"LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE" - THE PILOT MOVIE

amyk wrote:

I don't know if I've seen this pilot all the way through since the time it first aired back in 1974 or whenever, and maybe I didn't even see it then, although I watched LITTLE HOUSE on the initial run and think it is likely that I did see the pilot. Just watched it now, though, and I think it may be the best pilot episode of any TV series that I've seen. Perhaps it is because it is almost exclusively the main characters (including Mr. Edwards, who I think of as a main character of the series) is why it is so good - the relationships between characters are well-established and even things that would be referred to later in the series, such as Mr. Edwards' "can't stand for no peeking" and "Old Dan Tucker" are already a part of the lives of the Ingalls' family.

The Pilot episode is my FAVORITE of the whole series, and not many stations that have aired the reruns show it...I love how it follows the book and introduces us to everyone and their personalities in such a short amount of time...Everyone seems to have excellent chemistry with each other and it seems to come out and shows throughout the series. I really love how Caroline softens towards Mr. Edwards and their friendship only grows from there...I also loved how they used Mr. Edwards phrases to Laura and the others just as the book tells us...

Thoughts on the pilot.

I saw this four days ago quite possibly for the first time since seeing it on a small black-and-white television fifty years ago. If I had seen it more recently it was still over forty years ago.

It blew me away! Extremely well done, beautifully filmed, and very true to the book.

Main question I had was the first scene, where they were starting their journey in deep snow. Generally people did not undertake such a trip until around May, when grass would be long enough to feed the stock. I don't know when the Ingalls started in real life or how many people may have traveled in winter back then. I was impressed by the use of oxen. Trained oxen are very hard to find. I also wondered if people were still using muzzleloaders in the early 1870s and was told some people had ancestral guns in use as late as the 1940s.

Question if anyone knows: the scene where Mr. Edwards was wading a creek in a blizzard looked awfully real. Anyone know if that was filmed in real snow? Victor French must have been freezing!

One scene I really remembered from watching as a kid was when Mary said she was going to save her candy and Laura said, "Not me" and took a big bite. If I recall correctly from the book (which I read four times) they each took one lick.

This pilot movie looked even better in comparison with the later series, which tended to stray from the books and could sometimes get silly, and the two movies made since then. I plan to watch the Disney one again--I don't think I saw all of it when it was shown. The DVD is very cheap, BTW, but I don't even have to buy it as the library has it. That one annoyed me by leaving out Baby Carrie, and it annoyed a lot of people by having Laura with a slightly darker shade of blonde hair than Mary's rather than proper brown hair. This is a bigger sacrilege than putting blonde braids on Heidi. Laura is an American icon. They could afford a 6-hour miniseries and couldn't buy brown hair dye or even a realistic wig? I do want to put in a word for the guy who played Pa; as I recall he was pretty good. Kudos to the original movie which still shines above all!

I have not seen this one for a long time, but I do recall them leaving in the snow. Perhaps it was a late spring snow and they knew it would soon melt? Better to leave too early than too late in the season, I suppose.....I've watched and read too many things about the Donner-Reed party!

Yes, this was an excellent pilot / TV movie. Although I do prefer the whole town of Walnut Grove, this was probably really good to have as a pilot in focusing only on the Ingalls family (and Mr. Edwards) so that we really got to know them well without introducing too many other characters.

I don't know if the scene with Mr. Edwards wading through the creek was really filmed in snow.

Coming back to answer my own question. The book explicitly states they started out in winter as they had to make it across a frozen lake before the ice broke up. The ice broke up that night, right after they crossed.

Oh, I had not even thought of that being a reason to go in winter. I think it would be very scary to trust that the ice is going to hold up a whole wagon full of people and stuff!

Yep, it WAS sure scary.