When Little House Jumped the Shark

My sisters, cousins and I share a strange fascination with Little House on the Prairie. We read all the books, we watched all the shows, we collect all the DVD's, and spend an alarming amount of time and energy on LHOP trivia.

The fascination may have come from the fact that there are 4 sisters in my family (no boys) and there are 4 sisters in my cousins family (no boys) and we felt that even though we don't live in a lean-to on the prairie, nor did we ever shove apples up our dresses, we had a kinship with the Ingalls girls.

We just can't get us enough LHOP.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when LHOP Jumped the shark. In my opinion, there were at least 20 episodes that included shark-jumping elements. Things like adding random orphaned children to the family every season. Things like..ummm...MOUNTAINS on the prairie (there ARE no mountains on the Prairie. The fact that although they claimed to live in Minnesote, the only time it snowed was Christmas and that one blizzard where everyone died. Perhaps this was because the show was actually filmed in CALIFORNIA and not MINNESOTA. It's really pretty hard to make California look like Minnesota. Damn hard.

Apparently other people noticed these things too. I just spent some time chuckling uncontrollably over at Jump the Shark.

I can't decide if the episode where Carrie apparently dropped a hit of LSD and leaps down the rabbit-hole complete with visions of giant bugs(Ah-LEEEE-SA!) was jumping the shark or pure 70's genious.

Here are some highlights:

-"I never saw this show, but I understand the last episode, where Michael Landon hacks the girls into little pieces and freezes the meat, is quite good

-It jumped the shark when they moved to the city. It was a couple of episodes after Mary went blind.

-JUMP: Move to the city. Exciting premise twist but now there's no little house on...
-FALL-OUT: Backpedaling, Albert, More kids, Blind guy can see, M Landon leaves, blowing up of Walnut grove.

-I loved this show, but it jumped so many times that the shark actually ate it. Here it goes...
-when you realize that Doc Baker never got paid by anyone, all he got were eggs and chickens for his work
- when Laura gets braces in the 1880's I mean was there a dentist on the Prarie or something or was chicken wire used?
- when Laura gets older she suddenly wants to become the towns teacher and so Ms. Bettle dissappears
- when Nellie leave and the Olsens replace her with a look-alike
- towards the end when the Engles adopt like 15 kids, and they are all crammed into that same shack that Mr. Engels built
- Mary's husband is blind, falls down, gets sight back, runs into a tree and reloses sight
- Mr. Engels hair is mysteriously professionaly frosted (little hair dresser on the prarie?)
- Laura gets married at the age of 12 to a guy in his late 20's!!!!
- the fact that you never saw one crop growing on the Engles farm for the entire run of the show (what was he plowing?!)
- The Engels and Olsens start their own restaurant in a town with a population of 20.
-Albert becomes a morphine addict! Albert burns down the school for the blind and kills Mary's Baby! The only redeeming thing he ever did was die... after much cringe-worthy whining. Albert, damned art thou!

-The all-time winner and champion of the Adopt-a-Brat syndrome. First, Albert, who definitely grated on my nerves, then later, about 3 or 4 more brats! What the hell was Ma and Pa's problem? Their own daughters, Carrie and Grace, were lost in this shuffle of stray kids, and NEVER GOT A GOOD STORYLINE! Poor Carrie and Grace.

-When Albert became addicted to drugs. They actually showed him vomiting on camera!!! I couldn't eat for a week after that episode!

-This show jumped when Laura suddenly grew up and became this oversensitive bitch. Over one summer hiatus she went from a sweet little girl to hell on wheels who wanted nothing more than to marry Zeldamo. Then when she finally bagged him, she spent the rest of the time screaming at him.

-For me, LHOP jumped when Pa failed to practice what he preached. Remember when they moved to the big city and were living above a bar? One night at dinner, Carrie (who my sister and I always called "the actress") dropped a dumpling in her lap and exclaimed, "Damn!" Needless to say, Pa and the crew were upset at how the big city had tainted their poor daughter's vocabulary. Pa voiced strong concerns over the use of such language. Now fast forward with me to when Albert is in detox and puking all over the place. During a brief break in the regurgitation, he tells Pa, "I'll make you proud of me, Pa." To this, Pa answers, with tears streaming down his cheeks, "I am proud of you. DAMN proud!" Maybe it happened when Michael Landon went gray, but somewhere along the line he decided to play the hypocrite and send this show right down the toilet.

-It seemed that everything that COULD go wrong for Mary DID! Not only did she go blind but ALSO she lost her baby when her blind school burned to the ground! Sounds bad enough, eh? Well, what REALLY made this show shark-bait was them showing the usually sensitive and caring Alice Garvey getting stuck in the middle of the inferno, pick up the helpless baby and SMASH THE WINDOWS USING THE HELPLESS BABY LIKE A BATTERING RAM!! Well, even though she appearantly was in a crazed panic, this HORRIFIC deed went IN VAIN since both she and her friends' baby died in the blaze! This was an UTTERLY gruesome and unnecessary plot device and went TOTALLY contrary to EVERY other action Alice Garvey had been depicted doing! Oh, and, since in Real Life, Mary Ingalls NEVER married or had children, it was SHEER fiction, too! NOWHERE in any of the 'Little House' books is anything even *remotely* like using a baby as a battering ram even HINTED at!

-Little house jumped when they ran out of stories and started repeating stories from earlier episodes.First Carrie fell in a hole,then Nancy fell in a hole.Laura was held hostage by a crazy lady who thought she was her dead daughter,then she's held by Robert Loggia who thinks she's his wife. Not to mention the whole Nellie-Nancy thing.And what about all those people who supposedly lived in the town forever yet were only in one episode?Oh,and both Laura and Charles had run in's with angels.Also Michael Landon making his real life daughter the new teacher (miss Plumb) really sucked.

-When Alice Garvey used Mary's baby as a battering ram during the big fire. I saw that as a kid and had nightmares for a week. A family show would actually use this as a plot ugh!
-Boy a lot of very funny people watched this show!!Enjoyed reading that stuff. But I had one comment about Alice and Mary's baby. I have a strange fascination with this espisode--I cry every time i see it and I have seen it plenty. But Alice DID NOT use that baby as a battering ram!! She was holding the baby in one arm and ramming her other elbow through the window. Check it out if you don't believe me!!!

-A whole episode centered on a crippled Mr. Edwards (Victor French) trying to kill himself was downright surreal when I saw it. Plus, did they ever explain in the later episodes how he suddenly wasn't crippled anymore??"

Little House fans are good people. Good People.

Fabulous

Where do fabulous Minneapolitans go to hobnob with fabulous people and eat fabulous food in a fabulously swanky scene?

AZIA. That's where.


























This is Thom. Thom is spelled with an H. Thom is fabulous. Thom came up with the whole concept of fusing fabulous Asian delicacies with Minnesota flair. Okay "Minnesota flair" is a stretch. Many Minnesotans consider ketchup to be a spice. In steps Thom Pham. Thank God. Thom is the bet thing to happen to Minnesota Cuisine since the Scanda-hoovians set up residence here and brought with them lutefisk, Lefsa, and all things edible, white, and bland. Some people live to eat. Some people eat to live. Scandinavians, apparently are of the latter mindset.

Here is an excerpt from an article written about Thom in the City Pages.

Have I mentioned Thom is fabulous?

Tom Pham carries with him a modern Minnesotan story that could easily be turned into a film. Pham, it turns out, is the son of an American GI and a Vietnamese woman, and grew up on a small island in southern Vietnam where the anti-American sentiment was extreme.

"At 14 I still wasn't allowed to go to school, I wasn't allowed to walk on the street with other people, nothing," he says. "By the time I was 14 I was like, 'This isn't working for me.' If my dad was American, why don't I try America?"

In stepped Lutheran Social Services. The next thing you know, Tom is part of a blue-eyed, blond family in south Minneapolis, the Johnsons. "The most wonderful family you can imagine. The next thing you know, we're at my grandparents for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I'm like, 'I hate cranberry sauce.' Now, I love it, because I found some better things to do with cranberries. But when I was first here, learning English, going to Southwest [High School] taking six hours to translate my homework with a Vietnamese-English dictionary, it seemed strange. I grew up on an island where everything was sea and sand, and now here I was, part of the Johnson family, seeing snow for the first time. Now my grandparents come in all the time, my ninetysomething grandfather, I make cranberry curry for him extra mild, and he loves it."

And so the international circle of Minneapolis Lutheran do-gooding and Vietnamese flair once again improves all our lives!

More reasons why Thom is fabulous: He went to my HIGH SCHOOL! Also, he was very kind and gracious and answered all of my questions late night when I had clearly misjudged my own limitations and grossly over-served myself. Thom is Fabulous.

Here are some more photos from the evening of debauchery. Below, take in the gorgeousness of two of my sisters and my sister-in-law the irrepressible Elaine.
















Mollly and I have similar taste in jewelry. We decided that our matching necklaces and rings could be interpreted as committment adornments so we had our own committment ceremony and here is our portrait of committment. To Molly I committed to always be older and and bossier than she, and to never let her forget all the times I was forced to babysit her. Molly committed to me to always be younger, have better hair, be a better dancer, and to always have better skin than me.















And here are some photos of the place we started out the evening, which was nice and all, but not nearly as fabulous as Azia. It lacked a certain, fabulous "Thom" factor.

Betsy had a sore throat but managed to stay out late with us. My daughter is obsessed with Betsy. She picks up the phone, Looks at me with hope in her eyes and asks "Dah-SEE?"

She said "Betsy" before she said "mama". Nice. All I have to say about that is "I HOPE BETSY WRITES YOU INTO HER WILL, BECAUSE ALL YOU ARE GETTING FROM YOUR MOTHER IS BIG FEET!".

















Next time you are in Minneapolis, be sure to stop by AZIA. And if you happen to invite me along, please make sure to have me home by 11:00, because the thing about children is they just don't CARE that mommy stayed out until 2:00 a.m. hobnobbing with fabulous people named Thom. Toddlers are very unforgiving that way.

Overwhelmed

I had grandiose plans of posting all these funny pictures from our wild night out to a swanky Asian Fusion restaurant that has been written up in Bon Appetit Magazine, but I have not had a spare moment to download the photos.

Okay, I had a spare moment, but I chose to watch TV instead.

I consumed far more than my fair share of red wine, and proceeded to babble to the very gracious owner, and then got home at 2:30 a.m. which would all be fine and dandy if my daughter slept in until 10:00. However, the child. She wakes at 7:00 a.m. The mother. She is stupid.

I will get the pictures up soon.

In the meantime, conjure up images of cranberry wontons and wasabi walleye.

Dante's Inferno, Floating terdlets, and Barbies

How does a person work Dante's inferno, Barbies, and floating terds into a single essay?

You can find out here.

Prison Slang Mommyblogger, Part 3

Dear Prison Slang Mommyblogger,

I have a situation at work that is causing me a great deal of distress. I am in sales, and one of my coworkers and I had an agreement to work on a large account together. The day before the big meeting with the client, he called me and accused me of lying to him. He told me he was taking the account over, and therefore taking all the subsequent sales and commissions too. I did not lie to him, and I think he planned to sabotage me the whole time. How should I handle the situation?

Please help,

Sunk in Minneapolis


Dear Sunk in Minneapolis,

That motherfucking bulldog needs to get checked for doing you greasy. You better be prepared to put up your fop-fops and duff that rustler out. That knick-knack needs to get mud checked for getting on your leg and then cappin’ it with no explanation. It sounds like he got you down bad. He doowoped your zoozoos! It’s about time you sleeped him sugar. No lie. It’s time to get weezo on his ass.

The crap he pulled with you is just plain spun out, sister. That mofo thinks he’s the tank boss, but he’s got another thing coming. Shady-ass motherfucker is obviously throwed off, nutted up, and off the chain. The man is plain shot-out.

It’s time to put a heat wave on his ass. Get the grapes on this guy from your ace-duces and whoever you have in the car. Catch a square and get ready to re-claim your clavo because this asshole’s about to get flat-weeded. Shit.

Dig this out: go in to his boss and drop a dime on him! Weezo his ass! The Shot-caller has the power to give this off-the-hook nut up a mickey mouse ticket and get him into a wreck. Now, I am not a violent person, but I do hope that man gets tuned up. You get that account back, and keep six on the guy. Take it to the square if you need to. Make him bitch up. Don’t be afraid to be a toosh-hog. The man needs to be checked, plain and simple. Then he can bounce. There is no need for you to get crossed out for his dope-fiend move.

Best Wishes

Prison Slang Mommyblogger

Translation:

That manipulator needs to get pay for what he did wrong. Don’t be afraid to duke it out. That loser needs to be confronted for sucking up to you, and then talking trash about you iwith no explanation. It sounds like he underestimated you. He stole your commissions! It’s about time you took a shot at him. No lie. It’s time to get aggressive.

What he did was wrong.. He may think he’s in charge, but he’s got another thing coming. He is in the wrong, and he is behaving very irrationally. It’s time to watch him closely. Get information about him from coworkers you trust. Then take a stand, and don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself and take that account back.

Speak to your manager and explain the situation. Your boss can handle any required disciplinary action. Now, I am not a violent person, but I do hope he getrs what’s coming to him. You get that account back, and don’t forget to keep an eye on this guy. Stand up to him if you need to. Make him take responsibility. Don’t be afraid to be harsh. He needs to be made aware of his error, plain and simple. Then hopefully, he will leave you alone. There is no need for you to suffer because of his lack of professionalism.