Gilbert recalled noticing how close Landon and Clerico had become on set, but she pushed those thoughts aside, unwilling to believe that Landon might be unfaithful to his wife.
‘There was nothing overtly inappropriate about it; they never shut themselves away in a separate room – at least, I never saw them do so,’ she wrote in her memoirs. ‘But Mike would walk around holding her puppy, and she was a beautiful young woman, wearing fashionable skinny jeans, leggings and heeled boots.’
Soon, the cast, including Gilbert, found out about the affair and were shocked by the behaviour of a man whom many regarded almost as a father figure.
‘For us children, it was a real blow,’ Melissa Sue Anderson later recalled in her biography. “Although we knew he could be a difficult person at times and had his faults, we never imagined he was capable of causing such pain to his real family.”
“For me personally, he held a much higher moral standard. He really let me down.”
The travelling blanket
Eagle-eyed fans with near-laser vision spotted another amusing blooper: the family blanket seems to have a life of its own! This elusive blanket appears in various places throughout the series — on the Olesons’ bed, on Charles and Caroline’s bed, and even on the beds of other characters.
Mostly white, with a cute pattern resembling a ‘double wedding ring’, it was clearly a prop that was reused for the sake of economy and convenience.
And whilst we’re on the subject of locations, have you noticed the Ingalls children’s odd route to and from school? Their route seems to change from episode to episode. Sometimes they cross the bridge and walk past the sawmill, whilst in other episodes they mysteriously end up on the road behind it.
Dean Butler nearly lost his life
Some actors joined the series in the later seasons. One of them was Dean Butler, who played Laura Ingalls’ husband, Almanzo Wilder.
Just a few days after finishing college, Dean arrived on the set of Little House on the Prairie. It was a day he was bound to remember for many reasons.
In his first scene, Butler was supposed to ride in a horse-drawn cart for about 200 yards down a hill. He had never done this before, and when Michael shouted ‘action’, everything went completely wrong. The wind caught his hat, and Butler instinctively let go of the reins as he tried to catch it. At that very moment, the horses, now out of control, veered off the track and hurtled straight towards an oak tree.
People on set screamed, but fortunately, one of the crew managed to run up to the horses before they crashed into the tree.
Dean’s first day on set could have gone much better, and Michael Landon decided to perform the scene in his place.
“Michael came up to me, chewing on a cigarette, and said: ‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to stand in for you,’ Butler recalled Landon saying. ‘I can stand in for you, but I can’t stand in for the horses in the series.’ ‘That was my first time working alongside Michael, but it was still great fun.’”
Did Albert die or not?
Albert Quinn Ingalls, played by the young Matthew Laberto, became one of the series’ key characters in 1978. The orphaned boy was taken in by the Ingalls family, but his departure from the story remained unclear to many viewers.
In the 1983 TV film Little House: A Look Back, Albert is diagnosed with leukaemia. But did he die or not? This remains unclear to this day.
‘He didn’t officially die in the episode, and I think they sort of left it open to interpretation… but there was something left unsaid; everyone understood that he was meant to die,’ the former child actor recalled in an interview years later.
A historical inaccuracy
In the grand finale of Little House on the Prairie, the television film The Last Farewell, there is a notable historical inconsistency. The story is set in 1901, and it is clear that by the start of the 20th century, most of the characters would already have been in their 60s or 70s.
For example, the real Charles Ingalls died in 1902. Younger characters such as Carrie, Jenny, James, Cassandra and Nancy should by this point have become young adults.
However, looking at footage from the most recent seasons, it seems as though the characters have hardly changed at all, as if time in Walnut Grove had simply stood still. Yet, historically, the Wilders had already moved to Missouri around the turn of the century.
She went on a pilgrimage to India
Did you notice that Catherine McGregor, who played Harriet Oleason throughout all nine seasons, was absent from ‘The Final Farewell’?
Various sources reported that she was on a pilgrimage to India due to her new Hindu faith, but there is another layer to her absence from the series finale. According to other reports, the reason may have been a long-standing personal conflict with Michael Landon over pay and the way her acting talent was utilised.
As we wrap up our journey through the bloopers and mistakes of Little House on the Prairie, we hope you’ve enjoyed this light-hearted peek behind the scenes at Walnut Grove.
If these unexpected moments made you smile, why not share that good humour with others? Spread the fun and share this video on Facebook! Let the good times roll!