July 22, 2007

Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura & Carrie

Who are the main characters in Little House on the Prairie? (This is me answering my subject line as if it were a question on Jeopardy)

So, I really love watching Little House on the Prairie. I had about a 10 year hiatus from watching it, but rediscovered my affection for the Ingalls Family over the last couple year . . . spurred by a marathon the Hallmark station had last fall.

What is my fascination with this show? Acting . . . bad. Storylines . . . mostly bad. Character development . . . awful and very choppy. Morals of the episodes . . . usually pretty good, but horribly cheesy and predicatble. So, I was thinking back to when I first started watching and I don't really remember a beginning, but I do remember specific times that we watched it.
Background information: My sister and I pretty much spent the majority of a couple of summers with my cousins (Trevor and Noelle). Trevor and Noelle would come to our house on Tuesday and Thursday when my aunt worked, and we'd go to their house on Monday, Wednesday and Friday when my mom worked. We usually had a GREAT time together and I could tell story after story about those summers. But there were times we didn't get along as well as others. . . one of those times being the 9 AM television spot.

At 9 AM, each weekday morning, one station aired G.I. Joe and another aired Little House on the Prairie. Karina, Noelle and I always wanted to watch Little House and Trevor always wanted G.I. Joe.

Now, at some point in time, Trevor watched an episode of Little House in which Carrie fell into a well and the town of Walnut Grove spent the whole night trying to get her out (similar to baby Jessica, if any of you remember that fiasco). Trevor liked that episode. I'd dare say Trevor loved that episode. And that was the only episode Trevor would watch. So, when 8:58 AM rolled around each morning, Noelle, Karina and I would get ourselves so worked up trying to convince Trevor that this might be the "Carrie falling in the well" episode and he wouldn't want to miss it. It was a genius plan because by the time we figured out that it wasn't the Carrie in the well episode, G.I. Joe was half way over (it was only a 30 minute show) and we got to watch Little House. This went on all summer. In retrospect, for as smart as he is, I'm kind of surprised that he fell for it that long.

Now, all of that to say, one morning . . . we were watching . . . lo and behold it was the episode where Carrie fell in the well. We went into every episode each morning knowing that it was not going to be what we were telling Trevor it might be. But on that day when we were right, we were delerious with joy. I remember cheering and celebrating like we had just won the lottery. It was a good day. So good, that when people ask you to think of a time in your life when you were the happiest . . . that moment ranks right up there with the big ones. It was the kind happiness like only a child can have about seeing their favorite episode of a really lackluster show.

Maybe that moment is what makes me like the show. Maybe it's just that I like dull tv. In any case, I'm going to keep watching.

So, may you have a "I just saw the episode of Little House on the Prairie where Carrie fell in the well" kind of day.

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