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I have been fascinated with the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder since I discovered them later than most people, in high school. Laura's stories of homesteading along with the simple joys and tragedies of family life in the mid 1800s made me want to read them over and over.

In the mid 1970's I heard that a new television show was being built around Laura's stories. I was very excited until I watched a few episodes. While they were indeed very good family entertainment, they were nothing like Laura's stories.

There were so many things just plain wrong with the central characters, not to mention the additional characters that Landon made up. The episodes were melodramatic, politically correct ramblings of  Landon’s imagination.

I recently discovered some comments made by Mr. Landon in some old issues of the LIW Lore. These issues were published in the late 1970s and Landon's comments concerned Laura’s books and the Ingalls family. The comments were very arrogant and inappropriate. They show just how little respect he had for Laura and her books.

Here are the comments quoted directly from the 1978 Fall-Winter issue of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore. The Lore is published by the LIW Memorial Society in De Smet, SD. The Lore did a great job of following the lack of accuracy of the TV show and printing their objections to the stories Landon passed off as loose interpretations of Laura's books. They wanted TV viewers to realize the De Smet connection of LIW and her family, and who could blame them.

Of Pa: "Nothing ever bothered him. He borrowed money, but he always lost his shirt. At one point in his life he moved seven times in one year." (When was this?)

Of the times portrayed:  "It was very difficult to stay alive in those days - but impossible to die of something your parents didn't know of."

Of the family:  "I've seen pictures of them and let me tell you, none of them were dynamite."

When it came to the LHOP TV show, Roger Lea MacBride wasn't the most upright individual either. Be sure and read this  blog entry concerning Landon and MacBride bantering over how the LHOP show would be handled. For someone so upset at how the book adaptions were being transferred to television, you would think MacBride might return his portion of the royalties. It didn't happen.

While, I dislike the hatchet job Landon did on Laura's books, I do admire the performances of some of the actors. Dean Butler, Alison Arngrim, Richard Bull, Karen Grassle, Katherine MacGregor, and Kevin Hagan all did an excellent job with their characters.

Apparently Landon was a pretty nice guy when it came to meeting his fans. I do admire him and any celebrity that takes time to talk to the fans that helped make them famous. There is a web site that has a page of memories from fans who had a chance to meet and talk with Landon. In my opinion, one comment was a little excessive: "Everything Mr. Landon touched was clean and wholesome and wonderful".

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