Little House of Inappropriateness

So I spent Mother's Day, sitting in a blissfully quiet house while H had the kids at his parents, preparing our Mother's day feast and I luxuriated in having all the time I wanted to write. Which meant I will wrote one post, then spent the rest of the afternoon flipping between Lifetime Movie Network and Jerseylicious before heading to my in-laws to drink copious amounts of wine and stuff myself sick.

Speaking of emotionally saccharine television (meaning Mother May I Sleep with Danger, not Jerseylicious), an old friend has reentered my life, Little House on the Prairie. My oldest has started reading the series in school, and I was inspired to curb her rabid Deal or No Deal viewing during her solo TV time after the other two are in bed, by introducing her to Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon. Having loved this show so much as a child and watched it obsessively with my sister (she always claimed we were the modern day Laura and Mary), I was excited to see if my own child would be as enraptured.

Let's just say the apple does not fall far from the tree. Our first viewing was all I dreamed it would be. We sat snuggled on the couch, watching one of the early episodes when the Ingalls have just moved to Walnut Grove and Laura befriends a little girl born with one leg shorter than the other, crying like babies at the end when Pa cobbles a corrective shoe for the once-lame Olga who runs around the Ingalls' yard shouting, "Watch me run Papa!" to her stern, but now brought to manly tears, German father. This of course, started a whole conversation about birth defects, prosthetic legs and and corrective footwear. The next night was an episode when Laura and her family are trapped by a blizzard, on the verge of starving to death, when a Native American stumbles across their cabin and helps them survive. This got me thinking - Jesus Christ, this show really is not for children! It's rated "G" according to the TV guide, but how could I let #1, never mind #2, with her incessant questioning, ever watch this show alone? And these weren't even the bad episodes!

So in the spirit of Top Five's of years past, I was inspired to write about my five all-time inappropriate Little House episodes and detail how un-kid-friendly they are.

5. Our third night of viewing featured the episode where Laura and her dog, Jack, get bitten by her pet raccoon and the entire family spends a gut-wrenching week watching jack to see if he develops any symptoms as that will be the harbinger of Laura's untimely death. #1 and I were both hysterical as Laura asks Pa, "You're not telling me that I might get sick and die too, but that's why we're watching Jack, isn't it?" Hit-pause conversations included What Is Rabies?, Is There a Cure Now and, If So, What Is It? and What is a Blood Test? Nothing like this episode to make sure my kids run from the squirrels that frequent our part of the country. Can you imagine of one got in the van now???

4. Another episode early on, involves Ma. It was one of those strange episodes where only one character was featured. Ma scrapes her leg on a poke-y wire getting out of the wagon and a few days later, when Pa has taken the girls off somewhere overnight, her leg is so infected she can not walk to town to get help, and she contemplates performing a self-amputation in a creepy, hallucinatory, Bible-inspired effort at self-preservation. Fortunately, Pa arrives home in time to sop her from cutting her leg off with a dull hatchet.

3. Setting the DVR to record this series, I have to read every single episode description, lest we be surprised with a gem like we almost were on Thursday. That night's episode was the first of a two-parter. In the first, Ma finally gives birth, to a son, and the degree of Pa's happiness makes tom-boy-son-replacement, Laura, jealous to the point she wishes that Charles Junior had never been born. Then the baby dies. I still remember this scene as a child and I get chills just thinking about Ma in her nightgown and braid, pulling back the blanket in the cradle, thinking her baby is just sleeping late, and the horror and disbelief on her face as she realizes he is dead. Then she begins screaming for her husband, "Charles? CHARLES????" Can you just imagine the hit-pause conversations for this one? "Cancel recording of this episode?", blinks the DVR. I think so.
Oh, and the second of the two parts involved Laura running away to a mountain top to beg God to bring her brother back. On her journey, meets a David Koresh type who teaches her all about God and whittles her a crucifix. Guess the writers thought a one-two punch of SIDS and child molestation was too much, and Laura returned home unharmed.

2. Even as child, the crying face of Melissa Sue Anderson, who played Mary, annoyed the shit out of me. Still does. Here ice-blue eyes also creeped me out. So the episode where Mary goes blind is a real winner for me since she cries a lot and we spend a hell of a lot of time looking at her peepers. I have no clear memory of and could not find a definitive answer as to why she went blind, but I do remember her waking up, screaming like a banshee, "Pa, PAAAA? I CAN'T SEE! I CAN'T SEE!" (He really must grow tired of his name being constantly screamed) That would do wonders for #1 who recently started wearing glasses, as this is how Mary started down this road. Other Mary related tragedy? Her baby dies in an accidental fire at the blind school she and her blind husband* start. Those writers really have a grudge against babies.

1. And the single most disturbing episode of Little House on the Prairie, in my opinion, centers around adoptive brother Albert's morphine addiction. This seemed to go on for about ten episodes, and perhaps it was more than one, but from Albert's drug use, to his stealing from Doc Baker, to Pa's homespun rehab, tying Albert to the bed, it was, all of it, excruciating and disturbing to watch as a child and, I think, way more effective than the skeletal Nancy Reagan, telling me to "Just Say No".

There are many, many more episodes that could have made this list - Mary teaching in some hillbilly town where the Children of the Corn sexually harass her, Laura's baby dying (Jesus, enough with the dead babies already!), and the episode where a morbidly obese town resident fakes his own death so his daughter need no longer be ridiculed and embarrassed by his existence (they couldn't make him mentally retarded too and really kill me?), but there are so many other, wonderful episodes, I can't NOT watch with my girls. #1 and I have had so many great conversations about what good sisters Mary and Laura are to each other, and how hard they all work and appreciate what little they have, even if it's only every third episode I can record and show her. Although, I'm sure she is tired of my exclaiming, "See how much fun they're having with a stick?"

So we will continue our new nightly tradition, and watch Little House faithfully. Fortunately, they are showing the earlier episodes now. Because I think we can all admit the show really takes a downward turn when the kids all grow up, Laura marries "Manly", Nellie marries that nebbish, and the Ingalls adopt those two annoying child-actor-y little kids (played by Jason Bateman!). And one thing the show has helped along quite nicely? My pie addiction. Seriously. The woman has butter to churn, chickens to care for and clothes to sew. How is she making a pie every damn episode, forcing me to send H to the A&P?

*How unfair is it that Mary's husband regains his sight? I once heard a comedian say, "He can see again and his wife turns out to be hot! How lucky is he?"