Hello, I am new here & have a lot of catching up to do.

My name is Mike. I haven't thought about Little House in over 20 years. I enjoyed it when I was a kid and never missed an episode. Watched it until the very end every Monday night. I don't know what made me think about it lately but today the show was on my mind so I thought I would look on the net and see what I could find. I was thinking about the sets and I remembered that Michael blew them up for the series finale. But the church and the home were still there and not part of the destroyed set. So I went online looking to see if they were still standing. It seems the house burned down or fell down on its own (not sure which) and the church either fell down or was moved (not sure which either).

Growing up I had a huge crush on Melissa Gilbert. I remember my older brother told some of his adult friends about it and they told him she was in town at the time. She was in a play called "Bus Stop". For the life of me I cannot remember the year, but I might have been anywhere between 8th grade and 11th grade. Anyway, the play was at the University Of Tennessee (and in searching just NOW I found the actual program from the play, turns out it was 1986 so I would have been 15.  I was going to post a link for it but it will not allow it since I am a new member. I will post the link in 7 days when I am able to do so.

Since I am alumni of UT it might be giving me automatic access, I am not sure if anyone else will be able to see it. I forgot that Teri Copely & Knoxville's own David Keith were also in the play. I was familiar with the play and loved it because a few years earlier I was sick and stayed home from school for several days and it seems the play was in high rotation on HBO (Melissa was not in the HBO version).

Anyway, leading up to the play my older brother was a student at UT so he knew some people at the Clarence Brown Theater on campus. He was going to try and arrange for me to meet Melissa. The story was she also had a dog with her that she could no longer take care of and was searching for a good home for the dog. Now why she would be travelling with a dog, I don't know (remember I was 15 at the time so this was 30 years ago I had no way to investigate the story at all). The people my brother knew had mentioned to her there was a teenage kid who had a huge crush on her that would love to give her dog a good home. My parents were even on board with the idea. But by the time they told Melissa about me wanting the dog she had already promised it to someone else. So no Little House dog for me I guess. I never did get to meet her but my brother did take me to see the play and I enjoyed it. Today is the first time I have thought about that play or Little House in ages.

So I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. More than likely I will be in lurk mode looking around. I have a lot of catching up to do. I have kept up with Jason Bateman because my wife and I are/were huge fans of Arrested Development and I recently saw that Melissa is running for office in Michigan. But Little House has been off my radar far too long. Nice to see what they are up to these days and I hate that some of them don't get along, but that is life.

Two questions before I search thru pages and pages of messages. 1 - What happened with MG and Michael that she didn't talk to him for years? Did they make peace? 2 - Has her brother really dropped from the face of the Earth?

Anyway, I am here and wanted to say hello and tell the dog story. Whether it is true or not, I do not know. I just know what I was told 30 years ago by my brother.

Hi, Mike.  Welcome to the board!  I enjoyed reading your story about the dog.  How funny!  To answer your questions, I'm not aware of any feud between MG and Michael.  In interviews she has only had wonderful memories about him.  Maybe someone else has more info on that.  Sadly, Jonathan has seemed to disappear.  I read in Melissa's book that he is a stockbroker, living in New York.

Welcome to our warm prairie home, Mike! I hope you enjoy it here!

Great first post, Mike! Glad to have you aboard!

Hi everyone, I started reading the "credits" in the Bus Stop program and I noticed under Melissa's Bio it says "she enjoys spending time with her beagle Sydney who came to Knoxville with her". So it looks like part of my story seems to be true! I had always wondered if my brother made some of it up. But according to the program she had the dog with her.  I don't think I am allowed to post links for the program so I will try to post some pictures of it below.

Here is the cover of the program. I wish I still had it, I kept it after the play and don't remember ever reading the part about her dog until yesterday. And I am surprised UT had this posted in their archives.



Finally, as for the set, does anyone know if the church still exists?

I have been trying to find some podcasts with the cast on iTunes but so far haven't had much luck. Found one with Melissa and 2 or 3 with Allison but that's it and one of them with Allison was only 6 minutes long.

As for a falling out with Melissa and Michael this is what I found and I know wiki can be unreliable a lot of the time but I read this on 2 different websites, the first is wiki the second I forgot what it was something like "little known facts about Little House that you didn't know". It stated that they had a falling out and she didn't talk to him anymore even while the series was still in production.

Here is what wiki says and it appears the rift was due to the affair:

Gilbert became extremely close to the Landon family after her adoptive father died. But a rift developed between Michael Landon and Gilbert after the revelation of Landon's affair with Little House‍‍ '​‍s young makeup artist, Cindy Clerico.[8]

Gilbert had limited contact with Landon after Little House ended during the 1983–84 season. Seven years later, she was contacted by Landon's family and upon news of his condition, paid him a heartfelt visit following his May 9, 1991, appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson where he discussed his pancreatic cancer. She visited Landon at his Malibu home where he was, by then, bedridden, and they spent the afternoon together. Landon died one week later. When Gilbert gave birth to her son with second husband Bruce Boxleitner on October 6, 1995, they named him Michael, in honor of Landon.

I am glad they were able to mend the fence before his death.

According to Melissa's book, she and Michael were the last two on the set after the final episode and Michael told her it was just the beginning for her.  The next time she mentioned seeing him was at Leslie Landon's wedding in the fall of 1990.  She said when she visited Michael a week before his death, he told her that he had watched every single movie she had done since Little House.

Hello, Mike. Welcome to the group.

Hi Mike, I'm Julie. Welcome to the group! I'm not as active in here as I used to be but I do "lurk" in here from time to time! It's also nice to see another Floridian here (I'm in Miami). Take care!

WElcome