The One ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Storyline That Karen Grassle Wasn’t Allowed to Do
Karen Grassle, best known as Caroline “Ma” Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, recently answered some fan questions on TikTok, showing how graceful she remains over 50 years after the show premiered. Among other fascinating behind-the-scenes facts, Grassle revealed a storyline she pitched to the show and how it was unfortunately shot down. In the storyline, Ma Ingalls would have a nervous breakdown from the stress of frontier living, which was common in that era; but producers were not interested.
She said, according to Parade Magazine, “I did create a storyline that I wanted us to do, which was when tremendous amounts of pressure came to bear on Caroline. Let’s say a dust storm or the crops were all eaten by the bugs or whatever, and that she had a nervous breakdown. This was not uncommon. The pressures on the pioneer women were so intense that sometimes they did have nervous breakdowns. But, of course, the producers didn’t want Caroline to have a nervous breakdown.”
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In the interview, Grassle was also asked if she kept anything from the set, which was blown up on the last day. She laughed and said that she did take one thing: “my hair.” She clarified, “It’s not a wig. It’s two pieces. One is a tremendously fantastic fall that sat about here. And my short hair went up over it. And the other was my bun.” The wig now lives in her laundry room, she added.
Do you think Little House on the Prairie should have done that storyline? Perhaps they can explore it in the reboot, coming to Netflix sometime in 2026.
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May 2022
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