Flame Me If You Must... But I Love "Little House On The Prairie"

[arwalden]

and "The Waltons".

Isn't that just the saddest thing you've ever heard?

-- Allen

[wyldwolf]

1. ME too!

I like Little House...

...and love the Waltons theme song.

[HEyHEY]

2. hell no

I love LHOP- great stories

[arwalden]

3. ... And "Bonanza" Too...

I think it's more than just a "TV-Land" retro thing. There must be something about my psyche that draws me to these programs because I really do enjoy them.

-- Allen

[hlthe2b]

6. Yes, yes, yes, yes!

Ok, I'm sappy... but I could watch those shows all day-- especially Bonanza. So sad, that they are all dead now-- except Adam, I guess. I always loved Hoss, even though Michael Landon's Little Joe was the good looking charmer.

[WillParkinson]

31. One of my first young 'crushes' was Hoss!

Just so big and strong and huggy!

[arwalden]

32. Oh I Still Get Weak-Knees Whenever I See Adorable Little Joe...

... in those oh-so-tight pants of his.

-- Allen

[WillParkinson]

33. His name was a misnomer...

He wasn't so 'little' after all!

[arwalden]

35. Some Favorites...

[WillParkinson]

36. WOWZERS!

Very nice.

And who is the redhead in the first picture?

[mac56]

38. Mitch Vogel.

He was brought in to play "Jamie Hunter" during the waning days of the show. Sort of the equivalent of the Brady Bunch's "Cousin Oliver".

[NightTrain]

4. Haven't seen "Little House" in 25 years or so...

..but I liked the show pretty well back then. "The Waltons," too.

[Deja Q]

5. I loved Little House as a kid.

Everything seemed so honest and moral and perfect back then.

Waltons was too sappy though.

By 1975, America was so fed up with war after war and the hippie uprising that they made those "ye olde" shows for pure escapism. "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley" also proliferated. That's all unfortunae, IMHO, when the people turned into the sheeple and lost its innocense for good.

Ever see Michael Landon (yummy :-9 ) on Match Game '73? That was before MG became risque, so it didn't matter.

I also heard Landon was gay... was that just somebody's sad idea of a rumor?

[Sophree]

7. I love Little House

Watched it as a kid and I still watch the reruns. It's a little embarassing, but I don't care.

BTW, did you know that in the book on which The Waltons was based, the family actually grows hemp and not corn? Guess they had to "clean it up" for TV. :eyes:

[KoKo]

18. Well, in the books the family didn't grow much of anything,except what

little to try to survive. Pa took "odd jobs" all over the Western territories trying to fee his family and there's no mention of gowing "hemp." And, I've read much about the family including reports from Laura's daughter....and "hemp" isn't on their list of things to survive in the "New Frontier."

?????Hemp.....please......

[Sophree]

43. Not in the Little House books

The Waltons- (arwalden included The Waltons in his original post.)

Lots of small farmers used to grow hemp to make ends meet. Farmers were encouraged to grow hemp for the war effort during WWII. Parachutes (including the one that saved GHW Bush) were made of hemp, as were shipping ropes.

http://www.cannabis.com/untoldstory/hemp_3.shtml

[bleedingheart]

8. I liked both... and Homefront which they took off TV

far too soon.

[KoKo]

9. Did any of you read the WHOLE Series of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Books???

I couln't watch the TV series......I loved those books so much.....after three episodes I tuned it out.

But......I give much credit for Michael Landon for bringing them alive for a new generation.... a visual generation.

But.....you had to be there......to get into the "skin" of Laura, Pa, Ma,Mary (her blindness) Baby Grace and Jack the dog I loved that died (tears running down my face in this post from the memory as I post this) the Locusts, the joy over the "penny candy" that Pa managed to bring them for Christmas in one of their many moves in a town, the "dust up'
s" with "Nellie Olsen" in the NEW TOWN.

Those books meant so much to me.......no one could ever recreate them...but they needed to be brough into modern times and Landon did that......

I just loved the old.....and the "old" illustrations....

[Sophree]

11. I did

In elementary school. I remember penny candy!

And how Laura had to wear pink ribbons in her hair and Mary had to wear blue because Ma felt that each color flattered their Laura's brown hair and Mary's blonde, respectively.

I loved those books- they meant a lot to me, too.

Also, remember Pa's rule about the smoke from your neighbors chimney? When you can see the smoke from your nearest neighbor's chimney from your own house, it's time to move? And that's when they movie to the Prairie, from Wisconsin to Minnesota.

[KoKo]

12. Oh yes....I remeber the the ribbons...thanks..Ma was doing her best for

her daughters...to enhance their "coloring." But, today....it would be taken as "Ma" interfering and making her daughters more enhancing to suiters......But, to me, Ma....was only trying to bring out the "Best" in her children....if it was hair ribbons or "book learning." Ma had been a "teacher." Meaning she was a "learned woman" for that time....but she loved her girls.....and knew what they looked best in......Laura and Mary might have had other ideas...LOL's as "independent females" which they both were......if you read the books......but that doesn't make "Ma" bad....because she knew what was the "best" about her "individual daughters." She knew....and she wasn't "belittling either of them with the ribbons" she just had an "educated Mom's intuition" about what they both were about.

Thats kind of what I was getting at ............

Thanks for your post about reading the books.........I loved hearing it........that someone else read them!

:-)'s

[Sophree]

13. I understand exactly what you mean.

"she just had an "educated Mom's intuition" about what they both were about."

:-)

[Wickster]

27. Yes, they were my favorites

I got a book for every occasion from an aunt. Around my birthday or Christmas, I would ask to go to the Post Office because I knew that one must be coming. I loved her for sending those books! I love those books - I even found one for $.25 at an auction/flea market (40 years ago!)

Those books were wonderful! :loveya:

Did anyone else read the last in the series -- the one by Laura and Almanzo's daughter: Rose Wilder Lane? Very interesting.

[KoKo]

10. Actually this is about "Vanishing America" for those of us Idealists......

We want to get in touch with this.....but it's not PC.....and who the hell cares about stories of the American West even the stories that we on DU read that made us liberals......but folks want to make these stories "BAD" that we "didn't get it."

But, some of us "read" and interpreted things very differently than other folks want to tell us......but what's great about "reading" as opposed to "watching" is the subtelties..the shades....the conflicts that the authors felt themselves and the "IMAGINATION" that allowed us to put our "own spin/perspective/and sensibilities onto the story....."....

Just a thought from your post ARWALDEN.......and I'm trying to put perspective in......and no one knows what I'm talking about.....probably.....but READ! READ! READ! It's SO DIFFERENT when ONE READS.....as opposed to the MEDIA FEED!

[arwalden]

16. I Think You're On To Something There...

... Your insights and perspectives are right on target.

-- Allen

[soleft]

14. How could Albert overcome his morphine addiction

and have Laura say in the epiloge that he went onto graduate medical school 4 years later, only to die of TB in the following season?

Answer me that, will you?

[hippiechick]

15. I liked the sorta Socialist/Liberal perspective ...

... that Landon threw into the show, whatever his politial leaning was.

Think back: they befriended the freed slave boy ... they brought a black doctor to Walnut Grove ... got along with with Native Americans ... in one episode Reverend Alden was thinking about getting married ... Nellie married a Jewish man ... many episodes highlighted 'community effort' over 'I'll get mine' ... and in the final episode, they blew the town up rather than turn it over to the railroad company ...

Very anti-fascist/Repug groupthink.

I still catch reruns if I have a day off work ...


:hi: Allen !


:hippie:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. I was a great fan of the books

and that's why I couldn't stand the series. (Sorry, Arwalden!) But it was forced on me when I visited my parents, because they were absolutely suckers for anything "cute."

All that stuff about having freed slaves and mixed marriages was very enlightened and encouraging of good values for the 1970s, but none of it is in the books, and the social norms of the time would not have approved of a Christian-Jewish marriage (both sets of parents would most likely have disowned the couple).

If you wanted a TV series to encourage inter-racial and inter-religious tolerance, why not set it in contemporary times?

Sorry, I just hate historical dramas with anachronistic situations or attitudes, such as, in one of the episodes, one of the freed slaves telling about hoping for a visit from Santa Claus during his childhood. That one really bugged me, because 1) Santa Claus was not well known in most parts of the country until about the 1880s. and 2) all slaves got for Christmas was a ham and a jug of corn liquor.

[dflprincess]

22. I'm with Lydia

Loved the books, the TV show drove me crazy at times for all the reasons Lydia mentioned. Perhaps I was a bit too old to appreciate it. (In 1920's Minnesota in a small town perhaps 100 miles or so from the real Walnut Grove my grandparents created a near scandal with their "mixed" marriage. Grandma was an Irish Catholic, Grandpa was a member of the Swedish Lutheran church).

The episode that set me over the edge was when Laura ran away to the "mountains". I haven't yet figured out how there could be mountains in western Minnesota in the 1880's that disappeared by 1970. (And it must take 8 to 10 hours to drive to the Black Hills now, so don't tell me that's where she went.)

[arwalden]

23. I Understand, Lydia

I'm not as much of a critical viewer as you are. Also, I never read any of the books, so my only mental image of Laura Ingalls is that of Melissa Gilbert. (Who remains 'ageless' by the way... I still do a double-take whenever I catch a glimpse of an ADULT Melissa Gilbert.)

-- Allen

[Andy_Stephenson]

17. Nellie Olson

that biatch.

[dofus]

19. The books

are absolutely wonderful. I've probably read the complete series of them twenty times over the years, and each time I read them I take away something new.

For a very long time I identified with Laura, and then, after I had kids of my own, I started identifying with Ma and Pa, and really seeing the events through their eyes.

Oh, and the blue ribbons on Laura's braids, pink ribbons on Mary's braids, is when they were about seven and eight years old. It had NOTHING to do with making them more attractive to potential suitors.

Pa was basically a loser, who never had a steady job, who moved his family every couple of years because he didn't want to be within sight of neighbors, until Ma put her foot down and absolutely refused to move from DeSmet. She wanted the girls to be able to go to school, which wasn't possible if they kept on being on the edge of the frontier.

But DeSmet remained a very small town at the edge of the prairie during the time Laura lived there.

I've always wished someone would make movies of each of the books. That would be much better and far more emotionally satisfying than the pure fantasy of the series.

[KoKo]

21. dofus.....I've reread them through the years also...and my impression did

change about Pa......He seemed to be unable to really "settle down" and forced his family to make the best of it....but in the series Laura loved him so .....for all his faults......and when I was a child....I needed Laura's perspective about her Pa.

I think he was charming in a "way" with his fiddle and things that she remembered him for.....and making that shelf for Ma to put her "china shepardess on" and they must have loved each other.....that's what I pick up from the books.

We might not marry our perfect person....but if we can make the best of it and see their good qualities...we will be okay.

But, yes......my views have changed as I re-read. The fact that they stayed with us all these years and "grew" with us as you point out......means the books were something special....they were.....for some of us...really something special!

:-)'s to you from the "Ingalls Fan Club of DU!" LOL's

[grasswire]

24. such sweet memories

Another set of books I enjoyed was about a family named the Moffats. No dad, and mom was struggling to keep the kids fed and clothed in depression times. I'll never forget the scene where Rufus is out on his sled one winter evening and finds some coins frozen into the ice on the sidewalk.

The books have been reissued as paperbacks just recently.

[MuseRider]

25. I read the books but

loved the series too. I was in college when they started. My favorite was the Waltons. I still watch it if I can find it. Something about that family reminds me of the kind of people my fathers relatives were. Very poor but lived in the midwest. Still, I love those shows. Bonanza was also great. It was the first thing we watched when we got our first color TV. It was SO green.

[Kamika]

26. I liked it because of its realism

It wasnt a cowboys on horses with guns etc etc.. The dad sat on a horse maybe once, and he (IF he needed a gun) always used a rifle. etc etc . I liked that

But ok there were "some" pretty corny episodes but in overall i liked it alot because i think it showed us pretty much how the us looked like back then if you werent in a big city

[Dover]

28. They are the perfect retreat from a cynical and complex world.

Kind of like comfort foods.

I think we all need these little retreats or safe havens...whether in the imagined family fold of the Waltons or a drive in the country, a fishing trip, or some still place for meditation....just a reminder of normalcy and a way to center and touch base. Gardening and family keep my feet on the ground and provide that place for me. Also hot bubble baths!

[arwalden]

34. "Little House... Take Me Away!"

Well it's not quite the same as a luxurious bubble bath, but I definitely have to agree with you that it IS a very comforting escape from today's world.

Sometimes whenever I watch an old episode I marvel at all the things that they DID WITHOUT.

-- Allen

[zanana]

29. My house looks like that...

when the lawn hasn't been mowed in a while.

[gate of the sun]

30. I've been reading the books to my 3 year old

and he loves them. I really enjoy giving him a perspective on how life used to be. He hasn't watched any of it as we don't watch TV was thinking of getting the video though. I like reading him to book and then letting him watch it later.

[Skittles]

37. as long as it ain't so-called REALITY TV

I'll give you a f***ing pass, sweat pea. :D

[proud patriot]

39. I'm a Little House fan myself

:hi:

[Booberdawg]

40. LOL! I had a co-worker in his mid 40's that loves Little House

After we got laid off in January we planned get togethers for lunch or for a drink on Friday and had to plan around frickin Little House for him. LOL!

[Darth_Kitten]

41. I like those shows......

:)

[efhmc]

42. I loved the books, which were real, but thought the TV show was

silly and romantized, as so many things are in our country.

[kmla]

44. OK, smack away, and load your flamethrowers,

but I really didn't like those shows. I didn't think they were bad or anything, but it was just a little too blah for my liking. Nothing there that really grabbed my attention.

Summing it up in one word - BORING!

OK, now - flame away!:evilgrin: