Rewriting History: Landon's Changes and Other Anachronistic Quirks

[Wordsworth]

We all know Michael Landon adjusted the story of the Ingalls so he could keep the family in one place with well-established supporting characters.  This thread is to discuss what he changed and any other instances where history was altered for the show.

 

Example:  In the episode "Wave of the Future", Harriet is approached by an elderly gentleman in a white coat and hat who hopes to get her interested in a restaurant that serves only fried chicken.  He's clearly supposed to be Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.  The only problem is that this episode takes place sometime prior to 1887.  Colonel Sanders himself was not born until 1890.

[DoughGirl]

Real life Mary never married after going mline. Or had a BBR.

Bob Ford in Miss Beadle's schoolroom spouting hate at the James gang. I'm no expert on the subject but I've seen documentaries. IIRC Bob Ford idolized Jesse James and was a member of the James Gang before going sour on him. Seems he thought he'd be a famous beloved hero if he killed James but it didn't work out that way.

[bunnywithanaxe]

My favorite book was "The Long Winter" and I really hated what they did with the the blizzard episode. The actual story itself could have filled a full season, and been devastatingly dramatic.

 

Peeve # 1-- Miss Beadle looks out the window and sees a light snow building, and tells the kids that it is no big deal, keep celebrating (they were having a Christmas part, right?)

The truth is that midwestern blizzards come down with frightening swiftness-- as did the blizzard in "The Long Winter" and as did the blizzard that trapped Pa in "Plum Creek." (I think Pa's blizzard was the devastating "Blue Snow" or "Schoolhouse blizzard", if I have calculated the year correctly) Basically prairie dwellers would see a thin bank of white clouds to the farthest horizon, and within minutes it would be on them. Beadle would have done one of two things if she has seen the cloud-- she would have commanded the children to get all the firewood in the schoolhouse and buckle down, or she would have instructed them to get out of the school and run home as fast as they could, depending on how soon she had spotted it. The second instruction could have only been given with a fair amount of confidence that the clouds were very far away-- It was given to  Dakota Territory  students on the afternoon of the Schoolhouse Blizzard, and the students were caught midway in their journeys. The result was devastating, and the blizzard in TLW only happened a few years after that one.

All this to say-- people had been living on the prairies long enough by the time Laura and Mary started school to take any change in snowfall very seriously. IMO  having the townsfolk act nonchalant about it missed and opportunity to show how painfully vulnerable prairie residents were to the elements.

TLW  is a very good book to re-read as an adult-as a child, I had some sense of how uncomfortable and hungry they must have been, but it never really hit me what deep danger these folk were in until I  had some knowledge of meteorology and biology under my belt.

[Rhondinella]

Yeah, and if they were really being true to the books they would show that, at least while they were in Dakota territory (which I think is where they were in TLW?), the families would only live and work on the farms in the spring through harvest time.  When the first hint of winter appeared they closed up the farmhouse and moved to the city because it was easier to survive the winter.  And I'm pretty sure in TLW the family is cooped up in their house in the city all winter, not out on the farm, correct?  I mean, it was still very difficult, but my point is the kids would not have had a really long walk home to the countryside.  That's assuming the blizzard episode is supposed to correspond with TLW.

 

Also, if you haven't heard it, the ladies on the "Stuff you Missed in History Class" podcast did an episode a few months ago on the long winter in question (1880-1881), and it was pretty brutal (the winter, not the podcast). They actually used LIW as one of their sources. Interesting listen.  (They did an episode on LIW and her life in general also).

[merylinkid]

Well heck, they had kids who lived in Minnesota being excited about getting snow for Christmas.   Because that never happens.   Of course, most other years (except Laps of Love) there was no snow and leaves on the trees all winter.

The Long Winter was DeSmet.   Although not all farmers moved into town.   When Cap and Almanzo made the run for the grain, they had to go out to the farmer who had it.  

Thanks bunnywithanaxe and rhondinella for the real history on those winters.

[bunnywithanaxe]

You're right the series kept the story in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, but the blizzards in question took out a huge swath of the Midwest. The Dakotas just got hit the hardest, but Minnesota was hurting, too. 
Point taken about snow ennui. :D
If I could wave a magic wand and get screen rights to any of the books, it would be TLW. The more you dig into that story, the more intense it gets.

Yeah, and if they were really being true to the books they would show that, at least while they were in Dakota territory (which I think is where they were in TLW?), the families would only live and work on the farms in the spring through harvest time.  When the first hint of winter appeared they closed up the farmhouse and moved to the city because it was easier to survive the winter.  And I'm pretty sure in TLW the family is cooped up in their house in the city all winter, not out on the farm, correct?  I mean, it was still very difficult, but my point is the kids would not have had a really long walk home to the countryside.  That's assuming the blizzard episode is supposed to correspond with TLW.

 

Also, if you haven't heard it, the ladies on the "Stuff you Missed in History Class" podcast did an episode a few months ago on the long winter in question (1880-1881), and it was pretty brutal (the winter, not the podcast). They actually used LIW as one of their sources. Interesting listen.  (They did an episode on LIW and her life in general also).

Yes, they got advance warning from the local tribes that a routine bigass storm was due, so many of the townsfolk closed up their farms early just to be safe. But they hadn't learned that lesson when the Schoolhouse Blizzard happened. The retreat to town  in TLW was evidence that prairie folk were getting some coping skills together.

And great link!

Edited April 24, 2014 by bunnywithanaxe

[Wordsworth]

The Ingalls never adopted any children.  There was an Ingalls cousin named Albert, but he was never taken in by the family.  No Jason Bateman or Missy Francis either.

[DoughGirl]

I've read real life Laura hated real life Eliza Jane.

Also read real life Laura hated teaching. No angst over not being able to teach after marrying Manly.

Which reminds me. Married women weren't allowed to teach in those days. We had Ma, Alice Garvey, Harriet Oleson, and a hugely pregnant Laura. Also Mary if they counted mline school teachers. And Miss Beadle kept teaching after she married. That leaves only Etta Plum who was single. Even in early 1900s New York it was still the rule according to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Maybe they made exceptions on the prairie?

[moinklover]

Only in Landonland were married teachers allowed to teach.

[Rhondinella]

Yes, I believe I remember reading that Laura didn't care much for Eliza Jane as well.  But I can't remember if I got that from the books, or from somewhere else.

[lou ann b]

RL Laura must have softened towards RL EJ, she let daughter Rose stay with her.

[spidermiss2426]

In the books Laura isn't fond of Eliza Jane, for sure.  After all, she sent Laura and Carrie home from school.

[sgittinger]

And she wrote her poem. Which I still think Pa knew she'd written.

[Wordsworth]

Yes, Eliza Jane Wilder was a strict teacher who was misled by Nellie Oleson into thinking that Laura felt Pa's being on the school board gave her special privileges.  I don't know that they ever became really good friends, but it appears that Laura grew up and accepted that EJ was part of the Wilder family, regardless.

[spidermiss2426]

Let us not forget that real Laura merged Nellie and 2 other girls into one Nellie.  I wonder if real life Nellie is kicking Real Life Laura's butt for that one, in the afterlife?  And Michael Landon's too, for that matter.  And real life Laura must be angry at him for portraying her in such an "unladylike" manner-- real life Laura used smarts to outwit her enemies, she didn't fight them!

 

Of course, Willie in the books, real life willie, and show willie were different too.  Real Willie went blind.  Book Willie turned into a special needs kid, and TV willie was an always hungry kind of brat who turned into a responsible adult.

 

And book Mr. Oleson had an accent.  TV Mr. Oleson did not.

[merylinkid]

Real Willie went blind?   I missed that one in the books.

[sgittinger]

It wasn't mentioned in the books, merylinkid...

Edited May 5, 2014 by sgittinger

[spidermiss2426]

It wasn't in the books.  In the books Willie had a different fate, but REAL Willie did go blind.  As I said, in the books Willie sort of stopped thinking and processing, which started out as a joke and then became serious.  So Willie had 3 different fates:  Tv, books, and real life.

[Wordsworth]

The Real Life Mr. Edwards met them in Kansas so that part of the pilot was correct.  But, according to the books, at least, the family didn't see him again, but for one incident in De Smet where he showed up and left Mary some money without saying anything.  

 

Whether that incident ever actually happened or was added in for affect, I don't know.  But it is not true that Mr. Edwards was a consistent figure in their lives for years.

[spidermiss2426]

The Real Life Mr. Edwards met them in Kansas so that part of the pilot was correct.  But, according to the books, at least, the family didn't see him again, but for one incident in De Smet where he showed up and left Mary some money without saying anything.  

 

Whether that incident ever actually happened or was added in for affect, I don't know.  But it is not true that Mr. Edwards was a consistent figure in their lives for years.

Nor was Reverand Alden (aka brother alden) consistent either.  He was only in two of the books. :) 

[Wordsworth]

and Brother Alden didn't have a wife for one day either!

[oceanblue]

but for one incident in De Smet where he showed up and left Mary some money without saying anything.

 

 

Then how did she know it was there?  

 

I'm putting myself on the stagecoach to hell.  

[Wordsworth]

Understood.  If I recall correctly, the money was found after Edwards left.  He showed up unexpectedly, was stunned to see Mary was blind, visited for awhile, took off and the money was found right after that.  It was assumed he slipped it where it would be found but didn't want to make a show of giving it to her.

 

Again, don't know if the incident actually happened or if this was one of those for-dramatic-effect changes Laura was convinced to make when writing her books.  

[oceanblue]

Wordsworth, I'm from that other site that shall not be named, where we pride ourselves on snark that will make the hairs on the back of your neck quiver.  In this case, I was saying how can she see it when she's mline.

[Wordsworth]

Ahhhhhhhhhh,  a mline joke then.  My bad.

[sgittinger]

And it's debated whether Mr. Edwards actually even existed.

[DoughGirl]

What about the Scots? I've never read the books and they weren't in the pilot but they were in that newer version of Little House. I think it was LIW's LHOTP.

[smittykins]

I read somewhere that Mrs. Scott helped Ma deliver Carrie(since IRL she was born during their time in Indian Territory), and the trip Pa took with Laura and Mary to the old Indian campground was to get them out of the house while Ma was giving birth.

[Snow Apple]

In the books, the romance of Laura and Almanzo was sweet and respectful. The show was too full of Laura's childish antics.

 

I love TV show Ma, but she was too soft (which I can understand for 70's TV). I remember watching the episode where Mary almost burned down the barn. Ma yelled at her and felt bad about it. In real life, Mary would have been whipped (not that RL Mary would have caused trouble in the first place).

[SinInTheCamp]

If I remember correctly from all of my reading on this family, the real Laura and Lazy, Lousy, Liza Jane never were exactly the best of friends. Rose was sort of a rebel as a teen and definitely an independent thinker; for whatever reason, she left home and attended school near EJ's residence in Louisiana, I think. 

 

EJ eventually became the pariah/black sheep of the entire family, as she convinced Pa and Ma Wilder to invest in rice farming which ended up losing them their entire life savings. Bad move. But she was also quite a modern woman, taking up her own claim in the Dakota Territory, moving to Washington D.C. later to work for the Department of the Interior, marrying at the age of 42, remarrying after she became a widow, and eventually divorcing her second husband. Quite a life for a nineteenth-century woman!

 

What bugs me about the TV show is how they depict EJ. I mean, I love Lucy Lee Flippen, but she's nothing like the real EJ. And although there's nothing wrong with Flippen's appearance in real life, she didn't resemble EJ in the least. EJ was more of a classic beauty. She was also (according to the books) quite nasty to Laura; it would have been interesting to see that play out on-screen.

[DoughGirl]

Just watched "Apple Falsies" otherwise known as The Rivals.

I doubt Laura would have taken Nellie's remark about toilette water the way she did in those days. If it were water closet water, or outhouse water, yes. I'm not sure when toilet became the common word for what we call a toilet, but I think I read the earliest prototypes were called Jakes? When Harriet wanted to install a flushing toilet at the mercantile, they referred to it as a water closet.

 

Edited June 5, 2014 by Rhondinella

[Blergh]

"The Talking Machine" was full of anachronisms. For starters, this Season Two episode was supposed to take place sometime around 1876-1877 when Laura was about ten but the Edison phonograph wasn't even invented until 1877- much less marketted yet. Even if somehow had some assistant sneak it out of the lab and instantly get it to Walnut Grove, the sound quality it produced would have been decades ahead of what was feasible at the time. A listen to Handel's 'Israel Out of Egypt' by the Crystal Palace choir in 1888 with literally thousands of singers barely sounds like two folks sing-whispering in a cave and the recording couldn't amplify the sound so Willie hiding the machine to record Laura and having Laura's speech be perfectly understood by the entire class would have been impossible- to say nothing of Laura's speech sounding perfectly synchronized as though Nellie   would be able to crank the cyclinder to play exactly the same speed as Willie did to record. Oh, and they used the word 'airplane' a quarter century before devise was invented and fifty years before the term was. LOL

[DoughGirl]

I wonder then if they were also stretching it with Eliza Jane's victrola? LIW would have been about seven years later if Laura was ten in The Talking Machine.

[bunnywithanaxe]

 

I doubt Laura would have taken Nellie's remark about toilette water the way she did in those days. If it were water closet water, or outhouse water, yes. I'm not sure when toilet became the common word for what we call a toilet, but I think I read the earliest prototypes were called Jakes? When Harriet wanted to install a flushing toilet at the mercantile, they referred to it as a water closet.

I remember thinking that when the ep actually aired. My grandma used to call perfume "toilet water," and I knew that the people in Walnut Grove would be using either outhouses or "water closets."

What can I say? I was a weird little kid who's gotten ahold of a book about the history of the bathroom.

[Sharpie66]

I haven't watched the series in years, but I flove the books, and have also read bios of both Laura and Rose. My major problem with the series is all of the changes, as well as all of the missed opportunities that they left behind in the books.

For example, IIRC, they never included the black physician, Doctor Tan, from LHOTP. He was a real person who actually saved a lot of lives in the Indian Territory in the early 1870s, including the Ingalls. I remember seeing online a page from the 1870 census which list both the Ingalls and Dr. Tan a few lines below.

Also, did they ever mention Cap Garland in the series? He was one of my favorites in the books, and I really loved that you can tell that RL Laura had a massive crush on him, long before she got to kmow Almanzo. Too bad that he was killed at the age of 23, when the boiler on a thresher blew up.

Another person they never mentioned was Laura's cousin, Lena, the "wild child" daughter of Caroline's sister Docia (backstory--her first husband whom she had her two children with ended up killing someone and landed in prison; she divorced him and married Hiram, her husband in On the Shores of Silver Lake). After the events of that book, Laura lost contact with Docia and Hiram. After LIW published Silver Lake, apparently the 75 year old Lena was reading the book when she realized she was the Lena in the book, and only then did she realize that the Laura she knew that summer was the same Laura writing these books. She contacted the publisher and was able to reconnect with LIW before she passed away a few years later.

Another interesting thing: Caroline's mother's maiden name was Delano, and yes, she was distantly related to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which is something that neither Laura nor Rose would have appreciated, considering their dislike of the New Deal and Rose's fierce libertarian beliefs, which really do permeate the books.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Sharpie66

[DoughGirl]

I've never read the books and haven't heard of Cap Garland so don't think he was ever mentioned in the series. Seems like real life Laura didn't decide Manly was "The One" at first site as showed on the series?

I think Dr. Tan was in the LIW's LHOTP mini series. I wonder if the black reservation doctor in "Willis Jackson Sucks Eggs" was based on Dr. Tan.

Seems like they could have done more interesting story lines with real Ingalls family members than all those bizarre tertiary characters.

[Sharpie66]

Cap, as portrayed in the books, was a really cool guy. He was one of Laura's classmates, and she described him as having a smile that just lit up the room whenever he entered it. He was also a bit of an instigator--he knew that she was only pretending to be a prim, proper girl most of the time, and encouraged her to do rowdy things like ride a sled with a bunch of the girls from her school (since there were so many of them, they had to sit between each other's legs, thus exposing their lower extremeties far above the ankles), and he threw her a ball the first time she entered the schoolyard, which she caught on the fly, thus exposing her tomboyish ways right off. He also prodded Almanzo to go get Laura at the school she was teaching at for her usual weekend home, even though it was over 20 below zero out. As Almanzo told her when she asked him what possessed him to drive the 12 miles out to pick her up in that biting cold, Cap told him that "God hates a coward."

 

In the books, he never courted her, but she also skipped over the various other boys she flirted with (she played kissing games at parties, like any teenage girl), so they could very well have dated casually without her mentioning it.

[Sharpie66]

Another one of my favorite things in the books is how the relationship between Laura and Ma develops over the years. Laura is always Pa's Girl and Mary is always Ma's Girl, but as Laura gets older, she begins to appreciate her mother more and more. One of my favorite moments is when they are sewing Mary's clothes for blind school, and Laura realizes from the way that Ma bites her lip that her mother hates sewing as much as Laura does, but has always kept that dislike hidden since it had to be done.

Oh, and something from the books that would have made a perfect tv episode was when Mary went to the college, accompanied by Charles and Caroline, leaving Laura in charge of the house with Carrie and Grace. To keep all of them, especially the 5-year-old Grace, distracted, she decides to get the fall housecleaning done before their parents' return. She and Carrie do pretty well, but Laura realizes just how much work her mother does in the house, as well as how hard it is to take care of a 5 year old, especially when Grace decides to "help" by getting into the blacking for the stove, causing a major mess. They get everything done only a few hours before the train arrives in town, and to keep everything clean, she has them eat bread and butter for lunch, which was the least messy meal possible. That would have a very funny episode, as well as providing the requisite lesson that ML always had in the script.

[Creeper Jen]

Cap, as portrayed in the books, was a really cool guy.

I'm just throwing my shiny penny into the pot here to say that I had a bit of a crush on Cap when I was a kid.  He sounded like a real cutie and a great guy.  Also, the name "Cap" - how could he not be adorable? 

[merylinkid]

Power went out and I was trying to quilt by lantern light.   I thought wow the Little House was really well lit for its time -- except you know when ML forgot to pay the electric bill.    

[BatmanBeatles]

One thing for sure. The RL characters didn't sport David Cassidy hair-dos.

[Jamoche]

There was an article way back when the show was new that called them out for not having the girls be barefoot because those fancy boughten shoes would've been expensive, and ML saying something about not wanting them to look like the poorest kids in town. I remember the article writer noting that in the books that's what they pretty much were.

[Ceindreadh]

There was an article way back when the show was new that called them out for not having the girls be barefoot because those fancy boughten shoes would've been expensive, and ML saying something about not wanting them to look like the poorest kids in town. I remember the article writer noting that in the books that's what they pretty much were.

 

I'm sure I read something (years ago) about how it was a safety issue, that ML didn't want the girls getting hurt from walking around barefoot.

[Jamoche]

I'm sure I read something (years ago) about how it was a safety issue, that ML didn't want the girls getting hurt from walking around barefoot.

Now that's rational, and if they'd said that I would've just written it off as "things you have to do for TV".

[DoughGirl]

I'm glad they weren't barefoot. Hated when the Walton kids were. You could tell they weren't used to it, gingerly walking down that dirt road trying to look natural. And it just looked yech. I don't want to see anyone's dirty feet.

[BatmanBeatles]

I think RL Almanzo was waaaaay hotter than the TV version.

[moonb]

I thought RL Almanzo's hotness was a given...I"m not usually into looks, but damn. He and Laura were really a beautiful couple. Although Dean Butler was nice and doofy, of course.

[Sharpie66]

I like this photo of the two of them soon after they were married: http://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laura_and_Almanzo.jpg

Oh, and this photo http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/The-Ingalls-Sisters-laura-ingalls-wilder-294606_353_452.jpg

of Mary, Laura and Carrie taken the summer after the Long Winter is an excellent illustration of all three of them at this point. Carrie is around 11, but she looks like she is only 7 or so, she is so tiny and frail looking next to her sisters. You can see exactly why Laura was so protective of her when Eliza Jane singled Carrie out for punishment. Mary looks very resolute and strong to deal with her blindness.

But Laura is my favorite--her hand is clenched in a fist, and her eyes are flashing. You can see there what would have attracted an older man like Almanzo to her a year later.

[Libby96]

I always thought that it was interesting that Laura always considered Mary prettier than herself. In photos of the real Ingalls family Laura was clearly the prettiest of the sisters.

[Brn2bwild]

I always thought that it was interesting that Laura always considered Mary prettier than herself. In photos of the real Ingalls family Laura was clearly the prettiest of the sisters.

RL Laura was not only the prettiest, she also had a really strong physical resemblance to her mother.  All the more interesting given that Rose had a very strong physical resemblance to Laura.

 

 

Btw., if you've never read it, this website gives a fabulous overview of the show's inaccuracies.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Brn2bwild