There's No Place Like Home

jes9 wrote:

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?

I don't think the wanted to do Winoka a permanent home for the Ingallses. Maybe they thought that a little while in a noisy town would make the show more interesting, and that when the family and her friends should return to Walnut Grove, people wuld appreciate it in a much more special way.

Vanesa.

Vanesa wrote:

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.

Very interesting, Vanesa. It has been years since I’ve read Zochert’s book. I had forgotten.

Vanesa wrote:

jes9 wrote:

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?

I don't think the wanted to do Winoka a permanent home for the Ingallses. Maybe they thought that a little while in a noisy town would make the show more interesting, and that when the family and her friends should return to Walnut Grove, people wuld appreciate it in a much more special way.

Vanesa.

Well, you know the writer in me always likes to dissect why they might have decided to do things. When they went to California, it was a good way to write the Edwards family out of the show.

Karl Swenson (Mr. Hanson) was ill. I guess they could have written him out of the show easier, but having Walnut Grove die off for a while worked well too. Then I have to wonder about Melissa Sue Anderson. She was already nervous about her character going blind and thought they were writing her out of the show. By having the entire family move to Winoka, this allowed for Mary to be included in more of the episodes. I also feel that’s why they moved Mary and Adam back to Walnut Grove afterwards in the episode, Blind Journey.

After the fire at the blind school forced their relocation to Sleepy Eye, we saw very little of Mary and Adam. The focus turned even more toward Laura and her pursuit of Almanzo.

Tiffanylm wrote:

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.

lol.....I forgot about that.....I really loved those scenes

My favorite scene is when they go back to the Little House and it's dusty and dirty and they start to clean it up..no matter what, "it's home".

I just watched this again last night, a Hallmark movie special, and it occurred to me that Laura started snoring when Albert came....Hmmm, maybe a subliminal way to get the loft her herself. : )

I like the scene when immediately after going back to Walnut Grove, Carrie had to use the outhouse. Then, it fell over! I don't know what was funnier...Carrie just sitting on the toilet looking all confused, or Charles' hysterical laughter! His laughter cracked me up all the time!

His laughter is definitely haunting... and contagious, that is for sure...


It seems that all Carrie can do is go to the potty.

I haven't seen any LHOP since Hallmark took it off (don't get the other channel) I was talking about this episode with my daughter, how good it was to have them back "home". She asked about the animals...does anyone remember how they got the cows/chickens, etc. back?

Karl Swenson died on October 8, 1978 and part two of this episode aired on October 16, 1978, so I've always wondered if Mr. Hanson was supposed to die in this episode or if the voice over about his death was added after he died in real life. The reason I wonder is because Dr. Baker made it sound like the stroke wasn't that bad and that the only reason Mr. Hanson wasn't getting better was because he had given up after the town died and refused to fight.

I just finished watching this 2 part episode last night. I thought it was really good! Part 2 was definitely my favorite of the two parts because they return to Walnut Grove. I didn't care for Winoka for the same reasons that the Ingalls didn't like it there. Like they said, there was no place like home! I loved the part where Charles went and asked Albert if he would come home with them.. I am glad he did. I also thought the part where Nels gets on Nellie and Willie and Harriet about getting to work.. that was really funny!

I thought it was strange how all of a sudden Laura starts to snore in her sleep as soon as Albert is there... those scenes were really funny!

I was glad that they all got back to Walnut Grove and I loved the scene where all of the townspeople started showing up at the school / church to help clean up the town. It was great when Lars Hanson gets up and looks out the window when the church bell is ringing, and then proceeds to go to church. I liked how he got to see that the town wasn't even close to being dead.

Why did they go to Winoka in the first place? Those episodes weren't great, but this one was good and reset the whole show - back to Walnut Grove and with Albert.

I could be wrong, but I thought it was to be close to Mary. But I would have to agree, I didn't like Winoka much, when they went back to Walnut Grove they were back home!

Just noticed something funny when I re-watched this episode in the remastered form.... When Lars is walking to church in the end, as he passes by Jonathan, a fly lands on Jonathan's forehead! I didn't notice this with the non-remastered DVDs!

MankatoJoe wrote:

Why did they go to Winoka in the first place? Those episodes weren't great, but this one was good and reset the whole show - back to Walnut Grove and with Albert.

The dispute between the railroad and the Grange pretty much made it impossible for farmers in Walnut Grove to make a living, so they moved to Winoka to find work and be close to where Mary was teaching.

That was a great scene, Dave! I saw it for the first time last night!

I'm watching part 2 in 9 hours at 6am.. how nice to get up to great television.

Think it was a truncated version on You Tube I first watched.

I saw Part 1 where Mary and Adam and the children from the Blind School sing a farewell song to Charles and the departing Walnut Grovers and I finally realized it was a song that that was a real song from the LIW songbook..."Keep the Horsehoe Hung Over the Door"....I love that songbook and I realized I didn't even recognize that the first time as a kid. So fun watching them over as a adult and seeing stuff I didn't notice before.

Toby wrote:

Karl Swenson died on October 8, 1978 and part two of this episode aired on October 16, 1978, so I've always wondered if Mr. Hanson was supposed to die in this episode or if the voice over about his death was added after he died in real life.  The reason I wonder is because Dr. Baker made it sound like the stroke wasn't that bad and that the only reason Mr. Hanson wasn't getting better was because he had given up after the town died and refused to fight.  

This episode was on COZI TV this morning, and this is the trivia I found on Karl Swenson and the part he played of Lars Hanson......I'm not sure when the episode was actually taped, but he must have been healthy enough to tape it before having his heart attack later on...This had to have been a shock to all the cast members.

"Karl Swenson, the actor who played the towns founder Lars Hanson, died of a heart attack eight days before this episode aired*. At the end of this episode, there is a voice-over from Laura mentioning that Lars Hanson died four months later (which was likely related to the stroke Hanson had while the Ingalls were in Winoka). The episode, with Hanson dying, was completed prior to Swenson's death, so the voice-over of Hanson's death is purely coincidental."

* One day before part 1 aired on October 9, 1978 and 8 days before part 2 aired on October 16, 1978.


This trivia was also included:

"This episode had a run time longer than the usual one hour, without being a separate 'made for TV movie.' "

Part 1 was 49 minutes.....add commercials and it went for 1 hour.  Part 2 was 1 hour 14 minutes and running time with commercials was 1 1/2 hours long, making it a 2 1/2 hour show.

I never liked the city episodes although when they went looking for gold, that was shorter and had a moral storyline about greed.

Winoka was always shown to be so awful, I felt, although I don't know historically how a city then would have been, it was drummed over our heads, "city bad, country good". I don't think you needed the constant fights, noise, and horrible people mixed in with an occasional good soul. It was okay for Charles later but I just wished they showed the "bad" with less of a heavy hand. Not everyone could farm and that didn't make them bad. Saloons were crazy, still are, but you didn't have to live above them.
I was glad they went, just to have the return show, one of my favorites, dusting off their furniture, cleaning and bringing "little house" back to it's fans.

All that constant saloon tack piano music really pissed me off.