Littlle House Divided

I finally found an article that I had been searching for. Trundlebedtales gave a clue with a title and date, pioneergirl found a page number, and I was able to ILL the item.

Okay, it was from the television section of the paper in 1980, not from TV Guide in the late 70s.

The article is by Jake Newman, and was published October 12, 1980 in the Washington Post. Page TV3 if anyone else want to look it up. I am going to mention some of the quotes that stuck with me all these years. And I haven't wanted to mention them because I didn't know the exact source.

Roger Mac Bride says:

"Then Mike sat down and ripped up all our story outlines and said I'm not going to do it thise way. Well, we had battles that went on for months of struggling, neither Landon getting his way or we ours.

Ed and I were getting heart attacks and ulcers and probably Mike was too.

There is no kindly doctor or a kindly minister.

One of the early episodes and Landon saying, 'Now, before to school, finish your orange juice.' The real-life Charles Ingalls didn't have orange juice for his kids in South Dakota on a winter morning.

what episode did they have orange juice on? never did catch that! and i don't think that 'the kids' had orange juice on a winter morning anywhere that they lived.

Nor could kids wear shoes to school every day because they had only one pair which was saved for special occasions and winter months.

But Mike Landon was not going to let these TV kids go to school barefoot. Landon said that, "I don't want the viewers to think that I, Mike Landon, in my alter ego as a real life individual, would allow my kids to go to school without shoes." He literally said that. That stopped us cold.

Landon responded:

I make the children wear shoes because they shoot were there are rattlesnakes and broken glass and that kind of stuff.

the girls only went barefoot the first year in walnut grove. the macbride opinion sounds like pure rose wilder lane. i have my doubts about how closely roger macbride read the little house books. landon had legitmate concerns, shooting in the simi valley.

Roger MacBride:

I remember one episode in which Mike Landon defended the theory of taxation, which neither Laura, nor Rose, nor I would ever do. In Wilder's day, voluntary cooperation in the barn raising tradition was the way to satisfy human wants.

Michael Landon:

None of it means a damn thing to me. I bust my butt to make it the best.

the question is, it is what charles ingalls would have done? he did accept relief flour for his family. and roger macbride never met laura ingalls wilder.

Roger MacBride:

Landon dishes up today's hardships reinterpreted as 1870s hardships.

Maybe the real hardships would just be too much for a present-day audience to accept. He didn't dare let Mary go blind for years. He thought it would just be too awful. Finally he became convinced otherwise. It was one of the most popular episodes in the six seasons the show has played, says Mac Bride. It jerked tears all over the country.

Michael Landon:

MacBride's complaints are sour grapes. MacBride should have to sit down with the 65 page little books about baking and sewing and figure out how to develop 200 episodes. You're not going to make 200 hours out of "Gone With the Wind," so you're not gong to make 200 hours out of children's books.

MacBride was just upset that I was not going to glue a beard on nine months of the year.

MacBride and Friendly still reap the royalties. If they are so concerned about the history they should donate all the money to a charity that can help further the history of America.

i wish i could have seen macbride's face when he read the last quote!