Sweet sixteen

I don't understand how come mary got to marry adam before she turned 16. & laura had to be 16?. So i guess 16 was considred "Grown up " back then? Today 16 is still considred a kid.

Laura looked nice with her hair done up like that.She looked really mature and grown up

I liked this season where "half-pint" grew up. I remember her grown up picture being on the cover of People.....with the title "Half-pint grows up"
She really did get more attractive as she grew up.

I always enjoyed her tv movies too

I agree.She got pretty when she grew up

I love this episode!!! You can't help feeling sooo happy for Laura!!!

Ruth wrote:

I love this episode!!! You can't help feeling sooo happy for Laura!!!

me too

I just saw this one last week........I love the innocence back then. The sweet little kiss by the two of them at the end of the episode sent shivers down my spine.

ChristineLovesLHOTP wrote:

I just saw this one last week........I love the innocence back then. The sweet little kiss by the two of them at the end of the episode sent shivers down my spine.

It didn't exactly send shivers down Melissa's spine......
This is a perfect example of why they call it acting...........

"I was never as relieved as when I heard Mike, who directed the episode, yell cut. I felt like I took my first real breath in a week. I turned and saw my mother, the woman who had told me that tampons were for makeup, standing just off camera, standing with tears in her eyes. She gave me a hug before I hurried off to the craft service table and popped some chips in my mouth to get rid of any cooties."
Excerpt From Prairie Tale by Melissa Gilbert

LoL, yes, that was a good acting job. : P Even MSA didn't want her kissing scenes...at least they had those feelings, today, they grow up so fast sometimes.

This episode was filmed in Jan. 1980. Gilbert would not be sixteen until May of that year. They should've waited until May to film this episode. I don't know how much difference three months would've made but the show's execs were nervous about pairing a twenty-something guy with a teenage girl, so every little bit would help.

Pretty tough to wait until May and hold up a production schedule. The fact of the matter is that Almanzo Wilder was ten years older than Laura.l
When they shot this episode Dean was 3 months shy of 24 and Melissa was just shy of 16.

HISTORIC FACT
When Laura was just 15, and Almanzo was 25, he began courting her.........I don't know what the issue is.........in actuality it was pretty close to fact....

Luckily "kissing scenes" in LHOP wasn't like other shows, they were pretty chaste. : )
Still, it must feel weird to have a stage kiss be your first.

Davetucson wrote:

Pretty tough to wait until May and hold up a production schedule.

Yes but this episode was aired in February, whereas the next episode, "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" wasn't aired until May, so it could've been done.

Quote :

HISTORIC FACT
When Laura was just 15, and Almanzo was 25, he began courting her.........I don't know what the issue is.........in actuality it was pretty close to fact....

Yes I know I'm an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist, but people mature so rapidly in adolescence that I think Melissa might have changed enough in 3 months to actually see some difference. This was such a crucial episode and even the most subtle change could've made a difference. Of course this is all moot point since it was over 30 years ago and they can't go back & re-film it now.

I'm glad you think 90 days would have made a huge difference. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. But as one perfectionist to another, I disagree!

He that will have a perfect brother must resign himself to remain brotherless.
~Italian Proverb

Davetucson wrote:

I'm glad you think 90 days would have made a huge difference. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. But as one perfectionist to another, I disagree!

He that will have a perfect brother must resign himself to remain brotherless.
~Italian Proverb

Me too! People doesn't grwon up so fast...Even back then!

Vanesa.

whitelighter wrote:

Davetucson wrote:

Pretty tough to wait until May and hold up a production schedule.

Yes but this episode was aired in February, whereas the next episode, "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" wasn't aired until May, so it could've been done.

Quote :

HISTORIC FACT
When Laura was just 15, and Almanzo was 25, he began courting her.........I don't know what the issue is.........in actuality it was pretty close to fact....

Yes I know I'm an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist, but people mature so rapidly in adolescence that I think Melissa might have changed enough in 3 months to actually see some difference. This was such a crucial episode and even the most subtle change could've made a difference. Of course this is all moot point since it was over 30 years ago and they can't go back & re-film it now.

We have to remember this was more about how Melissa's fans and fans of the show in general would accept Laura being involved with Almanzo (played by Dean Butler who was several years older) than with historical fact. In the 1970s, it wasn't typical for a sixteen-year-old girl to be dating a twenty-five year old man. The idea is proposterous even now. While I don't think it would be cost effective to hold up a production schedule, Landon being the genius that he was knew he had to be sensitive to that element. That's why there are crazy episodes in Season 7 that didn't put Laura and Almanzo into situations where they had to portray a very in love, chemistry driven couple--The In-Laws, The Nephews. And when you look at Season 7 as a whole, not a lot of the episodes focused on Laura and Almanzo's marriage. Even those that did, portrayed them in a more humorous light, like Divorce, Walnut Grove Style.

Since Melissa is now a grown woman with kids, we might not remember what a big deal it was back when she starred in the CBS(?) movie, The Soul Collector in 1999, in which she had intimate scenes with a man for the first time. That's more than 10 years after LHOP ended, but people still talked about it.

This one was really cute!

The missing scene!!! @ 13:21

Do you know this anecdote ?

"This episode was shot several months before I turned sixteen myself. That is the episode where the romance between laura and almanzo really begins. In fact, they have their first kiss. I remember shooting that kiss and it was a really big deal. It was kind of scary, but it ended up being very sweet and tender. Bless Dean Butler's heart. He was a grown man having to kiss a child. I can only imagine the pressure he felt. If only I'd been able to tell him that I had already kissed a boy in real life - Tim Maier. He played Chad Brewster in that episode. Nobody knew. But they do now."

"My Prairie Cookbook: Memories and Frontier Food from My Little House to Yours" by Melissa Gilbert

I love this episode. Just finished watching. But one thing.....was Laura prepared to take the teacher's exam right on the spot? Apparently she learned her lesson and had been brushing up on her history, since she seemed to be giving an oral answer to a history question in the scene we saw. Also, don't you think she would have first asked her parents' permission before agreeing to go off to some other town away from home and teach?

I also don't know that a student would have been touching a teacher like the way Chad was touching "Miss Ingalls" even if he was "demonstrating" something about the rib cage's flexibility to her. I kind of had the feeling Chad did have a bit of a crush on Laura and that was why he was improving in his studies.

But of course the major reason this episode exists is to bring Laura and Almanzo's relationship to the romantic stage, and I think it succeeds immensely in that. I love how cute Almanzo is when he's all flustered thinking about Laura at home. Eliza Jane is happy for him, too, I think, but I can see on her face that she may already be thinking about what that is going to mean for her when/if Almanzo and Laura get married. I think it was so sweet of Albert to invite her to dance with him at the social.

Until reading the comment two posts above, I always thought this was MG's first kiss ever.....didn't know she had kissed the guy who played Chad. He is a cute guy. I liked his character in this episode.

amyk wrote:

I also don't know that a student would have been touching a teacher like the way Chad was touching "Miss Ingalls" even if he was "demonstrating" something about the rib cage's flexibility to her. I kind of had the feeling Chad did have a bit of a crush on Laura and that was why he was improving in his studies.

Chad's dream is to become a doctor. I think he only has respect to Laura because she's the only one who really believes in him and pushes him to study. That's why Chad seems to be in admiration of her.

Yes, he does admire her. I think too that he never really thought that he could be anything other than a farmer until Laura gave him the encouragement that he could become a doctor.

Did students really have to do that long division like that in their heads? That seemed so hard to me! I can't do that!

P.S. I'm glad that Laura's first teaching job had students and a community that were supportive of her, unlike Mary's first teaching job!

amyk wrote:

Did students really have to do that long division like that in their heads? That seemed so hard to me! I can't do that!

I like maths but I can't do too long divisions in my head.

Here are two little clips of this episode. Youtube and Dailymotion have deleted all my videos of more than 30 seconds for copyright infringement.


Original version :



Full scene : https://www.facebook.com/TimMaierActor/videos/1074008563106112



French version



Full scene : https://www.facebook.com/TimMaierActor/videos/409536700192131
French voices :
- Melissa Gilbert : Béatrice Bruno
- Dean Butler : Christophe or Fabrice Bruno
- Tim Maier : Vincent Ropion