Blergh

Oh, I agree with ALL the above! Yeah, it would be great if there were steady jobs out there where one could be guaranteed of being paid to 'do your own thing' while completely disregarding any expectations of patrons/bosses,etc. but that's not reality. Yeah, J.J. truly shot himself in the foot (and the food) via not making even the slightest effort to consider what MIGHT have been apt subject matter for a bank lobby which could have led him to be put on the 'art map' far beyond his housing project neighborhood. I also agree that he was often a rather annoying character who was only tolerable when his bragging,etc. backfired on him. I also thought he often was needlessly antagonistic towards Thelma- to say nothing of often being needlessly flippant to James [not that James himself was the most levelheaded or even tempered character but still. . .].

OK, on a somewhat lighter note: Good Times (1974-1979) break out character J.J. (Jimmie Walker) didn't have the sharp intellect of his younger sibs Thelma or Michael but even so, it's hard to believe he could be so dense even when the family was depending on him. Case in point in 'The Mural' (Season Three) , in order for Thelma to obtain the $200 needed for college (scholarship included [can you BEAT that price even in the mid 70's?!], J.J. agreed to paint a mural at a bank for $250. He and the rest of the family smugly predicted that this was going to lead to future fame and glory. Now, since this was a commission that he was doing at the behest of a patron (specifically the bank president) one would think J.J. would check his ego at the door long enough to paint something apt for a bank [e.g. a mural of multicultural patrons in suits and uniforms in line at the bank to help fulfill their goals] but instead he painted a rather raucous match at a pool hall which prompted the bank president to attempt to refuse to pay him. Incredibly, not just J.J. but his entire family (Willona included) took umbrage at the mural not being adored- as though the bank president was being totally unfair, square . .etc. for not being crazy about the mural's subject matter but surely they'd all seen the inside of bank lobbies before this and on what planet would that painting have been suitable for that particular venue? If this had been a pool hall, SURE but this was a BANK! Finally, after James threatened physical harm to the bank president [?!], the bank president agreed to pay the monies to J.J. as he had agreed to but they all seemed rather put out that the mural was still going to be painted over. OK, since the bank president initially HAD agreed to pay J.J. the money [and it was for a worthy cause], I get that that was fair. However, J.J. would have done well to learn the phrase 'when in Rome' [AKA banks AREN'T pool halls] when accepting a commission [especially when working to help his sister with her education] instead of going rogue first thing!

Of course, it needs to be mentioned that Henry VIII himself was no 'rose' himself but a 50-something gout-hobbled grossly overweight man whose leg wounds could be smelt three rooms away [in a time and place of irregular bathing,etc.] . I've often thought he was so enthralled with the idea of getting to wed this teenaged girl that he didn't check the sheets,etc. too carefully to see if she'd been chaste beforehand. On a tragic note, there's strong historic evidence that young Lady Catherine had experienced SA as a very young girl at the hands of male cousins and their cronies growing up in her rather detached grandmother's abode. IOW,considering ALL the above, the writers REALLY blew the chance to accurately depict Henry's doomed 5th union.

I saw footage of JG's Simi Valley Q&A session and a few things stood out. One is that he said that he got the part of Willie because he somehow made ML laugh a great deal instead of having going through an audition process and that he had liked hearing ML laughing. So, no, there was nothing about ML taking up the reins as 'father-figure' for JG after Paul Gilbert's death (which MG said ML had done for her) but it seems they got along very well. FWIW, he said he was 'currently' single but whether this means that he'd ever been married or had had a significant others (much less offspring) went completely unaddressed. BTW, he laid great praise at the late Miss MacGregor for being an 'acting genius'!

Happy 97th Birthday and Easter Sunday to William Daniels! I looked it up and it seems that there won't be another Easter Sunday falling March 31st until 2086 (and I'm not sure either Mr. Daniels nor myself will be around for it)! He's had a spectacular body of work from having done live radio shows in the 1930's to voicing KITT as recently as 2020! I hope he and his caregiving spouse of 72 years Bonnie Bartlett along with the rest of their loved ones are having a fun celebration today!

It was definitely the latter! I mean, Harriet even fessed up to Nancy first thing that she KNEW that the reason Nellie was disliked was because she [Harriet] had raised her to be spoiled and mean yet Harriet ALSO wanted to raise Nancy the SAME way despite knowing how friendless her own daughter had wound up before her marriage! As soon as they brought Nancy home Harriet put her in Nellie's frocks (and the producers went so far as to put the young performer in Alison Arngrim's own specially made wig) then eagerly rubbed everyone's face re her 'new Nellie'! The only problem Harriet has with Nancy is when she found out that Nancy lied about her bio mom having abused her since the poor woman had died giving birth to her and so Harriet dunked Nancy in a dunk tank [Laura's idea] for having lied about her background. ..somehow that was a mortal sin. Yet Nancy had tricked another girl into getting locked in an ice house [because she loathed others paying attention to this other girl] and only because someone checked the ice house and found her in time before she succumbed to exposure that the other girl hadn't gotten murdered! Yet NO ONE so much as mentioned that much less attempted to punish Nancy for it- just having lied about having been abused by her mother who'd died in childbirth. All-in-all, they should have just gotten Harriet a mannequin dress-up doll . . And, just in case, even the dimmest viewers missed Harriet's (and the show's) MO, Nancy's intro episode was entitled 'The Reincarnation of Nellie'- yep, even though Nellie had just moved to NYC instead of getting her reward!

That Little House dollhouse actually looked more spacious and comfortable for its inhabitants than the title abode and I must say whoever made it did a remarkably good job! Yeah, too bad ML didn't consider marketing toys like that. BTW, The Waltons DID market a dollhouse on a somewhat smaller scale than the family home complete with a few but not all members of the 11 person family as dolls (and came in a box that had Kami Cotler [who played the youngest child Elizabeth] pictured playing with it)!

IIRC, most if not all the students were taken in by Walnut Grove citizens (though NONE by the Ingallses) and it seemed that the majority of them had no living parents or might have had parents who'd permanently dumped them in the blind school and never visited them [BTW, this hasn't been unknown down the ages re parents of challenged offspring]. In any case, it seemed Mary and Adam considered them their de facto offspring. ..until Adam regained his eyesight and decided his talents were being stifled teaching them instead of being a legal eagle so he and Mary dumped them elsewhere without a backwards glance! On an unrelated LHOTP RL note: a recent ZOOM interview with several cast members including AA got her to claim that JG himself appeared in the Schoolhouse Willie outfit when touring the reconstructed temp schoolhouse so AA got her husband to retrieve her Nellie ringlet wig from their car and THAT is when they did the recreated photos in the schoolhouse and the reconstructed temp Mercantile! Yeah, it seems that JG had either somehow preserved the Schoolhouse Willie outfit down the decades OR had had it reconstructed but I think it may have been the former since the pants appeared to have been somewhat worn.

Here's one from Little House on the Prairie: After Nellie permanently departs for NYC with her husband Percival Dalton/Isaac Cohen and their baby twins, Harriet Oleson gets a major depression to the point of taking to her bed for two weeks straight. Everyone is worried about her so what does Charles do? He gets the 'brilliant' idea to try to cheer her up by reminding her how his life was made better after he adopted Cassandra [really?] and urged her to see about adopting another child to cheer her up! In no time flat, Harriet and Nels are at an orphanage interviewing 'replacement' daughters but none of the well-behaved and docile residents spark her interest. That is until she gets wind of the orphanage bully Nancy who constantly wreaks havoc on all the other residents and even the caregivers. Harriet at once insists that THIS would be the perfect Nellie-replacement! And the die is cast! Considering ALL the trouble Charles, Laura and the REST of the Ingalls family had had to endure from the premarital Nellie, did Charles truly imagine that Harriet would want a well-behaved child and/or not try to seek out ANOTHER bully who'd wreak havoc on the Ingallses? Yeah, Charles not only shot himself in the foot sticking his nose into Harriet's business and setting the stage for the Nancy trainwreck but also wound up hobbling virtually everyone else in Walnut Grove via that ill-fated shot! D'uh!

What was odd was that the distance from the [fictional] city of Winoka in the Dakota Territory to Walnut Grove was easily covered via covered wagon in a single day (from 6AM to early afternoon) for the Ingallses yet it took about two or three days for the Blind School kids to walk it. Now, one must wonder if it would have taken so long if they had given had the kids ride the two wagons that Charles and Joe Kagan drove (and Harriet Oleson tagged along) or was there not enough room for everyone to sit. Also, it was a bit much that they had all the students (as well as Mary and Adam) sleep outside in the pouring rain overnight while Charles, Joe Kagan and Hester-Sue got to sleep inside the two covered wagons- as did the uninvited Harriet! Of course it was funny how Harriet was the ONLY one who complained about how tiresome the journey was while the blind kids stoically grabbed the knotted rope and did their best to keep up with the pairs of horse pulling the wagons.

Why? It's well documented that Melissa (born 1964) and Jonathan (born 1967) each had been borne by different sets of bio parents and then adopted in infancy by Paul Gilbert and his then-wife Barbara Cowan.

I think this is as good time as any to give credit to Dean Butler and many others for having organized this even and (re)built Walnut Grove's iconic landmark building from the ground up in time for this 50th Anniversary! Yeah, their work definitely paid off. Still, I have to wonder if he and Lucy Lee Flippen might have felt a bit overshadowed by the re-appearance of JG. I mean, they had their own tent 'Meet the Wilders' but I imagine that many attendees might not have felt as awestruck by them as they were by that re-appearance (in much the same way few folks would opt to see a dog and cat exhibit when there was a dodo one in the same venue).

For someone who allegedly loathed performing, JG sure seemed to have had his fun aping his iconic role! Interesting that he was willing to wear the [altered] 19th century schoolboy costume while AA herself kept contemporary threads but just added a curly wig to her short blonde locks. On a shallow note, that pic with him smiling did seem to take off a few more years off his appearance so that he could have passed for 30! I wonder if ML would have been impressed or intimidated by JG's current hair length/thickness (which appears to have no grey strands).

How tough would it have been for Ray and/or Lucy to have had a momentary reaction of 'EWWW!!!!' while shuddering upon hearing the news? But,none of the characters who'd known about their unquestionably dubious encounters ever even vaguely alluded to it. P.S. Yes, even had they NOT been related- for a grown employee to have had sexual encounters with an underage girl( his employer's granddaughter) was already icky- to say nothing of criminal!

I could imagine the late Fred Rogers would have made a show similar to that for the sake of those who'd been children at the time were he still in this world.

It's telling that JG seems to be somewhat chummy with Mr. Busfield so I guess that means he and his adoptive sis could possibly have made their own peace. . Again, I stress that JG's adult life [including sib bonds] are totally his own business unless he chooses to share them with others (and it's possible that his ringless state could be due to him having once been married but no longer and/or having never worn one regardless of marital status- and it's also possible that he could be protective of any offspring's lives even more than his own offstage life). Still, it appears that he HAS made his peace with having been in LHOTP as well as embracing the fandom so, regardless of anything else, JG seems to have netted some positive experiences from the event. Interesting seeing Miss Flippen and Miss Lester together since I can't recall their characters ever having a conversation (although Hester-Sue did awkwardly get acquainted with Harvey- the one Eliza Jane had wished had been her flame). BTW, one of the oddest stories that Miss Lester told in her autobio was that her mother intended to name her 15th child 'Ojarva' for reasons never made clear to anyone in the family but the local registrar ruled that 'Ojarva' was an unacceptable name thus originally named Miss Lester 'Revoyda' (I don't see why anyone would have considered that an improvement). Yeah, I can't blame Miss Lester for going with 'Ketty' as soon as she became an adult to either of those clunkers. Also, Victor French, Jr. seemed to have his fun singing 'Ole Dan Tucker' in a plaid shirt . Ironically, it appears he's actually a few years older than his father's ultimate age.

I totally agree with your assessments of Lana @Spartan Girl and thought it would have saved the show from wasting SO much time had Clark woken up and smelt her warpness then blown her off thereafter with 'You HAD your chance!'- then had him have other teen flirtations before meeting his true love Lois! However, what can one expect from someone who BRAGGED in the first episde about wearing the very meteor that had killed her own parents as a fave jewel?! Yeah, THAT grossed me out and turned me off her permanently (and also got me to dump the show very quickly in spite of them trying to pitch her as 'all that')!

So, Jonathan Gilbert DID make it to the Golden Anniversary Celebrations in Simi Valley! Great! I wonder if he did that to confront any old demons and, if so, will he decide that maybe it might be worth doing future fan events? On shallow notes.Yes, the 56-year-old performer DOES amazingly resemble his childhood character's parents a great deal- although far more hirsute than the late Mr. Bull -even sporting a rather impressive samurai bun (so that means it's likely at least shoulder length)! Yeah, one wouldn't have thought he was 56 if one didn't know his age! I wonder if he mentioned what he's been doing all these decades or if he ever found a spouse/significant other or even had offspring. All the above said, thought, it's truly no one else's business unless he chooses to share with us. On other notes, does anyone know if all the scheduled former cast members appeared including Miss Lester [Hester-Sue Terhune] and Miss Bartlett [Grace Snyder Edwards]? The latter two performers have even more years than Miss Grassle and Miss Stewart and Miss Bartlett is caregiving her even older spouse William Daniels. Any surprises? Well, it sure seemed that they went a LOT of trouble not just corralling as many former cast members but temporarily recreating the interiors of the Little House, Oleson's Mercantile and the Walnut Grove Church/Schoolhouse! I wonder if ML would have been proud of their efforts. If anyone went, please feel free to share with the rest of us. Thanks! P.S. Happy 50th Anniversary Little House . .. (and what are MG and AA going to do after this climatic event is over)?

Amazing you were able to watch anything but TV snow 3 billion miles from the Earth but I guess you were too worried about cold temps, virtually no sunlight. and possibly being unable to return to our planet while you were watching the Pilot to have more than a blase 'tude towards Charles's pioneer struggles. 🤣

One of the deeds of St. Patrick (c. 385-c. 481 AD) was that he drove out all the snakes from the Emerald Isle after he endured a 40 day fast. However, it appears that the island had been long cut off from the rest of Europe and even neighboring Great Britain to the degree that no snake fossils have been found. One could consider that St. Patrick might have caused said fossils to have amscrayed along with all living vipers.

Since today, March 17,2024, is St. Patrick's Day, I thought it would be as good a time as any to recount the following encounter that Carol Burnett (born 1933) recounted in her book In Such Good Company (2016): Miss Burnett was at her [IIRC] dentist's office waiting room in the early 1980's when another of his famous patients walked in- none other than Miss Barbara Stanwyck (1909-1990). During this time, Miss Burnett was in the process of suing The National Enquirer for having published a story which implied she'd been publicly intoxicated which Miss Burnett believed was false and defamatory! Anyway, Miss Stanwyck came up to Miss Burnett and told her 'You are going to WIN against The National Enquirer!' Miss Burnett replied by politely thanking her but Miss Stanwyck was not to be brushed off so easily, then Miss Burnett said 'from your lips to God's ear!' This got Miss Stanwyck to go for the big guns telling Miss Burnett that she wasn't just blindly cheering on but that she KNEW that Miss Burnett would win. At which point Miss Stanwyck whispered to Miss Burnett," My leprechaun told me!' At seeing Miss Burnett's somewhat shocked and puzzled expression, Miss Stanwyck quickly added, 'Oh, they're REAL alright- and mine has been with me since I started my career and has NEVER been wrong!' The two patients soon parted ways. In 1983, Miss Burnett DID have the satisfaction of winning her lawsuit against The National Enquirer. However, I'll leave it to every individual reader's imagination as to whether or not Miss Stanwyck's claimed leprechaun might have had any insight, knowledge or clout in the outcome. . .

Talk about beating a dead horse except that that equine's remains have been beaten so much no animal cemetery have them.

Sure, Jan. ETA- It's each individual poster's call whether to implicitly believe Miss Winfrey's explanation/spin. Speaking strictly for myself, I don't.

I agree! It's also rather foolish because via veering off the marked trails, one doesn't just risk getting a twisted ankle or dropping one's lunch in the dirt. In Yellowstone with its many geysers, hot springs and hot mud baths, one risks getting literally boiled alive if one slips away from the trails- and Mr. Brosnan's too old not to know better!

While the bulk of the episode showed the Oleson union nearly permanently unraveling due to Harriet piling on Nels's last straw (or egg basket) and neither one backing down for the longest time [and this is where a great deal of the episode's and future episode's humor would be derived], the irony is that when push came to shove by the two, they DID love each other for who they were! Yeah, with others dogging Harriet to Nels, Nels let his inner Fred Mertz loose (since Fred had no problems griping about Ethel but couldn't stand it when anyone ELSE did so]. Yep, this episode actually depicted for the first time that Nels was NOT a totally overwhelmed and henpecked spouse who had nothing to look forward to but misery from Harriet! I think it wasn't too much longer after this episode that they phased out the unfunny 'You don't HOW lucky you are, Charles!' early shtick while Harriet is ordering him about.