There's No Place Like Home

in this episode, the Ingalls, Oleson, and Garvey family's are all stressing over life in the city. Laura gets in trouble for sassing her Pa's boss, I don't remember his name. When Toby Noe, a friend of Albert's, wins $5,000 in the lottery, he buys fireworks for the children to watch on Independence Day, then loses all of his money gambling to Pa's boss. when the boss's son accidentally lights a match in the room where the fireworks are stored, they all go off. this is when the Ingalls and Garvey family's decide to go back to Walnut Grove, and Albert goes with the Ingalls family. Back in Walnut Grove, everyone must help to get the town back in order, and Mr. Hanson is ill so he cannot help much. in the end, the town citizens attend a Church sermon and Mr. Hanson is well enough to go!

I really liked this episode! It was funny to see Nels drunk and win all that money, even though he barely knew what was going on! I was really happy to see Albert go home with the Ingalls family, I loved his character after the first episode I saw him in! I was sad, though, when Mr. Hanson passed away at the end of this episode

I was sad to see Mr. Hanson in such a state, and I was sad to see him die, but I never really liked him. I cried when Charles asked Albert to come home, and Nel's made me laugh so hard i got cramps!

that could've happened, I know it's happened before on other shows, where an actor dies in real life so they have to cut the character...I should research it!

MattLabMyLove wrote:

Seeing Mr. Hanson like that broke my heart. I think the actor that played him actually did pass away around this time?

Yes, I believe that's right..

ingallsfan2008 wrote:

Laura gets in trouble for sassing her Pa's boss, I don't remember his name.

Wasn't his name Mr. Standford? No no, wait I remember it was Mr. Standish! Yea that sounds right!

yep Mr Standish is right! I just forgot it for a while

Ya, he wasnt one of my favorite characters! He made me so mad!!! URG!! I wish Jonathin had punched him!!!!! He should have the the the the *I wont say it I wont say it* SKUNK!!!!! *oops I did it again* In the words of Reverand Allden "That seems to be an injustice..... to the skunk" poor skunks I didnt mean to affend!

Edit:I apologise for my poor spelling!

a happy episode and a sad one at the same time. it was sad to see Mr. Hanson pass away at the end of it, but it was nice to see Albert go back to Walnut Grove with the Ingalls family!

I always get teary-eyed at the end of this episode when we find out that Mr. Hanson passes away. I believe that the actor, Karl Swenson, actually died about 7-8 days after the episode was broadcast...if I have the story correctly, he died after his character was written out of the series. If that is true, it is kind of a strange coincidence... :unsure:

I thought Karl had been sick for a while before he passed away, but I could be mistaken.

It's sad that Karl died so soon after this episode aired.

But I do love the scene when they are up the town and Nels has to force Nellie and Willie to help and then threaten Harriet with a item that they use to cut the tall grass. It was so funny.

I watched part I of this episode today on my DVD set, and I was surprised that it only ran about 38 minutes. Most episodes that run an hour on TV run about 45 minutes on DVD. I don't remember this episode being any shorter or any extra commercials added when shown on TV (which it rarely is BTW because the second part runs long), and I didn't notice anything that might have been cut from the DVD. The DVD packaging says that part I originally aired on September 9, 1978 and part II on September 16, 1978. I think that's supposed to be October 9 and 16, as the previous episode, "The Man Inside", aired on October 2, 1978. I thought maybe the episode was originally aired as a 2½-hour episode and they broke into two parts for the DVDs at a natural break, but that's apparently not the case. I'm puzzled as to why part I only runs 38 minutes then instead of the expected 45.

BTW, Cheryl, you're right about Karl Swenson being ill before he died. I also watched the Dabbs Greer interview from the season 5 DVDs today, and he mentioned that.

I'm just so glad the show returned to Walnut Grove. I know that does not fit the books, but for me, the town of Walnut Grove had become almost like a character in and of itself, and of course we missed Doc Baker and Revd. Alden in Winoka, so in this case I'm glad the show did not follow the books.

Same with me.

Yes. I just LOVE Walnut Grove and was sad when they went to establish themselves in Winoka. I didn't like all these people in the streets, the saloon fights, the noises...I just felt so relieved when they returned to their little house, and Doctor Baker, Reverend Alden and the people from the town come to sight again!

Vanesa.

I never liked the Winoka episodes. It's unrealistic to think so much of the town would relocate in one place; and despite that they were able to meet Albert there and bring him home, it just didn't feel like LHOP will they were there.

I did not like the way that Charles was treated by Mr. Standish and he wasn't really able to stand up for himself. I also did not really like the Olesons working in the saloon. It just seemed too far out of character for them. I know when people are desparate they have to do things they normally might not do, but it just seemed odd to me that people would do things this much out of character.

In a way, though, it is kind of nice that they went to Winoka because it makes us appreciate it so much more when they moved back to Walnut Grove.

Does anybody know why they moved the show to Winoka to begin with? Was it an experiment to freshen up the series? Did they plan to move it there permanently and decide to move it back to Walnut Grove when it seemed things weren't working out, or was the plan all along for the move to Winoka to be temporary?

bethandmanly wrote:

I never liked the Winoka episodes. It's unrealistic to think so much of the town would relocate in one place; and despite that they were able to meet Albert there and bring him home, it just didn't feel like LHOP will they were there.

Well, I don't like Winoka episodes, either, but there's a thing that is true about them: when there were difficulties in a region and people moved, they used to go on the same direction and find themselves living all very close to each other, or even in the same town! It doesn't seem possible but it really was. People used to go where there were opportunities to them. When I read Donald Zochert's bok about Laura's life I was amazed to find that this ...

Michael Landon took a lot of liberties on the show, and changed Laura's story very much, but he was surprisingly faithful to some particularities of it, like the massive nieghbors movings and some names he introduced to the storyline, like Dillon Hyde, among others.

Vanesa.