{"id":6168,"date":"2015-09-29T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T10:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/entertainment\/?p=6168"},"modified":"2022-08-13T04:38:23","modified_gmt":"2022-08-13T08:38:23","slug":"what-is-the-secret-behind-little-house-on-the-prairies-baby-battering-ram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/entertainment\/2015\/09\/29\/what-is-the-secret-behind-little-house-on-the-prairies-baby-battering-ram\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Secret Behind Little House on the Prairie’s “Baby Battering Ram”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here<\/a> to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.<\/p>\n

TV URBAN LEGEND<\/span><\/u>: Michael Landon pulled a prank on an artist in her death scene on Little House on the Prairie, resulting in her seemingly using a baby as a battering ram in the episode. <\/p>\n

Michael Landon’s long-running television series Little House on the Prairie (based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic books about her youth growing up in the frontier) has gained a reputation since it went off the air of being a throwback to more wholesome times (reruns of the show currently air on both the Hallmark Channel and INSP, formerly known as The Inspiration Network). While that is certainly true to a certain extent, that also overshadows just how dark<\/b> the show could be at times. Just looking at the main family on the show, the Ingalls, Charles and Caroline Ingalls lost a son in the first season, their oldest daughter Mary went blind and Mary then had a miscarriage after getting married to her teacher from the School for the Blind. This is on top of the plagues and droughts that seemingly popped up every other season. There was also the infamous episode where a teenage girl is raped by a sociopath who dressed up like a mime. Heck, even the finale of the series, as I noted in an old TV Legends Revealed<\/a>, ended with their town being blown to smithereens! So the show had a lot of dark moments in it. Likely none more dark, however, than Season 6’s “May We Make Them Proud,” which aired as a special two-hour episode for February sweeps in 1980.
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\nIn the episode, the Ingalls’ adopted son, Albert, is sneaking a smoke on a pipe with his friend in the basement of the School for the Blind. They’re discovered and they pretend not to be smoking and then leave the basement. However, they leave the lit pipe behind and it eventually sets fire to the entire school! By this point in the show’s run, Mary had had her first child with her husband, Adam, and the three of them were all living in the School for the Blind. The fire soon begins to spread through the school. Mary and Adam take all the blind students out for safety, but in an odd plot twist (and not a particularly believable one, to be frank) neither Mary nor Adam thinks to make sure that their baby is safe. Instead, a friend of the Ingalls family, Alice Garvey, who was visiting with Mary and Adam at the time the fire started, went to save the baby. <\/p>\n

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Tragically, Garvey and the baby are trapped in the baby’s bedroom by the flames. Garvey tries to break through a window but it is too late and she and the baby are burned to death. That alone is horrific enough to make the episode stand out in the minds of Little House on the Prairie fans, but the episode is also known for the oddity of the scene where Garvey breaks the glass on the window in the bedroom. It looks as though she is using the baby as a battering ram to break the glass! <\/p>\n

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Here is the scene…<\/p>\n