Speaker 1: I am all in again. Oh it's just you. I
Speaker 1: Smell Pop Culture with Eastern Allen and iHeart Radio podcast.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Eastern Allen. I am all in podcasts. iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: iHeart media, iHeart podcast one of all of them productions.
Speaker 2: It's I Smell Pop Culture. My name's Easton Allen. I'm here.
Speaker 2: I'm hosting this.
Speaker 1: It's me.
Speaker 2: It's not Scott Okay, it's me. I'm here. I can
Speaker 2: do whatever I want. I'm the host of this dang show.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have a lot of fun this week. We're
Speaker 2: going to a place in time, a place in space
Speaker 2: that you might be familiar with. If you haven't seen
Speaker 2: this show before, I guarantee you've heard of it. It's
Speaker 2: one of the most iconic shows in television history. We
Speaker 2: are going to the world of Little House on the Prayer.
Speaker 2: That's right, Little House on the Prairie. And the reason
Speaker 2: we're doing that, we're talking to two of the stars
Speaker 2: of Little House on the Prairie, Dean Butler and Alison
Speaker 2: on Grim. Dean Butler played Almonzo Wilder, Alison on Grim
Speaker 2: played and Nelly Elson. That little brat Nelly Elson. We
Speaker 2: all know her. But the reason we're going there is
Speaker 2: because in season two, episode twenty one, Lorelei's graduation day,
Speaker 2: there's a reference. Baby, there's a Little House on the
Speaker 2: Prairie reference. Okay, check this out. I know you know
Speaker 2: the scene. It's the opening scene of the episode. Laurel
Speaker 2: and Ryer are walking down the street. They're going to
Speaker 2: a mystery breakfast and Lane comes up riting behind them,
Speaker 2: and Laureli says, oh, look, it's Michael Landon. Michael Landon
Speaker 2: obviously the star of Bonanza Little House on the Prairie.
Speaker 2: And if you didn't get this reference when he saw it,
Speaker 2: it's because in Little House on the Prairie, characters were
Speaker 2: always just kind of running in and out of scenes.
Speaker 2: That was just something that happened a lot on the show.
Speaker 2: And Michael Landon, I mean, just an absolute legend in
Speaker 2: the world of television, one of the most memorable roles
Speaker 2: and actors in oll of TV. We sadly lost Michael
Speaker 2: Landon in nineteen ninety one to pancreatic cancer, but we're
Speaker 2: gonna hang out with two of his co stars on
Speaker 2: Little House on the Prairie. They worked with them, they
Speaker 2: knew him well.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: Allison Arngrim, she played Nelly, and Dean Butler, who played Almonzo.
Speaker 2: And if you're a bonnet heead or you know, a
Speaker 2: bonnet head, grab him close. Get your Johnny cakes ready,
Speaker 2: lay out a blanket. This is gonna be a fun one. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're heading straight to Wannut Grove, Missouri. You know we
Speaker 2: call that the stars hollow of post Civil War, the
Speaker 2: great planes. This is gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: It's I smell pop culture and let me get him
Speaker 2: in here. I can hear Dean and Allison just banging
Speaker 2: on the door outside this room. Hang on, let me
Speaker 2: let them in and we are going to have some fun.
Speaker 2: It's I smell pop culture. Where this is the I
Speaker 2: am on podcast. I'm here Dean Butler and Allison Aringrim.
Speaker 2: Thanks for doing this, you guys. This is so exciting.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yes so.
Speaker 2: Little House on the Prairie fiftieth anniversary, congratulations huge. We're
Speaker 2: going to talk all things Little House. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about you guys. The reason we brought you here
Speaker 2: today is, uh, there is a reference to the great
Speaker 2: Michael Landon and this is in season one episode or sorry,
Speaker 2: season two, episode twenty one for everyone keeping score at home,
Speaker 2: and I just want to run the reference by you
Speaker 2: guys really quick before we dive in here. Laurali, one
Speaker 2: of the characters, is walking down the street and another
Speaker 2: character named Laane runs up fast behind her, and then
Speaker 2: she says, oh, hi, Michael Landon. And the joke is
Speaker 2: that she's like kind of running into the scene, as
Speaker 2: many characters on the Little House on the Prairie would
Speaker 2: run into the scene. You know, is that something that
Speaker 2: like you remember being directed to do a lot like, hey,
Speaker 2: we always got to be running and keeping everything moving,
Speaker 2: anything like that.
Speaker 1: Well that that would be probably not so much for
Speaker 1: me and probably not so much for runner.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't run as but the kids when I
Speaker 3: flounced and I sauntered.
Speaker 4: But it's with the kids. If you notice that the
Speaker 4: school has always run into the school, I was run
Speaker 4: out of the schools.
Speaker 3: And I was just watching it the other day with
Speaker 3: Bob and I said, you know, that probably was five
Speaker 3: or six takes. He said, what I said, that's why
Speaker 3: we're always exhausted by the end of the day. I said,
Speaker 3: they're down the stairs and run, I said, but they
Speaker 3: had to go this side of the camera, that side
Speaker 3: of the camera and then like a bird flies by,
Speaker 3: something goes wrong.
Speaker 4: Because we're outdoors.
Speaker 3: It could be five times all that running. And then,
Speaker 3: of course Laura famously her conflict resolution move a was
Speaker 3: to simply run, screaming away to the distance, braids flying
Speaker 3: up a hill somewhere and just disappear.
Speaker 4: And so running running was big.
Speaker 3: Running out of scene seemed to be people always bounding
Speaker 3: and leaping.
Speaker 1: Yes, Michael had a perverse trick that he did on
Speaker 1: particularly on the kids running away, is that he would
Speaker 1: have them running away from the camera and simply not
Speaker 1: call cut. Yeah, keep running and running and running.
Speaker 4: See how far they get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he can get away with you.
Speaker 3: See how far they'll go before they finally figure it
Speaker 3: out and stop.
Speaker 1: So he liked to do that a lot. Melissa. I mean,
Speaker 1: of all the characters on the program, nobody ran from
Speaker 1: place to place more than Melissa.
Speaker 4: Child burned thousand She could have been a miler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the energy we love from a
Speaker 2: little houseland Prey. And I have so many more questions
Speaker 2: about Michael Landon's sense of humor on the set, but
Speaker 2: I want to go back to the beginning. Do you
Speaker 2: each remember the first time you met him.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that's he was an indelible
Speaker 1: kind of presence. You would not forget the first time, Allison,
Speaker 1: since you met him first, what did you remember?
Speaker 4: I remember why.
Speaker 3: I came into the audition and uh, the the infamous
Speaker 3: Nellie Olson An audition. And I get there, it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: read for producer, because I'd come in and read for
Speaker 3: the pilot, for the part of Laura and for Mary,
Speaker 3: which I knew I was wrong for not a country girl,
Speaker 3: not not.
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, no, and you I'm eleven. I'm
Speaker 4: like no.
Speaker 3: And then of course they made the pilot and I
Speaker 3: was like, yes, of course, these two girls that make sense.
Speaker 3: Of course they're playing Laura and Marry. And then they
Speaker 3: call me back and I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm an idiot. I haven't read the books.
Speaker 3: I don't know, and I like, who, come back to
Speaker 3: Paramount and read again, and I went what for? Well,
Speaker 3: turns out there's an Elle Elsa.
Speaker 4: I know nothing.
Speaker 3: I know nothing about Ellie Elso and they get no
Speaker 3: direction whatsoever. I get the sides and like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: this is awful.
Speaker 4: So I ride away.
Speaker 3: I pick up on him, like this is great. And
Speaker 3: I go in and it was I was Kent was
Speaker 3: there and Michael was there, and I think it was
Speaker 3: ed friendly because they were lined up on a couch
Speaker 3: and yeah, Michael, you when people say someone has a
Speaker 3: five thousand watt smile and lights it, yeah, he actually
Speaker 3: could do that.
Speaker 4: I mean it was his glove and the.
Speaker 3: Shirt is open and there's a gold chains and it's
Speaker 3: very seventies, very seventies, the boots and the tight jeans
Speaker 3: and the shirt and the tan and the and the
Speaker 3: huge huge I loved his glasses. They're back in style now,
Speaker 3: those aviators. There's enormous glasses. They were fantastic as we
Speaker 3: had the fabulous glass and the fabulous hair and the
Speaker 3: big grin.
Speaker 4: And then as soon as I.
Speaker 3: Started, and of course Nelly is very funny in this episode,
Speaker 3: the first one infamous, My home is the best home
Speaker 3: in all of Walnut Griff, he starts laughing. They were
Speaker 3: all laughing, and I realized, like, okay, I've hit a nerve.
Speaker 4: But he was hysterical.
Speaker 3: It was that high pitch giggling and did have quite
Speaker 3: the giggle his mind. And then of course he asked
Speaker 3: me to read it again, and I, yes, what would
Speaker 3: you like me to change good little child actor? And
Speaker 3: they said no, they just read the thing about the
Speaker 3: hose again. But yeah, his laugh right away. That was
Speaker 3: day one I got to meet the laugh.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had a very similar experience, not in terms
Speaker 1: of the giggle, although he was so gracious. This is
Speaker 1: a voice, you know when you were growing up during
Speaker 1: that time because of Bonanza, Michael was this presence on
Speaker 1: American television that was absolutely enormous. Now I had seen
Speaker 1: him as little Joe Cartwright, and I had seen him
Speaker 1: in pro as Charles Ingalls. I was unprepared for the
Speaker 1: Michael Lyndon I walked in and met in the final
Speaker 1: audition that I had, and very much the way Allison
Speaker 1: described him. It was the Carrera sunglasses, the cigarette and
Speaker 1: the teeth, the denim shirt sprayed on with a gun
Speaker 1: opened down to his table. It was the gold belt buckle,
Speaker 1: the gold chain around his neck, snake skin boots. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just and hey, how you doing? Was the
Speaker 1: was his opener, and that you know, he was very
Speaker 1: He was a very powerful presence to meet. And so
Speaker 1: when you read for him, what was wonderful? And this
Speaker 1: was before monitors and for all that Michael would sit
Speaker 1: on the couch, she'd sit on the floor, whatever was
Speaker 1: going to be unobtrusive for the actor, and he would
Speaker 1: watch so attentively as to what you were doing. And
Speaker 1: I always remember it, and your audience won't see it,
Speaker 1: but I always remember as I'm reading, he puts his
Speaker 1: hands up and I'm seeing him out of the corner
Speaker 1: of my eye. I'm looking down to my left and
Speaker 1: there he is, and he's got his hands up to
Speaker 1: his eye, framing me. And it's so cool.
Speaker 4: They did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that was a very very cool moment
Speaker 1: for me. And he just he could not have been
Speaker 1: more gracious to welcome you. And he didn't really offer
Speaker 1: any correction. He just he just had a you know,
Speaker 1: he that was terrific and blah blah blah blah. And
Speaker 1: I remember him saying, as I was going out of
Speaker 1: the door, I thanked him, and what are you doing
Speaker 1: in early May? And I and I said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: finishing college. I'll be you know, taking my finals at
Speaker 1: the University of the Pacific. He said, well, we can
Speaker 1: wait another week. And I thought, oh my god, he's
Speaker 1: hired me in the room. Yeah, and oh my god.
Speaker 1: But it took two weeks for an offer to pop
Speaker 1: and I really thought I was ready to slit my
Speaker 1: wrists before that, and because I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this guy completely jerked me around. Yeah, well no, he
Speaker 1: he did make the offer. And I have to say,
Speaker 1: you're going to ask about all of these things. But
Speaker 1: Michael's presence was so enormous, and he had everybody's confidence
Speaker 1: at this very high level, and you just knew that
Speaker 1: he knew what he was doing. And you look at
Speaker 1: the shows, you look at the at the ratings, you
Speaker 1: look at the enduring qualities that the show radiates for
Speaker 1: audiences all over the world. He did know what he
Speaker 1: was doing, and that's why we're celebrating fifty years this year.
Speaker 3: You look at the crew, the crew on Little House,
Speaker 3: all of the grips and electricians and well.
Speaker 4: In the cameraman and everybody. They were from Bonanza.
Speaker 3: They just walked going over and followed him, and then
Speaker 3: they all followed him to Highway to Heaven.
Speaker 4: How often does that happen?
Speaker 3: People were like, if I'm never working for this producer
Speaker 3: at canam My Guns, guys driving me crazy, they leave,
Speaker 3: they go get other jobs. These guys all had huge
Speaker 3: resumes that could have worked anywhere, and they just followed him.
Speaker 4: They just followed. He was their leader.
Speaker 3: And this was very, very obvious from day one.
Speaker 1: He had a Midas touch. He really did.
Speaker 2: It's so important and speaks so much the legacy of
Speaker 2: everything's worked on to have like a strong leader and
Speaker 2: someone who is This makes me so happy to hear that,
Speaker 2: like behind the scenes he's this great guy too, you know,
Speaker 2: because like you see him on screen. Was and what
Speaker 2: was that like when you so, you get the job,
Speaker 2: you start working on the show, you start filming, was
Speaker 2: he giving you advice? Was he like, how how did
Speaker 2: that go?
Speaker 4: The anti director? He was the anti director?
Speaker 1: Much? Really, he did not say much.
Speaker 4: You had to really mess it up.
Speaker 1: I think, like so many directors who are really good directors,
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of their work is done in the casting.
Speaker 1: If they get if they find that person that they
Speaker 1: think is the right vibe for what it is that
Speaker 1: they're doing, if they just bring that. If I did
Speaker 1: get notes from him, it was just just be here,
Speaker 1: just be here, just react in this environment, be authentic
Speaker 1: in this environment. I asked him if I should read anything,
Speaker 1: you know, different that was separate and apart from little house.
Speaker 1: He said, no, just read what I write. That's all
Speaker 1: you need to read. And he was absolutely right, because
Speaker 1: the world he created was so complete unto itself, and
Speaker 1: if you just were able to step into that world,
Speaker 1: you were gonna be fine.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: That's why I believe. He said, can you read the
Speaker 3: part about the house again? They wanted to see if
Speaker 3: it was a fit.
Speaker 1: Was yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: I was just turned twelve and probably looked eight. I
Speaker 3: was very this tiny little girl. So they went, Okay,
Speaker 3: was that a complete freak accident or can that kid
Speaker 3: do that twice in a row? And I apparently could.
Speaker 3: I got I got the joke, so I got the job.
Speaker 3: I knew why it was funny, and I knew why
Speaker 3: Nelly was saying these things, and it was just and
Speaker 3: they were like, okay, so that's the thing. He would
Speaker 3: make sure this person could easily reproduce this thing and
Speaker 3: then he wouldn't have to do any work when they
Speaker 3: showed up. And I remember once after not like directing
Speaker 3: me for years at a stretcher, like, oh you see
Speaker 3: speaking to me?
Speaker 4: What is happening? No directing.
Speaker 3: One point there was a scene with Sarpinigosa and he
Speaker 3: would start it was directing. He said, now I want
Speaker 3: you to kind of do this, and then you could
Speaker 3: do more of this. And then he came up to
Speaker 3: his said, you know, you come in and you give
Speaker 3: him one of those you do that thing you do
Speaker 3: and walked away. And I was like, in number twenty seven,
Speaker 3: what what?
Speaker 4: What are we doing there?
Speaker 3: And he had decided that there were certain things I
Speaker 3: did and that is what he wanted do that do
Speaker 3: the thing I.
Speaker 4: Hired you to do. Just do that, and that it
Speaker 4: was how we were.
Speaker 3: I mean, he would say, let's try one for blocking
Speaker 3: and then go no, no, no, no, that's too complicated. I
Speaker 3: don't want you to walk all the way over there
Speaker 3: and picked that. Just go straight to her. And that
Speaker 3: was generally. It was all about like cut, cut, cut,
Speaker 3: how can we shorten titan?
Speaker 4: This all up?
Speaker 1: He kept it. He kept things very simple, he really did.
Speaker 1: And you know this was in the days when one
Speaker 1: hour drama was generally shot with one camera, maybe two.
Speaker 1: I don't know how say Gilmore Girls was in terms
Speaker 1: of multi cameras. You go on sets today there are
Speaker 1: four or five cameras rolling and they're multiple masters and
Speaker 1: you've got dollies and cranes and all this. It was
Speaker 1: a single camera on a tripod. Now for Katherine Gregor,
Speaker 1: who played missus Olsen so brilliantly that Catherine was unrestrained
Speaker 1: by concerns about continuity. He he ultimately started working with
Speaker 1: two cameras with her so we could get the over
Speaker 1: the shoulder and the single at the same time. For continuity.
Speaker 4: They invented the steady cam for Katherin McGregor. I think,
Speaker 4: just follower to follower. Where's she going? I don't know,
Speaker 4: just follow her. So there was that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we we maybe two cameras and remember an enormous,
Speaker 3: enormous size of a car, like enormous yeah thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it was all it was Panavision cameras.
Speaker 2: We had.
Speaker 1: The inventor of the steady cam, Garrett Brown, brought his
Speaker 1: original steady cam to our set. It was one of
Speaker 1: the first places the steady cam was on Little House
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 4: Said, oh yeah, they evisited steady camp actually.
Speaker 1: Show football where he could run down the field where
Speaker 1: and Garrett was a big guy. Garrett was six five
Speaker 1: six six gazelle kind of athlete, and he could run
Speaker 1: with this thing and get these shots that nobody had
Speaker 1: ever been able to get before.
Speaker 3: And they were very heavy back then. I mean now
Speaker 3: I could carry a steady camp, but I mean it
Speaker 3: was a lot back then. Yeah, big deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And these are things people take for granted now.
Speaker 2: You know, you can put your phone and.
Speaker 4: Film whatever nothing now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But but you watch especially a little House. It
Speaker 2: looks so good still because has Panavision cameras and everything.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's equality, well, the Panavision cameras, but it
Speaker 2: was the men behind the Panavision cameras, Ted Boydlander, buzz Bogs,
Speaker 2: the light.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our gaffers. These people lit. The show was lit cinematically.
Speaker 1: In its era, it was the most beautiful show on
Speaker 1: television because it was lit like a movie, and that
Speaker 1: quality is held up and in fact, when the show
Speaker 1: was restored in twenty fourteen by Lionsgate for the show's
Speaker 1: fortieth anniversary, they did a color correction pass through the show,
Speaker 1: taking advantage of all the color correction technology that exists
Speaker 1: today that wasn't available then. The show is absolutely more
Speaker 1: beautiful today than it was when it was new because
Speaker 1: the new one and the screens. The screens are better,
Speaker 1: the detail of data is higher, the pictures are just
Speaker 1: absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 2: Still, when you say it's cinematic, I mean it truly does.
Speaker 2: Like every episode looks like a movie. It's it's so
Speaker 2: we were making a movie.
Speaker 4: We were, as far as we were concerned, we're all
Speaker 4: making a movie.
Speaker 1: Now. It was slower because of the number of cameras
Speaker 1: and because it was not cut. It was not cut
Speaker 1: on a nonlinear editing system. It was cut on movieola
Speaker 1: where the razor blade and the tation. So you made
Speaker 1: a cut, you really you had to know you were
Speaker 1: going to make that cut. There was no undo. Let's
Speaker 1: just do that again another way. Those editors had to
Speaker 1: make those decisions. And if they had to put those
Speaker 1: frames back, they could because they were in a trim
Speaker 1: bin with the number with the frame numbers on them,
Speaker 1: and they could put the frames back. But cuts were
Speaker 1: made not capriciously at all. It was very deliberate.
Speaker 2: So how was Michael like in the editing day too?
Speaker 2: He was just the entire process.
Speaker 3: Watched the daily Back then you had to watch daily.
Speaker 3: You never a monitor in the sets. The next day
Speaker 3: you had to take your lunch hour and go to
Speaker 3: a theater and watch the daily. And he watched the day.
Speaker 3: He watched them, and he oversaw editing, He oversaw the music.
Speaker 3: I would get a new costume for that season. They'd
Speaker 3: march me into making it to improve the costume. He
Speaker 3: approved the props. I don't like this prop, take it away,
Speaker 3: bring me another way. I mean, literally every freaking detail
Speaker 3: of the show was under his room.
Speaker 1: He picked, Yeah, he picked my I had costume initial
Speaker 1: costume session with him. He picked. He approved all the wardrobe.
Speaker 1: He approved the hat very specifically that I was to
Speaker 1: wear because he believed that hats said a great and
Speaker 1: it's true in Western's hats say an enormous amount about
Speaker 1: the character, and he chose the hat for a very
Speaker 1: particular hat to communicate, to help communicate what he wanted
Speaker 1: this character to be.
Speaker 4: Well, he was serious down to the hats.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But when he wasn't serious, I wanted to worry about
Speaker 2: these pranks. He went, Paul, So.
Speaker 3: We're doing this show, and well, obviously we had episodes
Speaker 3: we're extremely distressing and upsetting and heart wrenching, dramatic, and
Speaker 3: so he had to break the tension because you can't
Speaker 3: mean you got to finish the show. You got to
Speaker 3: get through the rest of the day after he'd been
Speaker 3: sobbing for hours and every time, and so there'd be
Speaker 3: some terrible scene, and five minutes later he's cracking jokes
Speaker 3: and making everyone laugh at even terrible things, and I
Speaker 3: of course got you. Also didn't want to give him
Speaker 3: a setup. I would make a terrible mistake of giving
Speaker 3: him a giant setup. He could drive a truck through
Speaker 3: and nobody coul drive out through the one with the
Speaker 3: screen door where we would Laura had stolen the Olsen
Speaker 3: screen door to use it for panning for gold, because
Speaker 3: of course he did, and then put it back, and
Speaker 3: of course we're idiots, we don't notice it's back, and
Speaker 3: Willie and I run and I crashed into the door
Speaker 3: and smashed through the screen door hanging and the scene
Speaker 3: is being set up, and so he sets it up
Speaker 3: and I have to hang in some one bow is
Speaker 3: a kimbo kind of thing. And we set this up
Speaker 3: and I'm hanging in it, and he already had made
Speaker 3: the joke about it being my screen test, but then
Speaker 3: I was foolish enough to say since I was hanging
Speaker 3: in there for the setup was taking forever customer making
Speaker 3: a movie.
Speaker 4: The setup took a long.
Speaker 3: Time, I said, why didn't you get a dummy for this?
Speaker 3: We did, shut up and get your head back in
Speaker 3: the door, and it was causing. Yes, when I crashed
Speaker 3: into the branch and I'm lying or bleeding out my nose,
Speaker 3: Bunny before, I'm going to pretend to be paralyzed, but
Speaker 3: I'm unconscious.
Speaker 4: I got the fake blood on the nose and I'm dying.
Speaker 4: It's so quiet, and.
Speaker 3: Again waiting for cut, waiting for cut.
Speaker 4: It's not coming.
Speaker 3: My eyes are closed, but I have no idea what
Speaker 3: the heck is happening, and I just hear the ground.
Speaker 4: I was like, net's very quiet.
Speaker 3: No one has said cut, So I'm just not moving
Speaker 3: until I feel a finger up my nose. Stuck his
Speaker 3: finger up my nose so he'd have good outtakes for that.
Speaker 1: I doing a scene in an episode and it was
Speaker 1: going from a chair to a front door to open
Speaker 1: the door, actually going from the kitchen to a chair,
Speaker 1: and I did sort of a creeping thing stepping to
Speaker 1: the chair, and when I finished, she said, I wish
Speaker 1: I had done that way. I'm trying to save your career,
Speaker 1: and you know it's just but I felt fine about
Speaker 1: I felt fine about what I had done, and he
Speaker 1: really hated it. We were to reshot it. Now. That
Speaker 1: was the thing with Michael is that if he saw it,
Speaker 1: he didn't need to do it again. And as long
Speaker 1: as the cameraman or the first assistant, the camera assistant
Speaker 1: could say, gates clean, there's no hair, No, there's nothing
Speaker 1: that's interfering with this. If he saw it and they
Speaker 1: tell him they got it, he got it. He did
Speaker 1: not need to shoot it again. He didn't need and
Speaker 1: he wasn't shooting for anybody else. He was shooting for
Speaker 1: the network. You're shooting for another executive producer. He was
Speaker 1: shooting for himself. And if he saw the thing, he
Speaker 1: cut the show in the camera basically. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was not a lot of extra film.
Speaker 4: Because in today's world he would have been the show runner.
Speaker 4: Oh he was the director of the producer of the start.
Speaker 3: He would have been showrunner, which nobody called anybody a
Speaker 3: show runner back then, but he show runner because he
Speaker 3: was doing everything. But yeah, the most common words were cutprint,
Speaker 3: moving on in the magic words, because you do something
Speaker 3: and you do it and maybe he was one to
Speaker 3: maybe two. And of course outdoors a birdfly spy, so
Speaker 3: it's five takes round. So you do things and you
Speaker 3: do it, and you've done, he's cut and you're like,
Speaker 3: was that good?
Speaker 4: I think that was good? I don't know. I felt
Speaker 4: kind of good.
Speaker 3: I have no idea if that's good.
Speaker 4: And that was thinking.
Speaker 3: He'd look at Teddy or the guys to see if
Speaker 3: they were okay technically, and they'd not and go cut print,
Speaker 3: moving on. You go, wait, well, and they'd start dismantling
Speaker 3: the set and they come, go change into your other
Speaker 3: outfit because we're shooting page forty seven.
Speaker 4: Now you go.
Speaker 3: But I just literally finished doing the thing. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: that was lovely, good move, but go on and yeah.
Speaker 3: There was like a long discussion after about what it
Speaker 3: all meant.
Speaker 4: It was like, now we do the next one, just
Speaker 4: to say yeah, he he.
Speaker 1: He had great confidence in what he was doing. I
Speaker 1: think that anybody who was around Michael, and I've said
Speaker 1: this so many times, I never saw a moment's doubt
Speaker 1: in his eyes. I never had any I ever never
Speaker 1: had the feeling that Michael wasn't absolutely certain about everything
Speaker 1: that was happening. Now, he may have had inner doubts
Speaker 1: and anxieties about things, but he would ever have shown
Speaker 1: that to anybody, and I think that it just bred
Speaker 1: this enormous sense of confidence among everybody, among cast and
Speaker 1: crew that if he says it's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 4: When you want to be.
Speaker 3: Able to trust the director, I compared to the ship's captain.
Speaker 3: Once you're at sea, just do what the captain say.
Speaker 1: To trust, someone has to.
Speaker 3: And then this thing he had paid very close attention
Speaker 3: during Bonanza. He had just absolutely sponged that up everything
Speaker 3: they did directing and watched it very closely. And so
Speaker 3: when he said I know what I'm doing, he did
Speaker 3: know what he was doing.
Speaker 4: And that's what's great.
Speaker 3: And I remember it freaked out Katherine McGregor because he
Speaker 3: was so young, you know, he said, in his thirties.
Speaker 4: And she was like, this.
Speaker 3: Thirty something cute boy actor. I mean, he's little Joe.
Speaker 4: He's a little Joe. What the hell does he know?
Speaker 3: And it's like, actually, he kind of found he was
Speaker 3: on a bananza and he treated it like film school,
Speaker 3: and so that's what he did. And and she's like,
Speaker 3: why is he because he actually does know what he's doing.
Speaker 3: It's weird, but he knows what he's doing. And he
Speaker 3: would come up with crazy ideas. He would change that
Speaker 3: should be in the middle of filming, I mean the Wolves episode.
Speaker 3: I think this line would be funnier if you had
Speaker 3: four job breakers in your mouth When you.
Speaker 4: Said it, what wait here? Try how?
Speaker 3: He just looked at into How many job breakers can
Speaker 3: you fit in your mouth?
Speaker 4: I went, I don't really know?
Speaker 3: He says, well, let's find out. And then it's like,
Speaker 3: try to put a fifth one and oh too many? Sorry,
Speaker 3: now say it again. You will your book perfect, Okay,
Speaker 3: let's roll. And he would just decide things, but he
Speaker 3: did know what he was doing. He'd look at it
Speaker 3: and go, it's supposed to be funny. It's not funny enough.
Speaker 3: It needs something and he would do that or no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I know it, and he would do it and he
Speaker 3: did know. And sometimes he would tell you to do
Speaker 3: crazy things. He was like, no, just do it, just
Speaker 3: do it, just do it. And then you'd see it
Speaker 3: and you go, well, yeah.
Speaker 1: I'll add something else. There would be you know, you
Speaker 1: hear your shooting outside, you're shooting on the stage, but
Speaker 1: really outside is where where you would have challenges on
Speaker 1: locations and weather and all these things. And what was
Speaker 1: so one of the other things that was amazing about
Speaker 1: him is that if something wasn't working, or you couldn't
Speaker 1: get to a particular location and you but you needed
Speaker 1: to have a scene, Michael could come up with the scene,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, in a completely different location that was
Speaker 1: never in the script. He could come up with the
Speaker 1: scene that would add something wonderful to the episode. He
Speaker 1: jotted down on his yellow legal pad. It would go
Speaker 1: up and go out and get typed up. The pages
Speaker 1: would be there. They hand you the pages. Learn this.
Speaker 1: We're going to shoot this in fifteen minutes. So there
Speaker 1: was really no what was great about that? And I'm
Speaker 1: sure Elson would concur with this. You're really loose if
Speaker 1: there's no time to If you know that he's just
Speaker 1: written it and everyone's seeing it for the first time,
Speaker 1: what's there to get nervous about. You just do it.
Speaker 1: You just do it because he's trusting it and we're
Speaker 1: just gonna go. There's no like you didn't have it
Speaker 1: for three days. You haven't had a lot of the
Speaker 1: things on it. But that again comes back to casting.
Speaker 1: He's hiring people who are delivering the feeling, the flavor,
Speaker 1: the color that he's looking for in the In the
Speaker 1: in the show, and so you could throw material at
Speaker 1: someone at the last minute and they're going to do
Speaker 1: it because they do what they do.
Speaker 3: Well, you saw how real our character The thing that
Speaker 3: gets to how real our characters were, because that was
Speaker 3: the key thing is once you knew who you were,
Speaker 3: once you knew what Nelly would do, what Nelly would
Speaker 3: not do. Was there anything I wouldn't do? I don't
Speaker 3: know what Nelly would do, and you knew who your
Speaker 3: character was that it didn't really matter what they were
Speaker 3: going to have you say or do, because.
Speaker 4: You were going to be them. And that was what
Speaker 4: he counted on.
Speaker 3: Because and Steve Tracy, the late great Steve Tracy Percival,
Speaker 3: he talked about this because he said, well, really, it
Speaker 3: really messes with your acting technique because if you come
Speaker 3: in and you have this very set method where you're
Speaker 3: going to break down the scene beat by bee and
Speaker 3: you're going to make notes, and you're going to do this,
Speaker 3: and you've already worked out which memory you're going to
Speaker 3: use for your sense memory and your substitution, except now
Speaker 3: you've just been handed the yellow pages in the book pages,
Speaker 3: and we're shooting a whole new thing. Go and so
Speaker 3: he says, your improv training way more important than any
Speaker 3: of this other stuff you learned. So he said, you
Speaker 3: have to come up with something else. You have to
Speaker 3: come up with something else that you can use in
Speaker 3: that situation you have. And what it is is that
Speaker 3: you're staying so in character all the time that if
Speaker 3: they go surprise, you're like, well, now I'll be that
Speaker 3: character doing that.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: He made it. He made it very simple and it
Speaker 1: easy to succeed, and I think the show's longevity is
Speaker 1: testament to the fact that he really got it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. We have so much more to get into ry.
Speaker 4: Quest of Michael London. It was amazing.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: I want I have so much more to ask you
Speaker 2: about it. Dean Butler and Alison Argham, we're here with us.
Speaker 2: This is the Ice Small Pop Culture Podcast. We're gonna
Speaker 2: take a quick break, play some commercials. We'll be right back. Everybody.
Speaker 2: Dean Butler, Alison Ingham with us. It's Ice Mooll pop Culture.
Speaker 2: This is the I Am On Podcast Extra being here everybody,
Speaker 2: We're we're going into the world of Little House on
Speaker 2: the Prairie this week. We are traveling to Wannut Grove, Minnesota.
Speaker 2: And uh, I have I have so many more questions
Speaker 2: for you guys. So you kind of told me. I've
Speaker 2: found it so interesting how you had to becoming the character,
Speaker 2: Like like you get these changes at the last minute,
Speaker 2: and you're like, okay, what would what would Nelly do?
Speaker 2: What would Almanza?
Speaker 1: Do you know?
Speaker 2: So Allison specifically, I was I watched Country Girls the
Speaker 2: other day, so.
Speaker 1: Good, great, so good. It's a great episode.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, truly, And for anyone who isn't familiar
Speaker 2: with Little House on the Prairie, I mean Nellie Olson
Speaker 2: is one of the iconic TV brats I think of
Speaker 2: all time, and Country.
Speaker 3: Girls my very very first episode, and I was thoroughly vile.
Speaker 2: Yes, how did you find the character that quickly?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 2: It's just remarkable, Like you're Nelly right away.
Speaker 3: It's so crazy, And you know, to quote the fabulous
Speaker 3: Sir Anthony Hopkins, you know, when he read the script
Speaker 3: for Silence of the Lambs, which everybody had turned down,
Speaker 3: he said, it jumped off of the page at him.
Speaker 4: He read it. And when I get it as soon
Speaker 4: as he read it once when I know who.
Speaker 3: This person doesn't have to do this and called his agents,
Speaker 3: it just make the deal because it was that kind
Speaker 3: of thing. I had nothing going. I hadn't read the
Speaker 3: Little Housebooks. I didn't know who Nelli Elsen was. They
Speaker 3: hadn't told me you're reading for the back nothing.
Speaker 4: They told me nothing. I showed up.
Speaker 3: Besides, and I thought, wow, that's a lot of sides.
Speaker 3: It was every single piece of dialogue for the entire episode.
Speaker 3: You're just gonna read the whole thing, like, okay. My
Speaker 3: father was with me, and as soon as I started
Speaker 3: reading it, I mean almost, I don't think.
Speaker 4: The country girls have a penny. What do you think? Well,
Speaker 4: if she's every word out of her mouth is some
Speaker 4: kind of an insult and she's just terrible.
Speaker 3: And then my home thing and the big joke being
Speaker 3: we have three sets of dishes, one for every day,
Speaker 3: one for Sunday, and one for when someone very special
Speaker 3: and important comes to visit, which we have never even
Speaker 3: used yet. She doesn't even realize that you just said, hi,
Speaker 3: nobody's coming, that we live wal to Grove, the Queen's
Speaker 3: not coming to dinner.
Speaker 1: We have.
Speaker 3: It's hysterical and I'm ready going this is hilarious. But
Speaker 3: my god, she's just like the worst person.
Speaker 2: In the world.
Speaker 3: And when do you get a part like that for
Speaker 3: a little girl? Did the little girl parts? I read there, well,
Speaker 3: it's his sweet little girl. Yes, mother, yes, father, And
Speaker 3: this girl's like I do not care, please all kindly
Speaker 3: drop dead. And I'm like, this is brilliant. And so
Speaker 3: I started reading it from my father and he starts laughing.
Speaker 3: I said, I said, this girl's a total bitch. My
Speaker 3: father said, what are you talking? And then I read
Speaker 3: it and he's like, he actually said, there you go
Speaker 3: school of Michaelan. And my father said, don't touch it,
Speaker 3: don't move, don't do anything, don't read it again, don't
Speaker 3: go over it again. In fact, put the pages face down.
Speaker 3: I don't want you to even look at them again.
Speaker 3: You go in and do exactly whatever that just now wants.
Speaker 3: I went right then, and that's what I did, and
Speaker 3: Michael Annon lost his tiny little mind and they had
Speaker 3: and he hired.
Speaker 1: Me on this.
Speaker 3: We got home, we got in the car, drove home
Speaker 3: and the agent.
Speaker 4: Was on the phone the deal and was being made
Speaker 4: like while I was in the parking.
Speaker 1: Incredible done.
Speaker 4: So yeah, she jumped off the page. What wow, she's terrible.
Speaker 3: And we all know someone like that, we've all I mean,
Speaker 3: I was bullied. This was the great revenge on bullies everywhere.
Speaker 3: I got to send them all up and mock them
Speaker 3: because we've all met that girl, We've all had her
Speaker 3: terrorize us. And I said, okay, well, we know how
Speaker 3: it goes. And as a teenager, you're full of all
Speaker 3: kinds of angst and hostility and things you need to
Speaker 3: get rid of. And where can you You have to
Speaker 3: behave yourself at school, and my god, you have to
Speaker 3: go to work. But here I had this thing where
Speaker 3: I could just go and just be hideous.
Speaker 4: And let it all all the n out.
Speaker 3: And then I've talked openly in interviews in my book
Speaker 3: that I was abused as a child, and the key
Speaker 3: element of.
Speaker 4: That is terrible buried rage.
Speaker 3: People suffer their whole years to develop physical problems. They
Speaker 3: have nowhere for that anger. Where does that anger go?
Speaker 3: It turns in with I had a job where I
Speaker 3: would come in and smash things and scream at the
Speaker 3: top of my lungs and throw things and hit people
Speaker 3: all day long.
Speaker 4: Do you have any idea what that did for my
Speaker 4: blood pressure and my well being? And it was fantastic.
Speaker 3: It was like they were saying me to have therapy
Speaker 3: for seven years. It was fantastic, incredible.
Speaker 2: The scene at the Bunny scene where you're just trashing
Speaker 2: the room. I mean I had to watch it three
Speaker 2: times in a round.
Speaker 3: It's okay, and does it does it look like I'm
Speaker 3: out of control? I'm so controlled. The prop men is said,
Speaker 3: this is a reproduction. You can break this. We have
Speaker 3: four more of these. You can break this. Don't break this.
Speaker 3: This is a real ntique.
Speaker 4: Don't touch this here.
Speaker 3: You can pull the drapes down if you want you
Speaker 3: we can put that back these, but you can throw these.
Speaker 4: Don't throw this.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, got it, got it, got it, checking
Speaker 3: these off my head and then I did it and
Speaker 3: was completely.
Speaker 4: Screaming out of control, but like, don't touch three antique, keep.
Speaker 2: Moving antiques and that's crazy.
Speaker 4: Don't break that. Oh wait, don't break that.
Speaker 3: It's real. Yeah, And I'm still like, just had that
Speaker 3: in my head while I was completely screaming out of
Speaker 3: controlling a banjee.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. It's again, it comes back to it comes
Speaker 1: back to casting. Allison was just the perfect little monster
Speaker 1: for that moment. What's what's what's really good? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think what's really great, and because Allison is I'm
Speaker 1: just talking. I'm talking about you like you're not here.
Speaker 1: Allison is wicked, wicked smart, and and she gets the joke.
Speaker 1: Allison always from the time she first read it. Oh
Speaker 1: this girl's horrible. She knew the deal. I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why people have loved this character,
Speaker 1: love to hate this character, is because they're on the
Speaker 1: inside they're laughing a little bit with her. They get
Speaker 1: they get that she gets it. And yeah, I think
Speaker 1: she was very Allison was very special. There's a reason
Speaker 1: why she's been voted the most effective villain in the
Speaker 1: history of television. Yes, and I mean who what little
Speaker 1: girl in pin curls in with her lace and is
Speaker 1: the biggest villain in the history of that. It's not
Speaker 1: j R. E Ing, It's Nellie Olsen, which is just
Speaker 1: incredible when you think about it. I mean, he was,
Speaker 1: he was incredible. It was delicious as this as this villain.
Speaker 1: But Allison touched something primal about being human that people
Speaker 1: absolutely love. Everyone can you can't not enjoy it.
Speaker 3: Everyone has an elite their school, everyone has a Missus
Speaker 3: Olsen at their job.
Speaker 1: You don't have you think of Nelid school, it's probably.
Speaker 2: Get it's you.
Speaker 4: And this is also the original Karen.
Speaker 3: I mean she's just like so it's the people know
Speaker 3: these people they recognize. And that's something I noticed because
Speaker 3: in traveling around and around the world and meeting people,
Speaker 3: I mean when we had people from Peru and from
Speaker 3: Afghanistan and everyone came to the reunion, I mean we
Speaker 3: met people all over the world. And I meet people
Speaker 3: from literally Borneo, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Israel, and they all
Speaker 3: watch the Little House in the Prairie And I'm like, really,
Speaker 3: they're running it there.
Speaker 4: It's they're running it everywhere.
Speaker 1: In forty countries around the world. Wow.
Speaker 3: And they all say the same thing, because, of course,
Speaker 3: like the guy from Sri Lanka, I said, Okay, what
Speaker 3: does a show about a bunch of very very white
Speaker 3: American people with blonde air, blue eyes in covered wagons
Speaker 3: on the prairie of the United States.
Speaker 4: Mean when you're living in a small.
Speaker 3: Town in Sri Lanka, who they had electricity so many
Speaker 3: hours a day they used to watch a Little House
Speaker 3: in Umar and what.
Speaker 4: How what does this mean? What does this mean to you?
Speaker 3: It's so completely different than the life you tell me
Speaker 3: you were living there. And he said, oh no, everybody.
Speaker 3: He said, the anglestn't have any money, and they live
Speaker 3: in a tiny place with a lot of children, and
Speaker 3: they wonder are they going to make it? Will the
Speaker 3: harvest come in? Are they going to make it? And
Speaker 3: this is how most people. They're not Most people aren't
Speaker 3: living in that big apartment on friends. They don't have
Speaker 3: any money. They're not living like these people in these
Speaker 3: fancy shows. Right, they're living like that. And we all
Speaker 3: had a Missus Olsen in the village at our job,
Speaker 3: we all had an Elliot school.
Speaker 4: We can identify with these people. We get it. And
Speaker 4: I said, you're right.
Speaker 1: You know, the Iyatolahmioni. During the Iran Revolution, Lill Loos
Speaker 1: was the only American program allowed in WOW time. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the interestingly, Little House was the
Speaker 1: favorite show of the Iyetola, the favorite show Saddam.
Speaker 4: Hussein, Saddam Hussein's favorite show at.
Speaker 1: The same but I think in many ways, for very
Speaker 1: different reasons. I think. I think I think the Ayatola
Speaker 1: liked Little House as an example for his people because
Speaker 1: he could say, what do we have to fear from this?
Speaker 1: If this is what America is we have no problems.
Speaker 1: We're We're as good as they are. They're just like us.
Speaker 3: And it was popular in many countries where they said, well,
Speaker 3: all the dresses, the sleeves go down to the rest,
Speaker 3: and the dress go down to the ankle. So if
Speaker 3: you said, we can't show you Western shows because there
Speaker 3: are are you know, dressing guidelines and our religious values
Speaker 3: and the thing. But it was so wholesome that in
Speaker 3: countries where everything was terribly restricted, what we show this
Speaker 3: perfectly if I look at these people and and then
Speaker 3: I don't know. They said Saddam Hussein had daddy issues
Speaker 3: and it was really obsessed with Michael Landon wanted him
Speaker 3: to be his father.
Speaker 4: Horrible, complicated, insane story.
Speaker 1: Daddy issues.
Speaker 4: Yes, clearly something was the.
Speaker 3: Matter, but he was obsessed with Little House. Would stop work,
Speaker 3: like I got to go watch Little Perry.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: We always talk about it as this safe place. Little
Speaker 1: House is a safe place no matter what's going on
Speaker 1: in your life. We've met people through the years that
Speaker 1: have gone through really horrible experiences in their lives and
Speaker 1: they come to us and oftentimes with tears in their eyes,
Speaker 1: telling us that Little House. The Ingles specifically represented the
Speaker 1: family they wish they'd been a part of that. Mon
Speaker 1: pa Ingles were their parents. For all practical reasons. Michael
Speaker 1: and Karen have been historically through the years voted among
Speaker 1: the most beloved parental figures in the history of television.
Speaker 1: And it just keeps coming back. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why it lasts is because it was
Speaker 1: old when it was new. It's never gone out of
Speaker 1: fashion because it was never in fashion. It's just it
Speaker 1: is in its own world. And I think people feel
Speaker 1: safe going there and stepping into this world because it
Speaker 1: is so totally apart from the world that anybody who's
Speaker 1: living today in our country basically is living in. And
Speaker 1: I think that makes it very attractive to people.
Speaker 4: It pulls you in.
Speaker 3: I've heard from people who went through chemotherapy, various confusions.
Speaker 3: Someone who's in a body cast for like six months
Speaker 3: and could move, and they said, but I could watch
Speaker 3: Little House and I could just it took me completely.
Speaker 3: I didn't feel a thing, didn't feel a thing while
Speaker 3: they were doing procedures. I could just watch that and
Speaker 3: I had no anxiety, and I didn't even feel anything
Speaker 3: while the doctors did what they had to do.
Speaker 2: What a special role to play in people's lives all
Speaker 2: over the world. I mean, that's incredible.
Speaker 1: This an incredible gift. It has been this amazing, amazing gift.
Speaker 1: Michael knew it was going to last. He said, this
Speaker 1: is going to be people are going to be watching
Speaker 1: this and loving it long after we're all gone. Now
Speaker 1: at twenty five, when he said that to me, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're twenty five, you're immortal. That just
Speaker 1: couldn't happen. I'm never not going to be here. There
Speaker 1: is no beyond me. Now it's sixty eight. After the
Speaker 1: experiences that we've all had, you know, it feels very
Speaker 1: clear that Little House is going to go on long
Speaker 1: after we're all gone, because it does touch something in
Speaker 1: audiences that is fundamentally human and decent. And it's not that, look,
Speaker 1: bad things happen on the house Little Houses love, But
Speaker 1: what it is, I think it's how the bad things
Speaker 1: are coped with. It's the grace of recovery. It's how
Speaker 1: people gave come together as a community to deal with
Speaker 1: the horrible things that happen to everybody from time to time.
Speaker 1: And I think that's just been an amazing gift of
Speaker 1: the program, and for all of us who are a
Speaker 1: part of it, it's it's an amazing gift to be
Speaker 1: the personification of these characters that mean that much to
Speaker 1: the tow people who watch it and love it, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: And for those who can't see as the person who
Speaker 3: just said I am sixty eight does not look sad,
Speaker 3: I'm like he says that, I got you're sixty eight.
Speaker 4: That's right yours.
Speaker 2: I'm just taking my job from jopping. It was like
Speaker 2: sixty eight, what on earth away?
Speaker 1: You can see it here.
Speaker 4: I'm just turned sixty three and hanging in there. Everybody
Speaker 4: from the show.
Speaker 3: Looks actually pretty good if you see all of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, Karen Karen, Karen Grassley is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.
Speaker 1: At eighty two.
Speaker 3: We think there was something in the water in Walnut
Speaker 3: Grove because every from the ship from the show is
Speaker 3: freaking amazing. But it's true the number of people who said,
Speaker 3: I just if my parents were Mom pow Angles, they
Speaker 3: would have understood me. They would have understood me. It
Speaker 3: would have been okay, yes, over and over again.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: That's powerful here, that's and that's something that I think
Speaker 2: everyone listening to everyone listening to this is a fan
Speaker 2: of Gilmore Girls. And that's something that we hear from
Speaker 2: our listeners and from the fans, is that you know,
Speaker 2: Stars Hollow is a place that they like to They
Speaker 2: rewatch the show every year. It's a place where they
Speaker 2: feel safe. They Luke and laurelize this beautiful love story
Speaker 2: that they love to revisit. And I think that's such
Speaker 2: an important part thing for a television show to play
Speaker 2: in people's lives. It's so important for there's people that
Speaker 2: don't feel safe always. You don't know, there's things happening
Speaker 2: in your world you can't control. And I think it's
Speaker 2: so special that little house on the prairie exists to
Speaker 2: you know, people.
Speaker 3: Generally underestimate the power of television and it's different than
Speaker 3: the movies.
Speaker 4: And we love the movies.
Speaker 3: But even if you're a movie star and people say
Speaker 3: this to me to go, well, I know, I don't
Speaker 3: really but you were in my living room, we're in
Speaker 3: their living room. Exact Father Crazy throw Ingram used to
Speaker 3: always say.
Speaker 4: It's different. You're in their living room, you're in their house.
Speaker 4: The calls are coming from inside.
Speaker 3: They know you, and that is a thing that all
Speaker 3: TV shows, even when you say, all that was a
Speaker 3: silly fluff show, but to somebody somewhere, somebody somewhere who
Speaker 3: was lonely or sad or something, it was there in
Speaker 3: this house and those people were their friends.
Speaker 1: Yes, they they The program comes to them in their
Speaker 1: most open, revealed I mean not just the living room,
Speaker 1: people watching, in their bedrooms, in their bathrooms, in their
Speaker 1: kitchens in there. And so people feel like, because the
Speaker 1: people watching are in such an open place in their
Speaker 1: life as they're watching and unguarded, we just come in
Speaker 1: and we become these characters, become part of people's lives.
Speaker 1: And there's a reason. I think that's the reason why
Speaker 1: people really genuinely feel like they know you and and
Speaker 1: you know, and I think they hope, hope, hope that
Speaker 1: you are when they meet you.
Speaker 4: They hope that you are what they fall in love
Speaker 4: with unless you're me.
Speaker 1: Unless you yeah, yeah, but you give them a taste
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 5: But they also hope it'll be a toll, be slightly naughty. Yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 5: does that have If you're like at a convention or something, yeah,
Speaker 5: people are like, come on, can you be mean to
Speaker 5: me for a second?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, you know, I'll do.
Speaker 3: Even the cameos, they're like, can you give them a
Speaker 3: hard time in the cameo They're like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: it's so silly, but I I do. I still like,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm terrible. I like making faces and sticking
Speaker 3: my tongue out and everything. And the number of people
Speaker 3: post for a picture. Can we have a nice one?
Speaker 3: And then can we have when we make the horrible faces?
Speaker 4: Yes, yes we can do that. Yes that's okay. It's like,
Speaker 4: what the heck I.
Speaker 3: Mean to be asked fifty years later as a grown
Speaker 3: woman stick your tongue out again?
Speaker 4: Please?
Speaker 3: Because people are that excited about it, like sure, why?
Speaker 1: Hell? And people want warm, loving decent for me. They
Speaker 1: know they are looking and all of us people want
Speaker 1: something different that they want that thing. It's through these years, Easton,
Speaker 1: it's been very important to me to feel like when
Speaker 1: someone meets me in this public kind of public situation,
Speaker 1: that they get what they thought they were going to get.
Speaker 1: That's really really important because you have touched them in
Speaker 1: this very basic place. And I think if we can
Speaker 1: be that, if we are that thing, one of those
Speaker 1: things that they trust you want, I want them to
Speaker 1: be able to continue to trust in that, and the
Speaker 1: gift I get for that is this incredible well of
Speaker 1: affection and warmth it comes at me. I mean, that
Speaker 1: is an amazing gift. And anybody, any of us in
Speaker 1: this world who have received that, we know what that is,
Speaker 1: we know what that feels like. It's extraordinary. It's a beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful thing to get. So I want to take care
Speaker 1: of it, you know, so that it keeps, so that
Speaker 1: it keeps coming as long as I'm.
Speaker 4: Walking down, because this is a good thing.
Speaker 1: It's grilling.
Speaker 3: Bob said to me once he watched me sign autographs,
Speaker 3: and he said, if I thought I could make people
Speaker 3: that happy by writing my name, why would do it
Speaker 3: all day?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no exactly, Or to standing up and taking
Speaker 1: a picture with people. It's it's it's remarkable. It's remarkable
Speaker 1: what the program has given us. And as you're suggesting,
Speaker 1: I mean, the Gilmore cast has this same effect on people.
Speaker 1: Different time period, different place, maybe different slightly different tone.
Speaker 1: Little House was Little House was pretty on the nose.
Speaker 1: It was always on the nose, and it was I
Speaker 1: think that was part of its disarming quality is that
Speaker 1: you you when you saw something you were getting it
Speaker 1: was you were getting what you were getting. There was
Speaker 1: no hidden message, there was no I mean you got that.
Speaker 1: It was clear. The storytelling was absolutely crystal clear and
Speaker 1: sort of primal.
Speaker 4: They didn't have to decode anything, right.
Speaker 1: It's right in front of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have some questions about, uh, the fake Walnut
Speaker 2: Grove in Seam Valley. So I noticed some similarities between
Speaker 2: Stars Hollow and Wannut Grove. And for everyone listening, stars
Speaker 2: Hollow not a real place in Connecticut, filmed in Burbank,
Speaker 2: mere blocks from where we sit right now. The water
Speaker 2: Brothers a lot. And however, Wannut Grove filmed in Seami
Speaker 2: Valley at Big Sky Ranch, a real place in Minnesota.
Speaker 4: Lovely place.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you visited many times.
Speaker 4: Starlin, great museum, adorable you.
Speaker 1: Should good times.
Speaker 2: Do people often do you hear from people that visit
Speaker 2: and go, oh this is really film? Did and yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 3: The poor people in Walnut Grove have a lovely gift
Speaker 3: shop and museum and lovely attractions. It's it's a darling
Speaker 3: little place. Anyway, hit that dairy queen. It's a great place.
Speaker 3: They go there and they film it doesn't look like
Speaker 3: the shower and they go well, because this is where.
Speaker 4: Laura actually lives.
Speaker 3: No, it's and then they got the people, I get grown,
Speaker 3: grown people. And sometimes in the industry, you go, I
Speaker 3: just I want to go to you know the town.
Speaker 4: The town.
Speaker 3: Now, when you see the town, what do you mean
Speaker 3: you know the town where we film? Yeah, I said,
Speaker 3: well that's not very mean more well the no, no,
Speaker 3: the town do you mean Walnut Grove in Minnesota? And
Speaker 3: then they're brows knit And I really I go, whoa
Speaker 3: did you all thought that was a real town?
Speaker 4: It wasn't. I'm like, god, dude, you're forty five, and
Speaker 4: it's it's it's hard. We made it. We made it
Speaker 4: look very real.
Speaker 1: It did look very real.
Speaker 3: But yeah, and then the town it's not actually laid
Speaker 3: out like the real Walnut Grove. I mean, uh, Oddly,
Speaker 3: I think the distance of the Ingles home to the
Speaker 3: town in school is actually the correct distance. Wow, within
Speaker 3: a quarter mile at least, because it was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: because it's like two and a half miles. And then
Speaker 3: somebody looked it up and we checked Laura's books and
Speaker 3: it's it's like two and a half miles bare rely.
Speaker 3: So it's that part I think we got right. The
Speaker 3: house in the barn, that's like laid out like if
Speaker 3: you described the books, but the mercantile and the school,
Speaker 3: and Elie didn't have a hotel. We just kind of
Speaker 3: shoved everything in there so that that doesn't bear any
Speaker 3: resemblance to really anywhere that she actually lived with.
Speaker 1: It was this idyllic setting that was laid out beautifully
Speaker 1: by someone who I think understood the romance of a
Speaker 1: small town. Now there's production design is a very powerful thing,
Speaker 1: and it's created that way. Now. One of the things
Speaker 1: that is one of the most distinctive things about our
Speaker 1: television Walnut Grove versus the real Walnut Grove. Well, one,
Speaker 1: there's no topography in the real Wallet Grove. It's flat
Speaker 1: as a pan can there. And secondly, I think probably
Speaker 1: most dramatic if you live on the East Coast or
Speaker 1: sort of central country east, is that the country is
Speaker 1: green in the summertime. In a great deal of the
Speaker 1: country in the western part of the United States, because
Speaker 1: of the lack of water and rain, it's dry and brown. Now,
Speaker 1: people could you could have pushed back on that, but
Speaker 1: I think as a tribute to the program, people just
Speaker 1: bought in to what they saw Now, look, there was
Speaker 1: a sprinkler system that was around the little house, and
Speaker 1: so you got this sort of ring of green around
Speaker 1: the little house and barn in this little bowl, but
Speaker 1: twenty feet up beyond that, it's dry as a bone. Now,
Speaker 1: how does that happen?
Speaker 3: And then the one hundred year old oaks, which never changed,
Speaker 3: doesn't matter what the heck's happening. They're great, which created
Speaker 3: promt is uh no snow and Minnesota course has enormous
Speaker 3: blizzards and many many feet of snow. So the piles
Speaker 3: of was it gypsum gypsum powder? And then okay, there
Speaker 3: were three rings of snow. If it was in the
Speaker 3: shot and someone's going to be touching it, it's crushed ice,
Speaker 3: fake snow.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: If it's a few feetback and no one's going to
Speaker 3: touch it, but needs to be shiny, it's the gypsum
Speaker 3: powder on a white bed sheet.
Speaker 4: If it's all the way in the back towards the
Speaker 4: back of the school, it's literally just bed sheets over rocks.
Speaker 4: We're not going to get that close. And so the
Speaker 4: three kinds of fake snow and so it's all fake.
Speaker 3: And then the trees are green and you can even
Speaker 3: see green grass in the distance while we have all
Speaker 3: these piles of snow around the store. And some people went, oh,
Speaker 3: come on, but no people bought it. People thought there
Speaker 3: was and the blizzards are people still like, are shock
Speaker 3: that that was wax flakes and a fan.
Speaker 1: In the day when television was four hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: lines of resolution, you could put a sheet over a rock.
Speaker 1: Beautiful and from a distance with a sauce, slightly soft
Speaker 1: depth of fields situation. You bought it in HD. That
Speaker 1: stuff shows up. Oh, people just accept it. And HD
Speaker 1: is beautiful. It's also highly revealing, and you know, you
Speaker 1: just sort of you just have to accept it. It's
Speaker 1: a vintage it's a vintage program. I love that throwing
Speaker 1: a sheet, a white sheet over a rock.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just today.
Speaker 1: You can see that. If you're watching it on the
Speaker 1: DVD or if you're watching more remastered version on on Cozy
Speaker 1: or whatever, you're going to maybe see the sheet. If
Speaker 1: you're watching it on a fifty inch television, you'll see it.
Speaker 3: You can't even get away with the pile of gypsum
Speaker 3: looks like a big pile of gyps our. Wood paneling
Speaker 3: looks a little some of our wood, that beautiful wood grain.
Speaker 3: In the high depth, you can see that in the
Speaker 3: school someone has just taken brown paint and painted big
Speaker 3: swirly lines, and that's a little more evident in.
Speaker 4: Some of the seats.
Speaker 1: It's not like watching Star Trek where you can see
Speaker 1: of the stars stretch table on the bridge, which is
Speaker 1: just a crack up to me that you can say,
Speaker 1: but you buy it because because the story is working. Okay,
Speaker 1: you accept maybe okay, it's wrinkled, doesn't matter. The story works,
Speaker 1: and that's we have that. We are blessed with that
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: The crazy believing is and we just talked about this
Speaker 3: today on our podcast. Okay, so the famous cinnamon Chicken
Speaker 3: episode where Missus Olsen is like, oh, it was because
Speaker 3: you sell Nelly to him, and of course Laura sabotages
Speaker 3: it with Kai and Pepper.
Speaker 4: So this is a scene where we eat.
Speaker 3: This chicken that is allegedly covered in kaien pepper, and
Speaker 3: about the third chew, we lose it and start turning
Speaker 3: red in the face and our eyes water and we're
Speaker 3: choking down glasses of water and run to the sink
Speaker 3: and the pumping and screaming, bloody murder were're just saying,
Speaker 3: we nailed that so incredible.
Speaker 4: I have people.
Speaker 3: Today fifty years later ago. So what did they put
Speaker 3: on the chicken? I go with real life nothing. It
Speaker 3: was lovely herbed baked chicken. But but come on, you
Speaker 3: guys must have had pepper on the chicken to do that.
Speaker 3: Heaven forfend, we should be acting, but somehow we were,
Speaker 3: I mean exactly, but we nailed that so well. And
Speaker 3: I just watched it recently and wow, I mean you
Speaker 3: go right red in the face like you are dying
Speaker 3: in that scene. We we went all out and it
Speaker 3: really is impressive. And I people today say, you know,
Speaker 3: you weren't acting. There had to be pepper on that chicken.
Speaker 1: I always say to people, you you want the actor
Speaker 1: to be in control of these moments. You don't want
Speaker 1: to really choke the actor. Want, you know, the actor
Speaker 1: has to be in command of the moment.
Speaker 4: Allergic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever, whatever you're gonna do, it's got to be
Speaker 1: what you what you're doing.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Look, there are people who occasionally will slip a little
Speaker 1: adult beverage into a glass of something, and that can
Speaker 1: cause the eyes perhaps to pop open unexpectedly, but generally
Speaker 1: you want it to be a moment that works because
Speaker 1: the actors are making it work. You do not want
Speaker 1: to manipulate. Now they manipulate small children. They like that.
Speaker 4: It's true.
Speaker 1: Wendy lu Lee who was sister Brenda, who were baby Grace.
Speaker 3: Brilliant, fabulous baby Grace, and they've grown up to be loved.
Speaker 1: But they tell stories about how in a scene where
Speaker 1: Pa is supposed to be having made them breakfast and
Speaker 1: feeding them oatmeal, it's not supposed to be very good.
Speaker 1: And they need they need the children, They need Wendy
Speaker 1: to push back on it. Well, they just they dumped
Speaker 1: pepper all over it. Oh my one bite of that,
Speaker 1: and the Wendy pushed back and would never take anything
Speaker 1: from Michael ever again.
Speaker 4: And that's what they wanted.
Speaker 3: She only need the one bite, so that from then on,
Speaker 3: if you put a spoon here, she goes, no, no,
Speaker 3: you again, a like run away and and she said, look,
Speaker 3: you know, was it a lot of pepper?
Speaker 4: Not really, but I was a bay soon as I
Speaker 4: tasted it, I hated it.
Speaker 3: And she said, but she has clarified, I am okay,
Speaker 3: I eat oat meal as an adult to this day.
Speaker 3: It was not beverly scarred I made the oatmeal and
Speaker 3: I did recover from that.
Speaker 4: I am okay.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: So when you're filming a scene where I'm so fascinated
Speaker 2: by eating scenes act like so.
Speaker 1: Many you some of the hardest scenes to do. And
Speaker 1: to shoot them and cover them and cut them is
Speaker 1: a really is a big deal.
Speaker 4: And to eat your food but not eat your food.
Speaker 3: Don't be too fast because then they have to fill
Speaker 3: up your plate again and know no continentary magic. But
Speaker 3: then you have to eat a little bitter than everybody
Speaker 3: and head home. Goes Oh, they're just pushing it around
Speaker 3: on the plane again, for God's sake. So you gotta
Speaker 3: get it's a fine line.
Speaker 1: And you have to cut the meat, pick up the fork,
Speaker 1: put it in your mouth in exactly the same place
Speaker 1: every single time. Or you can you can push yourself,
Speaker 1: blow yourself right out of the scene if your continuity
Speaker 1: is not good.
Speaker 3: So if you take a big chunk of food, you're
Speaker 3: eating a bunch in that master shot, well.
Speaker 4: You're gonna be eating. You're gonna be eating hearty today.
Speaker 1: Eating that. You will be very careful about it.
Speaker 4: You gotta paste yourself.
Speaker 1: I think of the you know, the kids that they
Speaker 1: when we know this cast, the Walton's cast, and there
Speaker 1: you know, there were ten people around the table every
Speaker 1: time they got expert at eating on camera and not
Speaker 1: just a lot and not eating exactly.
Speaker 3: They eat Every episode had three dinnersolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they spent hours shooting these scenes. Now we had
Speaker 1: our dinner scenes, but you know you didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of Olsen dinners. There were definitely well scenes, there
Speaker 1: wasn't a ton of them.
Speaker 4: We are.
Speaker 3: Our challenge was because we really good food. You guys
Speaker 3: kept getting stuck with Dnty Morbi. Yeah, but the but
Speaker 3: at the Olsen's we had the our lovely prop men
Speaker 3: were such chefs. We had a roast leg of lamb
Speaker 3: and a roast beef and a roast turkey and all
Speaker 3: this fabulous food with like the mint jellian and the
Speaker 3: biscuits and the We had seriously good food. So the
Speaker 3: challenge was not to just go wow and just like
Speaker 3: shove it in your face immediately. We had to pace ourselves.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: The prop man always said.
Speaker 3: We will give you a plate after this, so we
Speaker 3: could eat delicately and then go, do I get with
Speaker 3: this when we're done?
Speaker 4: Yes, you get that when we're done. Because our food
Speaker 4: was right.
Speaker 3: So I it's yes, try to play a rich person
Speaker 3: on TV if you can. Especially it's just gonna be
Speaker 3: a lot of eating. Because yeah, well.
Speaker 2: I mean I personally meeting this up. We have I
Speaker 2: know we're runn out of time here, but if I
Speaker 2: have a couple more questions about your podcast. Yes, we
Speaker 2: have so much more to get into. We're gonna take
Speaker 2: one quick break. We're here with Dean Butler Allison on
Speaker 2: Grim from Little House on the Prairie. It's the ice
Speaker 2: small pop culture podcast. Stick around Dean Butler Alison on Grim.
Speaker 2: It's the Ice small pop culture podcast here and I
Speaker 2: am all in. We're having such a good time here
Speaker 2: in the audio, Walnut Grove, you guys have your own podcast.
Speaker 2: We're celebrating fifty years of Little House on the Prairie.
Speaker 2: It is the Little House fifty for fifty podcasts.
Speaker 1: But that's what's the first thing was now the Little
Speaker 1: House fiftieth anniversary podcast.
Speaker 4: Okay, because we went so far past doing for.
Speaker 1: The idea, we also say Little House and online is
Speaker 1: the Little House Little House fifty podcast dot com.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, because we're going to get like fifty episodes.
Speaker 1: Hot, We're going to go well beyond me. I love it.
Speaker 2: And so in the podcast, You're you're looking back on
Speaker 2: the show, you're interviewing some past stars. I listened to
Speaker 2: some episodes. Great stuff, so much fun. You're You're chemistry
Speaker 2: with Pamela Bob is great.
Speaker 3: She's about Pamela Bob of New York, who's a Broadway
Speaker 3: actress and absolutely hilarious. But she's also a true die
Speaker 3: hard Bonnet Heead fan, so she has what she knows.
Speaker 3: She's like, Okay, I know what's important about this episode
Speaker 3: because I'm one of those people that we the fans,
Speaker 3: this is the part of the episode we found upsetting
Speaker 3: that we need to know about.
Speaker 1: She know.
Speaker 4: So she yeah, she gets it.
Speaker 1: She did her web series Living on a Prairie, and
Speaker 1: she invited a bunch of us to come on. Allison
Speaker 1: guested on the show. Charlotte Stewart guested on the show. Mary.
Speaker 1: I did not. I just couldn't see going across the
Speaker 1: country to stick my head in the gym and you know,
Speaker 1: say one little line in retrospect, I wish I had
Speaker 1: because it would have been fun to meet Pamela then.
Speaker 1: But there was something so wonderful, gracious, warm, she just
Speaker 1: has this bubbly, welcoming quality about her. When we set
Speaker 1: out to do this, I had a conversation Elson and
Speaker 1: I had a conversation. So we've got to do this
Speaker 1: with Pamela Bob because she is she is the sensibility,
Speaker 1: the mindset of the fan, and she's able to bring
Speaker 1: that and she brings it lovingly, sweetly funny every single time.
Speaker 4: She's really funny.
Speaker 3: And she's the one who came up with calling him
Speaker 3: hashtag imaginary boyfriend.
Speaker 1: We've had a great time with it. So the first
Speaker 1: season we really focused, We focused the lens through personality.
Speaker 1: In this second season that we just recorded our first
Speaker 1: two episodes of today, we are focusing. It's a more
Speaker 1: episode centric approach and we're going to be looking at
Speaker 1: and we will bring in people who are parts of
Speaker 1: specific episodes. But we have a lot to say about
Speaker 1: a lot of things related to this, and we do
Speaker 1: have a good time together doing it.
Speaker 3: It's really fun and we do have a good and
Speaker 3: we have some people coming in I won't tell them,
Speaker 3: but people who've never been on like anything, and people
Speaker 3: who are either rare interviews, and we have a couple
Speaker 3: of people who guest start on the show who just
Speaker 3: have never just nobody's doing interviews with them.
Speaker 4: They just did. We found them correct, they're coming on.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 4: So it's going to be Bananas.
Speaker 1: Are like Gilmore Girls fans. If you are a devotee
Speaker 1: of a program, you want to know everything. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's we can't go wrong. I mean, the more
Speaker 1: we share, the more they love it. Yes, so it's
Speaker 1: it's it's been a really great thing. I love it.
Speaker 2: That's good again. That's the Little House fifty podcasts and
Speaker 2: you can get that on anywhere you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: The Apple podcast, the whole thing. So on YouTube and
Speaker 3: then all our social media. We are on we are
Speaker 3: on Facebook, we are on Instagram, we're everything on YouTube,
Speaker 3: We're on absolutely everything. And we have a Patreon account too,
Speaker 3: so you can sign up and for a couple of
Speaker 3: bucks you'd get the secret like magic, behind the scenes ring.
Speaker 1: Stuff that private, that private content for the patrons. All right, yeah,
Speaker 1: so pay law. Yeah, that's really fun. We've we've had
Speaker 1: a good time with Well, we'll.
Speaker 3: Like interview a guest and then we'll do a patroon
Speaker 3: thing where they'll answer a couple of questions that they
Speaker 3: didn't answer on the like super duper personal ones, and
Speaker 3: it's like, oh yeah, it's great fun.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: That's it's so fun. I have one more question for
Speaker 2: you guys, but before we get into that, Dean, But
Speaker 2: after Lttlehussele the Prairie, I was going through your filmography
Speaker 2: during research for this and I discovered The New Gidget,
Speaker 2: a show you did after The Hustle the Prairie. I
Speaker 2: am kicking myself that I didn't know about the show
Speaker 2: until now. I love it. It's my new obsession. If
Speaker 2: you ever want to do a new Gidget podcast, I
Speaker 2: will be a listener. And overall, oh.
Speaker 1: My god, I sign you.
Speaker 4: I think you need to do a new Gidget podcast.
Speaker 1: You know, Gidget, it was so interesting. We started that
Speaker 1: as a sort of traditional rom com, and then because
Speaker 1: it was first run syndication, it was going to go
Speaker 1: from sort of prime time audiences to reruns on Saturday mornings,
Speaker 1: and that dictated a radical change in the way the
Speaker 1: show was conceptualized. It really had to become a live
Speaker 1: action cartoon, and this is what it became. And we
Speaker 1: had a producer named Larry Mallin who had done you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know he's gone on to do you know,
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty episodes of Beverly Hills nine oh
Speaker 1: two to zero in his career. But he had this
Speaker 1: great bead on youth culture, and so we were doing
Speaker 1: all every wacky thing that you could do with Karen
Speaker 1: and I were wanting, well, this isn't the pilot. Did
Speaker 1: this has nothing to do with the pilot. We did,
Speaker 1: but we but we really did have fun with it
Speaker 1: and we've remained really good friends, and you know, and
Speaker 1: Gidget is Gidget is one of those iconic female characters
Speaker 1: over time. Lour Ingles Wilder is an iconic female character
Speaker 1: of another time. I played Buffy's dad on Buffy the
Speaker 1: Vampire Slayer. Buffy was an iconic female young female.
Speaker 4: Character, Judy Bluemes forever, Yes.
Speaker 1: Right, did that earlier. It's really been amazing to be
Speaker 1: able to be a part of the but nothing has
Speaker 1: the resonance that Little House has. And I loved doing Gidget,
Speaker 1: and I loved the few epiods I didn't do a
Speaker 1: lot of episodes of Buffy because it wasn't about father's
Speaker 1: It was about a dysfunctional family who and a father
Speaker 1: who wasn't there. It was about mother and daughter and
Speaker 1: all the crazy things going on near the hell Mouth.
Speaker 1: But but I loved that cast. What a talented group
Speaker 1: of people they were. Oh my god, Joss Whedon talk
Speaker 1: about an ear for youth culture. Unbelievable.
Speaker 2: We just talked to Julie Ben's who played Darla on
Speaker 2: Buffy and she because Buffy was mentioneding Goimore girls across
Speaker 2: the court. We heard a lot of great stories from that.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Well, I like to tease him that he's that guy.
Speaker 3: He somehow carved out this niche of being the man
Speaker 3: in all of these famous, real and fictitious women's lives.
Speaker 4: He's the dude in Laura's life, in Buffy's life and
Speaker 4: gets its life. He's that how.
Speaker 3: Who comes up with that? And then you were you
Speaker 3: were a Punzels.
Speaker 4: The guy and I'm like, how how did you?
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate to be and it's again, Eastern an
Speaker 1: incredible gift. I mean, look, I get my DNA from
Speaker 1: my parents, and I you know, I'm gifted with that.
Speaker 1: And I've had the opportunity to be able to interface, interact,
Speaker 1: play relationships with some really special female characters. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's just been a great time. I've absolutely loved it.
Speaker 1: What a gift. It's been an amazing gift.
Speaker 2: So incredible. But okay, before we rat off into the
Speaker 2: sunset here, I want to ask this is such a
Speaker 2: hard question.
Speaker 1: Good little house reference to riding off into the sunset.
Speaker 2: Good for you, I am a professional. Well do you
Speaker 2: have is there a one memory that stands out among
Speaker 2: the rest from your time on the Little House that
Speaker 2: you think of and go wow, I can't believe this
Speaker 2: or what you know? When someone asks you what's your
Speaker 2: favorite moment from your experience? Is there something that kind
Speaker 2: of bubbles to the top.
Speaker 3: And it's so hard because I mean, there was ever
Speaker 3: yeast seven years I was there, from the time I
Speaker 3: was twelve to lowest nineteen, which is your entire formative years.
Speaker 3: All yes, I said, I started junior high, I got
Speaker 3: a junior high, went all the way through high school,
Speaker 3: moved out of my parents, and I was still.
Speaker 4: On the damn show. You know. It was so crazy.
Speaker 3: So it's it's hard to say, but some of it
Speaker 3: is from that that first day, the first day when
Speaker 3: I met Melissa Gilbert and when I met all these people,
Speaker 3: and it's like, what have I gotten myself into and
Speaker 3: Melissa Gilbert, she was so so tiny that I actually
Speaker 3: said in my book, oh god, she looked like I
Speaker 3: could fit her in my purse and she could chew
Speaker 3: her way out, and she is said, yeah, that was
Speaker 3: pretty accurate actually. And it's just the personalities, I mean,
Speaker 3: casting the personalities Katherine McGregor, the personalities of these people
Speaker 3: on this show were just unbelievable. I mean, if you
Speaker 3: thought they were excited on screen, you should have hung
Speaker 3: out on the set.
Speaker 4: These people were amazing.
Speaker 3: And have all of them in one room, I mean,
Speaker 3: the different acting styles, the different this, the different that
Speaker 3: was just mind blowing. And to walk in the first
Speaker 3: day meet them all, It's like, whoa, what did what train?
Speaker 4: Did I just get on?
Speaker 1: Wow? It's amazing. Wow. I'll never forget that. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the memories couple of memories that stick really
Speaker 1: really strongly, that arrival the first day, uh, for that
Speaker 1: first season and seeing the size of this unit, the
Speaker 1: number of trucks, the number of people, the animals, the
Speaker 1: wagons that you know, every everything that populated that world,
Speaker 1: from every stick of furniture to the horses and the
Speaker 1: bales of hey came in on trucks each day to
Speaker 1: Big Sky Movie Ranch and that seeing that was just awesome.
Speaker 1: And then we had a Blue Max this called the
Speaker 1: Blue Bax, this bus that had Little House on the
Speaker 1: Prairies Monday nights at eight on NBC, on the bus,
Speaker 1: on the on the people do. I mean, look, you
Speaker 1: see those things around, but when you're a part of that,
Speaker 1: you suddenly are a part of that. That's really cool
Speaker 1: In terms of a moment. In terms of a moment there,
Speaker 1: I love a moment at the end of an episode
Speaker 1: called Days of Sunshine Days of Shadow, when Manzo has
Speaker 1: been paralyzed and learns to walk again and gets up
Speaker 1: and walks across the yard into Laura's arms, and the
Speaker 1: world is going to go on again. Their life is
Speaker 1: going to be okay after ninety minutes for two and
Speaker 1: a half hours of misery, it's going to be okay.
Speaker 1: And I love the way that moment was scored. I
Speaker 1: love the way it was shot. I'd love the Blissa's
Speaker 1: reaction to it. It just there was a really wonderful
Speaker 1: kismet in that moment. And you know, if I could
Speaker 1: have could have had moments like that over and over
Speaker 1: and over again, on camera. Those are the kinds of
Speaker 1: moments I'd love to have, and it sticks out for
Speaker 1: that reason just because it's it's a very it's just
Speaker 1: a powerful human moment. And I've been always been very
Speaker 1: happy with the way that turned out. There are lots
Speaker 1: of moments that I'm not thrilled with, but that's when
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: How many people, especially okay child actors, And of course
Speaker 3: I was very young winos on the show, and a
Speaker 3: lot of my friends with child actors many have terrible
Speaker 3: experiences and people were horrible to them on the set
Speaker 3: and their lives were ruined. I was very lucky, really supportive.
Speaker 3: It was one of the most supportive, loving environments I've
Speaker 3: ever been in. And and yes I had a trust fund.
Speaker 3: I got my money, so it's like whoo, So I
Speaker 3: like survived being a child actor. But the thing is
Speaker 3: is so many child actors will look back at their
Speaker 3: show or they did and they will feel bad. They
Speaker 3: will feel sense almost of shame. They will say that's
Speaker 3: not a very good performance. I wasn't very good. I
Speaker 3: was just you know, mugging or doing a little joke,
Speaker 3: or even if it's good, they don't see it as good,
Speaker 3: they go, I was just it.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what I was doing. Man, I look
Speaker 4: back on Little House. We were amazing. We were all
Speaker 4: freaking amazing.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's so generous, that's so jerious. I do have
Speaker 1: a lot of those moments, oh oh my god, oh
Speaker 1: my god, what was I doing? But the moments, But
Speaker 1: as an overall body, you know, I've talked about the
Speaker 1: fact that Melissa and I were enough different in age
Speaker 1: that there wasn't really a possibility of having any sort
Speaker 1: of real relationship with her. It just would have been
Speaker 1: completely inappropriate. We made our way through that despite the
Speaker 1: age difference, and on balance, overall, I look back at
Speaker 1: that and I can say I feel good about what
Speaker 1: we accomplished, and the fact that people continue to watch
Speaker 1: it and love it and appreciate what this relationship means,
Speaker 1: what it means in their life. You know, who could
Speaker 1: not be happy with that?
Speaker 4: What you're doing work.
Speaker 3: There's still people posting on Facebook pictures of Laura and
Speaker 3: all moms with big hearts around.
Speaker 4: If you guys didn't generate.
Speaker 3: Some kind of sense of love and wrote, they wouldn't
Speaker 3: be doing that.
Speaker 1: The videos that are done of us that to popizz
Speaker 1: Country songs. It's the you know, clips cut over and
Speaker 1: over and over again to different music. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really cool that fandom is just amazing. Most people, the
Speaker 1: vast majority of people who will ever live, will never
Speaker 1: understand or experience what that feels like. And I think
Speaker 1: you have to have a sense of perspective about it,
Speaker 1: and you have to know you can't take it for granted.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you do take it for granted, it's
Speaker 1: going to eventually bite you. Yeah, But if you can
Speaker 1: appreciate it for what it is, it's this amazing outpouring
Speaker 1: of love and affection that you have to be in
Speaker 1: that kind of a position to get that. There are
Speaker 1: very few other professions will ever experience that.
Speaker 3: And no, we never thought and fifty years later anybody
Speaker 3: would be watching the show or speaking to us or
Speaker 3: care or that anybody would even know that any of
Speaker 3: this ever happened, or it's completely blown all of our
Speaker 3: minds right out of our heads. We're all stunned, but
Speaker 3: we are appreciative. We're like, oh, wow, Okay, something happened.
Speaker 3: We did something. We don't even completely understand it, but
Speaker 3: it happened and it was good, and.
Speaker 4: We're like, yes, yes, yes, we get it. We were
Speaker 4: in we're into it. Bring it, bring it. We're good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it shall be here long after we're all,
Speaker 2: after the planet is gone, there are still aliens will
Speaker 2: be watching and the rebels of planet Earth.
Speaker 1: It'll be like it'll be like Galaxy quests.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, it's beamed into space.
Speaker 3: I was at the space center in Belgium and they
Speaker 3: had a thing, you know how, like what was it,
Speaker 3: the thing voyager where it has bits and pieces of
Speaker 3: stuffs and they have video that they sent into space
Speaker 3: and yes, yes, you know what, there's a glip of yes,
Speaker 3: it's in there. It's in there, Yes it is. Yes,
Speaker 3: the aliens have already seen it. It's it's okay, the
Speaker 3: aliens have.
Speaker 1: Already seen it. Well we'll find out.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming into days. It's been
Speaker 2: so much fun. And everyone go listen to their podcast.
Speaker 2: It's great that I've listened to many episodes now. They're
Speaker 2: just wonderful. And go watch the Hustle and Perry. It's
Speaker 2: a good show.
Speaker 1: It's a great show.
Speaker 6: Yes, thanks Houston, Thanks against.
Speaker 1: Everybody adult again. Follow us on Instagram at I Am
Speaker 1: All In podcast and email us at Gilmour at iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: dot com.