Where on earth did they get ice cubes??? The Little Ice Maker on the Prairie?
No silly, it was a LASER-guided ice-pick designed by Leonardo DaVinci who used his time machine to visit Walnut Grove whenever they needed some anachronistic technology to enhance the plot-line. Michael Landon cut the research budget to line his own pockets so they had little choice. Then he cried.
From the same ice house that Nancy locked that other girl in, presumably. Unless you’re questioning the possibility of perfect cubes, as opposed to chunks broken from a large block.
They also locked the man accused of burning Garvey’s barn and injuring his son in the ice house. The trial, of course, was held in the church. I’m not sure if that’s the same injury that caused the kid to later lose his leg on JAG.
Didn’t you ever see Back To The Future, Part 3? Doc Brown built an ice maker in the late 1800s. Maybe they used that same technology. 
Or else Pa built an ice maker. Out of wood, of course.
Hey, did anyone catch Sylvia on the Hallmark Channel yesterday? That’s the clown rapist double episode that was recently discussed.
In an interesting twist on how much more conservative TV is today, they removed the view of the boys at the beginning where they’re spying on Sylvia while she’s prancing around in her bloomers. They showed the boys talking to each other at her window, but they never showed what they’re looking at. It must have seemed too perverted for Hallmark to show its viewers (but it was OK for Prime Time in 1981).
Hey, as long as this is still up, I’ll plug the CD I just got: Happy land: musical tributes to Laura Ingalls Wilder. They selected some of the songs she wrote about in the books, several different artists recorded them, and ta-da! A really great CD. I’m loving it. Everybody go get it now.
I love the music in the books–I like folk music.
I never watched the show after the first few, because it was not true to the spirit of the books. I hated Landon as Pa–and he needed a damn beard and some gumption.
Nellie was awful in the show, but a different awful than the books.
Ah, hell, the whole thing was awful.
I read once that the similarly worthless show Grizzly Adams was very heavily influenced by test audiences. Those people let it be known that they hated to see snow on TV unless it was Christmas. This (and the ease of it always being summer) may have been the reason why it never, ever freaking snowed in Minnesota on LHotP. hell, it never even seemed to get cold.
Hijack, but did anybody see the… oh what was it… Real Sex I think… on HBO where they filmed at a legal brothel in Nevada and Dan “Grizzly Adams” Haggerty was there? He looks the same, just older, and was even wearing a Grizzly Adams style shirt. Really bizarre.
I’ve been watching some of the episodes on TVLand and Hallmark (just for fun), and I’m amazed at what a horrible actor Jonathan Gilbert (Willie) was. He was Melissa Gilbert’s brother, and I wonder if that played a part in his getting the role, but damn, he was just God-Awful. He spoke all his lines in that screechy high-pitched whiney voice, with no inflection, just a monotone delivery. Just awful.
Funny thing: The Tinker Jones episode was on the other day, the one where the mute coppersmith makes the churchbell (and turns all the kids into thieves to get enough tin ) and I swear one of the extra schoolkids was Sean Penn. He didn’t have any lines, so he wasn’t listed in the credits, but I’m positive it was him. Any way to find out for sure?
It was according to the IMDB. He’s listed as “Kid” (uncredited).
For what it’s worth, the IMDB has a Little House listing for Sean Penn, which says “Little House on the Prairie” playing “Kid” (uncredited) in episode: “The Voice of Tinker Jones” (episode # 1.11) 4 December 1974
Thanks, I didn’t even think to check IMDB. Since he didn’t have any lines, I figured it wouldn’t be listed.
I knew it was him; it was like Jeff Spicoli visiting Walnut Grove.
“Dude! I can help you make that bell. My Dad’s got this, like, awesome set of tools!”
I was waiting for the pizza delivery guy to show up in the schoolhouse and then Miss Beadle would make him share it with the whole class.
Then she’d have to go to his house where she’d find pictures from the underwear section of the Sears Catalog all over his beroom walls.
He more or less took his money and disappeared for a while after the show. (I have this direct from Allison Arngrim, who I exchanged a few e-mails with.) He would send postcards occasionally from Africa or Central America where he went on an unofficial Peace Corps like mission to help dig wells, distribute medicine, blankets, etc… He HATED show business and hit the ground running as soon as the series ended (but was smart enough to know that the money was too good to walk away while in production).
Some trivia: he and Melissa Gilbert are both adopted and therefore no blood relation. Their parents split up and their father died during the run of the show. Later their mother (who comes across as a “stage mom from hell”) married another man (his surname was Abeles) and had a daughter, Sara Abeles. When Sara started out as a child actor her mom changed her name to Sara Gilbert (the name of her mother’s dead ex-husband!) in order to cash in on Melissa Gilbert’s name recognition. (Cheesy, cheesy, cheesy…)
Unlike Jonathan Gilbert, of course, Sara Gilbert is actually a really good actress- she ruled as Darlene on Roseanne. She’s also one of the least profile openly gay celebrities; she recently had a baby with her girlfriend and even though she’s far from broke they live for some odd reason with her friend Elijah Wood. (I wonder if Elijah did a David Crosby for them.)
Ok, why does Mary cry at EVERY EPISODE!!! I mean she has always been a wimp, but geesh get a backbone! Not every thing is a crying moment. And news flash…you are the big sister! Why is Laura always sticking up for herself while the big sister sits there watching?
So frustrating that I just want to slap her out of crying. Why did the writers make her so weak?
And why did Nellie have any friends? After she treats everyone bad, don’t you think the town kids would wise up & isolate her? Makes no since that they would sign up to be fools all the time. Idiots!
And I get pissed that Caroline was “so righteous” that she couldn’t even tell Mrs. Olsen off. I mean this lady yells at your children, calls them liars, calls them names, & let’s her children treat them bad.
And let’s not start on the wimp Mr. Olsen is…I can’t imagine any man in that time being so retardedly weak willed that he just shrugs his shoulders like “there’s nothing I can do…my wife took my balls”. Lol…PUH-LEASE!! 
There actually were a few episodes where he shut Harriet up right quick when she went too far. And there was one episode (when he was trying to make a living selling his stock as a traveling salesman) where he tried to transfer ownership of his gonads to another woman (the woman who ran the boardinghouse he stayed in in the big city) but overheard her playing lovey-dovey with another salesman (turned out she really DID say that to all the boys) and slunk back to the old battleship.
I have heard that Katherine MacGregor (Harriet Olsen) is an absolute sweetheart in person, as are Alison Arngrim and (apparently) Jonathan Gilbert (with the volunteer stuff he did after the show ended).