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HerNameIsBuffy

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There are still some episodes I cannot watch but I have a feeling that I might have to binge watch the series again during the Christmas holidays.


The clown/rape "Sylvia" episode bothered me at first. Albert wanted to marry the girl and take care of the baby , and Ma had to talk sense into him. It always bothered me that Mary married and had a husband, since in real life she never married. I read somewhere blind people didn't marry or owned property in those days, but the episode in which she lost eh baby in the fire was sad. They could have grabbed the baby .



Also, it is unlikely Laura ever saw the real life Nellie Olsen again. The Olsens were actually William and Margaret Owens, and the kids actually named Willie and Nellie.Wilie Owens went blind around the same time as Mary from a firecracker accident.


I agree about Carrie. It seemed she was only a prop.



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I ordered a copy of Pioneer Girl, based on the recommendations here.  Plan to go through all the books again while I am waiting for my order to arrive.  Thanks to all for the interesting info and links.

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Omg... probably hugely off topic... but I can still, to this day, not keep tears out of my eyes when i watch the episode with the potentially rabid raccoon. I seriously stop everything and bawl. It ruins my day, but i love that show so much!!!!

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I wasn't sure what to get my youngest niece for Christmas (she's almost 7) but I have finally decided to get her the Little House series. It works out well since I am planning on giving her older sister (9)  the Anne of Green Gables series. They can both grow with the books. I loved both those series when I was young. I still do. I still read through the entire Anne series every summer. It's perfect cottage reading. 

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I tried reading the books to my daughter a year or two ago,but soon found that she was not quite ready. I discovered some picture books made out of chapters from the books at our local library.. She loves them! The link to the picture books is below in case anyone needs a Christmas or birthday idea for a young future Little House on the Prairie fan.

http://www.littlehousebooks.com/books/search.cfm?p=1&sf=all&sb=picturebooks&ss=ORDER%20BY%20Title

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I also have loved the books since I was a little girl. I enjoyed the Michael Landon series for the first few seasons, but it jumped the shark fairly early and that annoyed me. Like Mary going to the school for the blind and getting married. Um, no, Mary went to school and then came home and sat in Ma and Pa's parlor, doing needlework. I thought the miniseries was really well done.

 

This summer, my best friend and I celebrated our fiftieth birthdays by going on a "Laura" tour. We hit her birthplace in Pepin, WI, Burr Oak, IA (which was in Pioneer Girl, but not the LHOP books), Walnut Grove, MN, and DeSmet, SD. It was a great trip! I can recommend it highly to Laura fans. Pepin is not that exciting, there is a small museum with only a few actual Laura items. There is a replica of the cabin that was her birthplace on the actual site approximately seven miles outside of town. Burr Oak is interesting because the actual Masters Hotel is still standing. There isn't anything else in town, though. Walnut Grove has a few more actual artifacts. There is also a nice large room dedicated to the TV series. We went to the Plum Creek site outside of town. Even though the dugout where the lived is long gone, the site is marked, and it is beautiful. Finally, DeSmet is great! The homestead site outside of town is nicely set up (I even got to make friends with a young colt whose mama works on the site!) In town, they have the actual Surveyor's house where they spent the Long Winter. It was really eye-opening. They also have the original school that Laura and Carrie attended in town and the house that Pa built for Ma when he agreed to settle down.

 

If anyone is interested, it's a nice week long trip. We flew into Minneapolis on a Saturday night and back out on Thursday afternoon. It's lots of driving, but the traffic is not bad, especially for someone like me who lives in a notoriously bad traffic area. The employees and volunteers who work the different sites are friendly and helpful.

 

We plan to hit the Missouri site next year. I'm so looking forward to it!

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I love LHOTP.  I recently purchased the first season on Amazon Prime Instant video and enjoyed watching a few episodes that I can't recall ever being shown in syndication, unless I missed them.   One thing that struck me though, was that I feel like Melissa Gilbert's portrayal of Laura comes off very smug and rather bratty in many episodes.  I know in the books she was somewhat of a spitfire, but she almost has a vicious streak in some episodes.   Nellie just gets more nasty as time goes on as well.  She's rather subdued in the early episodes.  I also liked it better when Alison wasn't wearing a wig.  

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1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I also have loved the books since I was a little girl. I enjoyed the Michael Landon series for the first few seasons, but it jumped the shark fairly early and that annoyed me. Like Mary going to the school for the blind and getting married. Um, no, Mary went to school and then came home and sat in Ma and Pa's parlor, doing needlework. I thought the miniseries was really well done.

 

This summer, my best friend and I celebrated our fiftieth birthdays by going on a "Laura" tour. We hit her birthplace in Pepin, WI, Burr Oak, IA (which was in Pioneer Girl, but not the LHOP books), Walnut Grove, MN, and DeSmet, SD. It was a great trip! I can recommend it highly to Laura fans. Pepin is not that exciting, there is a small museum with only a few actual Laura items. There is a replica of the cabin that was her birthplace on the actual site approximately seven miles outside of town. Burr Oak is interesting because the actual Masters Hotel is still standing. There isn't anything else in town, though. Walnut Grove has a few more actual artifacts. There is also a nice large room dedicated to the TV series. We went to the Plum Creek site outside of town. Even though the dugout where the lived is long gone, the site is marked, and it is beautiful. Finally, DeSmet is great! The homestead site outside of town is nicely set up (I even got to make friends with a young colt whose mama works on the site!) In town, they have the actual Surveyor's house where they spent the Long Winter. It was really eye-opening. They also have the original school that Laura and Carrie attended in town and the house that Pa built for Ma when he agreed to settle down.

 

If anyone is interested, it's a nice week long trip. We flew into Minneapolis on a Saturday night and back out on Thursday afternoon. It's lots of driving, but the traffic is not bad, especially for someone like me who lives in a notoriously bad traffic area. The employees and volunteers who work the different sites are friendly and helpful.

 

We plan to hit the Missouri site next year. I'm so looking forward to it!

OMG, you have just lived out my ten-year-old self's dream. When we were moving from California back to the east coast when I was a kid, I tried to convince my parents to turn the drive into a Laura Ingalls Wilder roadtrip :pb_lol:

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On Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at 7:09 PM, withaj said:

OMG, you have just lived out my ten-year-old self's dream. When we were moving from California back to the east coast when I was a kid, I tried to convince my parents to turn the drive into a Laura Ingalls Wilder roadtrip :pb_lol:

It was a trip I've wanted to take since I was about that age too.  In DeSmet, we met up with a lovely family from San Diego who travels around every summer, doing educational trips. The mother and kids were so thrilled about being there, her husband was less enthused. The bulk of the people we ran into (there weren't many) were middle-aged women or mothers and daughters.

 

A silly note: when my best friend told her 17 year old son about our trip, he looked at her and asked why she would want to do that. She explained that it was a bit of a bucket list thing. His reply: "geez, mom, was it the bottom of the bucket list?" Spoken like a true teenager!

 

Thinking about the show, not too long ago, Hallmark Channel was rerunning LHOP, this was before the wall-to-wall Christmas movies, they showed the episodes that always make me cry: "Remember Me" (Parts 1&2). They were the episodes where Patricia Neal plays a dying widow with three children, including a pre-RHOBH Kyle Richards. She gets Charles Ingalls to agree to find home(s) for her children. They are such bittersweet episodes, and they really hit home because I lost my father about the same time they were aired. I always have to have a full box of tissues when I watch those episodes. The only thing that I really don't like is that they dragged the show further from the books, as in the episodes, Mr. Edwards settles down with Grace, but in real life, that wasn't the case. Oh well. I can't wait until Hallmark Channel starts showing LHOP again!

 

 

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5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The mother and kids were so thrilled about being there, her husband was less enthused. The bulk of the people we ran into (there weren't many) were middle-aged women or mothers and daughters.

I have to give my husband props. We did a camping trip through PEI ("Anne territory") about 6mo after we were married. He was so patient with my literary pursuit of all things Anne. He even sat through the stage play (was it a musical? I can't remember).

Nothing to do with LHOP (which I also *loooved*), but it just made me think that DH is a nice guy :my_heart:

Neither of my children were particularly interested in either LHOP or the Anne (or Emily) series, to my great disappointment.

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My inter-library loan copy of Pioneer Girl arrive today. I kinda wish it had waited until next week when I have some vacation days that can be spent reading.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've been binge-watching lots of behind-the-scenes and cast interviews of LHOTP on youtube - lots of good stuff.  What surprised me the most is that Karen Grasle was/is so much different than her character, feminist, liberal, etc.  I also really like Kathrine (Mrs Olsens) real life personality a lot!

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ON Christmas I dont have tv but they showed the blizzard episode while we are at my parents. No one blamed Ms Beadle but she still felt horrible about it. It was also based on a real life blizzard. Another stand out epi was when the Ingalls adopted James and Cassandra. Aft first they werent going to but after that man beat James, they changed their minds. I felt so bad for him getting the blame stealing money, and the wife did nothing to stop it. But those kids never really existed.

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On December 18, 2015 at 2:00 AM, Bethella said:

My inter-library loan copy of Pioneer Girl arrive today. I kinda wish it had waited until next week when I have some vacation days that can be spent reading.

I got my copy the other day and haven't been able to get to it due to work...I can't wait to dig into it.

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43 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I got my copy the other day and haven't been able to get to it due to work...I can't wait to dig into it.

I finally finished it tonight. I found the differences between what Laura wrote and what the historical record showed to be very interesting particularly with respect to how we make memories and then what we remember later.

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I devoted the Little House books when I was a kid, and can even remember the illustrations (which, I have since learned, were done by Garth Williams who also illustrated Charlotte's Web).

Might treat myself to Pioneer Girl (and maybe the LH books), as I'm never going to be able to do a "Laura" tour, so that will have to do instead. 

I'm another one who disliked the TV show. So inaccurate, and some really silly plot lines. And Pa would have had a beard!

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We had to read the Little House books in elementary school and I grew up in the 80's so I saw the LHOTP TV show in syndication.  I can remember thinking "That's NOT Pa" while watching.  As talented as ML was, I wonder if he really knew how far from reality his portrayal was to the real Charles.  I don't usually have any issues with TV/Movies taking some liberties to make things more entertaining, but when I watch them now, the first thing I think is that he at least could have worn a beard!

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22 minutes ago, MatthewDuggar said:

We had to read the Little House books in elementary school and I grew up in the 80's so I saw the LHOTP TV show in syndication.  I can remember thinking "That's NOT Pa" while watching.  As talented as ML was, I wonder if he really knew how far from reality his portrayal was to the real Charles.  I don't usually have any issues with TV/Movies taking some liberties to make things more entertaining, but when I watch them now, the first thing I think is that he at least could have worn a beard!

I'm sure he knew.  While ML is talented his ego is such that he wasn't going to glam down for the camera.  I seriously doubt rl Charles Ingalls spent so much time shirtless.  ML had quite the sexy Messiah complex going on.  (Not saying I found him sexy - just seems to be his intent.)

And him being beardless with his fabulous '70's coif fits the era of anachronistic hairstyles.  From the Walton girls to the cast of M*A*S*H no one wanted to extend their character's time periods to their hair.

 

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Oh yes the long-haired male hairstyles also drove me crazy.  Yet they seemed to spend huge amounts of time with the female actresses with wigs, curling, etc.  At least long hair for women was fashionable in the 70's.

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Just now, MatthewDuggar said:

Oh yes the long-haired male hairstyles also drove me crazy.  Yet they seemed to spend huge amounts of time with the female actresses with wigs, curling, etc.  At least long hair for women was fashionable in the 70's.

The hair, yes, but in the later years when Laura and Manly were married her make up was really heavy and I don't thin earrings were as common back then as they were in that show.

But her eyeshadow as a farmers wife and school teacher...the school board would have had meetings about her brazen hussiness.

And now I want to google when women started shaping out eyebrows, because rabbit hole...but let's see if that wins out over throwing in a  load of sheets.  A good pioneer girl would do the laundry before leisurely pursuits.

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Oh, I've started Pioneer Girl - anyone up for a thread in to discuss the book in depth?  

 

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Just now, MatthewDuggar said:

Good point about the heavy makeup!  At least they got her out of those seemingly permanent braids.

About damn time!  Honestly even as a kid I was creeped out that they started the whole Almanzo romance storyline while she was still presenting as a child.  It wasn't the age difference.  I had read the books and heck, my parents had a 13 year age difference, it was the fact that she still clearly was portrayed as still being a child.

Now we have kind of a blurry line for moving into adult clothing, hair, etc...and even so the contrast isn't as stark for the run of the mill things.  An 11 year old in jeans and a sweater could appropriately be dressed as could an adult in the same jeans and sweater.  But back in the day it was totally different.  The age at which a girl "put up her hair" may have varied slightly by community but it meant the same thing - she was considered a woman.  Ditto going from shorter dresses to long.  It was a milestone once crossed that was a signal to the community.

Young girls have crushes on grown men all the time - Lord knows at one point Shaun Cassidy should have sent me a thank you note for planning such a lovely fictional wedding for the two of us when I was 10 - alas I never told him.  But since tv time is sped up they should have realized it made it look kind of gross and had her take her place as an adult before the story arc...because his reciprocation didn't have nearly as long a waiting period on the show as in real life.

you know none of the hair or makeup comes close to the fake fake fakeness of the 'dirt' on Laura's face after she has the fight in the dirt with the woman she thoguht Manly was cheating in her with in the "My One True Love" storyline.  It was so clearly greasepaint just carefully drawn on.  Might as well have used a sharpie!

and I call bs on that whole plot anyway.  Back in those days there is NO WAY a married man would have a song writing partnership with a young and beautiful women not his wife without knowing exactly what would be said and tongues would be wagging.  They would both have insisted on getting their own accountability partners a la  the Duggars to protect their own reputations.  

Ditto the episode where Eliza Jane thinks Harve is going to propose and it turns out he was talking about his old flame.  No way does a single man in that era have a platonic buddy relationship where they discuss intimate feelings about love with a spinster.  He'd have known he was leading her on and  her brother would have been rightly pissed about it.

I have always had a soft spot for rl Almanzo but Almanzo of the series was just a clueless dumbass most of the time.  

And shallow oetty irony...Mary who was mline (tm TWOP) got the hot man.  Linwood Boomer was sexy as hell without saying a word and Laura, who could see, got the bland pretty buy but no heat Dean Butler.

 

 

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Maybe you need to be my age or older (early 60s) and have an older sister, but I can remember teenage girls in the early 60s having a crush on Micheal Landon.  I know one my teenage neighbors back then had pics of him that she'd cut out of movie magazines on her wall.

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2 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

....Honestly even as a kid I was creeped out that they started the whole Almanzo romance storyline while she was still presenting as a child.  It wasn't the age difference.  I had read the books and heck, my parents had a 13 year age difference, it was the fact that she still clearly was portrayed as still being a child.

 

I watched an interview with Melissa Gilbert and she said it was extremely difficult and confusing to even act falling in love with an older man as she had never felt that way before.  Dean Butler was 23 at the time.

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