20 Things Pa Wouldn’t Want You to Know About ‘Little House on the Prairie’

Little House on the Prairie and its spin-off Little House: A New Beginning aired from 1974 to 1983, based on the classic series of children’s books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Set back in the late 1800s, the show was about average daily life of a pioneer family and the townspeople in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, but behind the scenes things were anything but average. If you think it was all wholesome family values, read on.

1. The cast and crew would drink alcohol on set

Alison Arngrim spotted Michael Landon enjoying some whiskey one morning, and then found out that the crew would go through two cases of Coors each day. More stressful days were called “three-case days.” After filming wrapped they would bring out the harder stuff. Michael Landon was a chain smoker and a heavy drinker and even Melissa Gilbert struggled with drugs and alcohol after the show wrapped. In her memoir Prairie Tale, Gilbert wrote, “As a kid, I didn’t know [Landon] sipped vodka from his coffee mug … but I’m sure he’s one reason why, as a young adult, I almost always picked men who smelled like alcohol.”