No One Noticed This Giant Blooper in Little House on the Prairie Look Closer. For decades, Little House on the Prairie has remained one of those television shows people return to again and again.
The stories of the Ingalls family, Walnut Grove, friendship, hardship, and family life created a world that felt so believable that viewers could easily forget they were watching a television production. The show was not perfect.
In fact, fans have identified dozens of continuity mistakes, factual errors, anachronisms, prop problems, and revealing production details that slipped through the editing process. One database currently lists more than 70 mistakes associated with the series. And once you start noticing them, it becomes almost impossible to stop.
One particularly entertaining example involves a simple cabinet. In the Season 3 episode “Little Girl Lost,” Mary closes a cabinet. Moments later, when the camera shifts toward Laura, the cabinet is suddenly open again. Nothing in the story explains why it changed position.
It is simply one of those tiny continuity details that apparently escaped attention during editing. But that is exactly what makes these mistakes so much fun. The audience is supposed to be concentrating on the characters and the story.
Nobody is normally sitting there thinking, “Wait a minute—was that cabinet open thirty seconds ago?” Yet once somebody points it out, you cannot unsee it. And the cabinet is only one example. Another famous issue involves Laura’s pregnancy.
Viewers noticed that the timeline seemed to stretch far beyond what would normally be possible, creating one of those strange television moments where the story’s calendar and reality appear to disagree. The mistake has been discussed repeatedly by fans and in lists of the show’s famous bloopers.
Then there are the clothing problems. The show was supposed to transport viewers back to the nineteenth century, but some scenes contain details that clearly belong to a later era. In one episode, modern dental devices can reportedly be seen on Nellie’s teeth.
There are also scenes where the weather creates an amusing problem. The story may take place during a freezing Minnesota winter, yet the actors appear surprisingly comfortable without heavy coats.
Part of the explanation is that some of the show’s outdoor scenes were filmed in Tucson, Arizona, where the temperatures could be dramatically different from the conditions the story was supposed to portray. Melissa Gilbert later described those filming conditions as extremely unpleasant.
Imagine being dressed for a Minnesota winter while standing under the Arizona sun. And then there are the stunt scenes. During one sequence involving a train, a dummy used for a stunt can reportedly be seen after being thrown from the train.
Instead of disappearing completely from view, the dummy remains visible in the grass while the stunt action continues.