As many of you know, I've been a life-long fan of Little House on the Prairie, a fancy that should be hidden away and not discussed with others. Really, when I tell most people that I watch that show constantly, and have seen every episode, they say something along the lines of "you're a dumbass." And then they usually admit to the fact that they've seen at least enough episodes that they can relate to some of the reasons that I find the show entertaining, even 20 years past its heyday.
So tonight I pressed the TIVO button (um, yeah, I record Little House, but only in small amounts, because it is on 50 times a day and would overwhelm the tivo hard drive) and found that one of my all-time favorite episodes was on - "May We Make Them Proud." If you don't recognize Little House episodes by name, you might recognize this one if I mention three words - Blind School Fire.
If you ever read the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, you would know that she wrote a series based on the lighthearded memories of her youth. Although she did suffer personal tragedies, like any other person on the planet, Wilder left most of those out of the books. About the worst that happens in the novels involves having to keep warm with burning haysticks during a blizzard, or getting a spanking for being naughty.
Well when you turn a 7-volume series of books into a 9-year television series, I guess you have to add a little "drama" here and there beyond what happens within the books, because of course you don't have the material to cover several hundred hours of viewing pleasure. So new characters were invented, moral-packed story lines invented, and many children were probably scared into months of nightmares on occasion.
The episode I speak of is one of those scarring memories from childhood that, when I watch it now, gives me a cheap thrill. Because this isn't the usual Little House episode, with Harriet spilling gossip or Laura stealing a music box. This is sheer, war-like terror - the kind of thing that if it were real, would be on CNN for 24 hours straight.
Basically the storyline is as follows - the blind school is adding an addition, so they decide to throw a chili cook-out in the front yard as a fundraiser. (I won't comment any further on the historically inaccurate portrayal of the Ingalls family eating chili in the 1880s.) Albert "let's add an orphan to the show to add some spark" Ingalls and some ugly friend decide to steal some old guy's pipe and go smoke in the basement (there was no minimum age on smoking back then, so why they had to go in the basement is beyond me.) After a couple sickening puffs of smoke (children smoking on television was just fine in the early 80s) they are almost caught by Hester Sue "token black lady for diversity's sake" Terhune, and discard the STILL LIT pipe into a convenient box full of cinder-ific clothes.
(Hopefully my over-use of parentheses didn't make the above paragraph illegible.)
Several hours pass, as do several shots of the ominously growing spark pile, until the box bursts into flames, in an unlikely poof, as though someone threw gasoline in the box. Anyway, Hester Sue goes to check on that "slight odor" that she and Alice Garvey hint at over their cups of tea, and sees smoke emanating from the basement door. So what does she do? She swings open the door, and it's like the movie "Backdraft",except Hester Sue doesn't singe a single hair.
Never mind the fact that she could've just pushed the door shut and avoided a worse disaster. Never mind the fact that the basement door is perched conveniently below the only exit from the upstairs. In fact, I would love to go back to a prior episode to see if that door was even there.
Anyway, upstairs, there are all those poor blind children to evacuate! So Alice, Hester Sue, and helpless, whiney, blind Adam go upstairs and get all the kids out. Adam gets to Mary and tells her of the situation, but she decides to tuck her baby into his crib for the night before leaving the inferno (she was book-smart, but that's where it ended.) Anyway, everyone is evacuated, except for the baby and a "token black blind boy" who is conveniently stuck in the bathroom. (Again, I won't comment any further on the modern plumbing they had in this 19th century prairie school.) So Alice saves the kid from the shitter, but goddamn it - aww shoot! Nobody got the baby! So she goes back in, the saint that she is.
Well even saints do evil things. Because the next thing we know, Alice is trapped upstairs in the towering inferno, and as the blind children and adults lay on the grass, seemingly "watching" the blaze (apparently the heat tipped them off to the direction of the fire) we suddenly hear screams from the upper window.
It's Alice, with the baby, and as searing flames close in about them, she decides to break the window in an attempt to escape. So instead of grabbing a chair or some other implement, she uses the baby as a battering ram to break the window, all to no avail. Apparently the baby doesn't prove to be a good glass-breaking device, because that's the last we see of Alice alive. Or the baby. So then Mary, after annoying us by screaming "My Baby" about 200 times, falls into some sort of psychosis.
After the commercial we arrive at the next day, and we see "hero hair" Michael Landon come out of the dirty, smoldering ruins, clean as an angel on the highway to heaven, with what is apprently the baby. The child is conveniently swaddled in spotless white cloth, so that we aren't further horrified by the site of a crisply burnt child. Likewise, the body of Alice is wrapped sarcophagus-style in a spotless sheet, with her now motherless child Andy (still not over the whole barn burning incident) and her dashing football-star husband weeping silently over it.
I'm sure Merlin Oleson was a great ratings asset to the show - but his weeping abilities were sorely lacking. He should've taken some direction from Mary, whose pitiful life was filled with opportunities for her to practice shedding tears.
Going on... then Doc Baker, who apparently has skills as an arson investigator along with his veterinarian/people-fixer degree, finds the pipe in the mess. Apparently when a mansion-sized house burns to the ground, it's really not that hard to find such things, even though a house that large would theoretically fill the basement cavity with debris. Well he shows the pipe to Charles, who evidently has to know everything that goes on. Then the doc turns his attentions to Mary and drugs her into oblivion with "sleeping powders." I wonder if those were snorted?
So blah blah - the rest of the show is worthless to watch. Albert feels guilt, Mary wakes up 9 days later from her drug-induced coma and screams "My Baby" another 200 shrill times, Albert runs away, Mary then decides it's her turn to bloody herself up by breaking through a window, and the rest is just the usual teary-eyed blather. Everything is resolved in the end, except that now the actress who played Alice (Hersha Parady) is out of a job. I'm sure the "baby" was just a doll, so that's no big deal - even the directors of the less-moral eighties would've known better than to break glass with a real child. And I think Hester Sue sings a song and they put up some new plaque, which for some reason Harriet doesn't object to. Of course you can't really have Harriet around at such somber occasions, because she would just say something mean and ruin the tears. God, I love Harriet.
End of story. If that wasn't enough drama for you, check out some of the other dandies that the Little House crew produced - such as child-hunk James getting shot in the head, or the Sylvia two-parter - a charming story of child rape and masked demons. There are also at least three episodes involving carriage or wagon incidents, usually resulting in maiming and death. Particularly lovely is the one where James and Cassandra get to watch their parents die hideously - always good to expose children to such things early on.
So if you were among the millions that decided it was irresistable to go on youtube and watch Saddam's hanging, you would get a much bigger thrill by looking for that episode of Little House, next time it's on. Or any "very special" episode. And these are all lovingly filmed in full color by real cameras, not some jiggly middle eastern videophone.
Speaking of little houses, I decided to take a picture of my living room tonight, because I finally decided that it was presentable enough now to call a "living room." A little cramped, but the new sectional suits it well, and the clutter sort of takes attention away from the extreme crookedness of the house. As you can see, my small zoo of creatures love the new couch.
Click on the photo for a somewhat larger version.
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