Little House on the Prarie

[Tonichelle]

I have no idea either

the sleigh rides were during the courtship of Laura and Almanzo He would go and pick her up from school, and then later from the schoolhouse where she worked so that she could be with her family on the weekends

 

[Lucy25]

She actually met up with the Ingalls' later and hated her life in the small railroad town. She wanted Almanzo's attention and tried to "steal" him from Laura.
QUOTE]

In all my research and reading of Laura, I have never heard this. Where did you get this information?

 

[Tonichelle]

well unless I have my characters wrong, it was in the book right before "These Happy Golden Years"

I guess I should say Laura was jealous and a little leery of the girl's intentions... at one point she and Laura were taking rides together in Almanzo's Buggy and he finally figured out that it bugged Laura and so he quit that altogether and just rode around with her...

again I could have the characters wrong, but I'm pretty sure I don't LOL

 

[Kasey]

Actually, she sounds like an incredible person! Read:

http://www.hgd.com/alison/

Actually, I was just referring to the remake of LHOTP, not stand up Nellie...I've seen clips of her, I think on E!, and she's quite funny...

Kasey

 

[Blue Bead]

For those of you who are bothered by the differences in accuracy beteen the tv series and the original books, the difference between them exists because they are two totally different types of fiction represented there. The one is the traditional novel and the other is the more sensational type of fiction which appears in tv and movie screenplays. As someone who has written traditional fiction for several years, I've had to learn the hard way that what is plausible in a screenplay won't be considered believable by the reader of a novel.

Back in the days when LHOTP was such a hit there didn't seem to be as much of an uproar from people who had read the books until the stories began taking major liberties away from the original novels. To visually depict the stories exactly as they were in the novels would have been boring within a visual format. It is nearly impossible to exactly depict a fictional novel in the same way in the form of a screenplay. That is one reason,now, that you frequently see a tv or cinematic movie "based" on a novel. The producers didn't think it was sensational enough to either attract or sustain the interest of the viewer or the movie-goer.

The screenplay is effective when there is a lot of over-the-top interaction between the characters and a lot of action-type events but if the same thing were in novel form no reader would believe the story. People read novels to discover all about the characters portrayed. They watch movies and tv series for the action displayed, be it very emotional arguments between the characters or crash-and-burn disasters. Part of this has to do with the visual element of tv and movies, and how people react to them and what they expect from the two formats.

 

[berthes ghost]

Back in the days when LHOTP was such a hit there didn't seem to be as much of an uproar from people who had read the books until the stories began taking major liberties away from the original novels..

I don't know what you mean by "as much" but I remember that the show was controversial for it's departure from the books right from the get go. I always remember reading an article about it from the paper in school as part of class, because that's where I first learned the word "coy". The main point of the article, as I remember it, was the all too cutesy sanitization of frontier life.

I personally don't think that the tacky Hollywoodization of the novels can be fobbed off as the artistic difference between mediums. There were plenty of more realistic issue-driven shows on TV at the time. This was just the goodytwoshoes "seventh heaven" type show of it's time, driven by the cheesy "christian" values of it's producers, IMHO.

 

[NJSk8Fan]

Just chiming in to say that I didn't read the books but I loved the LHOTP shows. I've watched them over and over when they've been on TBS in the mornings.

I didn't read every post word for word, serves me right for not keeping up with the forums over the past week or so....but I don't think anyone has mentioned, and I HOPE I'm getting my facts correct here.....but didn't the actress who played Almonzo's sister skate???

 

[Ptichka]

...anticipating the wedding day, shall we say, is no 20th century phenomenon. And of course back then, many girls would have been lucky enough not to get pregnant early, so nobody would have known- and probably even more went further than we might think today, if not "all the way". Human nature hasn't changed much.

Oh, I am certainly not suggestinh that nobody had pre-marital sex in those days. All I am saying is that it would normally be the man who would initiate courtship, unless the two were childhood friends or something. Even if the woman did initiate somewhat, it would be done far more discreetly.

 

[Johar]

I was terrified of going blind after the episode where Mary went blind. That left a deep impact on me.

Is there any death record for Almonzo?

Laura saw so many things in her lifetime, going from horse and buggys to cars, trucks and airplanes. Wonder if she ever drove a car?

Does anyone remember the episode where Albert had a raggedy female friend who had a very mean father? The young girl was pregnant(I think she had been raped) and Albert was going to marry her to "save and protect" her. Can't remember if the girl died at the end of the episode. I think to escape her angry father she ran up to the loft of a barn and fell.

Another episode that sticks out is where the girls were swimming and one drowned. In her grief, the deceased's girl's mom kidnapped Laura and kept her in the house, convinced that she was seeing her dead daughter.

Remember when Ma got an infection and heated up the knife to cut it out? OUCH!!!!! That episode still makes me cringe. She cut her leg on a nail that was sticking out of the wagon. Not sure why she didn't go see Doc Baker.

Remember when Laura stuffed apples in her dress to make it look like she had bigger breasts? Miss B had her go to the board to do a problem and the apples fell out. Humiliated, she ran out.

 

[show 42]

Almanzo Wilder died in 1949 at Rocky Ridge Farm at the age of 92. Laura died in 1957 and stopped writing her children's books after her husband died. There is a wonderful book called "West From Home" edited by Roger Lea MacBride which are letters Laura wrote to Almanzo when she visted Rose in San Francisco in 1915..........I highly recommend it for those who are interested in that phase of Laura's life.....42

 

[Lucy25]

well unless I have my characters wrong, it was in the book right before "These Happy Golden Years"

I guess I should say Laura was jealous and a little leery of the girl's intentions... at one point she and Laura were taking rides together in Almanzo's Buggy and he finally figured out that it bugged Laura and so he quit that altogether and just rode around with her...

again I could have the characters wrong, but I'm pretty sure I don't LOL

By jove, you're right! Forgot about that. Almanzo admited to Laura that he felt sorry for Nellie because she was stuck out on a really run-down farm, but Nellie was so annoying on their buggy trips that it really irked Laura.

 

[Lucy25]

Does anyone remember the episode where Albert had a raggedy female friend who had a very mean father? The young girl was pregnant(I think she had been raped) and Albert was going to marry her to "save and protect" her. Can't remember if the girl died at the end of the episode. I think to escape her angry father she ran up to the loft of a barn and fell.

Another episode that sticks out is where the girls were swimming and one drowned. In her grief, the deceased's girl's mom kidnapped Laura and kept her in the house, convinced that she was seeing her dead daughter.

Remember when Ma got an infection and heated up the knife to cut it out? OUCH!!!!! That episode still makes me cringe. She cut her leg on a nail that was sticking out of the wagon. Not sure why she didn't go see Doc Baker.

Remember when Laura stuffed apples in her dress to make it look like she had bigger breasts? Miss B had her go to the board to do a problem and the apples fell out. Humiliated, she ran out.

I have always wondered where some of these script ideas came from, especially the one with Albert and the pregnant girl. Of course the whole Albert idea never happened, although for a time the Ingalls did run a hotel (1875) in Burr Oak, Iowa after Pa's crops had failed. It was not a loud city, like in the series. Laura did not write about this in her books because it was when her brother died, and it was a painful time for the family. They were only there for a year.

 

[Johar]

O yea, I forgot about her baby brother dying. She went to the mountain to be closer to God and met up with a kind soul who guided her. She was jealous that the baby was being given so much attention and wished he would die or something awful.

Mrs. Oleson was such a hoot! She loved to gossip, especially when phones were new.

Anyone remember Nancy, who Mrs. Oleson adopted as a Nellie replacement?

Anyone remember the backward town Mary sub teached in? The townsfolk were creepy and superstitious.

This is a good thread!

 

[show 42]

Talk about getting script mileage from a few children's books. I loved every episode and watched faithfully every week, but gave up trying to see the tie-ins to the novels.........It reminds me about the "MASH" episodes. There series actually ran longer than the Korean Conflict..... 42

 

[Tonichelle]

By jove, you're right! Forgot about that. Almanzo admited to Laura that he felt sorry for Nellie because she was stuck out on a really run-down farm, but Nellie was so annoying on their buggy trips that it really irked Laura.

LOL! Yeay! I thought I was going crazy and that I had no idea what was going on in one of my favorite children's book series!

 

[Lucy25]

Sorry about that! Can't believe I forgot about the grownup Nellie.

 

[sk8tngcanuck]

Leave it to me to be on holidays when you all are discussing my all time favourite series.

I watched this program faithfully at 4pm every single day, and drove my classmates insane because my show and tell time was spent each day telling everyone what happened on LHOTP the day before

I just bought my daughter the series of book for christmas, and she loves it as much as I do. She and I also used to watch it at 7am every day before school on TBS until they changed their scheduling.

I will be very curious to see what they do with a remake of the series. I can't possibly see how it can be nearly as good as the original, but look forward to the effort.

Canuck

 

[TRAxel]

Dumb idea IMO.

A classic program such as LHOTP should be left alone.