‘Little House on the Prairie’ Fans List the Show’s Most Unintentionally Funny Moments
Reddit users are naming some of the, ahem, Wilder scenes in Little House on the Prairie — specifically, moments from the 1970s Western drama that weren’t intended to be as funny as they came off.
“In the Christmas episode, when Ma [Karen Grassle] got the stove, Charles [Michael Landon] was all smiles thinking he pulled it off,” Reddit user makogirl311 wrote on Monday, May 26, kicking off the conversation. “I died when he realized it was from Laura [Melissa Gilbert]. I know it wasn’t supposed to be funny, but I do get sick and tired of him being the hero.”
User Forward_Field_8436 said they laughed “when Charles ran in Almanzo’s [Dean Butler] house and punched him because he thought something romantic was going on between [him] and Laura.”
On the topic of fisticuffs, Icy_Stuff2024 thought it was “so over the top and ridiculous” whenever “someone got punched in the show and they basically flew backwards and rolled all dramatically.”
ASGfan agreed, writing, “Yes! Also, in [the Season 5 episode] ‘The Winoka Warriors,’ the way Charles gets bowled over — first by Luke [J. Andrew Kenny], then Tom [Brad Wilkin] — both times, he acted like he got hit by a Mack truck!”
“I know,” added SystemFamiliar5966. “It’s just barely under Star Trek: The Original Series in terms of dramatics.”
Speaking of much ado over nothing, asta2106 nominated “the blizzards with, like, five snowflakes, and the people acting super dramatic about it.”
And Lucid-Vibrations called out when characters encountered wolves that were actually dogs. “The music is always intense, like I’m supposed to be scared, but I can’t help but laugh because it’s a harmless domestic house pet,” that user wrote.
Lucid-Vibrations, meanwhile, cracked up “seeing Nellie’s ridiculous wig when she returned to Walnut Grove!”
Everett Collection
Alison Arngrim commented on her Little House wig — “very expensive, really brilliant, an art project” — in a COZI TV video last year, saying the hairpiece saved her from sleeping in curlers and reporting to set at 4 a.m. to get dolled up to play Nellie.
“They built this thing on my head, and there was a big metal comb right here [near her hairline], so it was perfect,” she said. “That thing wasn’t coming off. Mud fights, fistfights, [going] down a hill in a wheelchair — the wig was never going to move.”
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