they made it plain, like when they came in, they didn't hurt her children. They did take stuff. But she was like, and they're like, okay, fine. And then when he shows up, he's like, hey, sorry about that. And we had a meeting where we decided that let's not kill anybody. And then, of course, the government comes and goes, hey, guess what? You're moving because they are getting this land. And in the Netflix one, you get to see the whole meeting with the government and all the different tribes. And you kind of get the whole back story. You get all the details about everybody. I thought it was fascinating that you actually got to see the meeting. But in this, they make it plain. It's like, well,

1:07:43 this is our land. And the chief is like, yeah, we don't really want to be just killing families. That's not my thing. Not doing that.

1:07:50 So....

1:07:53 They're a threat because indeed the white settlers and the Native Americans are at war and people are killing each other regularly at that time.

1:08:00 Right.

1:08:01 There's fear all around.

1:08:04 All around.

1:08:05 All around. Everyone's afraid.

1:08:07 My favorite shot of the whole thing besides the opening title credits is you get a straight cut to Ma in that rocking chair while her kids are sleeping with that rifle in her lap guarding that door.

1:08:21 Mm-hmm.

1:08:22 Rocking and singing that, you know, that prayer. And my God, what an image, babe. What an image.

1:08:29 She did, I mentioned, I.

1:08:32 Said earlier, you know, as I've watched Karen through the years, I just think she did such a great job in all of this.

1:08:39 And she was very strong in the pilot, I thought. I mean, it just, it was a challenging time. It was challenging for her.

1:08:50 Because she wanted to work in a particular way and Michael worked in a different way. Yeah, But together, regardless of how they worked, when they were present in these scenes together, they were wonderful.

1:09:05 Together in the scenes.

1:09:06 It was so crazy because their personalities, the way they worked, it was like clack, clack, clack. But the actual finished product was they were this incredible loving couple, the most beloved people on TV. It's like, oops, it worked.

1:09:19 And can we just, I want to mention two things before we wrap up the pilot, which is, one, we get a real va-va-voom moment with Ma and Pa, where they're finally in the cabin.

1:09:30 Oh, we're alone.

1:09:30 And he's like, we're alone. And they have this very sensual kiss.

1:09:34 Though, but we never see that again.

1:09:37 Real life.

1:09:38 We, I mean, we see Ma and Pa kiss every now and then in the series, but this was like a very sensual, overtly sexual overtone.

1:09:48 Big time.

1:09:49 Moment that we never see again. We see popcorn eating.

1:09:53 I love in the book, because, you know, Carrie is born in Canada. In the book, there's a whole thing where Ma and Pa went for a walk. They like to go for walks in the evening while we kids would stay in the house.

1:10:06 They went for a walk.

1:10:06 And then a few chapters later, Mom's having a baby. No.

1:10:10 You think?

1:10:11 That answered the question of how did they manage? They went for a walk in the moonlight. Oh, yeah. And then we saw flashes of Michael's humor. The pilot's very, very serious.

1:10:21 Yes.

1:10:22 But when right after she speaks it, happy land with the gun. And he says, well, I feel a lot more welcome if you put that thing down.

1:10:28 Yeah.

1:10:29 And the comedy is earned.

1:10:30 Flashes. of that Michael humor start coming in.

1:10:34 Yeah. I will say also, when I went to Independence, I'll repost this again, but if people are interested to see what that actual little log cabin looked like, I took video of it and I made posts on it on my social media at Prairie TV. So it is absolutely fascinating seeing how they actually lived. And I definitely said to the women who work at the museum in Independence, Kansas, like, There was no baby making in this cabin going on because they were, it was close, tight, tight quarters. So yes, the evening walks make perfect sense. Here's my number two thing.

1:11:10 And this is a hair. This is a hair comment.

1:11:13 Oh, no. Here we go.

1:11:14 Ready?

1:11:15 Laura's braids in the pilot are behind her ears. So they're more pulled back off of her face and the braids kind of come behind her ears. And in the series, they come in front of her ears. And I wish they had kept it behind the ears.

1:11:30 And her hair is down. Her hair is down all the time. Remember, they're dancing around. And her hair is down and beautiful. And you're right. The braids are like this.

1:11:39 They're further back on her head.

1:11:41 They're here, straight down the sides of her head once we start the show.

1:11:46 And I wonder why they made that choice.

1:11:48 Yes.

1:11:48 Yes.

1:11:49 I wonder what that hair braid decision was. because I liked it better behind the ears, but that's just me.

1:11:56 Yeah, no, but clearly a choice was made.

1:11:58 Yeah, and they stuck to it because she was stuck with those braids the entire time. Yeah, for sure. Signature braids, but even so. Okay, let's wrap up this pilot, guys. There's the prairie fire. Intense. Very intense.

1:12:13 Yes.

1:12:14 And they beat that house with water as much as they can, and then the rains come.

1:12:18 There are visual effects going on there. I mean, you can see that that's... placed fire on the roof.

1:12:24 It wasn't really burning.

1:12:26 But it still looked so authentic.

1:12:27 You know, I always think about... There's a smoke filter. They overlaid smoke.

1:12:31 It looked so good.

1:12:33 But it looked.

1:12:33 It was completely terrifying.

1:12:36 Terrifying. It wasn't real, but.

1:12:37 The way they played it was very, very convincing. For sure.

1:12:41 How do you think they shot... Because you see the prairie actually on fire. How did they shoot that?

1:12:49 Do you know?

1:12:50 Whether there's a overlay done there. Yeah, I never had a conversation with Kent about that.

1:12:58 How they actually did that.

1:12:59 Overlay was big in the 70s. We did a lot of overlay. We had that beam.

1:13:03 Well, if they did it, it was great. I always say Star Wars 1977, I think the special effects in those are better than the CGI stuff from the 2000s. Whatever they did worked. And so whatever they did for this absolutely worked.

1:13:17 As I looked at it last night as I'm watching it, I totally believed there was a fire.

1:13:20 Yeah, me too.

1:13:21 For sure.

1:13:22 Me too.

1:13:23 Yeah.

1:13:24 And then they find out after everything that they have gone through that they have to leave.

1:13:30 Yeah.

1:13:32 And you know what's funny about this? It's like we know the story. I knew that they were going to have to leave. I knew that this was not the permanent home. And yet it is still absolutely crushing.

1:13:43 It's crushing.

1:13:44 Yeah.

1:13:45 Because they've survived all this.

1:13:47 That's right. Everything that they had to survive to make it work, and it finally was starting to work.

1:13:53 And as Charles says, I remember you were talking about this was a time everyone was disillusioned with politicians, elected officials, and doesn't he say, well, it's those blasted politicians in Washington that have ruined everything. And the whole audience, crowd goes wild, audience goes, yes, thank you.

1:14:09 Yep.

1:14:10 Yeah, it's just, well, well, he talks, didn't he, he also says that the line got moved. Right. They were, he thought they started feeling like this was okay, but then the line moved. But then I think there are others, there, historically, I think it said that Pa picked a place that was not available to them.

1:14:36 Yeah, I mean, Pa.

1:14:36 He didn't check the map.

1:14:37 He didn't check it.

1:14:38 In the book.

1:14:39 There's a thing in the books where Ma says, you have the map, right? Oh yes, around here somewhere. You sure where we're going? And it's clear that he has not. And in the Netflix thing, they do a thing where he's been kind of bamboozled that they were like, yeah, sure, this is totally fine. It's not a real government document.

1:14:58 But he was very sketchy about, am I in the right place? He was not checking. He did not check. He went, well, this looks good and it's around here somewhere. And yeah, had he checked, he would have known he was not in the right place.

1:15:10 Yeah, so they really were at the whim of his decisions.

1:15:16 Yeah.

1:15:17 Yeah, and that was, I mean, just think of the pressure that they were all under, but think of the, I mean, he, you can tell that, He's profoundly, you know, he's profoundly feeling this responsibility.

1:15:31 To make this work out for everybody.

1:15:33 He's not, you know, there's no dancing away from his responsibility.

1:15:37 He knows that he's in it, but he made it, you know, he found the place.

1:15:41 He saw the place. He was totally taken by that. And that's how his heart just took over at that point. And he's fully vested in making this work out for the family.

1:15:51 Yeah. When he's parked outside with the gun for the wolves and he's throwing the rabbits away, and when he's got the gun ready for the Indians and he's handling the children, you see, I mean, he's a relatively young man, he's in his 30s, oh no, I've dragged everybody out here and I have my wife and my very tiny children and I am literally the only thing between them and wolves and Native Americans who may wish to kill them.

1:16:16 This is it. If I did it, I'd have to take this gun now and defend these people because what are we gonna do? And you see the look in his face like, oh well, I'm in it now.

1:16:26 Yeah, and this wasn't an automatic rifle.

1:16:29 He was gonna get one shot off.

1:16:31 Right.

1:16:32 And before he had to reload, I mean, there was no, you know, this was not, that gun was good for one shot.

1:16:40 That was it. And then after that, he'd be overwhelmed.

1:16:44 Like he could never reload in time to, then it's hand to hand after.

1:16:48 That first shot. So there's so much jeopardy in this.

1:16:55 And again, at the end of this, there is, there is, you know, they're not defeated. They've had a huge setback and they're going, they're going to continue this journey.

1:17:11 They're going to find their place and wherever that turns out to be.

1:17:17 And we find out six months later in the, you know, in the, in the life of all this, that when NBC said, yeah, let's make this, they determined that it was going to be Walnut Grove.

1:17:27 And that's where the series was planted for its life.

1:17:30 And, Thanks to Plum Creek.

1:17:32 Yeah. Yep.

1:17:33 So it was a beautifully constructed pilot. Like, you know, they were on their way to Walnut Grove.

1:17:41 In real life, they went back to the Big Woods before they.

1:17:45 Well, that's the whole Baby Carrie thing. Why is Baby Carrie here? Well, Baby Carrie was born in Kansas because they were in the Big Woods. They went to Kansas. Baby Carrie... But the ending again, it zooms back in. Everything's come out and it goes back in and there's Laura. And again, the only thing we hear is Laura's voice.

1:18:06 The only person we see is Laura. We're back because it's about her.

1:18:11 Yes.

1:18:13 I think the series that followed captured that sense of a young girl's optimism and a young girl's spirit of hope for a positive.

1:18:29 World around her. And I think the audience captured that. There was no... It was.

1:18:35 And Michael, as much as he deviated from the books, maintained that voice.

1:18:41 Yes. Right.

1:18:43 Absolutely. Always. It made me think of Rocky.

1:18:50 Actually. Of Rocky?

1:18:51 Watching the end of this. Rocky loses in the end.

1:18:55 Yes.

1:18:55 To lose, it's right, it's about losing.

1:18:57 But he loses in the end, and yet you walk out of Rocky with a complete feeling of optimism. And I felt this was the same thing of like, they lost. They lost their home. It did not work out for them, but they are going on and there is a sense of optimism at the end of this pilot. that is really weirdly uplifting after this horrible thing that has just happened.

1:19:22 It's about life beating you down and still standing. That's what Rocky's about. It all goes wrong, but, and then this thing, yeah, they lose their, it's all wrong. It all goes completely wrong. They don't get what they want, and then somehow it's okay.

1:19:34 Well, the end voiceover speaks of optimism. It's all about, there would be, you know, planes to land across and rivers and all that stuff. All of that was very, very positive and hopeful. Yeah, their effort was the win. What they did was the win. To use the Rocky illusion, Rocky getting the shot was the win.

1:20:03 That's it, was the win. He knew he wasn't going to win. They went the distance.

1:20:08 That's it.

1:20:08 They went the distance. That's it. Oh, my gosh. Who knew Rocky and Little House?

1:20:12 Who ever thought you.

1:20:14 Could compare Little House to Rocky?

1:20:17 I know.

1:20:18 There's so much there.

1:20:20 They went the distance.

1:20:22 Oh, my God. I think that's a great place to get out right there. We are going to get out. Except before we go. before we go today we are premiering our very first okay patreon video question and we are going to feature it now okay tony hit it let's see this video.

1:20:43 Hey pam allison and dean um i'm steve i'm from richmond virginia um my patreon handle is running down the hill just like my podcast whatever um there's a lot of things i want to ask you guys but they um one of the Top things I like about Little House a lot. It's in my top 100 of things I like about Little House is the horses. I love watching horses and I love the stunts.

1:21:09 I love everything about them.

1:21:12 Were there any particular mishaps on set that I could hear about involving the horses? Any horses going crazy, running amok, that kind of thing?

1:21:20 Oh, my.

1:21:21 Thank you so much.

1:21:22 I'm glad you guys are coming back.

1:21:24 Look, first of all, I met him in Nashville. He's awesome. And he does have a podcast where he does all things Little House on the Prairie. It's great. And I also love how he's in his man cave. Like he is a true Bonnethead Anonymous. He could lead a Bonnetheads Anonymous meeting if he wants. He could be like a head coach at Bonnetheads Anonymous. Like no shame in that game, baby.

1:21:47 So thank you for the question.

1:21:49 So, Dean, were.

1:21:51 There any mizaps recorded?

1:21:54 Yes, just the one, the only one that I'm involved in was the first day, first scene, first moment where my hat blew off and I dropped the lines and the horses veered, you know, trotting, veered to the left and broke into a gallop and one was going to drive the other one into a big oak tree and they stopped in time. The wranglers were jumping out from behind every tree and stepping in the way to stop them, but....

1:22:19 That was, that's the only one I saw.

1:22:22 I think we, you know, I think this was a pretty solid group of wranglers.

1:22:27 I don't get the sense that things, that things happen. No, it's very possible that things happen. Yeah.

1:22:34 Oh, I was almost in the- What happened to you? Bunky crash. Generally, our wranglers were amazing. Over seven years, the fact that we only had like a handful of near misses acts, it's like, amazing.

1:22:45 Yeah, that's impressive.

1:22:46 And nobody really hurt. me and Catherine McGregor, Mrs. Olsen, and lovely Jonathan Gilbert and little Willie were in the wagon. And it was like the kind of smaller wagon, I think the Olsens kind of thing, the fancy. And I think it was, I think it was like the Kezia episode, something, because we were like out at like Disney Ranch or something.

1:23:05 And do-de-do-de-do-de-do-de-do, but we were like at the edge of the water. I don't know what went wrong. The ground was too soft near the edge of the water. Okay. freaked out the horse because they slipped or something. And the horses were not having it, quite rightly. And they went, and the whole wagon just stopped. went sideways. Oh, wow.

1:23:26 There was a lot of jumping. I did not know that Captain McGregor could jump that fast or that far. I knew Jonathan could, and he was airborne. That child could fly.

1:23:35 Oh, my gosh.

1:23:36 I also apparently am capable of flight, because as we realized it was going over, possibly into the water, but certainly it might be painful. He might have a big wooden wagon on us or something, and it could hurt. We just went, nope. and just threw ourselves as fast and as far as we could away from that wagon and landed safely. And the whole thing kind of tipped over.

1:23:58 And then, you know, in the rank was they righted it and got the horse. There was a lot of, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey. And they were like, you guys are okay. But we were like, no, I'm not staying on this thing to see where it goes. I'm jumping.

1:24:08 Now, Allison, in the pig farmer episode, didn't Catherine slipped off the back of the horse? And I understand it hurt her hip.

1:24:18 She did cavern at some point. And was it the pig farmer? Was there some weird horse stunt where she was in a horse?

1:24:25 They were riding up to the house on, you know, like.

1:24:29 Right.

1:24:29 The two of them, because they're going to get the, we've got the gun. Yes. Right.

1:24:35 Right. Right.

1:24:37 And the whole thing was that they were supposed to be precariously on this horse and she slipped.

1:24:42 And they kept it in. She slipped right off the back of the horse.

1:24:45 And, like, the, like, land on the tailbone kind of thing. And she wound up, and it was a problem. Nothing was, like, broken. But I remember that's when she started really going to the chiropractor. And she was having a lot of chiropractic for many, many years. And, like, years later, she said, you know... I actually have some pain. Something got screwed up during that. Like, and it was one of those things, like a little teeny tiny thing, but it's your back. So, um, but yeah, no, she had to have a lot of chiropractic and stuff. And I think part of her back didn't fully recover. I think that's right.

1:25:19 I think that's right.

1:25:19 Because initially at the time it wasn't like she didn't go to the hospital. It wasn't an ambulance thing. Nothing was broken, but backs, you.

1:25:26 Know, I, you know, I'd say about just jumping in on more on horses, um, we'd pause team was the, you know, was the, was the.

1:25:37 Hot car in town for sure. And I guess, you know, Doc Baker actually had a nice.

1:25:45 A beautiful buggy.

1:25:45 Yeah.

1:25:46 That would have been a little sports car.

1:25:49 Yeah.

1:25:49 And a, and a nice looking, I don't know if it was a gelding or a mare. I have no idea, but a nice looking.

1:25:55 Nicely conformed horse pulling.

1:25:58 This, this buggy.

1:26:00 Um, Almanzo is supposed to be like, have his Morgans and love his Morgan horses. Right. Almanzo's horses, the horses that they were, that they gave Almanzo to drive were not the prettiest horses.

1:26:14 I mean, the Morgans are so beautiful. These were not beautiful horses, but they did the job. They were wonderfully trained.

1:26:22 They went from point to point as they were supposed to.

1:26:25 They were as safe as you were going to get in that situation. I never felt... other than dropping the lines, but that was my fault. I never felt like any of our horses ever behaved in.

1:26:38 A way that put anybody at risk.

1:26:41 Yeah. I was scared to death of the things. I mean, and that's the fact that nothing that I'm terrible. I can't ride a horse. I still can't.

1:26:48 I can't.

1:26:50 And so, you know, the whole thing, oh, I have to have this horse. I'm like, get me off this thing. And so I'm sitting on this, I literally had the wranglers holding the horse still. Like there's guys on the ground holding the horse's legs. So there's like literally no movement. I'm like, giddy up, cut. Stunt woman gets, you know, whoa, thank you. You're done now. And then I was like on a fake horse with a wind machine going. Very silly.

1:27:14 And lots of stunt people. Now, Melissa can ride a horse. She knew what she was doing, but they said, no, we're going to have stunt people do it because if she falls and breaks.

1:27:22 An ankle, then we can't shoot for like a month.

1:27:25 So no, we'll have the stunt person do it because if there's a broken ankle, isn't it? So she didn't get to ride during the race stuff. But I didn't even get to do the giddy up part because I couldn't even go 10 feet with the thing. Clearly, if those horses were skittish, something would have happened because I was skittish and not holding the reins correctly or seated correctly or doing anything correctly. So if that horse had a problem, it would have moved. But it was just sitting there going, oh, here we go. We got another actor who doesn't know how to ride sitting on me. Oh, great.

1:27:54 And the wranglers just kept order and nothing horrible happened. So other than the one, the buggy kind of going into the creek there and having to take a flying jump. Yeah, I was amazed that people didn't get hurt all the time. That's sad.

1:28:07 That's a great question. It is.

1:28:09 And we've jumped through a number of episodes of moments, but really everything was good with.

1:28:16 The horses on the program is what.

1:28:18 I would say. Yeah, we all survived.

1:28:19 That's my recollection.

1:28:20 Ask the horses.

1:28:21 Yeah, yeah.

1:28:21 That's awesome.

1:28:22 We all survived.

1:28:23 Thank you for the question. That question's fantastic.

1:28:26 We all survived.

1:28:27 She lived.

1:28:28 Yeah.

1:28:29 She lived.

1:28:30 That was our very first Patreon video question.

1:28:33 Yeah!

1:28:33 And if you would like a question chosen to be on the podcast to have us answer it, or you guys really like it, answer show-related questions for sure, um, join us on Patreon. You can submit your video and you might get chosen. Da-da-da! Hey, bonnet heads, before we leave, we have one more thing we want to talk to you about.

1:28:52 Dean?

1:28:53 Yeah.

1:28:53 So on October 25th, our colleague Karen Grassley, who is beloved around the world for her portrayals of Caroline Ingalls in the original Little House series. Karen has always been very active politically. She's very causal. She's been an ardent feminist her whole life. I think she has a very strong sense of what she believes is right and wrong.

1:29:16 And human rights.

1:29:16 Karen is supporting a candidate for Congress, and she's doing an event, an online event on October 25th. That starts at three Pacific time, six Eastern time. This is a candidate for Congress in Ohio that Karen believes.

1:29:31 In very strongly. Allison, you shared some of this information on your website.

1:29:37 I did.

1:29:37 I put up the poster and everything on my Facebook page. As I said, she's always been involved in everything. And it's like a little online campaign party. And Karen will be there and ask the candidate questions kind of thing. She seems great. She looks like a nice lady. But Karen says absolutely she thinks that this woman is just absolutely the bee's knees. So I put up. So check it out. If it's your thing, whatever. But it's an online thing. You can hear what Karen has to say. And, uh, check it out at, uh, on the 25th there.

1:30:08 And all the.

1:30:08 Information to endorse anything in particular.

1:30:11 But we are supporting our colleague.

1:30:14 Karen Grassley. And this is something that's important to Karen. And we want to just give voice to that and use it and hear it as you will.

1:30:25 Um, Yes, the link will be in our show notes. So if you want to check it out, it'll be right down below. And please no hate mail.

1:30:35 Please, please. Oh, wow.

1:30:38 You're a very nice person.

1:30:40 This candidate.

1:30:42 If it's the kind of thing you like, we wouldn't want you to miss it. If it's the kind of thing you like, we'd want you to know where to go to check it out.

1:30:47 And if it's not your deal, let it go. It's fine.

1:30:50 All good.

1:30:51 All right. Anyway, thanks, guys. And I think that's it for today. You guys, I'm very proud of us because this was an hour and a half pilot episode and we tackled this thing in under three hours. In under two hours. That's good for us. That is really good. We did it, you guys. We went the distance. We did.

1:31:16 We went the distance. We went the distance, man.

1:31:18 All 50 rounds, baby.

1:31:20 Thanks for coming with us on the distance.

1:31:23 We did it.

1:31:23 You guys, thank you so much for being with us here today. If you want to know more about what we're doing, join us on our socials, Little House 50 Podcast, our website, littlehouse50podcast. com. Please like and subscribe. It really helps spread the word and get the algorithm going for people to discover us. You know what? We've never said this before.

1:31:41 There are so many bonnet heads out there by the millions who do not know that we exist or this podcast exists. How is that possible? How can that be? So spread the word and we'd really appreciate it. Give us a good review too. That helps. I'm doing all the plugs today. Anyway, it's that time. Bob, get the wig.

1:32:01 Let's fly, baby. Running down that hill, just like Steve's podcast and handle.

1:32:08 No horses in the way on this one.

1:32:12 No horses were harmed in the making of this episode.