Melissa Gilbert Recalls Michael Landon Blowing Up Walnut Grove in Last Episode of ‘Little House on the Prairie’
Little House on the Prairie has proved that it wasn’t just a popular show in the 1970s; it is still beloved today. It was the most streamed classic series in 2024, and now Netflix has ordered a reboot, which has fans divided. Some are excited about a new version of the series, while others don’t want it to ruin the original series. If you’re a fan, you might remember the TV movie that served as the show’s series finale, Little House: The Last Farewell, which aired on February 6, 1984.
NBC/Everett Collection
Melissa Gilbert recently looked back on the milestone and opened up about how Michael Landon blew up Walnut Grove in the series finale. In the finale, a tycoon shows up and says that he owns all of the land in Walnut Grove, the town where Little House on the Prairie was set. After a fight with the town’s residents, he eventually wins and straps TNT to all of the buildings. The Ingalls family watches as their beloved home is blown up. Gilbert shared about the tough day, “For me personally, that whole experience from reading the script until the last day was the longest funeral I’d ever attended. It was so heartbreaking.”
Why did Michael Landon blow up Walnut Grove?
As far as the reason Landon decided to go with such a divisive finale, Gilbert explained, “I knew that he wanted to demolish everything because he was so angry that NBC never called him to tell him the show was officially canceled. We just weren’t on the fall schedule after not just 10 years of Little House, but years of Bonanza. It was just such a disrespectful thing to do to him. I do remember reading the script and going, ‘Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho, okay. Wow!'”
NBC/Everett Collection
She continued, “One of the things we talked about was his desire to not have anyone else use our sets — like to have some porn out there shooting [on old Little House sets]. Those were ours. We built them. I mean, I had so many major life experiences in and around all of those buildings, as did everyone on the cast and crew. That place was sacred to us in a big way.”
Gilbert concluded that, for safety reasons, the cast wasn’t actually on set for the explosions but arrived on the final day with the town already destroyed. She admitted that it was “just painful” and compared it to natural disasters that destroyed people’s homes and famous buildings. The tears that you see onscreen were actual tears, since the cast was so emotional about the finale and seeing the town demolished.
Little House: The Last Farewell is streaming now on Peacock.
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1970s Fall TV
September 2023
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