‘Little House on the Prairie’: Alison Arngrim Calls Out Historically Inaccurate Detail

Little House on the Prairie stars Alison Arngrim and Dean Butler recently called out a historically inaccurate detail in the beloved series: acrylic nails.

On the November 6 episode of the Little House 50 podcast, Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson — antagonist to Laura Ingalls Wilder (Melissa Gilbert) — and Butler, who played Laura’s husband, Almanzo Wilder, spoke with host Pamela Bob about the recurring faux pas.

In the Season 5 episode titled “The Wedding,” the acrylic nails were particularly obvious.

“This is the moment when we first see the nails, the French tips,” Bob recalled, describing the moment when Laura’s sister, Mary Ingalls (Melissa Sue Anderson), accepted Adam Kendall’s (Linwood Boomer) proposal of marriage. “It is so distracting. They’re shiny, shiny new. They are shiny new acrylics.”

Little House on the Prairie was set in the 1870s through the 1890s, although it was filmed from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. Unlike some of her costars, Arngrim said she kept this in mind during production.

“Melissa Gilbert had the acrylics. Melissa Sue had the acrylics. They all had the French tips. It was so in, early ’80s. And they all did, and I did not,” she explained on the podcast. “Call me cuckoo, I said, ‘I’m on a TV show and I have a full seven-year contract for a TV show where apparently, I live in the 1800s and don’t have nails.'”

After joking that Mrs. Whipple (Queenie Smith) had an “illegal mani-pedi place in the basement of her house,” Bob wondered how Michael Landon — who played Charles “Pa” Ingalls and served as head writer, director, and executive producer — didn’t notice the historically inaccurate nails.

“It is so weird that Michael Landon was like, ‘Yeah. I’m cool with it.’ It is weird to me,” she declared.

To that, Butler agreed, “I’m very surprised that he was cool.”

Little House on the Prairie, streaming on Peacock, Prime Video, and Philo