Little House Recalls an Episode That ‘Would Not Happen Today’

The Little House on the Prairie cast is remembering one episode that wouldn’t be filmed today.

On the June 5, 2025, episode of the Little House 50 podcast, co-hosts Pamela Bob, Alison Arngrim and Dean Butler spoke about an episode in the show’s fourth season titled “Here Come the Brides.”

The episode centers on a teen boy named Luke Simms who comes to town and woos Nellie Oleson (played by Arngrim). Following a brief romance, the two elope before their family finds out and takes them back to the Justice of the Peace to have him unmarry the couple.

“I am 15 in this episode,” Arngrim said on the podcast. “It aired in December so we would have shot it a few months before. I would have just turned 15 in January. So I was 15 probably in a few months when we shot this.”

She continued: “I was super super super teenage, puberty insanity happening. And so it was so perfect [because the episode was about] the first time she rebels against her mom, the first time she falls in love.”

But while Arngrim was 15 in real life, her character was meant to be 13, she said.

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“I’m sorry, I’m 15 so she’s just barely 13. This cat is — he’s playing, I guess, 16, 17 — he’s… late 20s,” Arngrim added, later clarifying that actor Bob Marsic, who played Luke, was 22.

Joking that there was no “swag or subtlety” to the way the young female characters acted around the young male characters in the episode, Bob said, “It’s straight in for the kill.”

“There is no swag on the prairie. Like, no one’s got game on the prairie,” Bob added.

Added Arngrim of the episode: “Yea, but it’s young girls — children — accosting a grown man who they have not been introduced to.”

“That would not happen today, right?” Bob then asked. “That casting a full grown adult to play or even kiss — and it was an innocent kiss, but it’s a kiss — a minor.”

Arngrim said that now, if such a scene were filmed, it would require that both actors be minors and that an intimacy coordinator be on set.

Elsewhere in the episode, Arngrim recounted how Marsic brought his girlfriend to set while the episode was filmed.

“That was another of the weird moments,” she said, adding, “His girlfriend shows up, and it was weird because it was like … there was this vague thing of her wanting to be there for the romantic scenes.”

Arngrim continued, laughing: “I was like, does this woman think that I am a threat? Really? This 15 year old pimply girl? No. No. I am not a threat to your relationship. I am not stealing your man.”

Arngrim added that she did not meet Marsic prior to filming, saying, “I think we were like kissing on the first day or something. Maybe the second — day two? It was pretty quick, it was like, ‘Hi, introduce yourself, now you’re in love.’ “