Actors Who Got Their Start on Little House on the Prairie

"Little House on the Prairie" was about children about as much as it was about adults. The only problem was that, throughout the 9 seasons, the children just kept growing up, creating a constant demand for even more children. And so the children came out of the woodwork - children born, children adopted, children picked up off the street, orphaned children whose parents die, and so forth. In addition, there were children who were new to town or had been in town for a long time but we're just now seeing them for the first time, somehow, and will never see them again, somehow.

Here are some of the actors who got their start on "Little House..."

Jason Bateman

Jason Bateman shows up in S07E21. His parents die in a wagon crash and he's adopted by Charles Ingalls, thereby making Jason a cast member for a few years. "Little House" was his first role.

Shannen Doherty

In S09E01 Shannen Doherty shows up as Jenny Wilder. Her father dies and she is left with her Aunt and Uncle, becoming a cast member for the next 2 seasons.

Peter Billingsly

Peter Billingsly arrives in S08E12 as a kid with a stutter who has trouble making friends. This is about a year before "A Christmas Story."

Sean Penn 

Sean Penn shows up in "The Voice of Tinker Jones" (S01E11 or S01E12 depending on the source) as just a random kid in the background. He was included in the show because his father directed the episode.

Robert Loggia

Robert Loggia.

And finally, not a child actor like the others, but I should include this somewhere... Jonathan Banks, who played Mike Ehrmantraut on "Breaking Bad," shows up in S06E16 as an outlaw.

Thoughts on the Little House on the Prairie Series Finale

The following post contains spoilers for a 40 year old tv show.

The stories I heard about "Little House on the Prairie" ending with a BONKERS finale were true.

After the end of the TV series, 3 made-for-tv movies were made, as an unofficial "Season 10." The first of these movies features a teenager contracting a terminal illness and dying. The third of these movies, the last one to air, is about a woman who loses a child during birth, goes crazy and kidnaps another child to substitute as her own. It should be noted that this is a Christmas episode. And even though it takes place in Minnesota, at Christmastime, the weather is sunny and hot and all the leaves are green... it looks suspiciously like California. Ho ho hoooo.

The second movie, "Little House: The Last Farewell," was the last filmed and the last chronologically within the world of the show, so it is, for all intents and purposes, the series finale.

As the story begins, it's discovered that a land development tycoon owns all the land of Walnut Grove, the little town around which the entire series has taken place. Yes, all the years in which we've seen them buying and selling deeds, farming the land, building upon their land, leaving deeds in their wills as they contract terminal illnesses... it was all somehow in error, none of it was legitimate. There was even that one episode (S09E09) where a large train company wanted to take the land to build a railroad and they had a conflict with the residents over who can use the land... No, no, forget all that, those lawyers didn't look at THE REAL records, someone else owned the town all along, it's just that nobody was noticing the real, real, real.

So upon that insane rock is built a story in which the rich real-estate tycoon tries to take possession of the land from the everyday townsfolk who've built their lives there. They're not going to give up without a fight. They gather guns, band together and refuse to leave. It's at this point of the story where it is most effective - though somewhat out of character, the show has become a fairly convincing Western and there is real tension.

The rich railroad tycoon enlists the help of the government (the Union army) and there is a tense standoff. The people of the town do the moral calculus and stand down.

Finally, resolved to abandon their homes and livelihoods - their entire lives, really - they decide that the railroad company may take the land but they will not give up the buildings. They dynamite the town and blow it up.

The town preacher gives a eulogy for the buildings of the town as tears flow from his face. And as each citizen, in turn, takes the plunger detonator to blow up their own structure, they all cry and react as if watching a massacre. It is insanely executed. It is such incredible schlock.

It's hard to convey what a complete non-sequitur this finale to the series is. In case you're not aware of "Little House on the Prairie," this show is about (was about) a family trying to survive on the frontier, trying to do what's right in a harsh world and bring their children up to have that same moral backbone. The morals of the show were hard work, determination, honesty, respect, forgiveness, courage and especially community. And the ultimate end of all this... blow up the community. Nine seasons of the family show were just building up to pyrotechnics. Do you want heartfelt emotions or do you want to see some 'splosions?!

At a loss for words, I'm also at a loss for how to conclude this. I don't understand and have not seen anything to help me understand. Yes, the show arguably jumped the shark a while back but nothing has ever prepared anyone for anything like this. 

The idea of the town banding together to fight the powerful, combined with the rigging (and setting off) of the explosives, feels somewhat like an "A-Team" plot. This movie aired in 1984 and "The A-Team" had become a big hit in 1983. Is it possible that some dopey corporate executive saw the sagging ratings of "Little House" against the massive ratings of "The A-Team" and said, "I know what will draw in the viewers... Here's what the people of the 80s want to see..."? I have no proof or evidence that anything like that happened but it's the only thing I can think of to make sense of what I just watched.

Thoughts on Little House on the Prairie

In various conversations among people, and on this blog, I had mused that "Little House on the Prairie" was a very popular show but I somehow had never watched it. Finally, repeating this same thought before my family, I suddenly heard my older sister exclaim, "'Little House on the Prairie' was SOOOO DEPRESSING!" Instantly, in just that moment, I time-traveled 30, maybe 40, years into the past to when I first heard that same phrase ringing in my ears, said in the exact same way by the exact same person. It was suddenly clear why I had no history with this show. My sister had seen it, had formed a very decidedly negative opinion of the show and then had wielded much more power over the TV.

Another mystery solved.

Now, back in our own time, having watched the entire run of the series, I consider it to be one of the great TV shows of all-time. But even as I enjoyed the show very much, I had to contend with the thought, all throughout, that, "Well, my sister wasn't exactly wrong." The two things can be true at the same time. "Little House" was a "family drama" and how does one generate drama week-in and week-out for years? There is only one way: create likable characters and then hurl an unceasing barrage of tragedies at them until their lives are a Hellish nightmarescape.

The "family" template is best illustrated by a thumbnail sketch of "Family Ties." "Family Ties" was something of a sitcom but generally you'd watch an episode and it would be, for instance, Uncle Bob is visiting from out of town and he announces he has terminal cancer. That's one week. But then the next episode, they're visited by Uncle Ned but it is revealed that Uncle Ned is hiding the secret that he has become an alcoholic. We're up to episode 3 now and in this episode, they'd throw a curve-ball - in this episode, a black family moves into the neighborhood and suddenly the suburban Ohio town of the 1980s turns into a Deep South KKK stronghold because, it turns out, racism is everywhere.

"Little House" is a lot like that but without all the laughs.

Early on, there are two main themes of the show: the man-versus-nature struggle (the harshness of living on the frontier) and the cruelty of children towards their fellow children. The former is one of my favorite aspects of the show and, as a plot device, it's abandoned pretty early on. The latter continues throughout and it's nuts. I mean, these children are monsters to each other - I would say they're demon children but that's being too kind. Words fail me to describe it, I can only say it's hard to watch.

As for the rest of the episodes, every pregnancy is a potential complication, every baby is going to get sick, every building is in danger of burning down, every dear friend can die, every loved one presents a potential for irredeemable grief and don't forget - never forget - that sometimes children with bright futures can suddenly contract an illness that brings on permanent blindness...  The onset of blindness will be slow, of course, but it will be sure and it will be permanent. Yes, it's a "delightful Bambi romp through a flowery fairy land of happy, harmless, froufrou family fun for the whole family of all ages."

To that point, an imdb trivia note from S01E18 is illustrative:

Matt Clark appears in this episode as "Eric Boulton", a man whose wife and son die after contracting Typhus after eating rat-infected cornmeal. He would return in Season Five's "Mortal Mission" as a character whose family die from Anthrax infected meat.

That actor just can't catch a break.

That said, I will defend the show's position in the Pantheon of Television with 3 semi-counter-points. 

1. It is a family drama and this is the core of drama. You know this is what you're getting into (like I said about "Family Ties" above.) 
2. It rarely feels forced. The hardships may seem a little overwrought in that 70s style, but they're rarely gratuitous - the quality of the writing is so high, it mostly earns its awful extremity.
3. The show seeks to depict not just frontier America but actual people who lived on the frontier. These were hard times and certain tragic events did happen to these real people. Another imdb trivia note from S08E18 is illustrative here:

The real Almanzo and Laura Wilder contracted diphtheria in 1888; then in August 1889, Laura gave birth to a son who died two weeks later, and in the same month they lost their house to a fire and their crops to drought. These circumstances, along with Almanzo's inability to do physical work, led the Wilder's into debt and poverty.

So that's fun. "Hey kids, what do you want to watch tonight?!"

I've covered the quality of the show in general terms - generally it's excellent - but there is a great variance in quality across the hundreds of episodes, spread across 9 seasons. There are weaknesses, aspects I hate, episodes I loathe and it is arguable that the show jumps the shark at a point. Along with the great episodes destined for the TV Hall of Fame, there are certainly terrible episodes also. My complaints and criticisms of this series could be an entire post of their own but I'll spare you that. Suffice it to say that the series has high highs and low lows but, for any given season, the ratio of excellent episodes to bad episodes never goes below 2:1. That is, until Season 9 when the series settles into a heat death of mediocrity; Season 9 is just unremarkable, tired and pointless.

There's just one loose end left. My biggest reason for pursuing the series was how impressed I was by the amazing pilot episode/movie. But, following that, I was spurred on by the rumor that the show ends with one of the most bizarre finales in any television show ever. The last episode of the series, true to the 9th season, is not bizarre or unusual in any way. But I have not been rugpulled yet. For there have been 3 "Little House" made-for-tv movies made after the series ended and I will be watching those next. We shall see...

The Super House on the Prairie

The tradition of boycotting the Super Bowl when I have no rooting interest and instead participating in activities which are as far removed from football as possible. For my own records, here's the run-down of the previous 30 years...

Pre-2011 - Puppy Bowl I, Muppet Treasure Island, Follow That Bird.

2011 - Bob Ross Marathon

2012 - Family Ties Marathon

2013 - Steel Magnolias

2014 - The Bridges of Madison County

2015 - Various, Poetry

2016 - Best of the Worst, Da BullS

2017 - Cooking, Super Mario Bros. Super Show

2018 - Super Bowl

2019 - I don't know, did I forget?

2020 - How Green Was My Valley?

2021 - Facts of Life Marathon

2022 - Jem Marathon and Film

2023 - Super Bowl (boooo!)

And it's worth re-stating that I claimed this segment jumped the shark way back in 2021.

I grew up just slightly after the peak of the "Little House on the Prairie" mania. And yet, I don't remember ever watching even a single episode. I remember reading the book in school and really getting into it, and the standard at that time being that you always watched the movie/TV show after learning something, even THEN I don't think we watched the "Little House on the Prairie." Having heard about it all my life and having never, as far as I know, seen a minute of it, I was curious and decided to check it out.

According to tradition, my task now is to dress down the series in an overlong whirlwind of gaffes and bad puns. As fond as I am of tradition, I really enjoy this series. I love the Western genre, I enjoy the cinematic feel, I appreciate that it's told from the perspective of a child, I'm fascinated by the aspect of frontier life, I'm even willing to pretend that the small girl's echoing voice over is sweet and not at all reminiscent of some "Children of the Corn" horror movie.

The first episode - the 0th episode - the pilot - is an hour-and-a-half TV movie and it's by far the greatest of the 3 I watched. A family travels in a wagon west to the frontier and builds a house, a barn; digs a well, plants a field, encounters Indians and so forth. It completely works as a standalone movie and, for a TV movie from the 70s, it's a masterpiece - sweeping, pastoral, familial, harrowing, touching.

Not that there aren't flaws. There are some weak performances - the actress playing the mother seems to think she's in a 1950s stage play. There are some weak or confusing moments. At one point they caulk the wagon and ford the river. Halfway through Michael Landon's character gets out and slowly sinks below the water like he's easing into a hot tub. Then everyone freaks out. The scene is supposed to convey that he's in danger of drowning - drowning in 2 feet of water - but there's no telling that from looking at him. And the "Indians" are clearly white guys in makeup. I guess I don't know they're white but they're definitely not real Indians.

On to the second episode and there's a clear step into TV Series mode. The father has to work long jobs for a few weeks in order to make ends meet and it wears on him and the family. We're also introduced to the town and townspeople as he meets them. A giant step down but still an excellent show.

In the third episode, we focus more on the daughters - it's the first day of school and they don't know anyone. They are mocked for being unlearned and poor. Still emotional and sweet but definitely another step into the television series formula and another step away from the Western feel. Still, a well-told story with an emotional punch in the end.

So, as I said, I really loved this series, at least according to the 3 episodes I've seen. I highly recommend it, especially if you're looking for family entertainment. I may continue watching it, though I have to finish my current series first. You'll hear about that soon. I have heard that "Little House in the Prairie" jumps the shark most spectacularly somewhere in its 9 seasons and, furthermore, this leads to one of the most bonkers last episodes of any TV series ever made. These are exactly the type of things I should be writing about, but both require an honest watch through all 9 seasons, which I can't do in one day. Future posts, perhaps.

I once watched a documentary that told in great detail all the natural conditions that combined over thousands of years to create the ideal farming soil in the plains of the Mid-West. One thing I never learned was why the greatest soil in the world didn't turn into a forest. Why are do grasslands exist without the trees encroaching? According to my search, the plains are too arid - rainfall is low and erratic - so trees generally can't grow there. That's news to me, I thought trees would grow almost anywhere.

It occurred to me that this show is not so far removed from the Super Bowl as I would like it to be. What was the Super Bowl? The 49ers vs. the Kansas City Chiefs. For the second team, the Ingalls settle in Kansas and encounter an actual Indian chief. The first team refers to the 1849ers, the prospectors of the gold rush, and though the show doesn't take place in 1849, it's not far off. And anyway, "1849ers" and the show are both about westward expansion.

Have you ever noticed that every period drama fails to be authentic to the period and they all fail in exactly the same way? It's the hair. Take this series. They have the period clothing, the period props, the period everything, they're plowing a field with oxen and protecting themselves with muskets but you look at the hairstyles and you can tell it was made in the 70s. It's always the hair.