#333 Prairie Man Dean Butler Celebrates 50 years of Little House on the Prairie

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:29

thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Welcome everybody to episode 333 of classic conversations. As always, I am your host. Jeff Dwoskin, great to have you back for what's sure to be the littlest episode of all time. Well, maybe not the little it's gonna be huge, but we're talking about Little House on the Prairie that is with Dean Butler. That's right. Dean Butler is here, and we are talking a little house, and that's coming up in just a few seconds. And in these few seconds, do not miss my amazing conversation with Norma Safford. Vela last week, we talked about Roseanne Spencer for hire, VIP st, elsewhere. The stories head stories, do not miss it, and right now, do not miss my conversation with Dean Butler. Dean has a brand new memoir out prairie man, my little house, life and beyond. We're going deep into that. We're talking the new Gidget. We're talking Love Boat. We're talking Frankenmuth, Michigan. We're talking Tevye. We're talking so much. And of course, we're talking Little House on the Prairie. So much. Little House on the Prairie. If you're like, I need some little house. You've come to the right place, and that's coming up right now. All right, everyone, I'm excited to introduce my next guest actor, producer, author, loved him in Little House on the Prairie. Forever, the new Gidget TV's, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, here to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Little House on the Prairie and his new book. Prairie. Man, my little house life and beyond. Dean. Butler, how are you? Sir,

Dean Butler 2:15

good Jeff, how are you? Thank you for having me.

Jeff Dwoskin 2:18

I loved your book. Oh, well, thank you. I loved it this way. We're here, but we're going to talk about a lot of things. I loved how sincere you were. Certain stories didn't really sugar coat. It was like, this didn't go well, and you kind of laid it out. And it was there was one thing, one one issue I had with the book, one issue you want to hear. What it is, doesn't mention your your three trips to the Love Boat? Ah,

Dean Butler 2:42

yes, did I acknowledge doing The Love Boat? I,

Jeff Dwoskin 2:47

I don't think you did. I don't think you did. And to me, like that is like the pinnacle.

Dean Butler 2:52

Well, we're talking about it now. Jeff, so that's, that's the important thing, yeah, you know, that was a time that was sort of one of those fun little perks of being involved in a prime time series at that time is that you would just get, there were no auditions, there were no you would just get a script at home with an invitation to participate, and this was the part, and you were Gonna go on. Now, I didn't do any actual cruises. All of My Love Boat cruises were on the stage. It was fun. And there was the fantasy Islands and the hotels and all of that was a because of Aaron Spelling was a huge part of the viewing experience. Aaron Spelling owned ABC at that point. It was just an unbelievable then you had dynasty and all the other things he was doing. It just was a pretty extraordinary time for him, and for that kind of anthology entertainment, you know, it just, it was really, what a formula, and it just worked. He hit something that really worked.

Jeff Dwoskin 3:58

And there was something very consistent about your three episodes, which I didn't design to be, oh, I watched them. I watched them. Dean,

Dean Butler 4:06

three newlywed episodes, yeah, yeah, you had, oh yeah, just

Jeff Dwoskin 4:11

gotten married. Yes,

Dean Butler 4:13

yes. That's, you know, I mean, like they, that's how they saw, that's how, certainly, at The Love Boat, that's how they saw me. I'm trying to think of fire fantasy island. There was a mismatch romance. There was, was always, well, look all these shows. There was generally always a romance, some kind involved. So yes, my love boats were, my love boats were three newly wet episodes with Mary McDonough, with Mary catterette, and with crystal,

Jeff Dwoskin 4:43

it's just so funny, like every time you we just got married today. Yeah, I love the love. Isaac, Gopher and Doc have been on my show, so I'd like, I'm upset. I love the love. That's why I love talking about it. I grew up on it, so it's like Ted

Dean Butler 4:57

Lange was one of our favorite director. Was on the new Gidget. So, you know he, he came in, I think he did. I don't know if he did a third of them, but he did a bunch of them, and he was great to work with. He directed. I had one of my favorite lines ever, and that seems ridiculous to say, on Love Boat, where with Mary catterette, and it's a classic old joke, and that the soup is cold, the served. And I say, waited, my soup is cold. He says, she says, Honey, that's gazpacho. And the response is, hey, gazpacho, my soup is cold.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:34

Dean, I laughed so hard at that line. I wrote it down. I had it right here.

Dean Butler 5:38

You wrote it down. It's one of my, one of my favorite lines after Ted, sort of, you know, told me he had a take on how to deliver the line, and I thought it was one of my favorites as a silly, tried and true kind of piece of dialog. It worked. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 5:57

it was, it was funny. And two of the three you walked away still married. So that's good on you. I think one you decided it was just all about the sex. I think your character probably had more sex than anyone else on the Love Boat, just based on, ah, coming out strong. Wow, possible Guinness book record.

Dean Butler 6:15

Well, Jeff, that's sort of a cool record to have. I wouldn't mind having that record. It's funny. Yeah, I'm sure there were others who had, who partook plenty, but, but yes, I had my three hot and heavy newlywed episodes. So one presumes that there's some pretty, you know, some pretty good activity going on during those early hours of the new marriage. Yes,

Jeff Dwoskin 6:38

yes, yes, yes. That was not, not hidden at all. It was, were these timeline wise, was this while you were still on Little House? Oh, yeah,

Dean Butler 6:46

okay, yeah. I think that all of that sort of, you know, they were always looking to take advantage of people who were in prime time. So I think all three of the episodes, maybe the last one, maybe the last one was post little house. But I think I feel like at least two of the three were during little house. I could be wrong on that, but I sort of feel like

Jeff Dwoskin 7:09

so it was so it was fun to kind of break a carrot, break character that you're so known for, and do it like when I talked to Karen, we were talking about her love boat and and kind of the same thing where she got to play, yeah, got to change it up a little bit from Ma,

Dean Butler 7:22

yeah, yeah, no, well, and Karen Grassley was a, you know, is mean, is as an older woman and was as a younger woman, very, very attractive. And so for, you know, for Karen to get an opportunity to be seen as a contemporary woman, instead of, you know, covered and, you know, and long dresses and long sleeves and all of that, you know, Karen got to be the woman, and that the contemporary woman, at least. And I'm sure that was fun for her to get that chance to do that. I think, you know, the costuming on Little House was, you know, for the men, it was just sort of a normal day. I mean, okay, the boot was a little different. You're wearing a hat where you might not normally wear a hat, but basically, men's clothing is the same. I think you'd have to go way back, find an era where the clothing wasn't pretty much what we would be used to today. For the women, it was entirely different situation. So there was a lot of appliance going on with all of that. And when the with the heat in Simi Valley during the summer months, where and you always were filming blizzards in July. So I mean, the the heat was just off charts, and they're just like gallons of perspiration coming off these women during those times. It was pretty, pretty intense. I

Jeff Dwoskin 8:45

think no matter what time frame in the period of living, Guy clothes is always easier than women clothes, right?

Dean Butler 8:52

Oh yeah, yeah. I would think so. I would think so. Certainly. I think you may have to go back to, you know, the 1500s the 1600s to find maybe where men's clothing is as involved as women's clothing. But yeah, I think in relatively modern times, no question, women have all the complexity.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:13

Yeah, you helped organize the big 50th that just happened. Like there was, like, this insanely large get together, where all of you were there. No,

Dean Butler 9:23

we weren't all there. But I will say it was the largest gathering of cast in over 30 years. And it was quite an event. And it had been in the works for the beginnings of the idea began. It started in 2019 that was the first idea of it. I became involved seriously in probably either it was late 2022 or early 2023 and came into the time when the event where it really had to start coming into existence. It had. To start getting real. And it was a constant flow of ideas. Jeff, there was no we can do this, and we can do this, and we can do this. And yes, we could, but at a certain point, we have to lock down and saying, Okay, we could do this, this and this, but we are going to do this, this and this, and reaching that point where we're with a group of creative people, where we're committing ourselves, saying, all right, we are doing this, but we're not doing this, this, this and this, that's a hard place to get to, and I think that that was the that was the major challenge, and that's what I think my job became, was to try and get synergy around what we are going to do, as opposed to continuing to vent, what invent, what we could do, the Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce, which is the one they really, this was really their event. They had the license. They had done all of the business. They were fully invested financially in doing this. So it was our job to interface as a cast and as a committee with them. And I think in the end, it just so far exceeded our expectations. It was a pretty extraordinary weekend, 18,000 people from 27 countries. You know, it was just there was so much little house love in Simi Valley that weekend. It was, I think everyone, all of our little house family who were there, I think were pretty astonished by the way it came together. It was certainly a high watermark for I think for everybody who was there. We'd never had an event like that before. That would be hard to repeat that. I think we're gonna have another really special event in late August, early September, in Connecticut. But the thing I think that distinguishes what we did in Simi Valley is the fact that the show's home was in Simi Valley, and we staged the event in a place the major staging was close to Big Sky movie Ranch, but there was an element of the event that was back at Big Sky movie Ranch, putting buildings or facades of buildings back on the property, geo located exactly where they were, so that bus tours could drive through there, and people could take their videos and their pictures. And it was just incredible to see the joy in people's eyes as they were doing that, that laughter, the tears, the just the expressions of emotion and gratitude were amazing, and we knew we'd sold a lot of tickets, but until you see people start to actually show up, you really don't know what you've got until they're there. When on the Friday morning, when I came out of our town square tent after doing a presentation with a group of cast members aligned to get in. Was half a mile down the street. It was like, oh my god, we hit the mother lode here. This is just unbelievable. We were thrilled.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:50

It's incredible. Given, I mean, 50 years is a long time, so that means this has been passed on in those families from generation to generation, right? And so, because I'm assuming it wasn't all 95 year olds. It wasn't, it wasn't all like 60, 7080, year olds, right, right? And the

Dean Butler 13:06

best, cool thing you're making reference to it Jeff, is that the audience was from small children to their grandparents age. The whole demographic Spectrum was represented at Big Sky that weekend, which was incredibly gratifying, because you see that people have shared the show with those that they love, and that love has been translated, keeps getting translated to younger generations. I think that's the universality of the show. You know, it's not contingent on fashion. It's a world that no one who's alive today or even was alive when it began in 1974 no one was really living in that world when we started. And I think that gave the show this sense that you were stepping into this island of time and space that was unique unto itself. And I think people really embrace fantasy of that. There's this fervent dream for a simpler, wholesome, loving, connected family life, which a lot of people don't have for various reasons. Little House has always espoused that as a as a primary value. And people responded incredibly well to that then, and they continue to respond to that today

Jeff Dwoskin 14:30

the show itself, because when I was interviewing Alison and Karen, I started re watching a bunch of episodes, and it's built to last. I mean, it's like, I mean, that's part. I mean, a lot of times you watch something old, it just, you're like, you know, you just, it doesn't hold up. But I mean the care and the story and the acting like everything like that is just like, it's, it's as solid today as it was then. I mean, it's just, so it's, I can see where it gets passed on from generation to generation. So. Successfully? Well, I

Dean Butler 15:01

think you know, if you if there's one, if there's an aspect to it where, you know, it's an older program beyond setting, which is clearly of another time, but because the show was shot on film with one maybe two cameras, dominantly, there were occasions when there were more than, you know, one or two cameras on set. But for the most part, it's a one, two camera show. The pacing of the show is slower. It and it the the technology, the making of the show, the post production of the show was cut with a razor, taped the negative to get tape the work print together and create an answer print from all these cut things. It was not that industry indestructible nonlinear editing, which is obviously the dominant form of editorial now, where the pacing can be much quicker, and you can make a decision and click Undo, and you can back away from it. When you were cutting with the razor blade, you could reverse it, but you had to go back and find that frame, or two frames or a foot of whatever it was, and you had to physically tape it back into the scene. So that made editing a much more intentional process that you weren't experimenting with the editorial you Michael shot it with an idea that it would be cut a certain way, and with the notes that editors, rather the script supervisors were providing coming off of the set, it was very clear what needed to be done. And so they did that in this era, you can shoot. It's not uncommon to have three four cameras on a set all doing different things with dollies and cranes and all kinds of things. And it's wonderful for editorial. You jam, sync all this footage together, and an editor can just go through and click, click, click, click, click. And you can construct a scene and then save it and cut it again. And you can cut it infinite numbers of ways. You just simply couldn't do that with a razor blade efficiently and expect to keep it together. So, you know, it was a very, it was a very deliberate process. And I think that would be the big difference that audiences would see today, as compared to, you know, as compared to what was going on there, where everything was slower

Jeff Dwoskin 17:17

the folks that show up to the 50th anniversary in the book, it was interesting. You talked about, there's two types of Little House fans. There's ones that are book lovers and series lovers. I imagine to come to one of these things, since it's show focused, it's probably either series based or a mix, a hybrid of the two. The ones that the books are the books and the show is the show.

Dean Butler 17:37

Yeah, I think, you know, they're in Little House world. There are certainly, I've never known a series fan who rejected the concept of the books. It may be that they haven't read them much they you know, it's it's maybe not a big part of their reading. It's much more common that people who were really, who really grew up on the books, would reject the series because it didn't stick to exactly the flow of the books, which Michael's opinion on that feeling was that you simply couldn't maintain the level of storytelling that you would need to support 22 episode seasons with the material that was in the books. And Michael was expert at this. He understood how to do this. So this is why, in the series, you're seeing plot points that are wildly different than what's in the books and characters that are nowhere in existence in the books. What I love about both is I think the tone is the same. Whether you're watching the series or reading the books. I think they they belong together. They are of a similar feeling. Obviously, the series is visual. I mean, I think the big difference, sort of stylistically, in the books, is that the books are about what people did. It's very much, you know, we baked bread and we planted the crop and we heart and we built the house and we, you know, we made the clothing and all that. And that was, I think that was a big part of what, what Laura Ingalls Wilder was trying to do with her books, was to give people this taste of what that life really was. Michael really focused on what people felt little house as a television series was an emotional journey. And you, you know, you had all of that beautiful music that David Rose composed that really became the underscore for this incredible emotional experience they may have. We may have lived. Everyone may have lived in simple homes, had simple clothing, but their lives emotionally were gone with the win. It was big, it was dramatic, it was it was powerful. And he, I think David really made that pitch to do it that way. The initial concept had been to do the series, do the score with much the way the Waltons did it with our harmonica and Astra. And bass and maybe a mandolin, and it was a pretty simple orchestration. David's take was, no, no, we need to do this with a 50 piece orchestra, and it needs to be this rich emotional background. And I think in retrospect, when you look at these things, I think David's instinct was so right on this, and I've long believed that it's David Rose's music that is a huge part of what brings tears to people's eyes as they watch the program and are taken in by taking or join in with these stories. It's that subtextual message that David is giving with his music that I think primarily touches people in this way, that music that only music can do, where it's touching on something psychological in us, that we intuitively understand. And he takes us there and then, if you see pa crying or MA crying, whatever it is they're doing, but it's like it's the music that puts you in that space, and then the acting tells you specifically what's going on. It's a very powerful experience to watch the really emotional episodes of Little House. It is really an emotional journey, and it's a beautiful emotional journey,

Jeff Dwoskin 21:19

very beautiful. I couldn't agree with you more on the music. The music can make or break and it puts you right. It puts you right where it's the music that's subconsciously kind of moving you in the direction.

Dean Butler 21:31

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, just imagine changing cues to something, to some other composer, a different style of music, and putting it to the exact same cuts, I would imagine that the response you could you could get all kinds of different responses depending on what the music is you put there, because that is you said the music is setting. That is the providing, the the emotional foundation of what the audience is expecting to see, and we react accordingly. And it was, yeah, just very powerful and incredibly effective, incredibly

Jeff Dwoskin 22:09

i the book covers so much, and it's like, there's a couple things that I wanted to ask you about before we jump, we'll, we'll go back to the little house, but just so you were tevia and fill her on the roof. Now, the reason I bring this up the waspiest

Dean Butler 22:27

ever cast,

Jeff Dwoskin 22:28

waspiest Have you ever but that's my Hebrew name. So, like, anytime I see someone with that's, uh, I'm like, wow, okay,

Dean Butler 22:36

such a great show. You, you obviously, you know the show. I mean, this is one of the great books, and obviously an incredible score and beautiful songs. It is a it is one of those defining shows in Broadway musical theater history. It's a very special show, which is, of course, why I No, I don't know how much it's being done today, because it's such a large show to do, and that the orchestra, although you could do everything with tracks now, if you want to, and you could, you could make it much simpler to do, but it's such a great story. And so, yeah, to get a chance, I didn't know, you know the way as a high school, the way you the way, when you find out what the show is, you go out and buy the Broadway cast album. And so I'm listening to Zero Mostel sing these wonderful songs, and that became the basis of my tevient. You know, it's like some version of zero. Mostel and I saw during that same window, there was a high school nearby where we were doing it, that was doing it, and the actor, the young actor playing tebia, was a had his experience of stepping into it was Topo in the movie, and that was the basis of his tebia. It was, they were two very we did two different tevius. And of course, depending on which one you see in here, first, that's your favorite. It's, it's so amazing how Broadway, and you know, the larger media influences what we do as kids, but it's so powerful to get that influence and set you off in a direction where you are trying something and seeing if you can bring it to life. And I just had a ball. I absolutely fell in love musical theater during that window of

Jeff Dwoskin 24:22

time, awesome. And then during in your book, you mentioned, I'm coming to you from Michigan, so that's the context. So in your book, your first memory that you talk about from 2017 is in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Now the question I have for you is not again, not covered in the book, so we're diving deeper. But were you, did you have the fried chicken when you were in Frankenmuth and where? Because it's known for its fried chicken, Frankenmuth,

Dean Butler 24:46

I did not, but I had more great fudge in Frankenmuth than any place I'd ever had fudge in my life. You can walk in down the street and you can walk into eight fudge shops within, you know, 200 yards. Cards. I just between that and the Christmas store of bronners in Frankenmuth, yeah, unbelievable Christmas store. And I, you know, Christmas has been, which I talk about in the book. Christmas is a favorite, favorite holiday. It was, it was a very special time in my youth growing up and tab that. So to walk into Bronner's and experience their 365 day Christmas experience was pretty cool. So between that and I've ordered online for Bronner's many times since then, between that and the chocolate fudge, which I haven't ordered online because I'm just afraid I'm going to eat it all

Jeff Dwoskin 25:39

fudge is one of those things you got to get on the spot and then eat it, maybe bring it home as a gift. That way. It's less calories. That way, if you just eat it, just sort

Dean Butler 25:48

of call to you when it comes off the off the sheet, and it's all firmed up and you got to have it now. Yeah, it was great. We

Jeff Dwoskin 25:55

have Mackinac Island too. So, like, I don't know, Michigan, and fudge, when you watch them make it, but, and it shouldn't be underplayed. Anyone out there who is a lover of Christmas, your Christmas bucket list should include at one time in your life, going to Bronner's Christmas Wonderland.

Dean Butler 26:12

Absolutely yes. If you love Christmas, you will lose your mind in this place. It's pretty extraordinary. I recommend it highly. Go to Bronner's Frankenmuth and have some fudge. All right, that's although I didn't know about the fried chicken. I mean, I just, I didn't know about that. All right.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:29

Well, when you're back and when you come back to Michigan, yeah, I'll take, we'll go, yeah, yeah,

Dean Butler 26:33

fried chicken, yeah. I love fried chicken. So it won't be that won't be a tough call. I'll get that.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:38

It's one of those things where it's like, there's competing fried chicken places, so it's like, over there, then, yeah, who? Which one did you go to? Or, yeah, sorry to interrupt. Have to take a quick break. Do want to thank everyone for their support of the sponsors? When you support the sponsors, you're supporting us here at Classic conversations, and that's how we keep the lights on. And now back to my conversation with Gene Butler, a fried chicken free version of the conversation. So when, in your in your book, when you talk about dropping out of college and then moving and then Valerie Landsberg is at the place where you're at, and she was in, thank God it's Friday, which is a movie I interviewed. I talked to Mark Lanao, and he was in that movie. And so I was like, it's the only reason I knew that movie. I was like, Oh, this is only the other time I've ever seen this coming out. Me, it's famous for Donna Summer getting the Oscar for last dance, last dance, right? Yeah. It was just funny that things that pop up and randomly in the book.

Dean Butler 27:38

Well, Valerie Landsberg was a cultural experience all by herself. I never met anyone like Valerie Landsberg before, when she walked in the door, just like was a this was just a different kind of woman than I had ever encountered before in my from my sheltered Northern California upbringing and my college time, which was also relatively very sheltered, to meet this brassy Beverly Hills chick, was like, Wow. I mean, it was like, this is a whole different thing. And she was great. She's She's a lot of fun.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:17

I love, like, those are the types of stories I love. Like, the little kind of stories where you just kind of go off and, like, tell these little tidbits. It's, it's amazing, it's interesting. Like, your book, a lot of times you talk to people and they're like, I went out to Hollywood, I auditioned for 100 commercials. I got 100 commercials. I auditioned for 20 shows. I got 20. You know, it's just like, but yours, your story wasn't, Wouldn't

Dean Butler 28:37

you love to audition for 100 commercials and get 100 commercials. I mean, no one does that. If you audition for 100 if you get five, you're doing well, well,

Jeff Dwoskin 28:46

I'm exaggerating. What I mean is like it just seemed like everything, like they just flooded in with work, right? And it seemed like, which is why, like, your story was, it was like there was a little more struggle there. There was a little more struggle, and then, oh, hey, I love the part of that when you tell the air to frown. House, you know, like, hey, we want you to come audition for Little House on the Prairie. And then, of course, life changed. Boom, pivot, right there. But did you have any indication when you were auditioning for Michael Landon like that, you had gotten it like, what was your feeling walking out of there before you had heard anything?

Dean Butler 29:17

Well, I felt really good walking out the door when I finished, and I started with saying goodbye to him, he said, What are you doing in the middle of May? With, that was his last question. And my last answer was, I'll be going through final exams, but, you know, but that's what I'm doing in the middle of May. And he topped that with, well, I think we could wait another week. See ya. So I had been offered, essentially been offered a part in the room before, and it was, it was jarring to feel like you've been offered the part in the room, and then 20 minutes later, get back to your place, you get a call from your agent saying, sorry, sweetheart. Didn't work out. You know, I feel like I walked out of the room with. Apart, and by the time I got home, I lost the part with with Michael and with little house. I didn't hear a word for two and a half weeks. There was no after he said what he said. And I left feeling like, Oh, my God, I've got this. But, you know, it's but the nagging doubts that go into your head as you've as each day passes with no word, all those demons of doubt and, you know, self loathing and all the things that actors go through creep in your head. So when the when the offer finally came, I was just incredibly well thrilled and very, very grateful and excited. I mean, here I was like, you know, a week away from graduate college, and I knew what I was going to be doing for the foreseeable future. So, you know, on a Saturday of the May 20, yeah, this is one of those windows of time that's just unforgettable. I turned 23 on Saturday May 20, 1979 walking through graduation ceremonies at University of the Pacific, and two days later, I'm in Southern California, in Simi Valley, starting my time on Little House. It was just this incredibly blessed time. I mean it. There's no other way to put it there was it just was an incredible window of time that literally changed everything for me. And look, I didn't go on to I didn't become Tom Cruise, you know, so that didn't happen. But at the same time, what I have come to realize and appreciate is that I'm part of something that is so beloved, that thing that is so loved, I because of the visual connection in the series. I'm part of that, and I become sort of a personification of what Laura writes about in her books as well, for a certain viewer slash reader, maybe not in all cases, but like the first where I'm going to be in there and they're thinking somewhere about who this guy is, that's a gift that television and film gives you that you just can't get anywhere else. You know, I'm eternally 23 to 28 not a bad period of time to be captured. And the fact that it has gone on and on and on to their, you know, the ensuing 45 years, or 40 years after I was done making it, I never could have predicted that. I didn't predict that. I, you know, I thought, Okay, this is going to be over. Michael was absolutely certain it would go, you know, that we were, we would go on with this. And it would, it would have a life long after it was done being made. And he went farther to say, people will be watching this long after we're all gone. He specifically said that. And at the time, I just thought, wow, that. I mean, where is he coming? That can't be what did I know when I was 25 he was prescient about television. I think he understood something about the audience that I didn't understand at that point at all. And now, as we celebrate 50 years of Little House in 2024 I see no sign show going away. It's going to be very tough to replace it in people's minds. It's not that it couldn't happen. It certainly could happen if the right producer and director and the right actors get involved, right writers get involved, something amazing could happen, but the odds are against it to strike lightning twice with something like this would be very hard to do. It is certainly possible. It absolutely could happen. And look, I hope for the rights holder of all the Little House books for that family, I hope it does happen for them. It was a great thing, so but I'm very proud of what we did. And I think all of us who were a part of it are very proud of what we did. It's, it's going to be tough to replace it, yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 33:56

and I hope they don't. I Nothing worse than, like, remakes, then when, especially when they don't work, you know, I mean, like, and this has so much content behind it's not like, it was a 90 minute movie, and someone's like, let's remake the 90 minute movie. You know, this is, this is, like, a lot. It's interesting. It's

Dean Butler 34:13

over 200 hours content. I mean, it's well over 200 hours of content. So, yeah, it's a lot. It's, it's a lot to replace.

Jeff Dwoskin 34:21

And, you know, technology, you know, Michael Landon couldn't have predicted this at the time, but, like, technology helped probably that vision come to life. You know, now that we, you have, you know, the event when TV was on DVD so people could buy their favorite shows streaming. Now, I can go right now, just like I did the other day, I watched the Sweet 16 episode because I knew we were going to talk, yeah, and, and so, you know, just boom, like, effortlessly, I could do it and for free. It wasn't like, and it's, then it shows up on my TV. Do you Hey, you should keep watching, you know? I mean, so it's like, yeah, so it's, it's not going anywhere any anytime soon. So it's very. Interesting. It

Dean Butler 35:00

doesn't feel like it, Jeff, it really doesn't. It does feel like it's going to be here for the foreseeable future, you know, and now that it's digital and it became a digital property in 2014 for the 40th anniversary, now that it's a digital property, you know, now it's just a matter of recompressing it into whatever the most current codec is, and it's probably going to be ever increasingly efficient, smaller and smaller codecs that allow it to be stored in smaller and smaller space. And that bodes very well for the ongoing future of this. Because you're, you know, you don't have to make it it's right there where the push of a button. It becomes whatever you whatever codec it needs to become in order to work for the next big thing, whatever that is. So I think that all the digital content is in a very good place to continue on because of that, because of the accessibility.

Jeff Dwoskin 35:55

Let's talk about the Sweet 16 episode, because I think we get it's unavoidable. Let's just talk about it so known very renowned, for the last time Laura Ingalls wears braids on the series of little house. This is, so it's a pinnacle moment. No, no, it is, yeah. And the kid, oh yeah. And the kiss. And there was also a kiss. And so there was I, so I Rewi, I watched it. I re watched it because, you know, like, you know, it's so it's a big part. And she wrote about, you know, it's just so much to talk about. It was interesting how, in re watching it, they definitely tried to make her older, like they made there were lots of things that Michael anize, oh, she called her a woman, and, you know, she was specifically talking to you and saying, Don't I look older, you know, all to kind of probably mitigate the age gap between you guys. So sure I will say in re watching, it one of my favorite things as a father. Re watching it was when you asked her to the dance, and she doesn't immediately say yes, and Michael Landon just kind of smirks. He loved

Dean Butler 37:01

doing those shots where he could be over behind the actor who's being and you see his reaction play. Yeah. He loved doing that. He was wonderful in those moments. He was great in that stuff.

Jeff Dwoskin 37:13

As a father, I felt it, because I was just like, All right, that's my daughter handling this boy extremely well. I taught her well. And then it's a funny exchange with Karen right after that, with where he goes, my daughter and she and then she says, Oh, and if she had just said yes, it would have been my daughter, right? And he goes, yep, right,

Dean Butler 37:34

yeah, no, of course. I mean, that's he established that dynamic of Almanzo being too old for Laura right up front, and he established right up front that that Caroline was for understanding of what her daughter was feeling and caution her to go slow, pause, just sort of wanting it all to go away. And that was that created a nice push and pull dynamic between them. It created a nice dynamic to talk about between Charles and Caroline. You know, there's just a lot about that worked, and it was well, as you say. I mean, you're, you're a dad. I mean, this is like, these are conversations that you're gonna that you would have, or think you would have, with your daughter about this exact same topic that is little house in a nutshell, that those conversations can take place over those kinds of issues which are so basic and just sort of primary issues in people's lives. And little house touched on so many of those kinds of things

Jeff Dwoskin 38:38

at the time. Was there a literal because she was 15. You were 23 at the time, was there just in the public I mean, now would probably be different if they had existed because of just social media, but at the time, was there kind of pushback on the series? Was it a controversy, or did people just kind of let it go? Yeah,

Dean Butler 38:57

I don't think it was. I don't think it was ever I mean, I think the fact of the relationship was, in a sense, controversial, but we never felt a public blowback to this at all. I think because it was little house, people had such underlying faith in the brand of what this was about. I think people gave it if they had questions about it, they gave it the benefit of the doubt. And, you know, there were a few letters to the editor in newspapers, but for the most part, pretty much accepting it as it came. Melissa and I've had this conversation now, and most recently, for the book, you could never do that casting today, you could never put a 23 year old man with a 15 year old girl in today's world under any circumstances. And you know, frankly, no one had done it before we did it. I think we really are in this very unique space, particularly for family oriented. A television it's possible that what was the HBO series, Sister Wives or whatever, where you had polygamous families and all that, and then maybe you would have seen it there. But that was a commentary on that whole lifestyle, which wasn't always there was judgment built into that. There was no judgment around little house. Little House was a very idyllic thing. So the fact that audiences did for the in the largest measure, just come along and accept it is a tribute to the things that they trusted and liked about the show, that this didn't create an overt problem for for large numbers of audience members. Yes, I'm sure there was a family here or there where a mother was not happy, but not bad, not bad at all.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:48

And the book lovers were probably like, he's not old enough. No, I'm kidding, yeah. Oh

Dean Butler 40:54

yeah. You Oh you want to Yeah. Well, it's by two years, yeah. But then in the books, of course, when Lauren Almanzo really got married, she was actually 18, and he was 28 so at that point, you can't underestimate this or de emphasize it, that difference between 15 to 18 for a young woman, for anybody, for a young boy, 15 to 18, that's A big there's a lot that's going on in that three year period of time. I think Melissa was really, she was really pressed by this, and I think it's a tribute to her and her confidence, as much as she wrote about the fact that it was just she was flipped out by it. You know, I say it's all honesty. I never saw that in her it. She gave no indication that she wasn't all in with this and completely okay. I mean, was she thrilled about it? No. I mean, there were, you know, no, she wasn't. But I never sensed fear in her of this, I think a lesser, perhaps a less secure or less seasoned young actress might have folded under the pressure of that if they really weren't prepared for it. The fact that Melissa was given no voice in this process, and that her mother was given no voice, and that her team had no voice in the process was a tribute to Michael Landon's power. There were no chemistry reads. I can't imagine this casting taking place today. What I want. I don't think it would happen, but it definitely wouldn't happen without a chemistry read. And there'd be all kinds of discussion about how appropriate this was. Michael made this decision, and everybody went along, and I There may have been doubts in all kinds of different places, but there weren't public doubts about it. Michael was so powerful as a producer at that point that if he said we were going to do this, that's what we did, and it's like, that's enough. I think he he didn't. There were a few places where it means sweet 16 was a, you know, was a big moment for the two characters, particularly for Laura, but for the most part, you know, the episode where they get married the Laura Ingalls Wilder two part is really about the jilted love affair that older sister Eliza, Jane is jilted by a character was played wonderfully by Jamie Cromwell. I mean, it's the episode is really about that the marriage is, it's an important it's called Laura Ingalls Wilder, but Michael did not want people thinking too much about the wedding night. And so he de emphasized that by making the heart the story of heartbreak for Eliza, Jane, really, where the power of the episode was, and I think it was like, with so many things Michael did, brilliant decision,

Jeff Dwoskin 43:49

just the hug she gives you at the end after you get married. It's like, it's a great scene. There's like, you can feel it. You can feel that, oh, she was great. It's great to know, though, that like, people could understand the context of it and accept it for the world. Of it is people don't have that really nowadays. So, all right, so so many great stories. We want to leave some for the book. But I did want to talk about just because I'm Jeff. So you played a famous Jeff Moon doggy Griffin and Gidget summary, and then the new Gidget, which, by the way, in your book, you say it's not available, but I found it on YouTube so you can dive into it.

Dean Butler 44:25

Can you watch it? Is it all on YouTube, or just a few episodes

Jeff Dwoskin 44:29

enough to know that the first episode tackles the controversy of windsurfing versus the direct assault on normal surfing?

Dean Butler 44:38

Yeah, the windsurfing lesson is what it's called, yes, exactly, exactly, yeah. I

Jeff Dwoskin 44:44

think at least a lot of them are on there. I was watching, yeah, yeah, nice, yeah. I had to dig in and see this. So it was, it's funny, because talk to me about the ground links. You trained at the Groundlings.

Dean Butler 44:58

Yeah, the ground links was the. At the time in Southern California, was the premier improvisational acting company around. And I think if you think about that kind of work, you think of the ground links in Second City, maybe second city first, and then the ground links. But the people who have come out of both of these companies, it's a pretty when you think of at the highest levels, the people that have become iconic in American comedy, so many of them came out of that background. There was something wonderful about learning the rules of improvisation like you know, you think you're improvising, but there are rules to the improvisation, and the most important rule, as was taught by our wonderful teacher, RANDY BENNETT, was that you never deny, you know, if someone says, If someone throws out the premise that the sky is green, yeah, the sky is green, and you add information to that, you would never would say, No, the sky is yellow. We just wouldn't do it. It's, it's, you might say. And I love the yellow clouds, you might so that's adding information. So everything is a function of agreement. And comedy, wonderful comedy can come out of that agreement, as opposed to an argument. And that was the biggest thing that came out of that training. And it just got you loose, you know, you went into this class from trying to think of what it was, was like, you know, 10 to two or 10 to 10 to one, three days a week in the Groundlings theater on Melrose, you know, on Melrose Boulevard in Southern California, and the laughter coming in that theater was just like a tonic. You just felt you came out of every class with a spring in your step, because you just would had such a great time laughing for hours with people that you as you the more and more you worked with them, the more you trusted, more you believed in what they were doing, you understood what they were going to be doing, and you could feed into that you're developing your own characters and Have fun with that. Yeah, the Groundlings can't be, cannot be diminished in any way, as an important piece of anybody who's working in comedy, you want to spend some time at the Groundlings if you haven't done that, because it's just it will take you places that you never, that you never were before, and that will really help you down the line.

Jeff Dwoskin 47:20

I've done stand up comedy, but I always tell people, either whichever one you want to do, stand up or improv, they're like imperative to have some kind of background is that your whole world and how you engage with other people changes, and it's a great skill to have to be able to work with people like that, and with improv, you're right, yeah, to always be adding instead of confronting. It's, it's a, it's a great lesson. It's just a great lesson in general, yeah,

Dean Butler 47:45

yeah, yeah, no, that is interesting. And I think we, if we, I mean, we were watching, I've watched a lot of the Beatles documentaries. And you, you know, you watch the way, particularly the most recent one, that was the Peter Jackson did enough you've watched that I loved it in a similar form to what we're talking about, improvisational comedy. I marveled as I watched this documentary and watched their creative process that no one ever said, No, I don't like that idea or I don't like that lyric. It's like they just they started spinning on a riff of an idea, and they would all add to it. And someone is taking copious notes, and they are recording all of this. But what a lesson in creativity that work is to see these guys who are so reputedly or reportedly not getting along very well, but when they were in a creative space for the most part, and then you hear these great songs come into existence that are part of our lives, it's it's just amazing to see how they were invented. And I love that. And that is so it reminds me of that improvisational comedy process where you're adding to adding to adding to it was just, it's great stuff, and it's, it is a lesson for creative people. Don't deny keep saying yes. It's hard to do that, because you have to trust everything that's coming out of everybody. And it may not work, but if you keep saying yes, you have an opportunity to keep everyone flowing in a positive direction, and something good could happen.

Jeff Dwoskin 49:24

Right? The lesson I took from it was because when you're watching like Paul McCartney do building, get back, I think, right? And it's like they never, some of those lyrics in the beginning were like, what? But they didn't say these are bad. They just worked themselves out of the song. Eventually it just it became what it needed to become. Nobody ever said, these are all bad. Let's change the lyrics. It just became the new thing. And yeah, exactly,

Dean Butler 49:48

yeah, it is. It's something we all need to pay attention to in the creative space. So

Jeff Dwoskin 49:53

after being an absentee father, I'm Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now you're focused a lot on directing and producing. Okay, and I know you've made, like, a few documentaries on Little House and various things, is that this way, I could tell from a lot of your answers, just the stuff that you've absorbed through the years, and the people you've worked with, with the way you answered certain questions you love being behind the camera and making and creating the thing that people are going to now love forever. I whether they're

Dean Butler 50:18

going to love it forever. I you know that you hope for. You don't know if that's going to happen. But what I do love about that process is that you are there from the least. If you are actively involved in something, you are there for the first blank screen. And you start with an idea, and that idea can change and grow and alter, but it becomes something at the end. And particularly if you know, you have a, you know, an edict to do something and a responsibility to deliver something. There will be a there'll be a show, a package, you know, a something there at the end that has to be there. And I think that producers and directors are the closest ones to that process, because they're ultimately the most responsible for the outcome. And I found that a very stimulating and enjoyable process to be a part of that as opposed to the actor who is the last one hired in a production process, in a narrative film approach, or any sort of film where there are actors involved. So much of the creative work is done before the actor gets there, and then a huge chunk of the creative work is done after the actor is captured on tape or digitally, or whoever, or film, if there's someone still shooting film, and then the movie comes into existence and becomes whatever it's going to become. I really loved being there through I came to realize that I really loved being there all of those decisions that take you from pre production to production to post production to delivery. And I came to feel through that it was really the producers, the directors and producers, more than anybody, are the ones who really had fun in the business, because they're driving, you know, they're really shaping whatever this thing is going to become, because they have to believe in it the longest, and they've got to stay with it the longest that the talent can. You know, the the on camera talent can come and go and they add, they make their contribution, very important contribution, but how that contribution is shaped is going to be someone else's responsibility. It's not the actor's job to determine how that film or tape gets cut. So I liked being in the room for that part of it, and that's been very, very satisfying to me. It's never going to be the kind of public buzz you get as an actor. It's just it's not the same thing in that sense. But I think as an overall emotional, intellectual satisfaction, producing is a much more fulfilling for me, a much more fulfilling process, because I've had something to say about what, how it starts and how it comes out at the end that I'd never have as an actor.

Jeff Dwoskin 53:12

Hey, you gotta find where the creative path takes you and thrive. Yeah, Dean, thank you so much for hanging out with me. This was amazing. I love your book. Let me pitch your book one more time. More time. Prairie man, my little house life and beyond. Nailed it.

Unknown Speaker 53:27

Good job.

Jeff Dwoskin 53:29

Yeah, I know. Look at you reading the name of the book. Love the book. Really. I recommend everyone get there's so many stories we didn't cover. I'll tease one little house aside, there's a story about Madonna in this book that just killed me. I love it, and it's it's worth it to get to that, you got to get to that. That was a great story. I'm like, you can buy the book. You guys can't give all the goods away. Yeah,

Dean Butler 53:50

yeah, yeah. But I agree. I think that is a fun that was a fun moment, that was a fun experience.

Jeff Dwoskin 53:55

Dean Butler, thank you so much for hanging out with me. I appreciate it.

Dean Butler 53:59

Jeff, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it, and thank you for your support of the book, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. All

Jeff Dwoskin 54:05

right, how amazing was Dean Butler. Definitely check out his memoir, Prairie man, my little house life and beyond. Get on Amazon. There's a link in the show notes all the Dean Butler goodness, you need a way to you can stream every episode of Little House on the Prairie can check out his Love Boat on YouTube. Gidget on YouTube. So much Dean Butler out there for you to just grab, take advantage of, but definitely prairie man, my little house life and beyond. Heard an amazing memoir. So I hope you enjoyed our trip to Simi Valley and our chat with Dean Butler, hopefully you're really hungry for some fried chicken right now, head on over to Frankenmuth, Michigan and get the best fried chicken. There is fudge, Christmas, everything. And Frankenmuth, this is an unpaid ad for Frankenmuth, Michigan, all right. Well, anyway, with the interview over, it can only mean one thing I know. Now Episode 333, has come to an end. Thank you, Dean Butler, and thank you to all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

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