Wilder - 8. Little Landon on the Prairie

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

This week, Little House goes to Hollywood. In the 1970s, the TV show Little House on the Prairie gave Laura’s books a whole new life. Tens of millions of people tuned in every week to spend time with the Ingalls family. And then, a decade later, every Gen X latchkey kid came home to Laura and Nellie and Ma and Pa. Thanks to endless reruns and streaming platforms, Little House is still airing somewhere right now. Perhaps you, yourself are watching it while you read this. There are a lot of reasons Little House doesn’t quit, but one of the main ones is Michael Landon, the show’s producer, writer, director, and most importantly, Laura’s Pa, Charles Ingalls. As Pa, Landon’s charm and charisma (and hair, and abs, and bare, glowing chest) often eclipsed Laura as the star of the show. And also turned hardcore book fans off. To say the TV show deviated from Laura’s books is an understatement. This was Landon’s prairie. And yet, he still managed to tap into some essential Little House truths, and replicate some of its many problems. But how did this affect Laura Ingalls Wilder’s legacy? What did it mean to put these characters in the hands of a man who would craft their stories into something dramatic and compelling enough to keep people tuning in a half century later? Come home to a simpler time. Come home to Michael Landon crying.  Go deeper:Alison Arngrim’s Confessions of a Prairie BitchMelissa Gilbert’s Prairie Tale and Back to the PrairieKaren Grassle’s Bright Lights and Prairie Dust Charlotte Stewart’s Little House in the Hollywood HillsMichael Landon on the Tonight Show promoting Little House’s first seasonMichael Landon on the Tonight Show addressing cancer diagnosis  Follow us for behind the scenes content! @WilderPodcast on TikTok@Wilder_Podcast on Instagram We want to hear from you! If listening to Wilder has changed your thinking on Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House books, send a voice memo to [e-mail]. You might be featured in our final episode ;) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sonora and IHART's My Cultura Podcast Network present Princess of South Beach, Season 2. Did you miss me? The new season of lies, scandals and skeletons in the closet. I am proud to take office as your first openly gay mayor. This season, it's all out in the open. Listen to Princess of South Beach on the I Heart Radio app, a podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Out of the shadows is a podcast on America's immigration system told to the eyes of our Latino community. I didn't understand how difficult life was going to be being an adult, I mean, we seen a doctor in that age of 14. I'm Patty Rodriguez. And I'm Eric Galindo. Follow us as we tell the incredible true story of a group of young people who took on the system and changed the course of history. Listen to out of the shadows dreamers on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up? This is Chris Rudiger.

I am the owner and co-founder of the 615 House and you're listening to my new podcast, the 615 House podcast. It's a chance to take a deep dive with some of Nashville's hottest artists as we learn their stories. And I try to keep the questions pretty spicy as these artists sit in the hot seat.

Hang out with us as we talk to some of your favorite artists here on the 615 House Podcast. Listen to the 615 House Podcast on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts. Let's go back to my family room floor in the suburbs of southern Ontario. It's a weekday in the mid-80s for 26 p.m.

My sister and I have just returned home from school. The first half hour of Oprah is coming to a close. It's time to switch the channel. This wasn't a choice. It just was. Mom, Pa, pulling up in a choice. It just was. Mom, Pa pulling up an oaggin. Ma primly tucking a wayward strand of hair in her bonnet. Pa's infectious laugh.

And the girls, Laura, Mary, and Little Carrie joyfully running down a grassy hill. Oops! Down goes Carrie. I believe I've seen every little house episode at least once. There are 204 in total. In fact, I can still ID any episode based on the first five seconds. And if this sounds impressive or alarming, rest assured I'm not the only one. I think it's just the reality of a 1980s childhood when there were limited options and you watched what you were given and a lot of us were given little house. Like a lot. Let me put it in context for you. Remember the Game of Thrones finale?

The one that had more viewers than the finale of the sopranos or sex in the city or actually anything else on HBO ever. 13 million people tuned in to watch that game with Throoms finale. Well, as they might say on the prairie, hold my tin cup, Daenerys. On any given Monday night from 1974 to 1983, Little House and the Prairie averaged 16 million viewers.

Little House was a huge hit, but lots of shows were in the 70s. There were a lot of things on TV, actually, in the 1970s, that were really huge. That aren't you reruns or out on DVD and people are not watching now. But Little House and the Prairie isn't what in the heck? Little House went into reruns while it was still on in prime time. watching now. But little house in the prairie? Is it what in the heck? Little House went into reruns while it was still on in prime time. The show ended in 1983, but it's never actually gone off the air. So you can add millions and millions of viewers to those original numbers we just told you about.

The show stayed on the airport 50 years and is actually better known now than it was when it was originally on NBC. We're talking a half century of television. It's on hallmark. It's on VHS. It's on DVD. It's on Amazon Prime. It's on Peacock and an entire new generation of kids discovered at Drinkovid. Little House and Prairie, the video is on the phone that you watched on the way here. covered it during COVID. In March of 2020, we saw the number of Google searches for a little house in the Prairie Double from the month before.

Some of you might have it on another screen right this second. I literally wake up in the middle of the night and go, somewhere is watching us the prairie right now. It's literally, because it's in every country on Earth, it's been dubbed into every language. There's to be decent every language. It's bananas.

There's a lot of reasons little house never quits. But without question, one of the biggest is Michael Landon. The show's producer, writer, director, and most importantly, the star, better known to many as Charles Ingalls, Laura's paw. Sorry about what, I guess I just couldn't find the words to say it was in my heart. For better or worse, Michael Landon made the show all his own. This is a magnetic individual.

He glowed. You know, he just, he had it. In the books, Pa was charming and steadfast, and Laura was the star. In the television show, Michael Landon had lovely hair, and was always crying. He had a well-oiled bare chest. And as I got a bit older, I enjoyed how nice he looked in tight pants and suspenders. He was the star. Laura was our adoring proxy.

If you're a person devoted to Little House Book series, the ones written by the real life-flora Ingles Wilder, the TV version might not always make sense. The stories don't always match up with what's in the books. And at times, they're downright strange. But Michael Lannon had a vision for the show. And it was a vision he believed would stand the test of time. He said, you know, everyone's going to be watching these shows

long after we're all gone. He said, long after I'm dead, it was like this prophetic thing. And every when he said it to it, yeah, right over here. And like, didn't believe him. And here we all are. We didn't get it. Michael got it. But the motivation to create these two versions

of Little House was essentially the same. If the books were the results of Laura wanting to memorialize her father's stories, the television show is in many ways the results of Michael Landon using Laura's writing to tap into his own traumatic childhood. Still, at the end of the day, Michael Landon made Laura's prairie all his own. And we all liked it there, even if it was a very strange place to be sometimes. In some ways, the TV show feels like a ven diagram of Laura Ingalls

Wilder, her devotion to her paw, her daughter Rose's vision, and then Michael Landon's brain. And the TV series exists at the center of all this, and that's where 20 million people spent an hour each week, and then an hour after school every day for nearly five decades. week and then in our afterschool every day for nearly five decades. Michael Lanton was able to tap into some essential little house truths in ways that are sometimes hard to believe and were sometimes just as problematic as the books. This week instead of going through the pages to the prairie, we're going through the screen to sunny Southern California. Come home to a simpler time. Come home to Hollywood in the 70s.

I'm Glinnis McNickel, and this is Wilder. ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ It took a long time for the little housebooks to reach Michael Landon. More than three decades went by from the publication of the last book to the premiere of the show in 1974. It's not because people didn't want it, it's because Laura and her daughter Rose wouldn't let anyone have the rights to the books. But the time Laura died in 1957, the little house books were huge success. At some point, the Canadian broadcasting company approached Laura

about adapting the books for radio, but she turned the offer down. Now, the she, nor her daughter Rose, wanted to see the books, quote unquote, distorted by someone else's vision. There were a number of radio adaptations, both small scale and also hallmark, in adapting the little house books.

That's Bill Anderson again. He's been researching and writing about Laura since he was a kid and has written many books on her life. But Laura Ingalls Wilder was very, very skeptical and wanted approval of the scripts. And she wasn't all together happy with the radio versions. Rose Wilder langed out the same way when her books, let the Hurricane Rar and Freelin were adapted to radio. So I don't think they were fans of media.

After Laura's death, Rose continued to spurn offers. But when Rose died in 1968, things changed pretty quickly. Enter Roger Lee McBride. You remember McBride. He's a complicated figure who had a unique relationship with Rose. He referred to himself as her adoptive grandson and even called her grandma. Having no children, Rose designated him her heir, and after her death, he acquired all the rights

to Little House on the Prairie. He now owned everything. Despite Rose's wishes, McBride entered into discussions with Disney almost immediately after her death. Disney was very interested in adapting the Little House books. However, on the way to a meeting at their offices, fate intervened in the form of a young girl naturally. Circa 1971, my sister is at home ill with a cold from school.

She's a teenager, and my father goes in to say goodbye to her in the morning and discovers her reading one of the little house books. And he can't understand why his teenage daughters rereading a children's book. That her mother had read to her which he was a child. That's trip friendly. His father is Ed friendly. And Ed is the first reason little house landed on television screens. At the time, Ed was a highly regarded television producer, best known for creating the program, Ronan Martens laughin.

He went back and talked about it with my mother and my mother said, I've been telling you for years what great books they are and that you should make a TV series based on. So he borrowed one of my sister's books. He took another business trip a couple of days later, stopped at the magazine rack at the airport and bought a time magazine and hit it inside the time magazine. I had a airplane, so no one would see who was reading a children's book. And when he landed, he immediately realized what he had in his hands. And so he called his attorney and asked him to find out if the rights were available. And my father invited Roger to come and meet with him,

and they spent a weekend together in Los Angeles. That weekend resulted in friendly obtaining the rights to turn the books into a television show. He thought the books were a national treasure. His goal was to try to bring the magic of those books to the street. At least that was the plan. This was the mid-70s,

and the concept of setting a wholesome family show on the American frontier did not exactly speak to the times. My father was turned down by virtually every studio and network because at the time they all told him westerns are dead. This material is too soft. It's nice. They're great books, but, but, but. The March 1974 America was at the height of Watergate.

Vietnam was still raging. The country was experiencing extreme inflation. There was a lot of sharp, timely social commentary on Primetime TV, and a lot of people watching. The most popular show was all in the family, average viewership 20 million. In fact, the average weekly viewership of the top 10 shows in 1974 was around 16 million. I'm telling you all these numbers just to remind you

that even basic television was a common cultural language. When you showed up at work or at school or at the grocery store the next day, everyone knew what you were talking about. You'd all been watching it together. No one I often talk about what it was like to grow up with this sort of shared culture. I mean, I try to explain this to Charlie all the time that he lives in a content utopia where he can just dial up magically any episode of any show ever created and watch it as many times as he wanted. Whereas if we saw a show, especially when we were much younger, we may never

see it again. I remember one of my favorite little house episodes came on and I skipped swim practice because I was like, I've been waiting for this episode for years to see. And the thing is too is like when we talk about how wholesome little house was, the Walten's was also on TV in the 70s at the same time. Yeah, in my head they're the same thing.

Even though I grew up in the 80s, and I know that my mom watched both Little House and The Walten's, and to me, it just seemed really cheesy. I wasn't paying enough attention to either of them. Yeah, if I was to differentiate them for listeners and for you, I would say The Walten's was sort of like the depression. And The Walten's in the prairie was like sex appeal Hollywood, Michael Landon, with, you know, his muscles and his hair and his smile, and clearly had shaved his chest,

although I didn't understand that as a kid. Like, there was so much sex appeal to the little house in the prairie. It was like a western, it was like Hollywood. Hold on, I'm googling pictures of Michael Landon. I need to check. He's like, fabulous. That's a nice hair. That's some real nice hair.

Oh my gosh, look at his chest. Yeah. He was always finding reasons to take his shirt off. He was always breaking his ribs somehow so that they had to take his shirt off and wrap him up in like some sort of like prairie tensor bandage. He glistens. he glistens. He really glistens.

Nobody look like that on the Walton's, let me tell you. Right, just make me a list of your top 10 episodes. I'll dive into some Michael Landon when I'm alone later this evening. Being a sex symbol was not a new experience for Michael Landon. In the early 70s, Landon was known to the world as Little Joe, the youngest son of the wealthy ranch-owning cart-right family on the television Western Bananza. At the height of its run, it was the number one rated show

in the country, clocking 19 million viewers weekly. Landon, who was in his mid-20s, was a teen idol. Think, Elvis, those West. When Bonanza ended in 1973, Michael Landon was primed for his next project. My father knew Michael because he was very close friends with Lauren Green who was the patriarch on Bonanza. Here's Trip Friendly again.

And so he called Michael and he said, I have a project that I'm very interested in having you direct. So he set my sister with a script up to Michael's house and a few hours later, he got a call from Michael saying, I not only want to direct, but I want to star as Pa. And so with Michael attached, he would back to NDC with whom he had a very strong relationship, and he presented him with the package with Michael at directing and Michael starring, and they agreed. If I had a remembrance book,

I would mark down how it was when we left our little house in the big woods to go west to Indian territory. to go west to Indian territory. The two-hour little house pilot aired on March 30th, 1974. Ed Friendly spent his own money to hire Blanche Hanellist to adapt it, and she stuck faithfully to the book Little House on the Prairie. All right, Kansas, here we come! We're here not! The pilot was a huge hit.

It was the highest rated television movie of the year. NBC immediately ordered the series, and Little House on the Prairie premiered on September 11, 1974. Seven weeks after Nixon's resignation, and one week after I was born. The series starts with an episode called A Harvest of Friends, and it introduced a very different Ingalls family from the one Reader's New from the Books. The episode is about how Walnut Grove comes together to help Charles when an injury keeps him from fulfilling a contract that will allow him to save his brand new farm. It's a tearjerker, and it has no correlation whatsoever to any storyline in any of the books.

This set the template for what was to come on Little House. Family first. Home is the nicest word there is. Strength and community. I think you're a welcome addition to our community. Thank you. Hard work. Work for you in the morning.

Work for Hanson any afternoon. You're biting off a big piece. God. Charles Lord's Day is set aside for worship and for rest. Michael Landon's thick flowing curls. Michael Landon's smile. Michael Landon's shirtless and glistening. Michael Landon crying.

I'm not exactly crying in this episode, frequently wobbling his lip. Laura was still there, and Melissa Gilbert was charming and could hold her own in a scene, but there was no doubt who the star of this prairie was. The spotlight had clearly been shifted to Pa and his perfectly lit pecs. This was not the Charles Engels of the books. Michael showed himself to be anything but Charles Engels.

That's actor Dean Butler. He played heartthrob while Monson wilder on the show. This is a guy who's sitting there with a cigarette in his teeth. He's got his Carrera sunglasses on. His denim shirt opened down, halfway down his chest, his sprayed on with a gun, jeans, the snakeskin boots, the hair, obviously, with the ash brown dye number two in it. Unlike Pa, Michael landed on the prairie didn't have the iconic beard, Laura writes so lovingly about in the books.

NBC was so concerned little house book fans would be alarmed by the lack of a beard. They felt it necessary to put out a press release explaining its absence. Greek pains were put into fitting Michael Landon with a beard, both of natural growth and by makeup artists. But it was decided that he just did not look good with any kind of facial hair. And if Michael Landon did not look good with facial hair and gosh darn it, he would not have facial hair. He was a star and the producer and the writer.

It was, in short, Michael Landon's prairie. Millions of people wanted to live there with the Ingalls for at least one hour a week. Everyone loved Pog. Well, Season 2. Gas crews back. Did you miss me? The Caledons are back with a new season of lies, scandals, and skeletons in the closet.

And speaking of closets... I am proud to take office as your first openly gay mayor. This season, it's all out in the open. What color are your pants? Okay, maybe not everything. These people look like they're mixed up in some really dangerous stuff. Starring ex-Mayo, Dani Pino, Andy Bustillos, Raúles Parasin, Ginadores, Alan Eisenberg, and more.

Keep up with the most notorious family in Miami, unravel the mystery with this new season of Princess of South Beach. Listen to Princess of South Beach as part of the Microdura Podcast Network available on the IHerDradio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Out of the shadows is a podcast on America's immigration system told through the eyes of our Latino community. I didn't understand how difficult life was going to be being an undocumented person. I mean, I received my doctor in that age of 14.

This season is about our dreamers, undocumented students who challenged Barack Obama to pass DACA or deferred action for childhood arrivals, I'm Patty Rodriguez. And I'm Eric Galindo. Follow us as we tell the incredible true story of a group of young people who took on the system and changed the course of history. The way to survive in the United States as an undocumented immigrant was to be invisible and that changed completely with the dreamers. The movement pushed Obama and his administration to create DACA

because otherwise we would just kept supporting all of us. Sometimes in order to survive, you need to step out of the shadows. Listen to out of the shadows dreamers on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Cassandra Wallace. From I Heart Podcasts and Nomadic Engine. You've escaped a serial killer, a season's interrogator, and the worst explosion in modern naval history.

Be acclaimed, dramatic thriller returns. What I need to know is who you're with. After Shock, season two. He's like a ghost. Some people seem to be able to cheat death. We have an agreement to keep each other's secret. Cassie, we have the wings! This is native land!

You don't have the authority! None of you are making decisions to keep the rest of us safe, which leaves me! I'm asking for your forgiveness. After shock, season 2, starring Sarah Wayne Callies, David Harbor, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, listen to After Shock on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A little house was hitting the airwaves in the fall of 1974. Ed Friendley, the person who initially had brought the books to the screen, was increasingly unhappy. Michael Landon was wreaking havoc on Friendly's plan to faithfully adapt the books.

Friendly flat out told People magazine he thought this prairie was too flashy. Hi, I've renamed the series How Affluent is My Prairie. They have everything but a catalog. My father decided he and Michael had creative differences. And I think he recognized that Michael as the star of the show without work if Michael left the show. And I think eventually he decided that he did not want to continue with Michael's vision. He had his own vision.

So he left the show, but still you'll see in the credits it's still an NDC production association with a friendly production. So he was still very involved without being the producer on the show. So very quickly into season one, Michael Landon was fully, completely in charge. Michael Landon was fully, completely, in charge. While Ed Friendley's departure from the day-to-day signaled a major shift behind the scenes, viewers did not seem too deterred by the fact the show deviated from the books, or by Landon's central role, or by criticism that it was too saccharine, a sweet and low Walton, said People magazine. The show was saccharine, a sweet and low Walton said people magazine.

The show was saccharine, but Landon certainly didn't care. He embraced the simplicity of a family show, as he told Bobby Wigant in an interview right before the first season aired. But anyway, when this came along, it was fresh for me because it was honest and it was simple and very basic. And I liked the people. I thought the people were nice. And I kind of thought my family would like to watch that.

I got a lot of kids. And it's kind of fun to think you're going to do a show that you would be happy to sit in the living room with a whole family and watch. Landon's idea of family-friendly fare was a combination of adventure, wholesomeness, and hard times. And while the books provided some of this, Landon often went with what he knew, and he had definitely known his own hard times as a child. Born Eugene Horowitz in 1936, Landon claimed to have been ostracized as a child because he was Jewish. He'd also had a painful relationship with his mother.

This is what he told People Magazine in 1985 about her. An actor is reading his statement. I always wanted to get away from my family. Mother was a childish person who was always attempting suicide. She would stick her head in the oven, but she always had knee pads on the floor, or one window open. In a family like that, you get to thinking,

gee, if it's Tuesday, it must be suicide. Landon was famously a bedwetter as a child. I say famously because he talked about it freely. He even made a TV movie about this in 1976 called The Loneliest Runner. While I don't recall any bedwetting episodes in Little House, though presumably there was bed-wetting in the 1870s, it was these traumas from his own childhood land and was drawing on when he stepped into the Little House writers room.

And he could do it in a really, an intensely real way. This is Rick Oakey. In the 1970s, he was an NBC exec in charge of a host of iconic programs, the wonderful world of Disney, Chips, Knight Rider, and of course, Little House on the Prairie, where he witnessed Michael Landon's creative process firsthand in the writer's room. I would watch him sometimes. We'd be sitting talking about a plotter, about an episode, and he would lean back and he would close his eyes, and you know, it's

hard to sit in a room that's silent when you're supposed to be making a contribution. I would open my mouth to say something, and the other one of the writers in the room would sort of put his hand on my chest and say, wait. Much like real life, Laura, who reworked the hard times of her childhood into magical stories, Landon in many ways did the same. And it could go on for minutes where he would just sit there and when he would sit back up and open his eyes he'd say, well I was a kid and he would tell a story out of his own life.

And you just have you glued because he was a great yarn spinner. And you're asking yourself how does this relate to what we're working on right now? By the end of his story he would have tied it back into where the conversation started and he and used it as a way to bring an authenticity to the stories that made them superhuman. Some of those storylines were loosely connected to actual events in the book. Some less so, And those storylines were loosely connected to actual events in the book. Some less so. And some were Landon's attempt to stay current. You know, Microsoft was always interested in taking issues that were current and putting

them in that frame of a period piece that allowed you to explore them without being offensive kind of the way that Mash was able to explore the Vietnam War because it wasn't Vietnam. It was Korea, but it was Vietnam. And we all knew that's what they were talking about it. He proved to audiences that even if the show was sentimental and melodramatic, it could speak to what was happening in their world. A little house did speak to Vietnam, and a host of other contemporary issues.

The Civil War Soldier, who comes back and he PTSD or shell shocks be them and he's addicted to more of he. This is the same year when Vietnam veterans were coming home. Addicted to heroin. Hello, how many people were living that episode? That's Allison Arngram who played Nelly Olson on the show. So we were doing these episodes where the women are what the right to own property. We had episodes about alcoholism, about drugs.

We had child abuse, we had special abuse. We did work all those things out, and a lot of things were covered on 1970, just like all in the family of mod. We were sneaking them in too, but everybody was in bonnet, so it was somehow safe and okay. And of course, Pa and Ma were there to help you deal with it.

So little house could be current and comforting. But this was primetime TV after all. And just like today, the networks needed to draw eyeballs. And just like today, viewers love drama. Rick Oki's job was to deliver the studio exec's dramatic demands to Michael Landon. It was always who's going to have a baby? Is there going to be a wedding?

Is there going to be a funeral? Is somebody going to die? What event can you create for us? And I was the unfortunate messenger who had to go over to Michael Landon and go, hate to say this, but what if you got planned for November? Because that's when the ratings swe ratings sweeps happened and that's when advertisers make their buys. If you grew up in the heyday of primetime television, you knew the sweeps

shows. Even if you didn't know what sweeps was, they were often the two partners. They were unmissable. Think of the time they had to remove the bomb on Grey's Anatomy. That was a sweeps show. Once again, it was Rick Oki who had to deliver this task to Michael. And he would say, let me think about it. Then by the time I drove back to my office in Burbank, my boss would come in and go, what did you say to Michael? He's like, he's, you know, we're going to do the show where Merlin Olson's wife dies in a fire. And, you know, he would always come through with, you know, without being untrue to the spirit

of the books, he was wise enough and smart enough in the ways of broadcasting that he got it and he knew what they needed and he would always deliver it. What Landon delivered was a mix of sentimentality, Western romance and cultural relevance, which was ratings gold, but could also result in some serious weirdness. Even now when you're out in the world having conversations with people about Little House, the episodes they remember best always seem to be the strangest. I watched the TV show. I've tried to explain some of the episodes to other tour guides, and they're like, they did what? The TV show really, there's some,

they locked. She locked someone in the ice house. That's a big one. There you go. There's a huge, there's a huge house. That's me and Emily at lunch and dispense out to Coda with Diane, Cheryl, and Marie, the women who run the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society.

I didn't think they'd be into Michael Landon's antics. But when I brought up the TV show, we immediately launched right into our favorite episodes, which also happened to be the strangest ones. She pushes Nelly down the hill in the wheelchair, even the wind that I just watched where Laura, the baby brother dies, and Laura runs away thinking of her fault.

And then Laura climbs up a mountain to be closer to God, and she meets an angel. I don't know, yes. This means John. John, nothing the angel that I just, when you start saying it out loud, you're like, but it worked. I'm just worked, but made for some classic TV moments

that live permanently in the brains of an entire generation of children. So classic that Colin Farrell named Jacked Little House at the Writer's Strike Picket Line. And I eat the war with an actor. Right, he's been to lots of me. I'm going back to teaching. classic that Colin Farrell named checked Little House at the writer's strike picket line. When Little House actors get approached by fans, the fans immediately tell them about their favorite episodes. People always want to talk about a matter of

faith and me cutting off my leg. The back to school one with the cinnamon chicken and the mud fight. Bunny, where I go down the hill in the wheelchair. But I did pretend to be paralyzed and ruin everyone's life. I send the children home early because it was going to be a blizzard. Michael called it, mispeedle kills the kids again. I am at the Lord as my shepherd. A lot. It's my favorite, too.

Not, of course, as Melissa Gilbert. She played Laura on the show. And the Lord as my shepherd is my favorite episode, too. It's also the perfect example of how Michael Lannond spun the real stories of the Ingalls family into something utterly wild and memorable and perfectly crafted for primetime TV. The episode, the Lord is My Shepherd,

is based on something that actually happened to the Ingles, which we've talked about in an earlier episode. When Laura was eight, Ma gave birth to a baby boy, Charles Frederick Ingles Jr. known to the family as Freddie. Baby Freddie died at nine months. Laura never mentioned him in the books. It was too painful.

In the books, the Ingles do not have a son, and there is no baby who dies, never spoke of it. And then in the TV show, of course Michael said, what, that's like the greatest episode ever. Of course, we are going to do that. The TV episode adheres to these basic facts. And then embellishes. Here is what happens in the episode.

Ma has a new baby boy. Laura gets jealous of all the attention the new baby boy is getting. And when he gets sick, she refuses to pray for him. When the baby dies, she concludes it's her fault. And she decides to get as close to God as possible, literally. And then, of course, Laura runs away to a mountain. How she found a mountain in Minnesota? I always say she ran across four states to let Colorado

or something. I don't know. She finds a mountain, a big mountain at that. And then, at the top of the mountain, he's here in his board dying. Who is apparently God? And yet, it is genius that it totally works. It is one of the best episodes ever of like anything.

It did work. Everyone we spoke to remembered this episode. And they also remembered another one. You know it. Even if you don't think you know it. Perhaps no episode has given so many children nightmares than the episode called Sylvia. And of course, the Sylvia episode, or as people do refer to it clown rape, but I'm not laughing because it's funny, but that is the way people refer to it. It's a very, very

disturbing episode. They had that clown who was molesting everybody and raping everybody. There was a period in my childhood where every time I saw it was the same episode, which is the one that featured a sexual assault. Oh my God, it was a lot. Here's what happens.

Sylvia is about a young girl in Walnut Grove named Sylvia, who was sexually assaulted one day on the way home from school in the woods by a man who was wearing a creepy clownish mask. She gets pregnant and her angry father threatens to throw her out. The Inglis Adoptus and Albert offers to marry Sylvia so they can run away together. On their way out of town, the clown reappears, but before he can assault Sylvia again, he's shot by Sylvia's death. Sylvia, who's climbed up a ladder to get away from him,

falls and dies, too. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background shows 50 years old, deeply problematic. But also, maybe weirdly a bit ahead of its time? Littlehouse producer Rick Oki told me Michael Landon, who wrote and directed the episode, was simply trying to speak to the issues of the day. And I remember when he called me aside, I wanted to show or one of the girls in town gets raped. And it was really controversial in the network. You know, it had a a hard time but he dug his heels and said, no, we're doing this show. I'm going to write it myself. I'll direct it myself.

It'll be well done. Don't worry. And it was. What was the response to that show? Mixed. Mixed. Reviews are still mixed. On the one hand, Sylvia provided a narrative for an issue not often talked about on mainstream television. On the other hand, the ridiculous framing around it makes it a joke among fans. To understand how this lands now, I told Joe to watch Sylvia. Oh, I watched Sylvia. That is some messed up shit that happens in Sylvia. And you and Emily both prepared me that this was the quote unquote clown rape

episode. But I still think that there was a part of me that didn't believe you, that didn't really think that that was a thing that was going to exist in the little house on the prairie TV show. And I have to say, I found the episode problematic in so many different ways, starting with the boys from the town, the teenage boys, who go and spy on Sylvia while she's getting dressed and hoping to see her in her bra and underwear.

And in the background, the music that's playing is like this happy, circusy kind of music that makes it all seem like a farce when these boys are invading Sylvia's privacy and then this terrible sexual assault happens to her later. And then from there, it just got more bizarre and more problematic and completely went off the rails. Yeah, I mean, so much of it is so dated inevitably it's like a 50 year old episode and it's so weird, like the clown aspect of it.

It's so weird. The mime. A clown, a mime. I mean, I think mime is worse than clown, to be honest. Yeah, but I think, and be clear, this is not a defensive Soviet, but I think sometimes if you think of Sylvia, like that episode aired in like 1980, I think.

And I feel like can be viewed from our vantage point as a sort of early version of an ABC after school special. Like, you remember the ones we drew you upon? And I think it had the ability to give children experiencing sexual trauma or abuse, some sort of language or something to point to you and say, this is what's happening to me. And I think if we think about it in that context,

it becomes slightly less weird, although, again, the mime slash clown in the woods is just... It's like the stuff of horror movies before they turned into, you know, the scream horror movie. I hear you that in this episode, in the Sylvia episode, it tackled sexual assault and rape. Sylvia gets pregnant in the episode in a place where families could talk about it afterwards, right? Families could watch together and then maybe give language to something that they didn't know how to talk about before, much like the very special episodes of the sitcoms

that came a few years later in the 80s, and there was the Mr. Belvedere episode where Wesley's classmate had AIDS. There was the different strokes where the bicycle shop owner tries to molest Arnold and his friend Dudley to remember that one. I forgot about that. Yeah, there is also that punky Brewster episode.

There was a bunch of weird punky Brewster episodes, like that really stick out in your head, the challenger episode. I think she was also... Where the space shuttle explodes. The space shuttle actually explodes on punky Brewster, yeah. So I think like Sylvia is before all of this. So in the 80s, by the time we were watching

all these shows in prime time, this felt much less strange. But when Sylvia aired on a family show in primetime, and this was the storyline, I just feel like probably some of the weirdness of the plotting fell away, and it was maybe helpful and also probably like, a lot of people were, you know, couldn't take their eyes off of it.

And then when we encountered it after school, I want a strange episode to come home to after school with your cookies and milk. And you're like, oh, well, there's a clown in the woods attacking this girl. So bizarre. It's a disturbing, bizarre, strange episode is what it is. And also, Michael Landon knew what he was doing. Both things are true at the same time. It's so weird, it's also relevant, and also it's 43 years ago,

and we're still talking about it. So, I clearly, the man knew something. And the same way Sylvia tackled what in hindsight feels like a progressive subject I clearly, the man knew something. In the same way Sylvia tackled what in hindsight feels like a progressive subject for prime time television in 1980, and also depicted regressive attitudes around sex, little house to TV series could occupy both extremes too. It could be incredibly open-minded,

and at the same time outdated and problematic. That's after the break. Sonoro and I, Hartz, my Gultura podcast network, present Princess of South Beach, season two. Gas crews back. Did you miss me? The Caledons are back with a new season of lies, scandals, and skeletons in the closet and speaking of closets

This season it's all out in the open What color are your pants? Okay, maybe not everything These people look like they're mixed up in some really dangerous stuff. Starring X-Mario, Danny Pino, Andy Bustillos, Raúles Sparrason, Ginatores, Alan Eisenberg, and more. Keep up with the most notorious family in Miami, unravel the mystery with this new season of Princess of South Beach.

Listen to Princess of South Beach as part of the Microdura Podcast Network, available on the IHerDradio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Out of the shadows is a podcast on America's immigration system told through the eyes of the Latino community. I didn't understand how difficult life was going to be being an undocumented person. I mean, I received my doctor in that age of 14. This season is about our dreamers, undocumented students who challenged Barack Obama

to pass DACA or deferred action for childhood arrivals. I'm Patty Rodriguez. And I'm Eric Glandow. Follow us as we tell the incredible true story of a group of young people who took on the system and changed the course of history. The way to survive in the United States as an undocumented immigrant was to be invisible and that changed completely with the dreamers.

The movement pushed Obama and his administration to create DACA because otherwise we would just kept supporting all of us. Sometimes in order to survive you need to step out of the shadows. Listen to out of the shadows dreamers on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, this is Chris Rudiger. I am the owner and co-founder of the 615 House

and you're listening to my new podcast, the 615 House podcast, right here on I Heart. As an artist and entrepreneur myself, I feel incredibly lucky that I get to live in a city where there's so much creativity and artistry. And this podcast talks about it. It's a chance to take a deep dive with some of Nashville's hottest artists

as we learn their stories and ask them questions about creativity, social media, and just how to balance life in an ever changing industry. We talk about fireality and how building a sustainable career is not as easy as it looks. My favorite part is that we get to learn the secrets and stories that you don't always hear on camera, and I try to keep the questions pretty spicy as these artists sit in the hot sea. Come on in, hang out with us as we talk to some of your favorite artists here on the 615

House Podcasts. Hang out with us as we talk to some of your favorite artists here on the 615 House podcast. Listen to the 615 House podcast on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts. The Little House and the Prairie Television show for all its sentimentality and outdated tropes still resonates with fans today. all its sentimentality and outdated tropes still resonates with fans today. Some loader what we've said about the Little House books, certain episodes seem to pop back up from time to time and are newly relevant. In the spring of 2020, with the height of the pandemic,

a lot of people turned to an episode called quarantine. This is the one where Mr. Edwards' daughter played by none other than Kyle Richards of Real housewives of Beverly Hills fame, it's sick with a mysterious virus and she and Laura have to quarantine. None and the wake of George Floyd's murder and the Black Lives Matter protests, another episode went viral. That summer of 2020 when the country was going through or the country, the world was going through that massive

social upheaval and unrest all around George Floyd and Brianna Taylor and all of them, horrible injustices that were going on, the wisdom of Solomon came up a lot. That's TV, Laura Melissa Goverter again. And she's talking about an episode from season three called The Wisdom of Solomon. Gus Starring, then,kit actor Todd Bridges,

who would go on to star in the 80s sitcom Different Strokes. In the episode, Bridges plays a young black boy named Solomon who runs away from his family because he wants an education. I want to go to school like all the mother children. That's the white man's school, honey. You can't go there. Why? If we free. You can't go there. Why?

If we free, why can't I? He eventually comes across the angles who are kind to him and give him food and shelter and take him to school. Laura, who has never met a black person before, wipes Solomon's face to see if the black will come off his skin. Melissa Gilbert acknowledges that this scene felt cringey even when she was filming it. I asked not to do it. I said to Michael, I can't do that.

That's horrible. And he said, yeah, but we're trying to show people how wrong it is to be ignorant and how open-lord it is to learning something new. And I said, kill a lot, then I'll do it. But you're, I mean, I had to say you're a real and negro person and, you know, wipe the plaque off with his face. What you doing?

You are a real one. As a fact, I've never seen a real negro person before. It was absurd to me, but once it was explained, that this is what we were doing, and the lessons we were teaching, that was impactful to me because I realized that our show was more than just Laura's story. The truth little house was trying to get at in this episode

was not one many prime time TV shows would have explored. The climax arrives when Solomon stuns Charles Ingalls with a profound question. This clip routinely makes the rounds on Twitter and TikTok. I was hearing on Twitter from people like Jamie Foxx and and Biola Davis who knew Little House in the parade was so woke and I'm sitting and I'm going I did I did I knew Here's writer and children's literature professor Lizzie Skernick describing watching this episode as a child in the 80s I'm actually picturing myself watching it in my parents bedroom bedroom after school, like sitting on the floor in front of their bed,

probably with my brother. You know, my mother is black, my father is Jewish. It didn't make me mad, but then there's the idea of like, this is always how black people show up on shows. We're always on one show. They just have to have a thing for white people to connect with. This white people refuse to connect with black people as human beings.

White people were interested in black people in so far as they were able to give black people a chance to say racism was bad. Thereby featuring themselves as people without racism was bad. But as we all know, not particularly interested in the actual story of any black people. This is especially notable when you consider there is a character in this episode, Dr. Tain, who's based on a real-life black doctor named Dr. Tain. Dr. Tain appears in the book little house on the prairie. In the TV show, Dr. Tain is jaded and angry because white towns people

won't let him practice medicine. This is a far cry from Dr. Tain's real story. In that episode, life is hard. And then it's like the real doc tan was doing great. You know, the real doc tan was the only doctor of the prairie and a true doctor in that he saw everybody and everybody saw him. And he was a terrific businessman. So in that sense, it was kind of annoying, but then on the other hand, Todd Bridges is famous. Lizzy and I are the same age and grew up with little house reruns after school. But the time we encountered the wisdom of Solomon. Its guest star, Todd Bridges, was very famous from different strokes. So, you know, you're feeling like, oh, this is Chad Bridges. This is cool. Today, clips from

the wisdom of Solomon can feel shockingly ahead of their time. But the truth is the episode was very much of its moment. The wisdom of Solomon originally aired in 1977 just weeks after the final episode of the mini-series Roots. Roots was based on Alex Haley's best-selling novel about slavery, and its final episode remains the second most watched overall series finale in US television history. So the decision to do the wisdom of Solomon may have been partly a matter of land in recognizing what audience has wanted and trying to benefit from the ratings juggernaut. Whenever I look at these shows as it grown up, I always just see a group of people around a table

trying to think of ideas. Like I think you can like see the spitfall and come and show them my whole way. Does that mean these stories can't have a positive effect? Lizzy thinks oftentimes they actually underscore a larger problem. The same problem that's in the Little House books. The show then creates the reality that people think existed.

If you talk about the frontier, people think the frontier was white, but I do think the dangerous propaganda being like, oh, well, you know, you're just telling an ancillary story when you talk about black people on the prayer or talk about the Native Americans because people have absorbed this idea that white people are central. And it's like, hey, like I'm not being an activist. I'm being accurate.

White people are not central to American culture. Native American scholar, Gwen Westerman also remembers watching Little House as a kid. I love the TV show, but I never thought that much about it. Coming to it as an adult has been a much different experience. We were on a trip somewhere and watching TV in the hotel room when the episode of Lil' House on the Prairie came on and it was in the winter and a Dakota man helped save Pa from the blizzard. And once we got past the terrible makeup, the clothes that the man was wearing, they made him look

like the typical Hollywood stereotype of Indian. He never spoke a word. He just helped pa and they helped him and then he walked off into the snow. Similar to Lizzy saying she was excited to see Todd Bridges, this conversation feels complicated by the fact that even insulting descriptions on screen were sometimes better than not seeing yourself at all. So, to see Native people on TV, even in the caricature, was during that period of validation that we existed. So those were representations, but they were not the reality that I knew growing up in a very strong and vibrant inter-tribal community. So we always kind of had to balance that, but at least there was validation there that people knew that we existed.

Despite Landon's desire to make Little House relevant, when it came to depictions of Native Americans, he was unable or unwilling to translate events right outside his door onto his fictional prairie. Another one, one that even as a kid I was aware of, are the women on the prairie. The girls were fine, but the grown women, not so much. We're reflecting the 1800s when women had zero rights. The girls were fine, but the grown women, not so much.

We're reflecting the 1800s when women had zero rights, and I reflected in the 1970s where women had, maybe a asset point of rights. The issue of women's rights seems like it could be good TV copy now, especially since the second way feminist movement was raging and land and was surrounded by self-evowed feminists. Here's Lizzy again. I first show the limitations of their creator, you know?

You might not learn a lot about the prairie from Little House on the Prairie, but you learn a lot about Michael Landon and the 70s and television and, and television and male ideals and feminine ideals. Sometimes more modern storylines came through, but those feminine ideals were ever present. And we even touched on women's rights and shovonism and the mistreatment of women at the same time

while marginalizing women to do nothing but poor coffee sometimes for many episodes at a time one of the most staunch feminists I know was Karen Grassley who was one of the great coffee porers of all time I felt myself to be a polar all-cissit of Carolinian girls I felt myself to be a polar, all-cocid of Carolinine girls. That's Karen Grassley, the actor who played Laura's beloved mom. I wasn't married, I didn't have children, I was, you know, from the sexual revolution. I mean, the little woman had never been my goal, and so there were times when the choices offered to Carolyn in the script, wrankled. But Karen is quick to acknowledge that Michael knew what he was doing.

He was directing the most crowd-pleasing version of events, creating the wholesome family center that would make the show a hit. And this is not at all a criticism. This is just an example of how Michael knew his vision and he knew what he wanted. And in fact, was well connected to his audience. He knew what they wanted to. And what every audience and all of history has wanted is romance. And there's very little of it in the little house books. Even Lauren Almanso's courting is chaste.

But naturally, there's plenty of romance on Landon's prairie. Mr. Edwards goes according, Mary falls in love, gets jilted, falls in love again. But nothing compares to what happens to Laura the second she hits puberty. Like the second, from girl in braids to boy obsessed teen. Well, obsessed with one boy who's actually not a boy at all. We don't mean that in the progressive way, which brings us to the episode sweet 16. So my name is Dean Butler and I play Dale Manzel Wilder from 1979 to 1983 on the Little House television series.

At the beginning of season six, Dean Butler was cast as Laura's love interest and future husband Almanzo Wilder. At the time, Dean was 23. And Melissa Gilbert was 15. I mean, I can't even tell you what a girl I was. I mean, I was a gadget. 14, 15 years old, not need buttooth still had braces on. I towered over her. You know, I'm six, one and a half. Melissa was, what, five, five, something like that. She always commented on the fact that, you know,

that I drove my own car, the set that I shaved. I'm been on a date. I'm kissed a boy. I was just so much bigger than she was. Well, I can tell you from the lens of today, you can't do that. There's no way they could shoot it. There's no way they would cast it that way. And there's certainly no way it would be handled the way it was handled.

Sweet 16 is the second to last episode of season six. Laura has had a crush on allmanso for the entire season, but her affection is not been returned and she's given up hope, taking a teaching job out of town. Her hair has gone up into a bun, so we know she's a grown-up now. Almanso sees the light of day, and at the end of this episode, they kiss. According to IMDB, it's one of the highest rated episodes of the series. Melissa Gilbert was 15 when they filmed it. Now, we have intimacy coordinators and we have all this dialogue around being comfortable and feeling safe, which is amazing. Nobody taught to me about it. It was just, it was.

Nobody said, are you uncomfortable? Are you okay? Is this all right? I remember being told that the Almanzo episodes were coming. Fortunately, we had a little run-up to the actual marriage and stuff, but by the time we got to the sweet 16 episode and the first kiss and all of that It was you know, I knew Dean and I liked Dean and I got along with Dean, but I still felt like I was out of my element to put it mildly. There certainly would be nothing like that today. That would never happen today. But again, Michael's numbers were huge.

NBC was not going to screw around with this. It was working. The audience was tuning in. They were watching. They were coming to see this. You know, it was working. The audience was tuning in. They were watching. They were coming to see this. And they came to see this romance in enormous numbers. Three episodes later, at the beginning of season seven, Lauren Almondo Mary. I must tell you that even as a kid, this did not stand out to me as a problem at all, which I told Dean in our conversation. No, as a kid watching, I was just like, oh, this makes complete sense.

And now her hair isn't in braids anymore. But I'm quite sure I thought 15 was ancient. And I was also devoted to the, I mean, devoted to the books too. And in the books, there is a 10 year age gap between the two of them. And she does meet him at age 15 in the books. So I'm not sure. Because you had married Jill AT. Oh, and I'm going to. But I also think like we have a different our understanding of age and age differences has shifted dramatically even since the 80s in in good ways, but it's a different conversation than I just

thought this was real life too. So just to be clear, there was no like, would this actress have had a problem? I was like, well, it's Lauren Almondo. These contradictions within the Little House series were one week you see something that felt boundary breaking, and the next week something that felt sort of like a strange cultural throwback. In many ways mirrored the contradictions inherent to Michael Landon himself. On the one hand, he was a family man, who ran his set as a tight ship so that his crew could go home on time.

Charlotte Stewart, who played Miss Beetle, remembers this especially. Most of the television shows that we did in those days, they'd work you till 10 o'clock at night. And you had to come back in at like six in the morning and they didn't days, they'd work you till 10 o'clock at night. And you had to come back in the like six in the morning and they didn't care, they would pay for it. But Michael was a damlman. And he is the guys, all the men and women that worked for him on the crew, being at families.

Like every other television show, but who cared? Michael made sure they got home for dinner at 7. On the other hand, he had a rather messy personal life at times. Certainly not one Charles Engles would have led on the prairie. This was a man who espoused family values and community values and was married three times, and that children were three different women, and was deeply flawed in human. But who isn't? Does it mean he's a bad person?

It just means he's a human person. Everyone we spoke with talks about Michael Landon's incredible work ethic and his respect for his cast and crew. Alison Arngrin writes in her memoir that the child actors of Little House boast that there have been no arrests and no convictions. Michael was devoted to the show and protective over his creative vision, which is most visible in how he decided to end the show.

So Jo, guess how the series ends. Alien invasion, zombie apocalypse, an invasion of a clown-mime army? Close, but no. They blow up walnut grove. No, they don't. They blow up the town. Yeah. A tycoon comes in and buys all of the land and all of the buildings

in Walnut Grove and they can't get any of them back so their only recourse is to blow up the entire town. As one does. As one does. as one does. I think I went back to this as a teenager to remember if I remembered this correctly, because I watched this, I was old enough to watch this in prime time. And for years, I wondered if I'd imagined it. They blow up the entire town. Yeah. And the thing is, they actually blew the set up in real life because Michael Landon did

not want anyone else coming along and using his little house on the prairie set. So he blew it up and he wrote the episode around that. That's such a dude thing to do. It's like, mind, mind, mind. No one else is going to be here after I'm gone. And then the crazy thing too is the last shot of the last episode is they don't blow up the little house. Like they don't blow up the iconic little house,

that's the empty little house is the last shot. And in real life, he also didn't blow up the little house. It burnt down in a fire, like a random fire years later. So I mean, the blurring of fact and fiction in the little house world continues right to the very end of the television series. Michael Landon was a real special kind of trip, is what I'm getting from this episode. Age. Michael Landon was, I mean,

Michael Landon was, I mean, cosmically speaking, it sort of feels like, could there have been a more perfect person to continue the little house legacy? Truly. He's sort of perfectly formed for it. Honestly, what do you think Laura would have thought of what became of her legacy on these TV shows. So like in doing this episode, the funny thing I kept coming back to is the similarities between Rose and Michael Landon, like two people who were amazing storytellers and you know could take these simple tales and then fictionalize them in a way that we can't get enough of. And take these characters and turn them in sort of these heroic male heroes.

Rose, as we know, loved taking men and turning their biographies into these heroic stories. So I kind of feel like Rose would have loved Michael Landon. I don't know what Laura would have thought because she was very, you know, she was up her time. She was very conservative and didn't like talk about sex. But I think like Landon and Rose would have gotten on great. Both Rose and Michael Landon saw these essential truths

in Laura's story and tapped into them in such a deep way Laura's story and tapped into them in such a deep way that it's so satisfying we can't get enough of the simple tale of the house. They tapped into Laura's story in such a way to create some completely bonkers content. It completely bonkers. So I look, Laura was clearly beloved. Her stories are clearly beloved. And what I'm taking away from this episode is that Michael Landon was very beloved. Even the people we talked to who talked about him being complicated or flawed, everybody loved him. Like literally everybody loved him. People followed him around. He was beloved.

Literally everybody loved him. People followed him around. He was beloved. Michael Landon remained a beloved figure for the rest of his career. And then, in 1991, at the age of 54, he called a press conference at his home to announce a terminal cancer diagnosis. But Landon faced the diagnosis

with his usual charm and humor, as he demonstrated in his final tonight show interview with Johnny Carson. You've got a pilot you made for this fall. That's right. Called us. Called us. Made it for CBS. I don't get better.

It's their second mistakes since buying baseball. Oh, wow. You know, I was a little worried about this interview. Not you've made me feel much better. Whatever his complications, Michael Land made me feel much better. Ha ha ha. Whatever his complications, Michael Landon made everyone feel better. So it was even more shocking when he died just two months later. But as Landon predicted,

way back when he conceived of the show, decades later, little house lives on. He said, you know, everyone's going to be watching these shows long after we're all gone. He said, long after, everyone's going to be watching these shows long after we're all gone. He said, long after I'm dead, it was like this prophetic thing. And every when he said it to it, yeah, right, oh, man. And like, didn't believe him. We didn't get it.

Michael got it. A half century later, the stars of the show continue to draw huge audiences in real life. People come to fan conventions to events at the actual Laura Ingalls houses, to book signings. We get the people who come for autographs and sometimes they cry because it's so intense to meet the person that you've grown up watching. I know Melissa Gilbert, obviously it's Laura, she people just go into a coma. A lot of people don't think they're gonna be emotional that they meet Ma and that voice, and she sounds the same and she's so sweet.

Ah, it's her. I see people really lose it over Charlotte Stewart, Miss Beatle. All the actors we spoke with seemed grateful to be part of the Little House legacy. To visit Wanda Grove is to relax and know that people are about to show up for each other. When I got little house on the prairie, people in Hollywood went, what? Little house on the what? Oh, how boring. Well guess what? We're still on the air. It says big gift as anything I've ever received in my life to be associated with those books,

with that woman, with those stories, with that television show, is the gift of a lifetime. Not a day goes by that I don't think about Little House of the Prairie or mention something to do with Little House of the Prairie, or Laura, or Rose, or the Ingalls relatives, or something that has something to do with Little House of the Parade or Laura or Rose or the Ingalls relatives or something that has something to do with them. So infused in my in my being at this point. Sometimes it feels like Laura Ingalls Wilder has had nine lives. She's been reimagined so many times for better and for worse. When Lauren Rose sat down to write the books, Laura wanted to preserve her family's legacy. She had no idea she was creating such a lasting brand, but that's exactly what she did.

Laura not only inspired a TV show, we're still watching. She launched the careers of many stars we still know about. She spawned additional book series, fashion brands, entire lifestyles, businesses that have made millions of dollars. And that's what we're going to talk about next week, when we dig into the business of Laura. Wilder is written and hosted by me, Glonis McNichol. Our story editors are Joe Piazza and Emily Marinoff. Our senior producer is Emily Marinoff.

Our producers are Mary Dew, Shino Ozzaki, and Jessica Crine-Chitch. Our associate producer is Lauren Philip. Sound is on in mixing by Amanda Rose Smith. Our theme and additional music was composed by Lisa McCoy. We are executive produced by Joe Piazza, Nikki Tor, Ali Perry, and me. If you're enjoying Wilder, please consider rating and reviewing us on Apple podcasts. It actually helps us out quite a lot. Extra special thanks to Dean Butler for connecting us to so many little housecasts and crew members.

Thank you to the friendly family for helping us navigate the little houseworld. Thanks to NBC for allowing us to use Little House on the Prairie Clips. Thanks to Michael Landon for letting an entire generation know, it's all right to cry. Thank you as always to CDM Studios. We've listed extensive resources in our show notes on all the topics we've discussed in this episode. You can also find our contact info there

if you want to write to us with your own thoughts and questions. Follow us on Instagram at Wilder underscore podcast and on TikTok at Wilder podcast, where you can see behind-the-scenes footage from all our travels. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week. So Nora and I hearts my Cultura podcast network, present, Princess of Self-Beach, Season 2. Did you miss me? The new season of lies, scandals South Beach, Season 2. Did you miss me? The new season of lies, scandals, and skeletons in the closet. I am proud to take office as your first openly-gamed Mayor.

This season, it's all out in the open. Listen to Princess of South Beach on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Out of the shadows is a podcast on America's immigration system, told through the eyes of our Latino community. I didn't understand how difficult life was going to be being an undocumented person. I mean, we've seen a doctor in that age of 14.

I'm Patty Rodriguez, an American Lindo. Follow us as we tell the incredible true story of a group of young people who took on the system and changed the course of history. Listen to Out of the Shadows Dreamers on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up?

This is Chris Rudiger. I am the owner and co-founder of the 615 House and you're listening to my new podcast, the 615 House podcast. It's a chance to take a deep dive with some of Nashville's hottest artists as we learn their stories and I try to keep the questions pretty spicy as these artists sit in the hot seat. Hang out with us as we talk to some of your favorite artists here on the 615 House podcast. Listen to the 615 House podcast on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts.