I recall an ep. in which Almanzo was telling a story about how his dad taught his snotty brother a lesson by making sure Santa didn’t bring him anything for Christmas. I thought this ep. was incredibly mean-spirited.
Only son dies in infancy - true. This is not mentioned in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, but happened in the gap between On the Banks of Plum Creek and On the Shores of Silver Lake. The books are semi-autobiographical historical fiction - they by and large tell the story of Laura’s childhood and adolescence, but many details are changed. Apparently the two years or so “missing” from the story between those two books were so dark for the family that Laura chose not to write about them.
Eldest child goes blind - true. Mary lost her sight following a severe childhood illness. This also occured during those “missing” years, but unlike the death of Laura’s only brother, it is described at the beginning of Silver Lake and becomes an important part of the story.
Wheat crop destroyed by storm - The Ingalls family lost a wheat crop to locusts in the years described in Plum Creek, at a particularly bad time for the family. I believe Laura and Almanzo lost a crop to a storm in the unfinished manuscript of The First Four Years. Both locusts and severe storms were common problems on the prairies at the time, and farmers lost crops to one or the other with depressing frequency.
School childern released into a blizzard - true. In The Long Winter, the children are in the school building when a blizzard strikes unexpectedly. The school was not well-built and stood on its own, without the protection of other buildings around it, so the teacher decides to take the risk of getting the kids to safety rather than face the certainty of everyone freezing to death in the school. Incidentally, less than a decade after this event, the so-called Schoolhouse Blizzard trapped children in a similar situation in towns all over the northern plains states.
The other things you mentioned are inventions of the TV writers. Though the Ingallses lost their only son, they never adopted a boy, formally or informally. Mary did go to a school for the blind, but it was in another state (Iowa) and did not have to be moved to the Ingallses’ home town following, erm, whatever disaster the TV writers created to cause the blind school to move to the Ingallses’ home town. (By that time they were living in De Smet, not Walnut Grove.) And as was the usual thing for blind girls, when she returned from school, she lived with her parents and later her sisters, never marrying or having children. In spite of her childhood dreams, she never got to be a teacher, either.
That was the one with Sandra Bullock, right?
So where in the books was somebody raped by a clown? 
You can say what you want about Walnut Grove, but at least the Angel of Death doesn’t follow the people around like it does Jessica Fletcher.
Or Adrian Monk, for that matter.
I can’t believe no one mentioned the one that scared me, and eventually made me stop watching. 'Til this, I thought I was watching a historical drama, and was actually learning US history. Hey, I was 10, alright.
The girls go swimming with their friends. The boys go to spy on them. Carrie catches them, and alerts the girls. They dive underwater to hide. And one girl doesn’t come up.
Now so far, that’s par for the course for LHotP. Something horrible happens, when you least expect it, from the most innocent of circumstances, and everyone is saddened. Also, no penalty for the boys, just like the other one Albert burning up the blind school and killing Mary’s baby.
No, the twisted part is the mother of the dead girl, after going through at least some facsimile of typical morning, totally cracks, kidnaps Laura, imprisons her in her house, and makes believe Laura is her daughter, to the point of buying an expensive china doll for her daughter. When everyone in Olsen’s store knows she no longer has one.
It took me a while, but it eventually sunk in – wait a minute, this isn’t historical fiction, this is just a typical afternoon soap opera plot, shown one night a week, in period dress.
I recall reading an interview with a person involved with a show that was on opposite LHOTP, and he joked that every time his show started to win in the ratings, LHOTP would blind another child.
I remember an episode when Laura is grown and married to Almanzo and they have a little daughter - Rose, I guess? She was being terrorized by some crazy guy who thought that Laura was his no good whorish daughter and kept threatening to shoot her and take her daughter. At the end, just when Laura gets through to him and he comes to his senses he gets blown away by the Sheriff. I doubt this was true in real life, but it was a hell of an episode.
OK, maybe Arkcon thinks it’s the Mom, but it’s the Dad? I’m sure it was the Dad.
The last episode after they blew up the town - :eek: Best ever series finale.
Yeah, that was Hugh Wilson of WKRP. They took a dig at LH on an episode, too. Herb’s wife says her family never misses an episode of LHOTP: “Every week they have a fire! Or someone gets an incurable disease!”
There was a similar episode of the Waltons that scared the crap out of me as a kid. Mary Ellen was pregnant (this was after her husband got drafted or volunteered for the war or something) and near her due date. So was one of their neighbors on the mountain. But the neighbor miscarried or the baby was stillborn or something. After Mary Ellen had the baby, this neighbor woman started obsessing over it and eventually kidnapped it…the episode was REALLY dark and my 8 or 9 year-old self couldn’t let it go.
Didn’t she mutter some phrase, “Look upon the face of death, never feel your baby’s breath?” She said she saw a dead bird and after that miscarried her baby.
God, the stuff we remember from childhood.
Oh, geez…I do kind of remember a dead bird somewhere in the ep. I didn’t until you posted that, of course, but I do now.
You know, I had a vague recollection of this, and thought about posting about it, but I wasn’t sure if I was remembering correctly. That episode was just plain scary. I was barely old enough to understand what had happened.
I remember this one! I had an absolute terror of amputation when I was a kid (still do, to a certain extent), and this episode freaked me out completely. In fact, I don’t remember watching beyond this scene–the episode or the series.
Christ, I’m glad a watched Star Trek reruns instead…
Don’t you know, Jessica Fletcher is a serial killer who goes around blaming others for her crimes. She’s so good, sometimes they even start to believe themselves. Brings a whole new spin to the series.
Also, I remember being freaked out by the infected leg episode, too.
I know passing around kids in those ways were normal, but I’m talking about a situation like the Boasts/Wilders or the Starrs/Ingalls. A normal family who has a child or several children gives one to a childless family so they can have a child. It’s kinda like modern-day surrogacy!
On a different note, did you know that in real life Willie Oleson (actually Willie Owens) went blind after an explosion from playing with firecrackers? There is a tragedy they never used on the show!