WEBVTT - 8. Little Landon on the Prairie 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:06.000 Let's go back to my family room floor in the 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:10.160 suburbs of southern Ontario. It's a weekday in the mid eighties, 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:14.400 four twenty six pm. My sister and I have just 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.880 returned home from school. The first half hour of Oprah 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.240 is coming to a close. It's time to switch the channel. 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:30.080 This wasn't a choice. It just was mon Pa pulling 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.839 up in a wagon, Ma primly tucking a wayward strand 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.960 of hair and her bonnet, Pau's infectious laugh, and the 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:42.239 girls Laura, Mary and little Carrie joyfully running down a 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:48.600 grassy hill. Oops, down, goes Carrie. I believe I've seen 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:53.000 every Little House episode at least once. There are two 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.720 hundred and four in total. In fact, I can still 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.720 id any episode based on the first five seconds. And 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:04.399 if this sounds impressive or alarming, rest assured, I'm not 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.520 the only one. I think. It's just the reality of 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:10.360 a nineteen eighty's childhood, when there were limited options and 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:12.600 you watched what you were given, and a lot of 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.679 us were given Little House like a lot. Let me 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.399 put it in context for you. Remember the Game of 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.800 Thrones finale, the one that had more viewers than the 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.640 finale of the Sopranos, or Sex in the City or 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:31.720 actually anything else on HBO. Ever, thirteen million people tuned 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:35.679 in to watch that Game of Thrones finale. Well, as 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.720 they might say, on the Prairie, hold my tin cup 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:43.080 to Narris. On any given Monday night from nineteen seventy 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.759 four to nineteen eighty three, Little House in the Prairie 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:51.480 averaged sixteen million viewers. Little House was a huge hit, 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.000 but lots of shows were in the seventies. 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.200 There was a lot of things on TV actually in 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:58.280 the nineteen. 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.400 Seventies that were really huge. 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.200 Aren't you in reruns or out on DVD and people 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:05.040 are not watching it? 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.040 But Little House in the Prairie is what in the heck? 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:11.960 Little House went into reruns while it was still on 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.040 in prime time. The show ended in nineteen eighty three, 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.320 but it's never actually gone off the air, So you 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.800 can add millions and millions of viewers to those original 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:23.400 numbers we just told you about. 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:26.440 The show stayed on the air for fifty years and 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.520 is actually better known now than it was when it 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:30.760 was originally on NBC. 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.520 We're talking a half century of television. It's on Hallmark, 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:40.000 it's on VHS, it's on DVD, It's on Amazon Prime, 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:44.400 it's on Peacock, and an entire new generation of kids 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:46.800 discovered it. During COVID there was a. 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:49.080 Little House in the Prairie, the videos on the phone 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.200 that you watched on the way here, Yeah, a little bit. 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:55.880 In March of twenty twenty two, we saw the number 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.080 of Google searches for a Little House on the Prairie 0:02:58.200 --> 0:02:59.760 double from the month before. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.160 Some of you might have it on another screen right 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:02.760 this second. 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.639 I literally wake up in the middle of the bit 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.800 and go, somebody somewhere is watching Loves the Worry right now. 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.480 It's literally because it's in every country on Earth. 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:15.480 It's been dubbed into every language. 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:17.520 There's beds in every language. 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:18.920 It's bananas. 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.440 There's a lot of reasons Little House never quits, but 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:26.720 without question, one of the biggest is Michael Landon, the 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:32.960 show's producer, writer, director, and most importantly, the star, better 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.280 known to many as Charles Ingalls Laura's paw. 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:39.000 Sorry about what I guess. 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:40.320 I just couldn't find the words to say. 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.480 It was in my heart, for better or worse. Michael 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.400 Landon made the show all his own. 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:49.839 This is a magnetic individual. 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:51.920 He glowed you know. 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:53.560 He just he had it. 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.520 In the books, Paw was charming and steadfast, and Laura 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.880 was the star. And the television show, Michael Landon had 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:07.200 lovely hair and was always crying. He had a well 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.440 oiled bear chest, and as I got a bit older, 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.000 I enjoyed how nice he looked in tight pants and suspenders. 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:21.880 He was the star. Laura is our adoring proxy. If 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.719 you're a person devoted to Little House book series, the 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.080 one's written by the real life Laura Ingleswilder. The TV 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:31.600 version might not always make sense, the stories don't always 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.320 match up with what's in the books, and at times 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.880 they're downright strange. But Michael Lannon had a vision for 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:40.440 the show, and it was a vision he believed would 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:41.440 stand the test of time. 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.080 He said, you know, everyone's going to be watching these 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.200 shows long after we're all gone, he said, long after 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:50.680 I'm dead. It was like this prophetic thing, and every 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.480 win he said it to it, yeah right, oh by it, 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:56.080 And Blake didn't believe him. 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:57.200 And here we all are. 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:00.680 We didn't get it. Michael got the My motivation to 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.239 create these two versions of Little House was essentially the same. 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.279 If the books were the result of Laura wanting to 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:10.160 memorialize her father's stories. The television show is in many 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.080 ways the result of Michael Landon using Laura's writing to 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:17.600 tap into his own traumatic childhood. Still, at the end 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.600 of the day, Michael Lannon made Laura's prairie all his own, 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:23.919 and we all liked it there, even if it was 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.720 a very strange place to be. Sometimes, in some ways 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.719 the TV show feels like a Venn diagram. Laura Ingalls Wilder, 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:36.240 her devotion to her paw, her daughter Rose's vision, and 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.240 then Michael Landon's brain, and the TV series exists at 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.200 the center of all this, And that's where twenty million 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.360 people spent an hour each week and then an hour 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:52.360 after school every day for nearly five decades. Michael Landon 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.800 was able to tap into some essential Little House truths 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:00.599 in ways that are sometimes hard to believe. And we're 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:06.080 sometimes just as problematic as the books. This week, instead 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.040 of going through the pages to the prairie, we're going 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:13.919 through the screen to sunny southern California, Come home to 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.720 a simpler time, Come home to Hollywood in the seventies. 0:06:18.680 --> 0:07:10.560 I'm Glennys McNichol, and this is Wilder. It took a 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:12.840 long time for The Little House Books to reach Michael Landon. 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.880 More than three decades went by from the publication of 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.280 the last book to the premiere of the show in 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.200 nineteen seventy four. It's not because people didn't want it. 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.920 It's because Laura and her daughter Rose wouldn't let anyone 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.920 have the rights to the books. By the time Laura 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.560 died in nineteen fifty seven, the Little House Books were 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:34.800 huge success. At some point, the Canadian Broadcasting Company approached 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.680 Laura about adapting the books for radio, but she turned 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.600 the offer down. Neither she nor her daughter Rose wanted 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.240 to see the books quote unquote distorted by someone else's vision. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:50.480 There were a number of radio adaptations, both small scale 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:54.480 and also hallmarked in adapting The Little House Books. 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.880 That's Bill Anderson again. He's been researching and writing about 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.240 Laura since he was a kid, and has written many 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:01.200 books on her life. 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:06.560 But Laura Ingleswilder was very, very skeptical and wanted approval 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:11.360 of the scripts, and she wasn't altogether happy with the 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:16.480 radio versions. Rose Wilder Lane felt the same way when 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:20.680 her books Let the Hurricane Law and Freeland were adapted 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.440 to radio. So I don't think they were fans of media. 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.520 After Laura's death, Rose continued to spurn offers. But when 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:33.040 Rose died in nineteen sixty eight, things changed pretty quickly. 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:39.400 Enter Roger Lee McBride. You remember McBride. He's a complicated 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.720 figure who had a unique relationship with Rose. He referred 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.079 to himself as her adopted grandson and even called her grandma. 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.360 Having no children, Rose designated him or heir, and after 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.760 her death he acquired all the rights to Little House 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:59.440 on the Prairie. He now owned everything. Despite Rose's wishes, 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.280 McBride i'd entered into discussions with Disney almost immediately after 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.840 her death. Disney was very interested in adapting the Little 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.760 House books. However, on the way to a meeting at 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:15.680 their offices, fate intervened in the form of a young girl. 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:20.480 Naturally circa nineteen seventy one. My sister's at home ill 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.920 with a cold from school. She's a teenager, and my 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:26.800 father goes in and to say goodbye to her in 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.120 the morning and discovers her reading one of the Little 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:34.280 House Books. And he can't understand why his teenage daughter's 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.760 rereading a children's book that her mother had read to 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:38.760 her when she was a child. 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:42.959 That's Trip Friendly. His father is Ed Friendly, and Ed 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.080 is the first reason Little House landed on television screens. 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.600 At the time. Ed was a highly regarded television producer, 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.679 best known for creating the program Roan and Martin's Laughing. 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:56.760 He went back and talked about it with my mother, 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.640 and my mother said, I've been telling you for years 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.560 what great books they are and that you should make 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.320 a teeny series based on them. So he borrowed one 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.680 of my sister's books. He took it on a business trip. 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.520 A couple of days later, stopped at the magazine racket 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.080 at the airport and bought a Time magazine and hid 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.760 it inside the Time magazine. I'm the airplane so no 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.040 one would see who was reading a children's book. 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:23.319 And when he landed, he. 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.000 Immediately realized what he had in his hands, and so 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:29.560 he called his attorney and asked him to find out 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.800 if the rights were available. And my father invited Roger 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:34.240 to come and meet with him, and they spent a 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:35.960 weekend together in Los Angeles. 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.080 That weekend resulted in Friendly obtaining the rights to turn 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:40.720 the books into a television show. 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.280 He thought the books were a national treasure. His goal 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.560 was to try to bring the magic of those books 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:48.160 to the screen. 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.120 At least that was the plan. This was the mid seventies, 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.200 and the concept of setting a wholesome family show on 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:59.040 the American frontier did not exactly speak to the times 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:00.800 Father who. 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.640 Was turned down by virtually every studio and network because 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:08.520 at the time they all told him Westerns are dead, 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:13.720 this material is too soft. It's nice, they're great books. 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:14.760 But but but. 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.080 In March nineteen seventy four, America was at the height 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:24.480 of Watergate, Vietnam was still raging, the country was experiencing 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.920 extreme inflation. There was a lot of sharp, timely social 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.640 commentary on primetime TV, and a lot of people watching. 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.160 The most popular show was All in the Family, average 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:39.200 viewership twenty million. In fact, the average weekly viewership of 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.080 the top ten shows in nineteen seventy four was around 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.520 sixteen million. I'm telling you all these numbers just to 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.400 remind you that even basic television was a common cultural language. 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:51.719 When you showed up at work, or at school or 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.560 at the grocery store the next day, everyone knew what 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.440 you were talking about. You'd all been watching it together, 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:01.600 you know. And I often talk about what it was 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:03.559 like to grow up with this sort of shared culture. 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.560 I mean, I try to explain this to Charlie all 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.559 the time, that he lives in a content utopia where 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:17.360 he can just dial up magically any episode of any 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.760 show ever created and watch it as many times as 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:26.679 he wanted, Whereas if we saw a show, especially when 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.560 we were much younger, we may never see it again. 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.600 I remember one of my favorite Little House episodes came 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:35.720 on and I skipped swim practice because I was like, 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.600 I've been waiting for this episode for years to see. 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:40.880 And the thing too, is like when we talk about 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.040 how wholesome Little House was, The Waltons was also on 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.400 TV in the seventies at the same time. 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.360 Yeah, in my head, they're the same thing. Even though 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:50.720 I grew up in the eighties and I know that 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:54.320 my mom watched both Little House and The Waltons, and 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:59.000 to me it just seemed really cheesy. I wasn't paying 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:00.720 enough attention to either of them. 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:05.520 Yeah, if I was to differentiate them for listeners and 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:07.880 for you, I would say the Waltons was sort of 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.440 like the Depression, and Little House in the Prairie was 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:16.320 like sex appeal. Hollywood Michael Landon with you know, his 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.959 muscles and his hair and a smile, and clearly had 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:22.199 shaved his chest, although I didn't understand that as a kid. 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:23.880 Like there was so much sex appealed a little house 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:25.320 in the prairie. It was like a Western. It was 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:26.040 like Hollywood. 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.720 Hold on, I'm googling pictures of Michael Landon and his hair. 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:34.480 Is that's some nice hair. That's some real nice hair. 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.600 Oh my gosh, look at his chest. 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.280 Yeah, he was always finding reasons to take his shirt off. 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.960 He was always breaking his ribs somehow so that they 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:45.880 had to take a shirt off and wrap them up 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.880 in like some sort of like prairie tensor bandage. He glistens, 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.600 He really listens. Nobody looked like that on the Waltons. 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.400 Let me tell you, all right, just make me a 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.880 list of your top ten episodes. I'll dive into some 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:00.800 Michael Landon when I'm alone later this evening. 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.520 Being a sex symbol was not a new experience for 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:10.000 Michael Landon. In the early seventies, Landon was known to 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.600 the world as Little Joe, the youngest son of the 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:16.120 wealthy ranch owning Cartwright family on the television western Bonanza 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:18.840 At the height of its run, it was the number 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:23.960 one rated show in the country, clocking nineteen million viewers weekly. Landon, 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:26.720 who was in his mid twenties, was a teen idol 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:32.400 think Elvis Goes West. When Bonanza ended in nineteen seventy three, 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:34.840 Michael Landon was primed for his next project. 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.360 My father knew Michael because he was very close friends 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.760 with Lauren Green, who was the patriarch on Bonanza. 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:42.480 Here's Trip Friendly again. 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.360 And so he called Michael and he said, I have 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:49.360 a project that I'm very interested in having you direct. 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.040 So he sent my sister with a script up to 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.800 Michael's house and a few hours later he got a 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.360 call from Michael saying, I not only want to direct, 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:03.600 but I want a stars paw. And so with Michael attached, 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:06.640 he went back to NBC, with whom he had a 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.600 very strong relationship, and he presented him with the package 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:14.120 with Michael a directing and Michael starring, and they agreed, 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:19.720 if I had. 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.840 Her alevelance book, I would mark down how it was 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.360 when we left our little house in the Big Woods 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:27.520 to go west to Remian Territory. 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.400 The two hour Little House Pilot aired on March thirtieth, 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:36.640 nineteen seventy four. Ed Friendley spent his own money to 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.960 hire Blanche Handalists to adapt it, and she stuck faithfully 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:41.680 to the book Little House on the Prairie. 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:43.720 All right, here, ess here we Come. 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.840 The pilot was a huge hit. It was the highest 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:53.200 rated television movie of the year. NBC immediately ordered the series, 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.080 and Little House on the Prairie premiered on September eleventh, 0:15:56.160 --> 0:16:00.880 nineteen seventy four, seven weeks after Nixon's resignation and one 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.080 week after I was born. The series starts with an 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.480 episode called a Harvest of Friends, and it introduced a 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.400 very different Ingalls family from the one readers knew from 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.920 the books. The episode is about how Walnut Grove comes 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.920 together to help Charles when an injury keeps him from 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:19.320 fulfilling a contract that will allow him to save his 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.440 brand new farm. It's a tear jerker, and it has 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:27.680 no correlation whatsoever to any storyline in any of the books. 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:29.960 This set the template for what was to come on 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:31.640 Little House Family. 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:33.360 First home is the nicest word. 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:35.320 There is strength and community. 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:37.600 I think you're a welcome edition, dark community. 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.080 I thank you hard work work for you in the 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.440 morning work for Hanson. In the afternoon, you're biting off 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:44.000 a big piece God. 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:46.800 Charles Lord's day is set aside for worship and for 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:52.520 wrist Michael Landon's thick, flowing curls, Michael Landon's smile, Michael 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:57.800 Landon's shirtless and glistening. Michael Landon crying or for't exactly 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:02.320 crying in this episode, frequently hobbling his lip. Laura was 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:05.000 still there, and Melissa Gilbert was charming and could hold 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.160 her own in a scene. But there was no doubt 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.879 who the star of this prairie was. The spotlight had 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:13.560 clearly been shifted to Paw and his perfectly lit pecks. 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.199 This was not the Charles Ingles of the books. 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.280 Michael showed himself to be anything but Charles Ingalls. 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.320 That's actor Dean Butler. He played heart throb while Mon's 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:24.320 a wilder on the show. 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:26.960 Hey, this is a guy who's sitting there with a 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.200 cigarette and his teeth. He's got his Carrera sunglasses on, 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:35.080 his demim shirt opened down halfway down. His chest is 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.560 sprayed on with the gun jeans, the snakeskin boots, the 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.760 hair obviously with the ash brown dyed number two in. 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:47.120 It unlike Paw, Michael landed On the Prairie didn't have 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.479 the iconic beard Laura write so lovingly about in the books. 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:53.760 NBC was so concerned Little House book fans would be 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.520 alarmed by the lack of a beard, they felt it 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.600 necessary to put out a press release explaining its absence. 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.320 Great pains were put into fitting Michael Landon with a beard, 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:07.399 both of natural growth and by makeup artis, but it 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:09.639 was decided that he just did not look good with 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:10.840 any kind of facial hair. 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.400 And if Michael Landon did not look good with facial hair, 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.720 and gosh darn it, he would not have facial hair. 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:22.240 He was the star, and the producer and the writer. 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:28.160 It was, in short, Michael Landon's Prairie. Millions of people 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.120 wanted to live there with the ingles for at least 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:40.280 one hour a week. Everyone loved Paul, well, almost everyone. 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:47.400 His Little House was hitting the airwaves in the fall 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:51.199 of nineteen seventy four. A Friendly, the person who initially 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.359 had brought the books to the screen, was increasingly unhappy. 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.320 Michael Landon was wreaking havoc on Friendly's plan to faithfully 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:02.080 adapt the books. Friendly flat out told people magazine. He 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:04.040 thought this prairie was too flashy. 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:08.280 I've renamed the series, how affluent is my Prairie? 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:09.920 They have everything but a Cadillac. 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:15.400 My father decided he and Michael had creative differences, and 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.119 I think he recognized that Michael, as the star of 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.560 the show, woulout work if Michael left the show, and 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:25.880 I think eventually he decided that he did not want 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.280 to continue with Michael's vision. He had his own vision, 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.280 so he left the show. But still, you'll see in 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.160 the credits it's still in an NDC production association within 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:39.520 Friendly Production, so he was still very involved without being 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:41.600 the producer on the show. 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:46.800 So very quickly into season one, Michael Landon was fully 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:54.240 completely in charge well at Friendly's departure from the day 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.399 to day signaled a major shift behind the scenes. Viewers 0:19:57.400 --> 0:19:59.359 did not seem to deterred by the fact the show 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.520 deviated from the books, or by Landon's central role, or 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.879 by criticism that it was too sacharin a sweet and 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:12.639 low Walton said People Magazine the show was sacrin but 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.399 Landon certainly didn't care. He embraced the simplicity of a 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.840 family show, as he told Bobby Wygant in an interview 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:21.320 right before the first season aired. 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:25.040 But anyway, when this came along, it was fresh for 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:28.880 me because it was honest, and it was simple and 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:32.600 very basic, and I liked the people. I thought the 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.879 people were nice, and I kind of thought my family 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:37.560 would like to watch that. I got a lot of kids, 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:39.359 and it's kind of fun to think you're going to 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.120 do a show that you would be happy to sit 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:43.879 in the living room with the whole family and watch. 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:49.399 Landon's idea a family friendly fair was a combination of adventure, 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:54.840 wholesomeness and hard times, and while the books provided some 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.919 of this, Landon often went with what he knew, and 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:03.000 he had definitely known his own hard times as a child. 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:07.359 Or Eugene Horowitz in nineteen thirty six, Landon claimed to 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:09.800 have been ostracized as a child because he was Jewish. 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:13.959 He'd also had a painful relationship with his mother. This 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:16.080 is what he told People magazine in nineteen eighty five 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:18.960 about her. An actor is reading his statement. 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:22.680 I always wanted to get away from my family. Mother 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.119 was a childish person who was always attempting suicide. She 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:28.080 would stick her head in the oven, but she always 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.760 had knee pads on the floor, or one window open. 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:33.640 In a family like that, you get to thinking, Gee, 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:35.440 if it's Tuesday, it must be suicide. 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:39.840 Landon was famously a bedwetter as a child. I say 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:43.240 famously because he talks about it freely. He even made 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:45.760 a TV movie about this in nineteen seventy six called 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.840 The Loneliest Runner. Well, I don't recall any bed wedding 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.240 episodes in Little House, though presumably there was bed wedding 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.399 in the eighteen seventies. It was these traumas from his 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:57.679 own childhood land And was drawing on when he stepped 0:21:57.720 --> 0:21:59.640 into the Little House Writer's room, and. 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:03.200 He could do in a really an intensely real way. 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:06.320 This is Rick Okie. In the nineteen seventies, he was 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.399 an NBC exec in charge of a host of iconic programs, 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:14.119 The Wonderful World of Disney, Chips, Night Rider, and of 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:16.680 course Little House on the Prairie, where he witnessed Michael 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:19.320 Landon's creative process firsthand. In the writer's room. 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:21.080 I would watch him. 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:25.600 Sometimes we'd be sitting talking about a plotter, about an episode, 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:30.480 and he would lean back and he would close his eyes, 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:32.800 and you know, it's hard to sit in a room 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:35.919 that's silent when you're supposed to be making a contribution. 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:38.359 I would open my mouth to say something and the 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:40.080 other one of the writers in the room would sort 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:43.000 of put his hand on my chest and say wait. 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:46.520 Much like real life Laura, who reworked the hard times 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:50.240 of her childhood into magical stories, Landon in many ways 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:50.919 did the same. 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:53.800 And it could go on for minutes where he would 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:56.719 just sit there, and when he would sit back up 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.480 and open his eyes, he'd say, when I was a kid, 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:01.880 And he would tell a story out of his own life, 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:03.840 and you just have you glued because he was a 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:07.320 great yarn spinner, and you're asking yourself, how does this 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:09.679 relate to what we're working on right now. By the 0:23:09.800 --> 0:23:12.120 end of his story, he would have tied it back 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:15.960 into where the conversation started and use it as a 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:20.640