Little House on the Prairie Cast Reunion Thursday on Home & Family

This Thursday, October 8, on Hallmark Channel's "Home & Family" the cast of "Little House on the Prairie" is reuniting! The cast including Melissa Gilbert (Laura Ingalls), Dean Butler (Almanzo Wilder), Matthew Labyorteaux (Albert Ingalls) Alison Arngrim (Nellie Oleson) and Lindsay Greenbush (Carrie Ingalls) will be featured throughout the episode. Segment highlights:

- A guided tour of the show's original filming locations with Alison Arngrim
- A tribute to Michael Landon (Charles Ingalls) by his children Michael Landon Jr. and Leslie Landon with never before seen family photos

- Melissa Gilbert will share a recipe from her cookbook (gingersnap pumpkin pie) and discuss her decision to run for congress

- Dean Butler shares a Christmas DIY from his own family traditions
- Home & Family's Debbie Matenopulous talks about Laura Ingalls and offers travel tips to trace the cross-country journey of the Ingalls family

Home & Family airs Weekdays at 10/9c on Hallmark

Movie Review: The Christmas Pageant

Photo credit Hallmark Channel

Director Vera Parks (Melissa Gilbert) has a career that is going nowhere fast. Labeled as difficult, she gets fired from several jobs in a row. Her manager Peter (Steve Lawrence) gets her a job directing a small town Christmas pageant.

Things go from bad to worse quickly. While some are eager to work with her, others are destined to fight any change Vera suggests. Vera has problems adjusting from her glamorous life in New York City, to the simple life in Ashton Falls. Then she runs into her ex-fiancé, Jack Harmond (Robert Mailhouse). Vera is soon considering whether she should return to New York or stick it out in Ashton Falls.

If ever there was a movie that Melissa Gilbert was born to star in, it's The Christmas Pageant. If Little House on the Prairie was set in modern times, then the storyline from this movie would be a perfect fit. A woman whose life centers around her career and posh city life, ends up in a simple town where there is one mail carrier and everyone knows each other. It's not long before Ashton Falls and its people begin to grow on Vera.

A blend of funny and sweet, this is a classic Hallmark romance. With a superb cast and quaint setting, you can't go wrong. If you are looking for a story that will touch your heart and remind you of the joys of being home, be sure to catch this movie on the Hallmark Channel in December. The next showing is Wednesday, December 21st at 10/9 Central.

Archive of American Television Interview with Melissa Gilbert

Melissa Gilbert (Laura Ingalls, LHOP NBC) was interviewed for the Archive of American Television. "Founded in 1997, the Television Academy Foundation’s Archive of American Television has conducted over 700 long-form interviews (over 3000 hours) with the legends of television."

You can find her interview at http://emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/melissa-gilbert

She talks not only about her years on Little House On the Prairie, but her early career, her family, her production company, and many of the special people she's worked with.

Did anyone catch her recent movie on Hallmark Channel? I have it The Christmas Pageant on my DVR, but haven't watched it yet. If you have, what did  you think?

Melissa Gilbert to Star in The Christmas Pageant on Hallmark

Photo credit: Hallmark Channel

 
Melissa Gilbert is starring in a new seasonal movie titled, The Christmas Pageant, on the Hallmark Channel. It premiers this Sunday, December 11th at 8 PM EST.
 
She visited The Talk (a show where her younger sister Sara is a co-host) yesterday to promote the movie. You can see the full episode at http://www.cbs.com/shows/the_talk/video/2174095228/the-talk-12-6-2011
In addition, she will be on the Today Show tomorrow to talk about it.

You can find out more information on the movie at Hallmark's website http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/microsites/cast.aspx?simscode=419-26631&pageid=3502&castid=3346.

This Week on Hallmark Channel

For anyone who isn't aware of it, though Hallmark Channel had briefly dropped Little House on the Prairie from its lineup, this channel is now running three episodes of the show back-to-back from 2 to 5 PM Eastern during the week, and from 6 to 8 AM Eastern on Saturday. Even knowing what a great show LHOP is, I'm amazed that it is so popular it can still be seen so many times during the week.

Some of my favorite episodes from the earlier seasons are on this week too:

Whisper County; I Remember, I Remember; A Most Precious Gift; I'll Be Waving As You Drive Away; The Wedding, and on Saturday, Stone Soup. Other episodes that will air this week can be found on Hallmark's website.

Fans of the show probably remember these, but here is a brief synopsis of each:

Whisper County: Mary leaves home for her first teaching job, but education is not highly regarded by the community, especially Miss Peale, with whom Mary has more than a few run-ins.

I Remember, I Remember: While waiting for Charles to come home, Caroline shares memories with her girls of how she met a young Charles Ingalls (portrayed by Matthew Labyorteaux).



A Most Precious Gift: Caroline worries that the baby she is carrying won't be the son she believes Charles desperately wants.

I'll Be Waving As You Drive Away: In the first part of this two-part episode, Mary has a new beau, named Seth and Walnut Grove is struggling to survive in hard economic times. When Mary's eye sight worsens, a trip to the doctor brings devastating news: she's going blind.

In the second part of this episode, Mary is sent to a school for the blind in Iowa. Feeling resentful and alone, her new teacher Adam Kendall, doesn't leave her much time to feel sorry for herself. While Mary is forced to learn to live in a world of sighted people, conditions in Walnut Grove worsen, and some of the townsfolk consider relocating. (Last episode featuring Mrs. Eva Beadle Simms.)


The Wedding: Adam finally works up the courage to ask Mary to be his wife. Caroline and Charles make the trip to Winoka for the ceremony, where Adam and Mary are working as teachers at a blind school. But when Caroline begins talking about how difficult it was to manage children, Mary worries that two blind people can't take care of a sighted baby and calls off the wedding. While on a picnic with children from the blind school, a sand storm kicks up, and one of the students, Susan Goodspeed, is lost, and Adam and Mary must search for her alone. (One of Linwood Boomer's finest performances, in my humble opinion.)



Stone Soup: This is one of my favorite episodes from Season 8. During a drought Almanzo and Charles decide to take a job hauling freight to Arizona, while a pregnant Laura is left home to tend to the Wilder's newly planted apple orchard. The drought only worsens, and Laura is exhausted trying to take care of the farm and teach school. When she suffers heatstroke, Caroline fills in at the school and shares a story with the children, that motivates Willie Oleson and his classmates to help others. (A fabulous episode to see how Willie has grown into a young man.)

All these episodes have the elements of a good story: strong plot, lots of conflict, and a resolution by the end. These are all classic Little House on the Prairie episodes that remind you why you fell in love with the series in the first place, and why we keep on watching.