# Little Irritating Things About Little House on the Prairie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 6, 2005, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289 "2005-09-06T03:21:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/41 "2005-09-06T20:37:47Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > As a native prarie-area Minnesotan, you’d think the most awful thing about LHotP is the mountains on the background, but no, my mother (who was born in 1925) said the most inaccurate thing is the number of trees. She said even when she was growing up there were practically NO trees, just some along rivers (oops, creeks) and a few scraggly ones homesteaders planted around their farms. In that part of the country you could see the grass (and later, farm fields) for miles. Ditto to that. What part of “prairie” didn’t they understand? ---
**Author:** ![meow\_meow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@meow\_meow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meow_meow)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/42 "2005-09-06T20:59:59Z")
Remember the one when Laura found out Nellie was faking being paralyzed – the episode with Bunny the horse – and she pushed her runaway train style while in her wheelchair down the hillside landing Nellie in the pond? I forgot just how brutal those kids were. If’n she’s not paralyzed now, this should do the job! I cried at the episode the other night when the tornado wrecks the farm (again) and the little calf died. And until now I forgot about the puppy episode…sob. And wait - Albert DIED? I guess I forgot about that, too. Yep, every night at 8 on TV LANDon. I like the suggestion from someone in the Bob Denver thread that the pending Gilligan marathon be named TVisLAND. Giggle. ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/43 "2005-09-06T21:22:39Z")
> [@SpazCat](#): > > And now, because I can, a MST3K quote: “Ah, the Eastern Europe region of Southern California.” Damn you. Iced Tea. Out my nose and all over my brand-new keyboard. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/44 "2005-09-06T21:25:23Z")
The worst part about _Little House_ was that it took ratings shares away from the vastly superior _WKRP_. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/45 "2005-09-06T21:51:25Z")
Here’s the synopsis of the telephone episode, according to this website: > [@](#): > > 1. Crossed Connections 12/10/79 > Harriet Oleson causes trouble between Alice and Jonathan Garvey when the telephone is first introduced in Walnut Grove. Mrs. Oleson listened to a conversation between Alice Garvey and her mother. They were discussing Alice’s first husband. Mrs. Oleson tells Jonathan that his wife had been married before. Jonathan decides to leave for a while to cool off. While on a delivery with Charles, Jonathan meets Alice’s ex-husband and finds out why Alice didn’t talk about him. Jonathan returns home and asks his wife and his son to forgive him. Apparently this occurs when Laura is 16 so somebody out here will probably know what year that would have been in real time. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/46 "2005-09-06T21:51:56Z")
> [@meow meow](#): > > Yep, every night at 8 on TV LANDon. I like the suggestion from someone in the Bob Denver thread that the pending Gilligan marathon be named TVisLAND. Giggle. I’m glad somebody caught that. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/47 "2005-09-06T22:23:26Z")
What I found anachronistic was the later episodes when the Olesons and the Ingalls ran, separately as I remember, a restaurant and a hotel in that little town. I never understood how there could be enough business out there in the middle of nowhere. But I kind of liked the one episode when Charles Ingalls was making furniture but was put out of business by the factory in the big town. At the end, there was a flash forward to a contemporary auction where his table was sold for big bucks. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/48 "2005-09-06T22:34:18Z")
Always wondered if Charles had some type of bellows set up to get that blow-dried hair. And if anyone has seen a photo of the real Charles Ingalls, he didn’t just have a run of the mill beard. The man had basically a goatee which he let fall to near his chest, and spread out sorta like a trangle. Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/49 "2005-09-06T22:48:32Z")
**photopat** : The real Laura was born in 1867 so the episode in question would have taken place around 1883 in real life, if the term ‘real life’ can properly be applied to the fetid pile of steaming poo that was the television series _Little House on the Prairie_. The first telephone exchange in South Dakota (where the real Laura lived between the ages of 13 and her marriage) was in Deadwood in 1878, so there _may_ have been a phone in De Smet when Laura was 16. But if the show got that right, it must have been purely by accident. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/50 "2005-09-06T22:59:03Z")
You want to talk anachronisms? How about the later episode where a dapper, goateed old gentleman in a white suit and cane offered to set up the restaurant as a franchise?! Considering that the good Colonel wasn’t even born until 1890, and didn’t actually even start making food for people until the 1930s, that one pretty much wins unless someone can find the episode where Charles had to talk to Albert about dragracing his 1958 Thunderbird down the main street of Walnut Grove. ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/51 "2005-09-07T00:53:27Z")
All the boys needing haircuts drive me crazy (R-A-G-G, M-O-P-P, Ragmop!). Gets on my nerves, too, the way that Charles always called her “Carolyn.” Her name was Caro-LINE. And what was with killing off all the Ingalls’ boys? Yes, I’m aware that IRL, both Caroline and Laura lost infant sons. But then TPTB decided to off Mary’s son and Albert, too!\* If I were James, I’d have been watching every step I took! \*Disclaimer: Yes, I know these were fictional characters, but _still_… ---
**Author:** ![Torgo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@Torgo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Torgo)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/52 "2005-09-07T02:39:23Z")
Unapologetic LHotP television series fan here. The anachronisms are half the fun! 1.) Just where in the hell is the Ingalls’ kitchen situated in their house? It should be in the back, but some scenes have characters exiting the kitchen \*towards the barn, \* which is in front of the house. 2.) The Ingalls are continuously dirt-poor, the crops never come in, yet Pa always has time to take a sick kid to the Pacific Ocean, travel to South Dakota to help some Indians (risking life and limb no less), go to Chicago with Mary, etc. 3.) Nels Oleson: most ineffectual parent/husband ever. 4.) Jonathan Garvey: dumbest farmer ever. Loses his entire crop, sells the team then buys a bunch of useless shit at the mercantile. Shoulda stuck with football. 5.) Give Carrie some lines! That being said, the first 5 seasons were (mostly) fine television, up to the episode where Mary goes blind (some fine acting there by Melissa Sue BTW). After that Landon seems to have gotten preoccupied with mind-numbing tragedy, over-the-top sentimentality and weird religious fables, a vision that would see fruition in **Highway to Heaven.** ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/53 "2005-09-07T02:59:03Z")
[Confessions of a Prairie Bitch](http://www.hgd.com/alison/) God, did I love Nellie, although by the time I was old enough to remember watching it, the only one I remember was the Nellie substitute, Nancy, who was even worse. The worst one had to be (well, besides the Clown Rape), when Nellie married a Jewish man, Percival Dalton (whose real name was Isaac). So his family comes to visit when they find out Nellie’s pregnant, and Mrs. Olsen and Percival’s father (I can’t remember if Percival changed his last name as well, I’ll just call him :j ), just keep clashing over religious customs, and such. Well, they’re arguing over whether or not Nellie’s child will be Jewish, until finally it’s decided that if the baby is born a girl, she’ll be raised Christian, and if it’s a boy, he’ll be raised Jewish. I’m sure you can see where this is going… …Yep, twins. A boy and a girl. They name the girl after Mrs. Olsen, and the boy is named…after his grandfather. His JEWISH grandfather. And he’s going to be raised Jewish. OY VEY!!! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/54 "2005-09-07T03:02:28Z")
I meant to make the Orthodox Jewish Guy smiley: ;j ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/55 "2005-09-07T04:06:19Z")
> [@Greywolf73](#): > > My personal favorite annoyance is the episode in which the School for the Blind caught fire and Alice Garvey used a baby as a battering ram to shatter a window (she had it in her arm and used the outside of her arm to hit the window, but still–babies are not blunt objects!). That was bad enough, but logically, Alice shouldn’t even have been in that position! As I recall it, when Mary and Alice are told, by whomever (Adam, maybe) that there’s a fire, Mary immediately starts towards her baby’s crib. As any new mom would do, or any mom for that matter, but particularly one whose **first** baby was only a **few months old**! But Alice tells her, “I’ll take care of the baby; you get the children out,” and Mary **agrees** and goes to get the girl students out of their dormitory! No way, no day. IRL, Mary would have knocked Alice down to get to her baby, run down the stairs with him, and **then** gone back to retrieve the children who weren’t her flesh and blood. And it’s unlikely that Alice would have made that offer, either. **JThunder** , Hugh Wilson, who produced WKRP, as well as Frank’s Place, once grumbled re: LHOTP, “Every time we started gaining on those suckers, they’d blind another child!” ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/56 "2005-09-07T06:02:06Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Well, somehow when I was growing up, Mary losing her eyesight while reading by the light of an oil lamp had a profound impact on my mother. The problem is that the whole way Mary’s blindness was handled on the show isn’t a Little Annoying Thing - it’s a **Major Stupid Really Irritating Annoying Thing.** Which wasn’t what the OP asked for. But I’m not going to let that stop me. In the books, Mary went blind as a complication of scarlet fever, which also made Ma, Carrie and Baby Grace very ill. Although in that time and place, blindness meant all her dreams for her adult life were taken from her - blind people didn’t even marry or have their own homes, and certainly didn’t teach school - she bore it bravely and never complained. Some time later, the Reverend Alden visits the family and tells them there are schools for the blind, where Mary could at least continue her education and learn useful skills. Ma and Pa decide instantly that Mary should have such an opportunity, and the family works and saves for years to send her. (In reality, the school was free, but the family would need to pay her transportation to and from Iowa, and outfit her with clothes suitable for a college girl - significant expenses anyway, for a farming family on the frontier in the 1880s.) When she finally gets the chance, Mary is grateful and excited, though of course she will miss her family. On TV, Mary went blind from some bizarre complication of Reading By Insufficient Light, which somehow spared all the other children in the school. She was immediately packed off to the school for the blind, kicking and screaming the whole way. Only after discovering that, in the TV universe, blind people could become teachers, did she calm down and begin to accept her fate. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/57 "2005-09-07T08:52:53Z")
> [@The Chao Goes Mu](#): > > It really chapped my ass when Charles and Caroline adopted TWO MORE kids. :rolleyes: Jason Bateman played the boy and I have no idea who the girl was. Their parents had been killed when their wagon crashed. > It was already shark jumpin’ before that. I think the girl was Shannen Doherty. Shannen was in the show, at any rate, and I believe she was one of the adopted kids. ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/58 "2005-09-07T12:03:21Z")
> [@flodnak](#): > > On TV, Mary went blind from some bizarre complication of Reading By Insufficient Light, which somehow spared all the other children in the school. Actually, scarlet fever is cited in the TV show as the cause of Mary’s blindness. When she goes back to the doctor for new glasses, she mentions having an operation, and that it was even worse than the time she had scarlet fever. The doctor tells Charles that the fever had weakened the nerves in the eyes and that she would soon be blind. Later, Charles tells Mary, “It was the scarlet fever.” Of course, in reality it didn’t take years for this to happen, as portrayed on TV. The low light thing was used to show that she was beginning to have trouble seeing–normal light was becoming insufficient. > [@TellMeI'mNotCrazy](#): > > I think the girl was Shannen Doherty. Shannen was in the show, at any rate, and I believe she was one of the adopted kids. The name of the girl playing Jason Bateman’s sister was Missy Frances (IIRC). Shannen Doherty played Almanzo’s niece Jenny Wilder (she was Royal’s daughter and came to live with the Wilder’s when her father died.) But this reminds me of another irritating thing. Some time before Jenny came to Walnut Grove, the Wilder’s are visited by Royal, his wife, and their TWO SONS (who are brats). Later, Royal tells Almanzo that Jenny has no other family–this means they completely rewrote show history. (Royal’s wife does tell him she’s pregnant again in the earlier episode, but if Jenny were that child, she’d have had two brothers to help care for her when their father died.) Yes, I’ve watched a lot of LHotP. Why do you ask? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/59 "2005-09-07T12:06:03Z")
What **flodnak** said. The treatment of Mary’s blindness on the show was one of the Worse Things. Mary was never a favorite of mine (in the books) – she was a bit of a prig, really – but you had to give her props for her stoicism. Her blindness meant the absolute death of all her dreams (becoming a teacher). Her blindness meant she would never have a home of her home. Indeed this is what happened – Mary lived on with Ma and Pa until they died and then lived with the families of her younger sisters until her own death. And yet, _she never once repined_. She was a _hero_, for crying out loud! But that was stripped from her in the TV series, when she became just another ‘differently abled’ person on a shitty TV show. God, I hate that show! ---
**Author:** ![Vintage\_1957](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vintage\_1957](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vintage_1957)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289/60 "2005-09-07T12:22:07Z")
The music used within the program was bad enough to ruin episodes that might have otherwise been entertaining. I kind of remember enjoying the episode with Richard Mulligan as the Civil War vet addicted to morphine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-irritating-things-about-little-house-on-the-prairie/320289.md?page=4)