Latest / I Am All In with Scott Patterson / I Smell Pop Culture: Little House on the Prairie

Transcript

I Smell Pop Culture: Little House on the Prairie · I Am All In with Scott Patterson

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I am all in again. Oh it's just you. I
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Smell Pop Culture with Eastern Allen and iHeart Radio podcast.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Eastern Allen. I am all in podcasts. iHeartRadio,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: iHeart media, iHeart podcast one of all of them productions.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: It's I Smell Pop Culture. My name's Easton Allen. I'm here.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: I'm hosting this.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: It's me.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: It's not Scott Okay, it's me. I'm here. I can
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: do whatever I want. I'm the host of this dang show.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: We're gonna have a lot of fun this week. We're
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: going to a place in time, a place in space
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: that you might be familiar with. If you haven't seen
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: this show before, I guarantee you've heard of it. It's
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: one of the most iconic shows in television history. We
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: are going to the world of Little House on the Prayer.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: That's right, Little House on the Prairie. And the reason
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: we're doing that, we're talking to two of the stars
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: of Little House on the Prairie, Dean Butler and Alison
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: on Grim. Dean Butler played Almonzo Wilder, Alison on Grim
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: played and Nelly Elson. That little brat Nelly Elson. We
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: all know her. But the reason we're going there is
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: because in season two, episode twenty one, Lorelei's graduation day,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: there's a reference. Baby, there's a Little House on the
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Prairie reference. Okay, check this out. I know you know
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: the scene. It's the opening scene of the episode. Laurel
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: and Ryer are walking down the street. They're going to
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: a mystery breakfast and Lane comes up riting behind them,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: and Laureli says, oh, look, it's Michael Landon. Michael Landon
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: obviously the star of Bonanza Little House on the Prairie.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: And if you didn't get this reference when he saw it,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: it's because in Little House on the Prairie, characters were
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: always just kind of running in and out of scenes.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: That was just something that happened a lot on the show.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: And Michael Landon, I mean, just an absolute legend in
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the world of television, one of the most memorable roles
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and actors in oll of TV. We sadly lost Michael
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Landon in nineteen ninety one to pancreatic cancer, but we're
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: gonna hang out with two of his co stars on
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Little House on the Prairie. They worked with them, they
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: knew him well.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Again.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Allison Arngrim, she played Nelly, and Dean Butler, who played Almonzo.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: And if you're a bonnet heead or you know, a
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: bonnet head, grab him close. Get your Johnny cakes ready,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: lay out a blanket. This is gonna be a fun one. Okay,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: we're heading straight to Wannut Grove, Missouri. You know we
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: call that the stars hollow of post Civil War, the
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: great planes. This is gonna be a lot of fun.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: It's I smell pop culture and let me get him
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: in here. I can hear Dean and Allison just banging
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: on the door outside this room. Hang on, let me
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: let them in and we are going to have some fun.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: It's I smell pop culture. Where this is the I
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: am on podcast. I'm here Dean Butler and Allison Aringrim.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Thanks for doing this, you guys. This is so exciting.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Yes so.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Little House on the Prairie fiftieth anniversary, congratulations huge. We're
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: going to talk all things Little House. We're going to
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: talk about you guys. The reason we brought you here
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: today is, uh, there is a reference to the great
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Michael Landon and this is in season one episode or sorry,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: season two, episode twenty one for everyone keeping score at home,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: and I just want to run the reference by you
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: guys really quick before we dive in here. Laurali, one
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: of the characters, is walking down the street and another
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: character named Laane runs up fast behind her, and then
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: she says, oh, hi, Michael Landon. And the joke is
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: that she's like kind of running into the scene, as
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: many characters on the Little House on the Prairie would
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: run into the scene. You know, is that something that
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: like you remember being directed to do a lot like, hey,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: we always got to be running and keeping everything moving,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: anything like that.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Well that that would be probably not so much for
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: me and probably not so much for runner.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't run as but the kids when I
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: flounced and I sauntered.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: But it's with the kids. If you notice that the
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: school has always run into the school, I was run
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: out of the schools.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: And I was just watching it the other day with
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Bob and I said, you know, that probably was five
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: or six takes. He said, what I said, that's why
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: we're always exhausted by the end of the day. I said,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: they're down the stairs and run, I said, but they
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: had to go this side of the camera, that side
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: of the camera and then like a bird flies by,
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: something goes wrong.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: Because we're outdoors.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: It could be five times all that running. And then,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: of course Laura famously her conflict resolution move a was
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: to simply run, screaming away to the distance, braids flying
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: up a hill somewhere and just disappear.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: And so running running was big.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Running out of scene seemed to be people always bounding
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: and leaping.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, Michael had a perverse trick that he did on
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: particularly on the kids running away, is that he would
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: have them running away from the camera and simply not
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: call cut. Yeah, keep running and running and running.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: See how far they get.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he can get away with you.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: See how far they'll go before they finally figure it
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: out and stop.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: So he liked to do that a lot. Melissa. I mean,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: of all the characters on the program, nobody ran from
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: place to place more than Melissa.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: Child burned thousand She could have been a miler.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the energy we love from a
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: little houseland Prey. And I have so many more questions
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: about Michael Landon's sense of humor on the set, but
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I want to go back to the beginning. Do you
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: each remember the first time you met him.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that's he was an indelible
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: kind of presence. You would not forget the first time, Allison,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: since you met him first, what did you remember?
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: I remember why.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: I came into the audition and uh, the the infamous
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Nellie Olson An audition. And I get there, it's like, oh,
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: read for producer, because I'd come in and read for
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: the pilot, for the part of Laura and for Mary,
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: which I knew I was wrong for not a country girl,
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: not not.
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, no, and you I'm eleven. I'm
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: like no.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: And then of course they made the pilot and I
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: was like, yes, of course, these two girls that make sense.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: Of course they're playing Laura and Marry. And then they
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: call me back and I don't know.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: I'm an idiot. I haven't read the books.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know, and I like, who, come back to
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Paramount and read again, and I went what for? Well,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: turns out there's an Elle Elsa.
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: I know nothing.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: I know nothing about Ellie Elso and they get no
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: direction whatsoever. I get the sides and like, oh my god,
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: this is awful.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: So I ride away.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: I pick up on him, like this is great. And
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: I go in and it was I was Kent was
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: there and Michael was there, and I think it was
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: ed friendly because they were lined up on a couch
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: and yeah, Michael, you when people say someone has a
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: five thousand watt smile and lights it, yeah, he actually
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: could do that.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: I mean it was his glove and the.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Shirt is open and there's a gold chains and it's
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: very seventies, very seventies, the boots and the tight jeans
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: and the shirt and the tan and the and the
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: huge huge I loved his glasses. They're back in style now,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: those aviators. There's enormous glasses. They were fantastic as we
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: had the fabulous glass and the fabulous hair and the
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: big grin.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: And then as soon as I.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Started, and of course Nelly is very funny in this episode,
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: the first one infamous, My home is the best home
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: in all of Walnut Griff, he starts laughing. They were
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: all laughing, and I realized, like, okay, I've hit a nerve.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: But he was hysterical.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: It was that high pitch giggling and did have quite
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: the giggle his mind. And then of course he asked
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: me to read it again, and I, yes, what would
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: you like me to change good little child actor? And
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: they said no, they just read the thing about the
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: hose again. But yeah, his laugh right away. That was
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: day one I got to meet the laugh.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I had a very similar experience, not in terms
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: of the giggle, although he was so gracious. This is
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a voice, you know when you were growing up during
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: that time because of Bonanza, Michael was this presence on
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: American television that was absolutely enormous. Now I had seen
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: him as little Joe Cartwright, and I had seen him
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: in pro as Charles Ingalls. I was unprepared for the
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Michael Lyndon I walked in and met in the final
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: audition that I had, and very much the way Allison
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: described him. It was the Carrera sunglasses, the cigarette and
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the teeth, the denim shirt sprayed on with a gun
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: opened down to his table. It was the gold belt buckle,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the gold chain around his neck, snake skin boots. I mean,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: it was just and hey, how you doing? Was the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: was his opener, and that you know, he was very
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: He was a very powerful presence to meet. And so
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: when you read for him, what was wonderful? And this
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: was before monitors and for all that Michael would sit
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: on the couch, she'd sit on the floor, whatever was
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: going to be unobtrusive for the actor, and he would
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: watch so attentively as to what you were doing. And
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I always remember it, and your audience won't see it,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: but I always remember as I'm reading, he puts his
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: hands up and I'm seeing him out of the corner
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of my eye. I'm looking down to my left and
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: there he is, and he's got his hands up to
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: his eye, framing me. And it's so cool.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: They did.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that was a very very cool moment
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: for me. And he just he could not have been
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: more gracious to welcome you. And he didn't really offer
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: any correction. He just he just had a you know,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: he that was terrific and blah blah blah blah. And
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I remember him saying, as I was going out of
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the door, I thanked him, and what are you doing
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: in early May? And I and I said, well, I'm
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: finishing college. I'll be you know, taking my finals at
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the University of the Pacific. He said, well, we can
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: wait another week. And I thought, oh my god, he's
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: hired me in the room. Yeah, and oh my god.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: But it took two weeks for an offer to pop
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and I really thought I was ready to slit my
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: wrists before that, and because I thought, oh my god,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: this guy completely jerked me around. Yeah, well no, he
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: he did make the offer. And I have to say,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: you're going to ask about all of these things. But
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Michael's presence was so enormous, and he had everybody's confidence
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: at this very high level, and you just knew that
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: he knew what he was doing. And you look at
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the shows, you look at the at the ratings, you
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: look at the enduring qualities that the show radiates for
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: audiences all over the world. He did know what he
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: was doing, and that's why we're celebrating fifty years this year.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: You look at the crew, the crew on Little House,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: all of the grips and electricians and well.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: In the cameraman and everybody. They were from Bonanza.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: They just walked going over and followed him, and then
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: they all followed him to Highway to Heaven.
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: How often does that happen?
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: People were like, if I'm never working for this producer
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: at canam My Guns, guys driving me crazy, they leave,
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: they go get other jobs. These guys all had huge
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: resumes that could have worked anywhere, and they just followed him.
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: They just followed. He was their leader.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: And this was very, very obvious from day one.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: He had a Midas touch. He really did.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: It's so important and speaks so much the legacy of
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: everything's worked on to have like a strong leader and
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: someone who is This makes me so happy to hear that,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: like behind the scenes he's this great guy too, you know,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: because like you see him on screen. Was and what
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: was that like when you so, you get the job,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: you start working on the show, you start filming, was
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: he giving you advice? Was he like, how how did
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: that go?
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: The anti director? He was the anti director?
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Much? Really, he did not say much.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: You had to really mess it up.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I think, like so many directors who are really good directors,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: ninety five percent of their work is done in the casting.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: If they get if they find that person that they
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: think is the right vibe for what it is that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: they're doing, if they just bring that. If I did
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: get notes from him, it was just just be here,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: just be here, just react in this environment, be authentic
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: in this environment. I asked him if I should read anything,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: you know, different that was separate and apart from little house.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: He said, no, just read what I write. That's all
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: you need to read. And he was absolutely right, because
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the world he created was so complete unto itself, and
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: if you just were able to step into that world,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: you were gonna be fine.
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: That's why I believe. He said, can you read the
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: part about the house again? They wanted to see if
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: it was a fit.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Was yeah, exactly.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: I was just turned twelve and probably looked eight. I
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: was very this tiny little girl. So they went, Okay,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: was that a complete freak accident or can that kid
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: do that twice in a row? And I apparently could.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: I got I got the joke, so I got the job.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I knew why it was funny, and I knew why
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Nelly was saying these things, and it was just and
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: they were like, okay, so that's the thing. He would
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: make sure this person could easily reproduce this thing and
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: then he wouldn't have to do any work when they
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: showed up. And I remember once after not like directing
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: me for years at a stretcher, like, oh you see
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: speaking to me?
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: What is happening? No directing.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: One point there was a scene with Sarpinigosa and he
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: would start it was directing. He said, now I want
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: you to kind of do this, and then you could
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: do more of this. And then he came up to
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: his said, you know, you come in and you give
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: him one of those you do that thing you do
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: and walked away. And I was like, in number twenty seven,
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: what what?
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: What are we doing there?
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: And he had decided that there were certain things I
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: did and that is what he wanted do that do
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: the thing I.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: Hired you to do. Just do that, and that it
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: was how we were.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, he would say, let's try one for blocking
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: and then go no, no, no, no, that's too complicated. I
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: don't want you to walk all the way over there
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: and picked that. Just go straight to her. And that
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: was generally. It was all about like cut, cut, cut,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: how can we shorten titan?
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: This all up?
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: He kept it. He kept things very simple, he really did.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And you know this was in the days when one
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: hour drama was generally shot with one camera, maybe two.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know how say Gilmore Girls was in terms
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: of multi cameras. You go on sets today there are
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: four or five cameras rolling and they're multiple masters and
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: you've got dollies and cranes and all this. It was
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: a single camera on a tripod. Now for Katherine Gregor,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: who played missus Olsen so brilliantly that Catherine was unrestrained
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: by concerns about continuity. He he ultimately started working with
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: two cameras with her so we could get the over
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the shoulder and the single at the same time. For continuity.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: They invented the steady cam for Katherin McGregor. I think,
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: just follower to follower. Where's she going? I don't know,
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: just follow her. So there was that.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we we maybe two cameras and remember an enormous,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: enormous size of a car, like enormous yeah thing.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it was all it was Panavision cameras.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: We had.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: The inventor of the steady cam, Garrett Brown, brought his
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: original steady cam to our set. It was one of
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the first places the steady cam was on Little House
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and I.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: Said, oh yeah, they evisited steady camp actually.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Show football where he could run down the field where
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: and Garrett was a big guy. Garrett was six five
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: six six gazelle kind of athlete, and he could run
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: with this thing and get these shots that nobody had
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: ever been able to get before.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: And they were very heavy back then. I mean now
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: I could carry a steady camp, but I mean it
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: was a lot back then. Yeah, big deal.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And these are things people take for granted now.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: You know, you can put your phone and.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: Film whatever nothing now.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But but you watch especially a little House. It
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: looks so good still because has Panavision cameras and everything.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's equality, well, the Panavision cameras, but it
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: was the men behind the Panavision cameras, Ted Boydlander, buzz Bogs,
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the light.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, our gaffers. These people lit. The show was lit cinematically.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: In its era, it was the most beautiful show on
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: television because it was lit like a movie, and that
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: quality is held up and in fact, when the show
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: was restored in twenty fourteen by Lionsgate for the show's
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: fortieth anniversary, they did a color correction pass through the show,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: taking advantage of all the color correction technology that exists
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: today that wasn't available then. The show is absolutely more
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: beautiful today than it was when it was new because
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the new one and the screens. The screens are better,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the detail of data is higher, the pictures are just
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: absolutely gorgeous.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Still, when you say it's cinematic, I mean it truly does.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Like every episode looks like a movie. It's it's so
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: we were making a movie.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: We were, as far as we were concerned, we're all
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: making a movie.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Now. It was slower because of the number of cameras
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and because it was not cut. It was not cut
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: on a nonlinear editing system. It was cut on movieola
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: where the razor blade and the tation. So you made
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: a cut, you really you had to know you were
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: going to make that cut. There was no undo. Let's
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: just do that again another way. Those editors had to
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: make those decisions. And if they had to put those
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: frames back, they could because they were in a trim
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: bin with the number with the frame numbers on them,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and they could put the frames back. But cuts were
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: made not capriciously at all. It was very deliberate.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: So how was Michael like in the editing day too?
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: He was just the entire process.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Watched the daily Back then you had to watch daily.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: You never a monitor in the sets. The next day
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: you had to take your lunch hour and go to
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: a theater and watch the daily. And he watched the day.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: He watched them, and he oversaw editing, He oversaw the music.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: I would get a new costume for that season. They'd
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: march me into making it to improve the costume. He
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: approved the props. I don't like this prop, take it away,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: bring me another way. I mean, literally every freaking detail
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: of the show was under his room.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: He picked, Yeah, he picked my I had costume initial
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: costume session with him. He picked. He approved all the wardrobe.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: He approved the hat very specifically that I was to
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: wear because he believed that hats said a great and
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: it's true in Western's hats say an enormous amount about
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the character, and he chose the hat for a very
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: particular hat to communicate, to help communicate what he wanted
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: this character to be.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: Well, he was serious down to the hats.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: But when he wasn't serious, I wanted to worry about
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: these pranks. He went, Paul, So.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: We're doing this show, and well, obviously we had episodes
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: we're extremely distressing and upsetting and heart wrenching, dramatic, and
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: so he had to break the tension because you can't
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: mean you got to finish the show. You got to
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: get through the rest of the day after he'd been
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: sobbing for hours and every time, and so there'd be
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: some terrible scene, and five minutes later he's cracking jokes
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: and making everyone laugh at even terrible things, and I
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: of course got you. Also didn't want to give him
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: a setup. I would make a terrible mistake of giving
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: him a giant setup. He could drive a truck through
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: and nobody coul drive out through the one with the
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: screen door where we would Laura had stolen the Olsen
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: screen door to use it for panning for gold, because
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: of course he did, and then put it back, and
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: of course we're idiots, we don't notice it's back, and
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Willie and I run and I crashed into the door
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: and smashed through the screen door hanging and the scene
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: is being set up, and so he sets it up
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: and I have to hang in some one bow is
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: a kimbo kind of thing. And we set this up
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: and I'm hanging in it, and he already had made
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: the joke about it being my screen test, but then
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: I was foolish enough to say since I was hanging
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: in there for the setup was taking forever customer making
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: a movie.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: The setup took a long.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Time, I said, why didn't you get a dummy for this?
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: We did, shut up and get your head back in
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: the door, and it was causing. Yes, when I crashed
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: into the branch and I'm lying or bleeding out my nose,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Bunny before, I'm going to pretend to be paralyzed, but
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: I'm unconscious.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: I got the fake blood on the nose and I'm dying.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: It's so quiet, and.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Again waiting for cut, waiting for cut.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: It's not coming.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: My eyes are closed, but I have no idea what
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: the heck is happening, and I just hear the ground.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: I was like, net's very quiet.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: No one has said cut, So I'm just not moving
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: until I feel a finger up my nose. Stuck his
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: finger up my nose so he'd have good outtakes for that.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I doing a scene in an episode and it was
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: going from a chair to a front door to open
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: the door, actually going from the kitchen to a chair,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and I did sort of a creeping thing stepping to
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the chair, and when I finished, she said, I wish
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I had done that way. I'm trying to save your career,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and you know it's just but I felt fine about
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I felt fine about what I had done, and he
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: really hated it. We were to reshot it. Now. That
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: was the thing with Michael is that if he saw it,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: he didn't need to do it again. And as long
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: as the cameraman or the first assistant, the camera assistant
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: could say, gates clean, there's no hair, No, there's nothing
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that's interfering with this. If he saw it and they
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: tell him they got it, he got it. He did
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: not need to shoot it again. He didn't need and
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: he wasn't shooting for anybody else. He was shooting for
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the network. You're shooting for another executive producer. He was
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: shooting for himself. And if he saw the thing, he
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: cut the show in the camera basically. I mean, there
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: was not a lot of extra film.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Because in today's world he would have been the show runner.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: Oh he was the director of the producer of the start.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: He would have been showrunner, which nobody called anybody a
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: show runner back then, but he show runner because he
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: was doing everything. But yeah, the most common words were cutprint,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: moving on in the magic words, because you do something
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: and you do it and maybe he was one to
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: maybe two. And of course outdoors a birdfly spy, so
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: it's five takes round. So you do things and you
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: do it, and you've done, he's cut and you're like,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: was that good?
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: I think that was good? I don't know. I felt
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: kind of good.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: I have no idea if that's good.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: And that was thinking.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: He'd look at Teddy or the guys to see if
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: they were okay technically, and they'd not and go cut print,
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: moving on. You go, wait, well, and they'd start dismantling
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: the set and they come, go change into your other
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: outfit because we're shooting page forty seven.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: Now you go.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: But I just literally finished doing the thing. Yes, yes,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: that was lovely, good move, but go on and yeah.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: There was like a long discussion after about what it
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: all meant.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: It was like, now we do the next one, just
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: to say yeah, he he.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: He had great confidence in what he was doing. I
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: think that anybody who was around Michael, and I've said
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: this so many times, I never saw a moment's doubt
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: in his eyes. I never had any I ever never
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: had the feeling that Michael wasn't absolutely certain about everything
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that was happening. Now, he may have had inner doubts
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: and anxieties about things, but he would ever have shown
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: that to anybody, and I think that it just bred
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: this enormous sense of confidence among everybody, among cast and
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: crew that if he says it's okay, it's okay.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: When you want to be.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Able to trust the director, I compared to the ship's captain.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Once you're at sea, just do what the captain say.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: To trust, someone has to.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: And then this thing he had paid very close attention
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: during Bonanza. He had just absolutely sponged that up everything
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: they did directing and watched it very closely. And so
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: when he said I know what I'm doing, he did
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: know what he was doing.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: And that's what's great.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: And I remember it freaked out Katherine McGregor because he
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: was so young, you know, he said, in his thirties.
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: And she was like, this.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Thirty something cute boy actor. I mean, he's little Joe.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: He's a little Joe. What the hell does he know?
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: And it's like, actually, he kind of found he was
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: on a bananza and he treated it like film school,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: and so that's what he did. And and she's like,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: why is he because he actually does know what he's doing.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: It's weird, but he knows what he's doing. And he
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: would come up with crazy ideas. He would change that
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: should be in the middle of filming, I mean the Wolves episode.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: I think this line would be funnier if you had
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: four job breakers in your mouth When you.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: Said it, what wait here? Try how?
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: He just looked at into How many job breakers can
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: you fit in your mouth?
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: I went, I don't really know?
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: He says, well, let's find out. And then it's like,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: try to put a fifth one and oh too many? Sorry,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: now say it again. You will your book perfect, Okay,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: let's roll. And he would just decide things, but he
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: did know what he was doing. He'd look at it
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: and go, it's supposed to be funny. It's not funny enough.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: It needs something and he would do that or no, no, no,
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: I know it, and he would do it and he
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: did know. And sometimes he would tell you to do
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: crazy things. He was like, no, just do it, just
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: do it, just do it. And then you'd see it
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: and you go, well, yeah.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I'll add something else. There would be you know, you
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: hear your shooting outside, you're shooting on the stage, but
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: really outside is where where you would have challenges on
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: locations and weather and all these things. And what was
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: so one of the other things that was amazing about
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: him is that if something wasn't working, or you couldn't
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: get to a particular location and you but you needed
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to have a scene, Michael could come up with the scene,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: whatever it was, in a completely different location that was
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: never in the script. He could come up with the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: scene that would add something wonderful to the episode. He
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: jotted down on his yellow legal pad. It would go
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: up and go out and get typed up. The pages
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: would be there. They hand you the pages. Learn this.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: We're going to shoot this in fifteen minutes. So there
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: was really no what was great about that? And I'm
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: sure Elson would concur with this. You're really loose if
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: there's no time to If you know that he's just
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: written it and everyone's seeing it for the first time,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: what's there to get nervous about. You just do it.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: You just do it because he's trusting it and we're
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: just gonna go. There's no like you didn't have it
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: for three days. You haven't had a lot of the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: things on it. But that again comes back to casting.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: He's hiring people who are delivering the feeling, the flavor,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the color that he's looking for in the In the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: in the show, and so you could throw material at
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: someone at the last minute and they're going to do
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: it because they do what they do.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Well, you saw how real our character The thing that
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: gets to how real our characters were, because that was
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: the key thing is once you knew who you were,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: once you knew what Nelly would do, what Nelly would
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: not do. Was there anything I wouldn't do? I don't
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: know what Nelly would do, and you knew who your
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: character was that it didn't really matter what they were
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: going to have you say or do, because.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: You were going to be them. And that was what
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: he counted on.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Because and Steve Tracy, the late great Steve Tracy Percival,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: he talked about this because he said, well, really, it
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: really messes with your acting technique because if you come
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: in and you have this very set method where you're
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: going to break down the scene beat by bee and
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: you're going to make notes, and you're going to do this,
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: and you've already worked out which memory you're going to
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: use for your sense memory and your substitution, except now
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: you've just been handed the yellow pages in the book pages,
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: and we're shooting a whole new thing. Go and so
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: he says, your improv training way more important than any
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: of this other stuff you learned. So he said, you
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: have to come up with something else. You have to
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: come up with something else that you can use in
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: that situation you have. And what it is is that
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: you're staying so in character all the time that if
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: they go surprise, you're like, well, now I'll be that
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: character doing that.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: He made it. He made it very simple and it
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: easy to succeed, and I think the show's longevity is
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: testament to the fact that he really got it.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. We have so much more to get into ry.
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: Quest of Michael London. It was amazing.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: I want I have so much more to ask you
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: about it. Dean Butler and Alison Argham, we're here with us.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: This is the Ice Small Pop Culture Podcast. We're gonna
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: take a quick break, play some commercials. We'll be right back. Everybody.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Dean Butler, Alison Ingham with us. It's Ice Mooll pop Culture.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: This is the I Am On Podcast Extra being here everybody,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: We're we're going into the world of Little House on
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: the Prairie this week. We are traveling to Wannut Grove, Minnesota.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: And uh, I have I have so many more questions
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: for you guys. So you kind of told me. I've
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: found it so interesting how you had to becoming the character,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Like like you get these changes at the last minute,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: and you're like, okay, what would what would Nelly do?
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: What would Almanza?
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Do you know?
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: So Allison specifically, I was I watched Country Girls the
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: other day, so.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Good, great, so good. It's a great episode.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, truly, And for anyone who isn't familiar
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: with Little House on the Prairie, I mean Nellie Olson
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: is one of the iconic TV brats I think of
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: all time, and Country.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: Girls my very very first episode, and I was thoroughly vile.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, how did you find the character that quickly?
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: That?
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: It's just remarkable, Like you're Nelly right away.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: It's so crazy, And you know, to quote the fabulous
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Sir Anthony Hopkins, you know, when he read the script
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: for Silence of the Lambs, which everybody had turned down,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: he said, it jumped off of the page at him.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: He read it. And when I get it as soon
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: as he read it once when I know who.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: This person doesn't have to do this and called his agents,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: it just make the deal because it was that kind
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: of thing. I had nothing going. I hadn't read the
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Little Housebooks. I didn't know who Nelli Elsen was. They
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: hadn't told me you're reading for the back nothing.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: They told me nothing. I showed up.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Besides, and I thought, wow, that's a lot of sides.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: It was every single piece of dialogue for the entire episode.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: You're just gonna read the whole thing, like, okay. My
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: father was with me, and as soon as I started
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: reading it, I mean almost, I don't think.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: The country girls have a penny. What do you think? Well,
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: if she's every word out of her mouth is some
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: kind of an insult and she's just terrible.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: And then my home thing and the big joke being
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: we have three sets of dishes, one for every day,
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: one for Sunday, and one for when someone very special
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: and important comes to visit, which we have never even
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: used yet. She doesn't even realize that you just said, hi,
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: nobody's coming, that we live wal to Grove, the Queen's
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: not coming to dinner.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: We have.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: It's hysterical and I'm ready going this is hilarious. But
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: my god, she's just like the worst person.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: In the world.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: And when do you get a part like that for
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: a little girl? Did the little girl parts? I read there, well,
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: it's his sweet little girl. Yes, mother, yes, father, And
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: this girl's like I do not care, please all kindly
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: drop dead. And I'm like, this is brilliant. And so
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: I started reading it from my father and he starts laughing.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: I said, I said, this girl's a total bitch. My
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: father said, what are you talking? And then I read
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: it and he's like, he actually said, there you go
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: school of Michaelan. And my father said, don't touch it,
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: don't move, don't do anything, don't read it again, don't
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: go over it again. In fact, put the pages face down.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: I don't want you to even look at them again.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: You go in and do exactly whatever that just now wants.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: I went right then, and that's what I did, and
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Michael Annon lost his tiny little mind and they had
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: and he hired.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Me on this.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: We got home, we got in the car, drove home
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: and the agent.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: Was on the phone the deal and was being made
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: like while I was in the parking.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Incredible done.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: So yeah, she jumped off the page. What wow, she's terrible.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: And we all know someone like that, we've all I mean,
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: I was bullied. This was the great revenge on bullies everywhere.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: I got to send them all up and mock them
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: because we've all met that girl, We've all had her
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: terrorize us. And I said, okay, well, we know how
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: it goes. And as a teenager, you're full of all
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: kinds of angst and hostility and things you need to
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: get rid of. And where can you You have to
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: behave yourself at school, and my god, you have to
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: go to work. But here I had this thing where
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: I could just go and just be hideous.
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: And let it all all the n out.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: And then I've talked openly in interviews in my book
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: that I was abused as a child, and the key
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: element of.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: That is terrible buried rage.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: People suffer their whole years to develop physical problems. They
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: have nowhere for that anger. Where does that anger go?
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: It turns in with I had a job where I
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: would come in and smash things and scream at the
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: top of my lungs and throw things and hit people
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: all day long.
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: Do you have any idea what that did for my
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: blood pressure and my well being? And it was fantastic.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: It was like they were saying me to have therapy
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: for seven years. It was fantastic, incredible.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: The scene at the Bunny scene where you're just trashing
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: the room. I mean I had to watch it three
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: times in a round.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: It's okay, and does it does it look like I'm
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: out of control? I'm so controlled. The prop men is said,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: this is a reproduction. You can break this. We have
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: four more of these. You can break this. Don't break this.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: This is a real ntique.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: Don't touch this here.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: You can pull the drapes down if you want you
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: we can put that back these, but you can throw these.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: Don't throw this.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, got it, got it, got it, checking
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: these off my head and then I did it and
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: was completely.
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: Screaming out of control, but like, don't touch three antique, keep.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Moving antiques and that's crazy.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: Don't break that. Oh wait, don't break that.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: It's real. Yeah, And I'm still like, just had that
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: in my head while I was completely screaming out of
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: controlling a banjee.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: It's incredible. It's again, it comes back to it comes
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: back to casting. Allison was just the perfect little monster
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: for that moment. What's what's what's really good? I mean,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I think what's really great, and because Allison is I'm
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: just talking. I'm talking about you like you're not here.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Allison is wicked, wicked smart, and and she gets the joke.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Allison always from the time she first read it. Oh
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: this girl's horrible. She knew the deal. I think that's
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why people have loved this character,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: love to hate this character, is because they're on the
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: inside they're laughing a little bit with her. They get
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: they get that she gets it. And yeah, I think
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: she was very Allison was very special. There's a reason
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: why she's been voted the most effective villain in the
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: history of television. Yes, and I mean who what little
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: girl in pin curls in with her lace and is
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the biggest villain in the history of that. It's not
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: j R. E Ing, It's Nellie Olsen, which is just
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: incredible when you think about it. I mean, he was,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: he was incredible. It was delicious as this as this villain.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: But Allison touched something primal about being human that people
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: absolutely love. Everyone can you can't not enjoy it.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: Everyone has an elite their school, everyone has a Missus
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Olsen at their job.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: You don't have you think of Nelid school, it's probably.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Get it's you.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: And this is also the original Karen.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: I mean she's just like so it's the people know
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: these people they recognize. And that's something I noticed because
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: in traveling around and around the world and meeting people,
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: I mean when we had people from Peru and from
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Afghanistan and everyone came to the reunion, I mean we
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: met people all over the world. And I meet people
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: from literally Borneo, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Israel, and they all
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: watch the Little House in the Prairie And I'm like, really,
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: they're running it there.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: It's they're running it everywhere.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: In forty countries around the world. Wow.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: And they all say the same thing, because, of course,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: like the guy from Sri Lanka, I said, Okay, what
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: does a show about a bunch of very very white
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: American people with blonde air, blue eyes in covered wagons
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: on the prairie of the United States.
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: Mean when you're living in a small.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Town in Sri Lanka, who they had electricity so many
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: hours a day they used to watch a Little House
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: in Umar and what.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: How what does this mean? What does this mean to you?
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: It's so completely different than the life you tell me
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: you were living there. And he said, oh no, everybody.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: He said, the anglestn't have any money, and they live
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: in a tiny place with a lot of children, and
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: they wonder are they going to make it? Will the
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: harvest come in? Are they going to make it? And
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: this is how most people. They're not Most people aren't
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: living in that big apartment on friends. They don't have
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: any money. They're not living like these people in these
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: fancy shows. Right, they're living like that. And we all
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: had a Missus Olsen in the village at our job,
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: we all had an Elliot school.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: We can identify with these people. We get it. And
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: I said, you're right.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: You know, the Iyatolahmioni. During the Iran Revolution, Lill Loos
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: was the only American program allowed in WOW time. And
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: I think one of the interestingly, Little House was the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: favorite show of the Iyetola, the favorite show Saddam.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: Hussein, Saddam Hussein's favorite show at.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: The same but I think in many ways, for very
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: different reasons. I think. I think I think the Ayatola
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: liked Little House as an example for his people because
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: he could say, what do we have to fear from this?
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: If this is what America is we have no problems.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: We're We're as good as they are. They're just like us.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: And it was popular in many countries where they said, well,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: all the dresses, the sleeves go down to the rest,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: and the dress go down to the ankle. So if
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: you said, we can't show you Western shows because there
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: are are you know, dressing guidelines and our religious values
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: and the thing. But it was so wholesome that in
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: countries where everything was terribly restricted, what we show this
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: perfectly if I look at these people and and then
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: I don't know. They said Saddam Hussein had daddy issues
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: and it was really obsessed with Michael Landon wanted him
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: to be his father.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: Horrible, complicated, insane story.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Daddy issues.
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: Yes, clearly something was the.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Matter, but he was obsessed with Little House. Would stop work,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: like I got to go watch Little Perry.
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: We always talk about it as this safe place. Little
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: House is a safe place no matter what's going on
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: in your life. We've met people through the years that
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: have gone through really horrible experiences in their lives and
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: they come to us and oftentimes with tears in their eyes,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: telling us that Little House. The Ingles specifically represented the
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: family they wish they'd been a part of that. Mon
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: pa Ingles were their parents. For all practical reasons. Michael
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and Karen have been historically through the years voted among
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: the most beloved parental figures in the history of television.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: And it just keeps coming back. And I think one
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why it lasts is because it was
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: old when it was new. It's never gone out of
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: fashion because it was never in fashion. It's just it
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: is in its own world. And I think people feel
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: safe going there and stepping into this world because it
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: is so totally apart from the world that anybody who's
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: living today in our country basically is living in. And
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I think that makes it very attractive to people.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: It pulls you in.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: I've heard from people who went through chemotherapy, various confusions.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: Someone who's in a body cast for like six months
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: and could move, and they said, but I could watch
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: Little House and I could just it took me completely.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: I didn't feel a thing, didn't feel a thing while
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: they were doing procedures. I could just watch that and
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: I had no anxiety, and I didn't even feel anything
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: while the doctors did what they had to do.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: What a special role to play in people's lives all
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: over the world. I mean, that's incredible.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: This an incredible gift. It has been this amazing, amazing gift.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Michael knew it was going to last. He said, this
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: is going to be people are going to be watching
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: this and loving it long after we're all gone. Now
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: at twenty five, when he said that to me, I'm thinking,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're twenty five, you're immortal. That just
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: couldn't happen. I'm never not going to be here. There
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: is no beyond me. Now it's sixty eight. After the
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: experiences that we've all had, you know, it feels very
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: clear that Little House is going to go on long
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: after we're all gone, because it does touch something in
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: audiences that is fundamentally human and decent. And it's not that, look,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: bad things happen on the house Little Houses love, But
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: what it is, I think it's how the bad things
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: are coped with. It's the grace of recovery. It's how
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: people gave come together as a community to deal with
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: the horrible things that happen to everybody from time to time.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: And I think that's just been an amazing gift of
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the program, and for all of us who are a
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: part of it, it's it's an amazing gift to be
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: the personification of these characters that mean that much to
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: the tow people who watch it and love it, it's amazing.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: And for those who can't see as the person who
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: just said I am sixty eight does not look sad,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: I'm like he says that, I got you're sixty eight.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: That's right yours.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: I'm just taking my job from jopping. It was like
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: sixty eight, what on earth away?
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: You can see it here.
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: I'm just turned sixty three and hanging in there. Everybody
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: from the show.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: Looks actually pretty good if you see all of it.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, Karen Karen, Karen Grassley is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: At eighty two.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: We think there was something in the water in Walnut
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Grove because every from the ship from the show is
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: freaking amazing. But it's true the number of people who said,
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: I just if my parents were Mom pow Angles, they
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: would have understood me. They would have understood me. It
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: would have been okay, yes, over and over again.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Oh my god.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: That's powerful here, that's and that's something that I think
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: everyone listening to everyone listening to this is a fan
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: of Gilmore Girls. And that's something that we hear from
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: our listeners and from the fans, is that you know,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Stars Hollow is a place that they like to They
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: rewatch the show every year. It's a place where they
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: feel safe. They Luke and laurelize this beautiful love story
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: that they love to revisit. And I think that's such
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: an important part thing for a television show to play
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: in people's lives. It's so important for there's people that
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: don't feel safe always. You don't know, there's things happening
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: in your world you can't control. And I think it's
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: so special that little house on the prairie exists to
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: you know, people.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: Generally underestimate the power of television and it's different than
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: the movies.
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: And we love the movies.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: But even if you're a movie star and people say
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: this to me to go, well, I know, I don't
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: really but you were in my living room, we're in
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: their living room. Exact Father Crazy throw Ingram used to
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: always say.
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: It's different. You're in their living room, you're in their house.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: The calls are coming from inside.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: They know you, and that is a thing that all
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: TV shows, even when you say, all that was a
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: silly fluff show, but to somebody somewhere, somebody somewhere who
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: was lonely or sad or something, it was there in
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: this house and those people were their friends.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, they they The program comes to them in their
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: most open, revealed I mean not just the living room,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: people watching, in their bedrooms, in their bathrooms, in their
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: kitchens in there. And so people feel like, because the
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: people watching are in such an open place in their
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: life as they're watching and unguarded, we just come in
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: and we become these characters, become part of people's lives.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: And there's a reason. I think that's the reason why
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: people really genuinely feel like they know you and and
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: you know, and I think they hope, hope, hope that
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: you are when they meet you.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: They hope that you are what they fall in love
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: with unless you're me.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Unless you yeah, yeah, but you give them a taste
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: But they also hope it'll be a toll, be slightly naughty. Yes, yes, yeah,
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: does that have If you're like at a convention or something, yeah,
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: people are like, come on, can you be mean to
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: me for a second?
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, you know, I'll do.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: Even the cameos, they're like, can you give them a
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: hard time in the cameo They're like, oh my god,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: it's so silly, but I I do. I still like,
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm terrible. I like making faces and sticking
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: my tongue out and everything. And the number of people
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: post for a picture. Can we have a nice one?
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: And then can we have when we make the horrible faces?
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes we can do that. Yes that's okay. It's like,
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: what the heck I.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Mean to be asked fifty years later as a grown
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: woman stick your tongue out again?
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: Please?
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: Because people are that excited about it, like sure, why?
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Hell? And people want warm, loving decent for me. They
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: know they are looking and all of us people want
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: something different that they want that thing. It's through these years, Easton,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: it's been very important to me to feel like when
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: someone meets me in this public kind of public situation,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: that they get what they thought they were going to get.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: That's really really important because you have touched them in
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: this very basic place. And I think if we can
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: be that, if we are that thing, one of those
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: things that they trust you want, I want them to
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: be able to continue to trust in that, and the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: gift I get for that is this incredible well of
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: affection and warmth it comes at me. I mean, that
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: is an amazing gift. And anybody, any of us in
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: this world who have received that, we know what that is,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: we know what that feels like. It's extraordinary. It's a beautiful,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: beautiful thing to get. So I want to take care
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: of it, you know, so that it keeps, so that
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: it keeps coming as long as I'm.
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: Walking down, because this is a good thing.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: It's grilling.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: Bob said to me once he watched me sign autographs,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: and he said, if I thought I could make people
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: that happy by writing my name, why would do it
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: all day?
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no exactly, Or to standing up and taking
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: a picture with people. It's it's it's remarkable. It's remarkable
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: what the program has given us. And as you're suggesting,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Gilmore cast has this same effect on people.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Different time period, different place, maybe different slightly different tone.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Little House was Little House was pretty on the nose.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: It was always on the nose, and it was I
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: think that was part of its disarming quality is that
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: you you when you saw something you were getting it
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: was you were getting what you were getting. There was
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: no hidden message, there was no I mean you got that.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: It was clear. The storytelling was absolutely crystal clear and
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: sort of primal.
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: They didn't have to decode anything, right.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: It's right in front of you.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have some questions about, uh, the fake Walnut
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Grove in Seam Valley. So I noticed some similarities between
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: Stars Hollow and Wannut Grove. And for everyone listening, stars
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Hollow not a real place in Connecticut, filmed in Burbank,
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: mere blocks from where we sit right now. The water
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Brothers a lot. And however, Wannut Grove filmed in Seami
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Valley at Big Sky Ranch, a real place in Minnesota.
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: Lovely place.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you visited many times.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: Starlin, great museum, adorable you.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Should good times.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Do people often do you hear from people that visit
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: and go, oh this is really film? Did and yeah? Yeah?
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: The poor people in Walnut Grove have a lovely gift
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: shop and museum and lovely attractions. It's it's a darling
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: little place. Anyway, hit that dairy queen. It's a great place.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: They go there and they film it doesn't look like
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: the shower and they go well, because this is where.
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: Laura actually lives.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: No, it's and then they got the people, I get grown,
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: grown people. And sometimes in the industry, you go, I
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: just I want to go to you know the town.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: The town.
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: Now, when you see the town, what do you mean
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: you know the town where we film? Yeah, I said,
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: well that's not very mean more well the no, no,
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: the town do you mean Walnut Grove in Minnesota? And
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: then they're brows knit And I really I go, whoa
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: did you all thought that was a real town?
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: It wasn't. I'm like, god, dude, you're forty five, and
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: it's it's it's hard. We made it. We made it
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: look very real.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: It did look very real.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: But yeah, and then the town it's not actually laid
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: out like the real Walnut Grove. I mean, uh, Oddly,
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: I think the distance of the Ingles home to the
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: town in school is actually the correct distance. Wow, within
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: a quarter mile at least, because it was like, yeah,
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: because it's like two and a half miles. And then
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: somebody looked it up and we checked Laura's books and
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: it's it's like two and a half miles bare rely.
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: So it's that part I think we got right. The
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: house in the barn, that's like laid out like if
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: you described the books, but the mercantile and the school,
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: and Elie didn't have a hotel. We just kind of
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: shoved everything in there so that that doesn't bear any
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: resemblance to really anywhere that she actually lived with.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: It was this idyllic setting that was laid out beautifully
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: by someone who I think understood the romance of a
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: small town. Now there's production design is a very powerful thing,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: and it's created that way. Now. One of the things
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: that is one of the most distinctive things about our
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: television Walnut Grove versus the real Walnut Grove. Well, one,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: there's no topography in the real Wallet Grove. It's flat
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: as a pan can there. And secondly, I think probably
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: most dramatic if you live on the East Coast or
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: sort of central country east, is that the country is
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: green in the summertime. In a great deal of the
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: country in the western part of the United States, because
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: of the lack of water and rain, it's dry and brown. Now,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: people could you could have pushed back on that, but
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: I think as a tribute to the program, people just
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: bought in to what they saw Now, look, there was
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: a sprinkler system that was around the little house, and
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: so you got this sort of ring of green around
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: the little house and barn in this little bowl, but
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: twenty feet up beyond that, it's dry as a bone. Now,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: how does that happen?
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: And then the one hundred year old oaks, which never changed,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter what the heck's happening. They're great, which created
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: promt is uh no snow and Minnesota course has enormous
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: blizzards and many many feet of snow. So the piles
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: of was it gypsum gypsum powder? And then okay, there
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: were three rings of snow. If it was in the
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: shot and someone's going to be touching it, it's crushed ice,
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: fake snow.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: If it's a few feetback and no one's going to
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: touch it, but needs to be shiny, it's the gypsum
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: powder on a white bed sheet.
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: If it's all the way in the back towards the
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: back of the school, it's literally just bed sheets over rocks.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: We're not going to get that close. And so the
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: three kinds of fake snow and so it's all fake.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: And then the trees are green and you can even
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: see green grass in the distance while we have all
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: these piles of snow around the store. And some people went, oh,
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: come on, but no people bought it. People thought there
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: was and the blizzards are people still like, are shock
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: that that was wax flakes and a fan.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: In the day when television was four hundred and eighty
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: lines of resolution, you could put a sheet over a rock.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: Beautiful and from a distance with a sauce, slightly soft
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: depth of fields situation. You bought it in HD. That
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: stuff shows up. Oh, people just accept it. And HD
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: is beautiful. It's also highly revealing, and you know, you
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: just sort of you just have to accept it. It's
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: a vintage it's a vintage program. I love that throwing
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: a sheet, a white sheet over a rock.
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just today.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: You can see that. If you're watching it on the
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: DVD or if you're watching more remastered version on on Cozy
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: or whatever, you're going to maybe see the sheet. If
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: you're watching it on a fifty inch television, you'll see it.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: You can't even get away with the pile of gypsum
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: looks like a big pile of gyps our. Wood paneling
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: looks a little some of our wood, that beautiful wood grain.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: In the high depth, you can see that in the
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: school someone has just taken brown paint and painted big
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: swirly lines, and that's a little more evident in.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: Some of the seats.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: It's not like watching Star Trek where you can see
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: of the stars stretch table on the bridge, which is
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: just a crack up to me that you can say,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: but you buy it because because the story is working. Okay,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: you accept maybe okay, it's wrinkled, doesn't matter. The story works,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: and that's we have that. We are blessed with that
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: The crazy believing is and we just talked about this
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: today on our podcast. Okay, so the famous cinnamon Chicken
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: episode where Missus Olsen is like, oh, it was because
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: you sell Nelly to him, and of course Laura sabotages
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: it with Kai and Pepper.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: So this is a scene where we eat.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: This chicken that is allegedly covered in kaien pepper, and
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: about the third chew, we lose it and start turning
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: red in the face and our eyes water and we're
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: choking down glasses of water and run to the sink
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: and the pumping and screaming, bloody murder were're just saying,
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: we nailed that so incredible.
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: I have people.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: Today fifty years later ago. So what did they put
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: on the chicken? I go with real life nothing. It
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: was lovely herbed baked chicken. But but come on, you
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: guys must have had pepper on the chicken to do that.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: Heaven forfend, we should be acting, but somehow we were,
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: I mean exactly, but we nailed that so well. And
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: I just watched it recently and wow, I mean you
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: go right red in the face like you are dying
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: in that scene. We we went all out and it
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: really is impressive. And I people today say, you know,
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: you weren't acting. There had to be pepper on that chicken.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: I always say to people, you you want the actor
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: to be in control of these moments. You don't want
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: to really choke the actor. Want, you know, the actor
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: has to be in command of the moment.
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: Allergic.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever, whatever you're gonna do, it's got to be
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: what you what you're doing.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Look, there are people who occasionally will slip a little
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: adult beverage into a glass of something, and that can
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: cause the eyes perhaps to pop open unexpectedly, but generally
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: you want it to be a moment that works because
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: the actors are making it work. You do not want
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: to manipulate. Now they manipulate small children. They like that.
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: It's true.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Wendy lu Lee who was sister Brenda, who were baby Grace.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: Brilliant, fabulous baby Grace, and they've grown up to be loved.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: But they tell stories about how in a scene where
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Pa is supposed to be having made them breakfast and
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: feeding them oatmeal, it's not supposed to be very good.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: And they need they need the children, They need Wendy
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: to push back on it. Well, they just they dumped
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: pepper all over it. Oh my one bite of that,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: and the Wendy pushed back and would never take anything
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: from Michael ever again.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: And that's what they wanted.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: She only need the one bite, so that from then on,
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: if you put a spoon here, she goes, no, no,
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: you again, a like run away and and she said, look,
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: you know, was it a lot of pepper?
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: Not really, but I was a bay soon as I
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: tasted it, I hated it.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: And she said, but she has clarified, I am okay,
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: I eat oat meal as an adult to this day.
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: It was not beverly scarred I made the oatmeal and
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: I did recover from that.
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: I am okay.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: So when you're filming a scene where I'm so fascinated
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: by eating scenes act like so.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: Many you some of the hardest scenes to do. And
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: to shoot them and cover them and cut them is
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: a really is a big deal.
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: And to eat your food but not eat your food.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: Don't be too fast because then they have to fill
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: up your plate again and know no continentary magic. But
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: then you have to eat a little bitter than everybody
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: and head home. Goes Oh, they're just pushing it around
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: on the plane again, for God's sake. So you gotta
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: get it's a fine line.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: And you have to cut the meat, pick up the fork,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: put it in your mouth in exactly the same place
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: every single time. Or you can you can push yourself,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: blow yourself right out of the scene if your continuity
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: is not good.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: So if you take a big chunk of food, you're
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: eating a bunch in that master shot, well.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: You're gonna be eating. You're gonna be eating hearty today.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Eating that. You will be very careful about it.
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: You gotta paste yourself.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I think of the you know, the kids that they
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: when we know this cast, the Walton's cast, and there
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: you know, there were ten people around the table every
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: time they got expert at eating on camera and not
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: just a lot and not eating exactly.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: They eat Every episode had three dinnersolutely.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they spent hours shooting these scenes. Now we had
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: our dinner scenes, but you know you didn't have a
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: lot of Olsen dinners. There were definitely well scenes, there
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't a ton of them.
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: We are.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: Our challenge was because we really good food. You guys
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: kept getting stuck with Dnty Morbi. Yeah, but the but
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: at the Olsen's we had the our lovely prop men
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: were such chefs. We had a roast leg of lamb
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: and a roast beef and a roast turkey and all
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: this fabulous food with like the mint jellian and the
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: biscuits and the We had seriously good food. So the
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: challenge was not to just go wow and just like
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: shove it in your face immediately. We had to pace ourselves.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: The prop man always said.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: We will give you a plate after this, so we
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: could eat delicately and then go, do I get with
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: this when we're done?
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: Yes, you get that when we're done. Because our food
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: was right.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: So I it's yes, try to play a rich person
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: on TV if you can. Especially it's just gonna be
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: a lot of eating. Because yeah, well.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: I mean I personally meeting this up. We have I
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: know we're runn out of time here, but if I
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: have a couple more questions about your podcast. Yes, we
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: have so much more to get into. We're gonna take
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: one quick break. We're here with Dean Butler Allison on
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Grim from Little House on the Prairie. It's the ice
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: small pop culture podcast. Stick around Dean Butler Alison on Grim.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: It's the Ice small pop culture podcast here and I
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: am all in. We're having such a good time here
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: in the audio, Walnut Grove, you guys have your own podcast.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: We're celebrating fifty years of Little House on the Prairie.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: It is the Little House fifty for fifty podcasts.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: But that's what's the first thing was now the Little
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: House fiftieth anniversary podcast.
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: Okay, because we went so far past doing for.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: The idea, we also say Little House and online is
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: the Little House Little House fifty podcast dot com.
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, because we're going to get like fifty episodes.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Hot, We're going to go well beyond me. I love it.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: And so in the podcast, You're you're looking back on
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: the show, you're interviewing some past stars. I listened to
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: some episodes. Great stuff, so much fun. You're You're chemistry
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: with Pamela Bob is great.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: She's about Pamela Bob of New York, who's a Broadway
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: actress and absolutely hilarious. But she's also a true die
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: hard Bonnet Heead fan, so she has what she knows.
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: She's like, Okay, I know what's important about this episode
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: because I'm one of those people that we the fans,
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: this is the part of the episode we found upsetting
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: that we need to know about.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: She know.
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: So she yeah, she gets it.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: She did her web series Living on a Prairie, and
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: she invited a bunch of us to come on. Allison
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: guested on the show. Charlotte Stewart guested on the show. Mary.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: I did not. I just couldn't see going across the
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: country to stick my head in the gym and you know,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: say one little line in retrospect, I wish I had
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: because it would have been fun to meet Pamela then.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: But there was something so wonderful, gracious, warm, she just
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: has this bubbly, welcoming quality about her. When we set
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: out to do this, I had a conversation Elson and
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: I had a conversation. So we've got to do this
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: with Pamela Bob because she is she is the sensibility,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: the mindset of the fan, and she's able to bring
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: that and she brings it lovingly, sweetly funny every single time.
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: She's really funny.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: And she's the one who came up with calling him
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: hashtag imaginary boyfriend.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: We've had a great time with it. So the first
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: season we really focused, We focused the lens through personality.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: In this second season that we just recorded our first
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: two episodes of today, we are focusing. It's a more
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: episode centric approach and we're going to be looking at
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: and we will bring in people who are parts of
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: specific episodes. But we have a lot to say about
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of things related to this, and we do
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: have a good time together doing it.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: It's really fun and we do have a good and
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: we have some people coming in I won't tell them,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: but people who've never been on like anything, and people
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: who are either rare interviews, and we have a couple
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: of people who guest start on the show who just
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: have never just nobody's doing interviews with them.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: They just did. We found them correct, they're coming on.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: So it's going to be Bananas.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Are like Gilmore Girls fans. If you are a devotee
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: of a program, you want to know everything. Oh yeah,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: so it's we can't go wrong. I mean, the more
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: we share, the more they love it. Yes, so it's
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: it's it's been a really great thing. I love it.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: That's good again. That's the Little House fifty podcasts and
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: you can get that on anywhere you get your podcasts.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: The Apple podcast, the whole thing. So on YouTube and
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: then all our social media. We are on we are
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: on Facebook, we are on Instagram, we're everything on YouTube,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: We're on absolutely everything. And we have a Patreon account too,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: so you can sign up and for a couple of
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: bucks you'd get the secret like magic, behind the scenes ring.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: Stuff that private, that private content for the patrons. All right, yeah,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: so pay law. Yeah, that's really fun. We've we've had
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: a good time with Well, we'll.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: Like interview a guest and then we'll do a patroon
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: thing where they'll answer a couple of questions that they
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: didn't answer on the like super duper personal ones, and
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: it's like, oh yeah, it's great fun.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: That's it's so fun. I have one more question for
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: you guys, but before we get into that, Dean, But
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: after Lttlehussele the Prairie, I was going through your filmography
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: during research for this and I discovered The New Gidget,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: a show you did after The Hustle the Prairie. I
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: am kicking myself that I didn't know about the show
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: until now. I love it. It's my new obsession. If
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: you ever want to do a new Gidget podcast, I
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: will be a listener. And overall, oh.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: My god, I sign you.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: I think you need to do a new Gidget podcast.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: You know, Gidget, it was so interesting. We started that
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: as a sort of traditional rom com, and then because
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: it was first run syndication, it was going to go
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: from sort of prime time audiences to reruns on Saturday mornings,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: and that dictated a radical change in the way the
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: show was conceptualized. It really had to become a live
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: action cartoon, and this is what it became. And we
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: had a producer named Larry Mallin who had done you know,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know he's gone on to do you know,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty episodes of Beverly Hills nine oh
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: two to zero in his career. But he had this
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: great bead on youth culture, and so we were doing
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: all every wacky thing that you could do with Karen
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: and I were wanting, well, this isn't the pilot. Did
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: this has nothing to do with the pilot. We did,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: but we but we really did have fun with it
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: and we've remained really good friends, and you know, and
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Gidget is Gidget is one of those iconic female characters
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: over time. Lour Ingles Wilder is an iconic female character
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: of another time. I played Buffy's dad on Buffy the
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Vampire Slayer. Buffy was an iconic female young female.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: Character, Judy Bluemes forever, Yes.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: Right, did that earlier. It's really been amazing to be
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: able to be a part of the but nothing has
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: the resonance that Little House has. And I loved doing Gidget,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: and I loved the few epiods I didn't do a
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: lot of episodes of Buffy because it wasn't about father's
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: It was about a dysfunctional family who and a father
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: who wasn't there. It was about mother and daughter and
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: all the crazy things going on near the hell Mouth.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: But but I loved that cast. What a talented group
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: of people they were. Oh my god, Joss Whedon talk
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: about an ear for youth culture. Unbelievable.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: We just talked to Julie Ben's who played Darla on
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: Buffy and she because Buffy was mentioneding Goimore girls across
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: the court. We heard a lot of great stories from that.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Oh my god.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: Well, I like to tease him that he's that guy.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: He somehow carved out this niche of being the man
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: in all of these famous, real and fictitious women's lives.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: He's the dude in Laura's life, in Buffy's life and
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: gets its life. He's that how.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: Who comes up with that? And then you were you
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: were a Punzels.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: The guy and I'm like, how how did you?
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: I've been fortunate to be and it's again, Eastern an
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: incredible gift. I mean, look, I get my DNA from
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: my parents, and I you know, I'm gifted with that.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: And I've had the opportunity to be able to interface, interact,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: play relationships with some really special female characters. And you know,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: it's just been a great time. I've absolutely loved it.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: What a gift. It's been an amazing gift.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: So incredible. But okay, before we rat off into the
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: sunset here, I want to ask this is such a
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: hard question.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Good little house reference to riding off into the sunset.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: Good for you, I am a professional. Well do you
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: have is there a one memory that stands out among
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: the rest from your time on the Little House that
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: you think of and go wow, I can't believe this
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: or what you know? When someone asks you what's your
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: favorite moment from your experience? Is there something that kind
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: of bubbles to the top.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: And it's so hard because I mean, there was ever
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: yeast seven years I was there, from the time I
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: was twelve to lowest nineteen, which is your entire formative years.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: All yes, I said, I started junior high, I got
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: a junior high, went all the way through high school,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: moved out of my parents, and I was still.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: On the damn show. You know. It was so crazy.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: So it's it's hard to say, but some of it
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: is from that that first day, the first day when
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: I met Melissa Gilbert and when I met all these people,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: and it's like, what have I gotten myself into and
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: Melissa Gilbert, she was so so tiny that I actually
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: said in my book, oh god, she looked like I
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: could fit her in my purse and she could chew
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: her way out, and she is said, yeah, that was
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: pretty accurate actually. And it's just the personalities, I mean,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: casting the personalities Katherine McGregor, the personalities of these people
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: on this show were just unbelievable. I mean, if you
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: thought they were excited on screen, you should have hung
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: out on the set.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: These people were amazing.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: And have all of them in one room, I mean,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: the different acting styles, the different this, the different that
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: was just mind blowing. And to walk in the first
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: day meet them all, It's like, whoa, what did what train?
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: Did I just get on?
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: Wow? It's amazing. Wow. I'll never forget that. You know.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: One of the memories couple of memories that stick really
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: really strongly, that arrival the first day, uh, for that
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: first season and seeing the size of this unit, the
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: number of trucks, the number of people, the animals, the
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: wagons that you know, every everything that populated that world,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: from every stick of furniture to the horses and the
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: bales of hey came in on trucks each day to
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: Big Sky Movie Ranch and that seeing that was just awesome.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: And then we had a Blue Max this called the
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Blue Bax, this bus that had Little House on the
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: Prairies Monday nights at eight on NBC, on the bus,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: on the on the people do. I mean, look, you
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: see those things around, but when you're a part of that,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: you suddenly are a part of that. That's really cool
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: In terms of a moment. In terms of a moment there,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: I love a moment at the end of an episode
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: called Days of Sunshine Days of Shadow, when Manzo has
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: been paralyzed and learns to walk again and gets up
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: and walks across the yard into Laura's arms, and the
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: world is going to go on again. Their life is
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: going to be okay after ninety minutes for two and
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: a half hours of misery, it's going to be okay.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: And I love the way that moment was scored. I
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: love the way it was shot. I'd love the Blissa's
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: reaction to it. It just there was a really wonderful
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: kismet in that moment. And you know, if I could
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: have could have had moments like that over and over
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: and over again, on camera. Those are the kinds of
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: moments I'd love to have, and it sticks out for
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: that reason just because it's it's a very it's just
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: a powerful human moment. And I've been always been very
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: happy with the way that turned out. There are lots
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: of moments that I'm not thrilled with, but that's when
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: I am.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: How many people, especially okay child actors, And of course
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: I was very young winos on the show, and a
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: lot of my friends with child actors many have terrible
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: experiences and people were horrible to them on the set
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: and their lives were ruined. I was very lucky, really supportive.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: It was one of the most supportive, loving environments I've
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: ever been in. And and yes I had a trust fund.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: I got my money, so it's like whoo, So I
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: like survived being a child actor. But the thing is
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: is so many child actors will look back at their
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: show or they did and they will feel bad. They
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: will feel sense almost of shame. They will say that's
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: not a very good performance. I wasn't very good. I
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: was just you know, mugging or doing a little joke,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: or even if it's good, they don't see it as good,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: they go, I was just it.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: I didn't know what I was doing. Man, I look
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: back on Little House. We were amazing. We were all
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: freaking amazing.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's so generous, that's so jerious. I do have
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of those moments, oh oh my god, oh
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: my god, what was I doing? But the moments, But
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: as an overall body, you know, I've talked about the
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: fact that Melissa and I were enough different in age
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: that there wasn't really a possibility of having any sort
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: of real relationship with her. It just would have been
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: completely inappropriate. We made our way through that despite the
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: age difference, and on balance, overall, I look back at
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: that and I can say I feel good about what
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: we accomplished, and the fact that people continue to watch
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: it and love it and appreciate what this relationship means,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: what it means in their life. You know, who could
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: not be happy with that?
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: What you're doing work.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: There's still people posting on Facebook pictures of Laura and
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: all moms with big hearts around.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: If you guys didn't generate.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: Some kind of sense of love and wrote, they wouldn't
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: be doing that.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: The videos that are done of us that to popizz
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: Country songs. It's the you know, clips cut over and
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: over and over again to different music. I mean, it's
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: really cool that fandom is just amazing. Most people, the
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: vast majority of people who will ever live, will never
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: understand or experience what that feels like. And I think
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: you have to have a sense of perspective about it,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: and you have to know you can't take it for granted.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you do take it for granted, it's
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: going to eventually bite you. Yeah, But if you can
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: appreciate it for what it is, it's this amazing outpouring
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: of love and affection that you have to be in
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: that kind of a position to get that. There are
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: very few other professions will ever experience that.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: And no, we never thought and fifty years later anybody
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: would be watching the show or speaking to us or
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: care or that anybody would even know that any of
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: this ever happened, or it's completely blown all of our
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: minds right out of our heads. We're all stunned, but
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: we are appreciative. We're like, oh, wow, Okay, something happened.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: We did something. We don't even completely understand it, but
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: it happened and it was good, and.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: We're like, yes, yes, yes, we get it. We were
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: in we're into it. Bring it, bring it. We're good.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it shall be here long after we're all,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: after the planet is gone, there are still aliens will
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: be watching and the rebels of planet Earth.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: It'll be like it'll be like Galaxy quests.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, it's beamed into space.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: I was at the space center in Belgium and they
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: had a thing, you know how, like what was it,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: the thing voyager where it has bits and pieces of
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: stuffs and they have video that they sent into space
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: and yes, yes, you know what, there's a glip of yes,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: it's in there. It's in there, Yes it is. Yes,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: the aliens have already seen it. It's it's okay, the
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: aliens have.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: Already seen it. Well we'll find out.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming into days. It's been
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: so much fun. And everyone go listen to their podcast.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: It's great that I've listened to many episodes now. They're
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: just wonderful. And go watch the Hustle and Perry. It's
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: a good show.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: It's a great show.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 6: Yes, thanks Houston, Thanks against.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: Everybody adult again. Follow us on Instagram at I Am
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: All In podcast and email us at Gilmour at iHeartRadio
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: dot com.