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Nellie Newsletter10/8/24 A STATEMENT FROM THE CAST OF
LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE™ The cast of Little House on the Prairie™ is devoted to the generations of fans who, for half a century, have loved and honored the show’s stature as one of the most beloved family dramas in television history. We empathize with Prairie fans who are disappointed by the lack of organization and poor execution at recent events in Farmington, CT, and Lancaster, PA. We are deeply moved by the hundreds of comments expressing support for our decision to make no further appearances for the promoter of those events. For those inquiring about refunds for Farmington, Lancaster, and now canceled Little House on the Prairie events in Lyles, TN, Keystone, SD, Branson, MO, or Corsicana, TX, we suggest contacting the entity from which you purchased your tickets. As a new half-century of “Little House love” begins in 2025, stay tuned for updates about all-new Little House on the Prairie fan events for Bonnetheads everywhere. Little House Forever!
So that will give you some idea of where we’re at now. And the drama continues. The latest occurrence is a People Magazine interview with Melissa Gilbert on the subject. From October 4th: Melissa Gilbert People Additionally, here’s an article form October 1st on TV Line (billed as “one commotion you can’t blame on that Nellie Oleson”): TV Line Article But I assure you, as this madness continues, there are plans in the works to re-mount the tour and assorted fan events with production values similar to Michael Landon’s on Little House. I am short on details (as usual!), but I am sure that things are being planned. Stay tuned . . . Now for the usual rundown of Alison’s activities: 1. Daily Book Readings – The daily readings are currently on hiatus for an indefinite period. 2. Bonnets, Etc. - Bonnets, tin cups, books, photos, Alison sells them at her online store, 'Not Your Mothers Mercantile'. Everything autographed. Here's the link to the store: Mercantile New items have been added. (To see the complete selection, click on the “Shop Now” button.) Be sure to specify how you want them signed. Also, check her schedule. She is currently in France, so no purchases should be made at this time. 3. Cameo - You can have your favorite cast member record a personal video greeting - Happy Birthday, Congratulations, Get Well Soon, you name it! Check it out: Cameo Website Or... cut to the chase: Alison Cameo FYI, Alison currently has her Cameo turned off. Well, she’s not home so she can’t record messages! But never fear, she assures me that it will be back on in time for the Holidays. 4. Radio Show / Podcast - The Alison Arngrim Show is on every Tuesday at 5:00 pm Pacific Time. The best way to catch the show live is to go to the UBN Radio page on FaceBook: UBN FaceBook. If you have any ideas of who you would like to see interviewed by Alison, pass them along, and we’ll see what we can do! If you miss a show, or want to catch any of the past episodes, go to her FaceBook page for the show: Alison Arngrim Show While she’s in France, you should expect nothing but reruns. 5. Who's Going To Do The Cooking? - Alison will be appearing on her FaceBook page, cooking something with instructions, whenever she can find the time. And she has not found the time for quite a while now, but she’ll be back! She has made many incredible dishes. You can find all of these on her YouTube Channel: Who's Going To Do The Cooking? Now, how about some Alison schedule? She’s off to France for the entire month of October! Details here: Alison France (Remember, don’t order from the store while she’s out of the country. She won’t be here to fill your orders!) Here's her schedule in France: Après avoir joué "Nellie Oleson enflamme les années 80" en Californie (fin mars), Alison et Patrick seront bientôt de retour en France et en Belgique pour une nouvelle tournée des petites communes : Samedi 5 octobre 2024, 20h30
?COUCOURON (Ardèche) Renseignements : 07 76 33 78 69 ? Vendredi 11 octobre 2024, 20h30 TOURNEHEM-SUR-LA-HEM (Pas-de-Calais) Renseignements : 06 43 73 19 90 ? Samedi 12 octobre 2024, 20h30 SARREBOURG (Moselle) Renseignements : 06 13 64 21 58 Réservations : https://urlz.fr/qFZk ? Vendredi 18 octobre 2024, 20h30 SOUCELLES (Maine-et-Loire) Renseignements : 06 17 13 79 72 / 06 72 18 79 64 Réservations : https://urlz.fr/qH9v ? Samedi 19 octobre 2024, 20h30 GODERVILLE (Seine-Maritime) Renseignements : 06 82 46 14 05 ? Vendredi 25 octobre 2024, 20h30 Western City / CHAUDFONTAINE (Liège, Belgique) Renseignements : +32 (0)491 253 845 Réservations : https://miniurl.be/r-5her Alison and Sock monkey running around the French countryside stirring up trouble! Wish I could be there! (“Dans tes rêves ! », cried Sock Monkey !) Sock Monkey, you’re speaking French! Of course, she will have to be back in town for Saint Michael’s day! OK, that’s actually Halloween to everyone else. I keep calling it Saint Michael’s day because that was Michael Landon’s birthday, and from all accounts he was a big fan of Halloween. (Teenage Werewolf, etc.!) Then, since she can’t stand to be home for too long, Alison is off to New Jersey for the New Jersey Collector Fest on November 10th from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm at Wayne PAL (Police Athletic League), 1 PAL Drive, Wayne, NJ 07470 This one-day event is billed as New Jersy’s Ultimate Comic, Toy & Art Collectible Supershow! Tickets for General Admission with a 10:30 am start time are $15.00, $6.00 for children under 12. VIP Tickets are $20.00 and include 9:00 am early admission and exclusive limited edition art print. Here’s the link for their FaceBook page: New Jersey FaceBook For tickets go to New Jersey Tickets This looks to be a smaller, more user-friendly show, and should be a lot of fun. And there may be more guest appearances to be announced. You can never tell . . Next, without even bothering to come home for a change of clothes, she’s off to Ireland. Yep, you heard me, Ireland, and that’s no blarney! It will be her first time there, and I would love to go along on this one! (“I’m going, nyah nyah!!”, cried Sock Monkey.) Monkey, you are such a jerk! Anyway, she will be exploring the land of her ancestors, and she has at least two appearances, in Belfast and Dublin, and one talk show that I’m aware of. So, on November 14th, Alison will be at the Big Marketing Meetup at ICC Belfast, 2 Lanyon Pl, Belfast BT1 3WH, United Kingdom. This is an event created by Marketing Professionals for Marketing Professionals. From the programme on their website: “ THE POWER OF NOSTALGIA IN MARKETING - ALISON ARNGRIM, ACTOR, IN CONVERSATION WITH SAM KELLY, SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST - Alison will be sharing her experiences as a child star in Hollywood and the power of the 50-year TV show, Little House On The Prairie, to evoke memories and social emotion throughout generations.” Check out their website: Big Marketing This sounds like a great one! (For Marketing Professionals, of course!) You can book tickets on their site. The early bird tickets are sold out, but there are some regular tickets left. But remember, the prices are in the Pound Sterling, not dollars! Then, on November 20th, Alison will be the Keynote Speaker at SOCIAL MEDIA FEST, at the Talbot Hotel Wexford, Trinity St, Townparks, Wexford, Y35 FP9P, Ireland. (OK, that’s near Dublin, sort of!) She will be speaking on “The Power Of Nostalgia On Social Media”. Social Media Fest is brought to you by Samantha Kelly, The Tweeting Goddess. Check out their website: Social Media Website And check out Alison’s full profile on the site: Alison Profile Man, when these people do a profile, they don’t mess around! You can book tickets on their site. The Early Bird tickets are sold out, and there are only 59 regular tickets left at this time. But there are also virtual tickets, so there should be something still available. And remember, the prices are in Euros, not dollars! Then she comes home for Thanksgiving. (Turkeys are running scared at that thought!) We might even spare the turkey and go to a restaurant this year, who knows? And yes, Sock Monkey will be going, too. And then we’re off for the Holidays, Tennessee, etc. Good times, as always. As we approach 2025, I see nothing until May, with a Mother’s Day show and one other event. And that other event is Country Con in Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 16 – 18, 2025. Billed as “The Comic Con for Country Pop Culture Fans”, there is very little on their website at this point. But check it out: Country Con Tickets will be $250 for the VIP Experience, $160 for a 3-day pass, $45 for Friday only, $70 for Saturday only, and $60 for Sunday only, with reduced prices for children’s tickets. And this one features Alison AND Dean Butler! Here’s a clip of them promoting the show: Country Con Promo And here’s a link to the FaceBook page for County Con: Country Con FaceBook But this is all subject to change, given those “plans afoot” as I mentioned above. As soon as I know, you’ll know. OK, that’s enough schedule for now. Rumour Control
Miscellaneous You’re Going To Do The Cooking! – This is a contest created just for fans of LHOTP. The task is: Create your favorite LHOTP character(s) out of food. Or parts of the town. One person even baked a loaf of bread shaped like a Conestoga Wagon! Here’s a link for the details and rules: Cooking Contest The deadline for entries is Michaels Landon’s birthday, October 31st. Winners will be announced the week of November 18, 2024. This could be (taste) good, don’t you think? David Rose – For all of you who have wanted to have this in your private collection, here is a link the Little House on the Prairie theme as written by composer David Rose: David Rose COZI TV – COZI TV aired a documentary entitled “Loving Little House: The 50th Anniversary Celebration” on September 7, 2024. You may be able to find it showing again if you have COZI TV. Here is a promo for the first airing: COZI TV Love Boat – You’ve all heard that Alison did an episode of The Love Boat back in the day. Here’s a clip of Alison as Becky Daniels, spoiled bratty child star on The Love Boat: Alison Love Boat Type casting?? Wilder Days – Here’s a clip of Dean Butler talking abut his book and his upcoming appearance at Wilder Days in Mansfield Missouri on Daybreak on KOLR 10 TV: Dean - Wilder Days FanX in Salt Lake City - Both Alison and Melissa Gilbert attended the FanX Convention in Salt Lake City recently. Here’s their entire panel presentation from FanX: FanX Panel And Sock Monkey is front and center, of course! Alison in France – So, want to see how it’s going in France with Alison and Patrick Loubatiere? Take a look: Alison In France (I especially like the part with Nellie’s picture on a wanted poster!) And to see what they sometimes bring her after the show, check this out: After The Show Fifty for 50 Podcast – This is still going strong and is getting better all the time. Hosted by Pamela Bob, featuring Alison and Dean Butler, they have a new podcast every week. Check out their FaceBook page: Fifty For 50 They had Tracie Savage (Christy Kennedy) on a recent show on 9/26. You should give a listen! Behind the Scenes Highlight – This is the section where we highlight the many people who help to keep this thing together. Last time we talked about Danny Sanchez. This month I would like to shine the spotlight on Todd McCraw, Technical Director at the Sierra Madre Playhouse. Oh, and so much more. Todd was a member of the planning committee for the 50th Anniversary Celebration in Simi Valley and was responsible for a lot of the sets and staging that went into that production. We first met Todd at these early committee meetings. (Keep in mind, they were meeting for over two years to get that thing planned!) Back in January, he was stage manager for Alison’s show at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, where he has served as technical director, sound designer, stage manager - you name it! Todd, working hand in hand with our brilliant artist friend, Orlando de La Paz, has created gorgeous tributes to our original Little House sets, not just in Simi Valley, but also at the KidsPlay Museum in Torrington, Connecticut. Check this out: Kids Play Little House And here’s the Museum’s website: Kids Play Website We have seen him work incredible hours, under downright unbelievable conditions, creating beauty and keeping his sense of humor the whole time. (A small miracle in itself!) He truly exemplifies the spirit of Charles Ingalls! So Todd, for all that you do, have done, and (we hope) will be doing in the future, we thank you. You are the best!! Maintaining our lives in the age of COVID-19 – There is, of course, a new variant making the rounds. This one is called XEC. XEC is a "recombinant" COVID-19 variant, which means it's a mix of two previous Omicron subvariants called KS 1.1 and KP 3.3. A recombinant variant is created when someone is infected with two strains of a virus that go on to reproduce and create another strain. This variant appears to have started out in Europe and has now been reported in 29 countries around the world. Symptoms and transmission are about the same, and the new vaccine out this fall should provide good protection. And then there is the bird flu. 16 cases in humans so far, and there is an effective vaccine. Precautions? Well, nothing has changed here. Mask up, wash up, distance, etc. I don’t wear my mask as compulsively as I used to, but I find that whenever I’m getting ready to go into a store, or the Post Office, or a public restroom, on it goes. And I don’t feel the least bit self-conscious about it, either! And now for our Fauci moment: "I don't know how to explain to you that you should care for other people." But we must. 50th Anniversary Report Well, things have certainly changed here. The tour has been canceled at this point. That does not mean that it’s over, but it is over for now. There are many things going on now, some that I know about, and many that I don’t. So I’m not going to go into detail about what has happened, what is happening in response to what took place, or what efforts are being made to fulfill some unkept promises. Suffice it to say that every effort is being made to correct those things that can be corrected. But there are other things to be considered here. Some things took place that get me so choked up I can hardly say the words “Prairie Values”. So I am going to once again call upon Pam Roylance to respond as only she can, in her own words: “What continues to overwhelm me, is this uncanny Little House on the Prairie love that abounds. I have never seen anything like it with any other Television show. It's palpable, and I'm sure it's measurable if you set up the technology to measure it. What fans consistently radiate is the real-life essence of the messages in each episode. What I saw in CT and PA was not unlike the actions of the townspeople of Walnut Grove as they worked through any given challenge featured in any given episode. It's almost as though our fans have become cast members themselves. Each one of them deserves a Best Actor Emmy, or at least to be put into wardrobe! Thank you to every person who ran interference when you should have been enjoying yourselves. Thank you to everyone who helped us break down and reset tables, or run snacks and water through a line. Thank you to everyone who helped shade a stranger from the sun, or shine a light for someone plating their food in the dark. Thank you to anyone who brought a cast member a bottle of water or answered a volunteer's request for help. Thank you to every fan who did one (or one hundred) little acts of kindness that I didn't see. Thank you to every fan who wasn't there, but who defended and supported us in the decisions we made. Thank you for doing what you did and for being who you are. Thank you for living in Little House love, even when it hurt. Better things will come. Little House Forever. “
Prairie Tidbits Alison Balson (Nancy Oleson) – Alison is pretty hard to find. Throughout the last few months there have been many attempts to contact her. To the best of my knowledge, none of them succeeded. One theory is that she is out to sea, doing her musical shows on cruise ships. At any rate, here’s an interview with her that aired on Fox 46 in Charlotte, N. Carolina in 2015: Balson Interview Jennifer Donati (Baby Rose Wilder) – Jennifer has been making the rounds with the reunion events this year. What you may not know about Jennifer is that her steady job is as an Operating Engineer, operating heavy machinery on construction sites. Here she is giving an example of her skills at a reunion event: Jennifer Operator Way to go, Jennifer!! Charlotte Stewart ( Miss Beadle) – Charlotte always responds to my request for updates by saying, “I’m busy making Beadle Bags!”. While this is indeed true, that is not the whole story. She and her husband Michael are also producing “Heaven Scent” Lemon Verbena products. They can be ordered through Michael’s e-mail at: jmichaelsantos@aol.com. To quote Michael, “Since Charlotte married a chemist, I prepare her line and handle all invoices and inquiries as well.” Here’s a link to the FaceBook page to check them out: Lemon Verbena Also, Michael & Charlotte go to Mineral and Gem shows to promote his line of Meteorite Products. Here’s their schedule: 10/19 & 20 Santa Rosa Mineral & Gem Society- Sonoma County Veteran’s Memorial Hall 10/26 & 27 Sacramento Mineral Society - Scottish Rite Temple 11/2 & 3 Contra Costa Mineral & Gem Society - Centre Concord 11/16 & 17 The Gold Coast Gem Show - The Ventura County Fairgrounds For more info, check this out: Meteor Products Boy, you guys are hard to keep up with! Way to go! Dean Butler (Almanzo Wilder) – Dean is off on his Book Tour. Have you heard about his book? It is called Prairie Man, My Little House Life & Beyond, and is available absolutely everywhere. (It’s a great read, I just finished my copy!) Here’s his current schedule, in part: 10/17 Burlington VT – Barnes and Noble 10/19 Burke, NY – Almanzo Wilder Farm 5/16-18/2025 – Tulsa, OK – Country Con (see above) Way to go, dean! Olivia Barash (Sylvia) – Olivia will be appearing at the Fan Fusion Convention at the Doubletree in Collinsville, IL on November 22 – 24, 2024. She will be joined at the event by Patrick Labyorteaux. Here’s a link to the Fan Fusion website: Fan Fusion Nice going, Olivia!! Patrick Labyorteaux (Andy Garvey) – Along with appearing with Olivia (above), Patrick has a few new things going on. He is still working his Working Actors School, and sign-ups are always welcome. Here’s a link to the school on YouTube: Working Actors School He also has a brand-new podcast he’s calling “The Patrick LabyorSheaux with Patrick Labyorteaux”. (Say that three times fast!) Anyway, I think I’ll let him explain it in his own inimitable fashion: Podcast Promo Way to go, Patrick!! Pam Roylance (Sarah Carter) – Always busy, this one! Here is her update, in her own words: “A new ABC Television series premiered on 9/17 called "High Potential." It's the zany story of a brilliant single mother of 3 who uses her high IQ brain to solve crimes the police can't quite figure out. In the style of "Murder She Wrote," a new crime is solved each week. It airs Tuesdays at 10PM Pacific time, on ABC following "Dancing with the Stars." I had a guest star role in episode 107, "The Sauna at the End of the Stairs." It should air sometime near the end of October or first week of November. Enjoy!” Pam plays Lenore Donovan in this episode. And I think we should get together and have a watching party! Pam, you rock!! Robyn Greenbush (Carrie Ingalls) – Robyn has taken to making T-shirts! She was wearing one of her creations at the Walnut Grove Reunion, and someone asked her where they could get one. Well, that set the gears in motion! Robyn has teamed up with the Plum Creek Boutique. They are located in beautiful downtown Walnut Grove and specialize in women’s clothing and gifts. Here’s a link to check out one of her creations: Robyn T-Shirt And here’s a link to the Plum Creek Boutique Face Book page: Plum Creek Boutique Nice shirts, Robyn!! The Saga of Sock Monkey (Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Five ) Sock Monkey tried to sit up, then thought better of it. His head was throbbing, and the room was spinning, so he just fell back against the pillow. He sort of remembered last night. Alison had done her show, and the bears simply loved it. (They were so pleased they kept buying him drinks!) No, no, he can’t think about drinking right now. Alison had been fairly displeased with him, one could say, when he found his way back to their cabin. He had things he needed to do for the show, and he was a little unsteady. (To say the least!) But he bucked up and took his place. He had managed to greet the crowd as they came in and distribute the ‘Ask Alison Anything’ cards and pens while they were being seated. He even managed to collect the cards and get them to her before the show started. But that’s about as useful as he had managed to be for the whole evening. He could only imagine what she thought of him at this point. At that moment the cabin door slammed open, and Alison came bounding in. “Sock Monkey, you’re alive!”, she exclaimed. Sock Monkey moaned and grabbed his throbbing head. “Sorry, no time for that now”, she explained. “I’ve been to the gym, and breakfast is on its way up. After we eat, you’ll have about an hour to get cleaned up and packed. We’re getting ready to dock in Florida. This is the end of the cruise!” Sock Monkey moaned again . . . .Where does she get the energy? (To be continued . . . ) There you have it. The ninth Nellie Newsletter for 2024. Stay safe, mask up, wash up, get your booster shots, and be good to each other. And let’s look forward to many new, good things in our collective future! As usual (Comme d’habitude), be good bonnet heads, and I’ll talk to you next month. - Bob |