She may be all grown up, but eagle-eyed viewers were quick to spot Alison Arngrim’s, aka Nellie Oleson, return to the prairie in the Netflix reboot of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE.
“Bwahaha! I had SOOOOO much fun doing this! So happy people are enjoying my cameo on the new Little House!” Arngrim captioned a post on Instagram.
While her trademark curls were missing, Arngrim proved she could still make viewers shudder as Ida, one of the women Laura and Mary Ingalls find as they are searching for a missing man. While it’s not clear what the ragtag group of ne’er-do-wells intend for the girls when they stumble across the group, viewers knew they were up to no good.
Arngrim describes the encounter as such: “Ida is basically a crazy lady in the woods. Sort of a forest drifter with drifter friends. They’re hanging out in the woods, having their little dinner, a little campfire in the forest, and the two poor unsuspecting Ingalls girls wander in, and we’re like, ‘Hi, come hang out with us.’ I thought, “Oh, that’s creepy as all get‑out. That sounds right up my alley. I’ll be right over!”
Arngrim’s cameo also brought joy to showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine.
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“I always had this idea that I wanted Alison Arngrim to be in the show,” Sonnenshine said. “So when I was writing Episode 2, I was telling a couple of my friends, ‘I want to get Alison Arngrim to play this lady, do you think she’d do it?’ And they were like, ‘maybe!’ And then all this time later, when I actually got to make it, she said yes. I read her autobiography, and it’s so good. She’s so smart and cool and interesting and funny. And she did it; she came to the show and it was so exciting. She was such a good sport. She was like, ‘Can I have more stuff on my teeth?’ Sure! Go for it!”
Movieguide® reported, “LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE’s premiere episode is beautifully shot, written and acted, with a script that displays the real challenges the Ingalls will face. The episode has a strong moral worldview. It stresses family, hope, kindness, and people helping other people.”
The same morals hold true for the second episode, as well, as audiences tune in on Netflix.
“I think there’s a whole generation of people who haven’t been exposed to these books, and even the show, and I think it’s a really awesome family story and kind of shows what it was like back then,” actress Skywalker Hughes told Movieguide®.
Luke Bracy, who plays Charles Ingalls, says it’s these same values that continue to attract viewers, even though the story has been around for generations.
“What the Ingalls family goes through and the community they’re a part of is the same thing that everyone goes through in their life all the time,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a time period that this exists in, because I think the themes and the experiences are what everyone around the world goes through all the time.”
He added, “I think…that’s the reason that it’s a beloved show across all the generations throughout all different countries throughout the world…the situations that the Ingalls find themselves in emotionally…the characters they’re trying to be, the people are trying to be, the family they’re trying to be, the community they’re trying to make — so maybe that’s why people are always connecting with it.”
Watch Movieguide®’s interview with the cast here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsLwMbTyZnY
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