#558: Bonnet Headz

You called a homicide detective to help you put together furniture

You got a fucking office coach

out there

Tell them Steve Dave.

Hello, and welcome to this week's edition of Tell'em Steve Dave.

It's me, Bri, with Walt.

Hello.

And with Mary Beth.

Hello.

Who's here because we have a special guest today.

That special guest is not BQ.

Walt,

I'm nearly certain that at two, the Jokers sold their souls to the devil for success, and the payoff is they have to get,

on Let's see just left the room for some reason uh they're gonna get COVID every three to four months

for life

I mean that's it's that's a steep price to pay that I know but they're they're power hungry they're fame hungry these guys you don't know

poor Q I mean I feel bad well that's I mean that's one of the pitfalls of you know touring and coming into contact with a lot of strangers shopping in jail

on a continuous basis you're putting yourself at risk more so than like the average person, like me who doesn't leave your house and doesn't ever, or you who come here.

Yeah, I go out, but you know,

I'm not like I'm not when I greet people, you know, like he's got to greet people, and he's got to like just it's a big difference, yeah.

All right, well, our special guest, we don't want to leave her waiting, we've already gone through some tech issues.

Shockingly, our tech issues prevented us from starting right away, but here we go.

Everyone, I am super excited

to introduce Allison Arngrim.

Bring her up.

There she is.

There she is.

Hi, hi.

Hello.

Now,

this is Nellie from Little House on the Prairie, Wolf.

Yes, yes, I'm very much aware.

And when I told you that,

well, when our guest booker got, you're actually the first guest he's gotten.

Our other guest was a friend of ours who we already knew.

I think he tried to get Buzz Armstrong.

He tried to get Tom Brady.

He tried to, who was it?

Oh, Elon Musk.

He failed on all fronts.

And I didn't care because he got you.

And to me, that's way better.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So

this is a comedy podcast.

You can say whatever you feel like.

It doesn't matter to us.

You're all good on your end.

I'm trying to think of, this is surreal.

Now it is.

It's really surreal.

I'm like, fan garland.

And I'm not really in France.

I'm pretending to be in France today.

I just don't like it.

I will be in France in October, but I thought, well, I'll just, I'll, I'll.

I want to bring up that French in a minute because there was something about your one woman show.

So, so

Allison played Nasty Nellie Olson,

Little House on the Prairie from 74 until like 80, somewhere around there, I believe.

81, and then I went back for an episode in 83.

It was crazy.

Now, Walt is not really that schooled in Little House on the Prairie.

He was more of like a Colombo guy.

He was more of, what were you saying about the Fantasy Island Love Boat, which you were on both of them?

I was on both Fantasy Island Love Boat, and my mother had a guest star role on that new, the new Colombo, that later series they did.

What was your love interest on the love boat?

I did not have one.

It sucks so bad.

I didn't get to go out on the boat either.

They took the boat out like twice a year.

Charo.

Charo always got to go.

Very jealous.

But I had to you know, be in the studio and pretend to be in a boat.

I did not because I played Evil Child Star Becky Daniels, who's come to film the Becky Daniels show.

I love it.

Right, I'm horrid to her.

She's a fan, and then little Jill Whalen, Captain Stibbing's daughter, I make her my stand-in and torture her and dump water on her hitter with eyes and stuff.

Nancy Culp from the Beverly Hill Billies played my aunt Gert.

I love her so much.

So that was really cool.

It was really fun.

But I played an Evil Child Star.

I did not, which is a drag because you know who's on the show?

That same episode was the big, tall, blonde guy.

He was in the original when they did Brideshead Revisited series, British actor, a guy named Anthony Andrews, big tall, blonde thing.

So cute, had such a crush, but I was dressed like a 13, 14-year-old child star.

So he didn't know I was over 18.

I was like,

he's like, you name it,

I'm like,

so yeah, I had no love interest, nor was I successfully able to hit on the handsome male actor on the show

that's enough for me

yeah I have tons of stuff like I was a hooker on fantasy island does that help I oh yeah

that was a horrifying episode it was a horrifying it's like about human trafficking

Jan Brady Eve Plum she goes to fantasy she's the one who goes to the island and she was pregnant with some mysterious television disease where she's not going to live to see the baby grow up and they never quite explain how this is working but there you are.

And so Ricardo Montaban takes Jan Brady into the future to see her child grow up and clearly there's issues that she's like running away and stuff and then they get to where she's like 18.

I'm on the corner.

I am on the corner in bad spandex being beaten by my pimp.

And she does this quantum leap thing to save me, jumps into the fantasy, even though Ricardo Manabano said, You can't do that, you must never do that.

And she jumps into the thing.

And so she sneaks into the brothel to rescue me,

but not before I get auctioned, auctioned, a live human auctioned off to a guy named Lucky Eddie for $5,000.

And then the place gets raided and I get saved.

Where was the island at?

Like when you filmed it, what island were you on?

There's no island.

It's not real.

It was a television show.

There is no island.

There was

stage with astro turf and pretend palm trees and some lovely girls some models in little sarongs hanging out that's kind of it let me save you the embarrassment wall it was a wig her curls and little else

also the town the town on little house the walnut grove also not real there is a real real real actual real walnut grove minnesota in minnesota lovely place tiny little place has a laura ingalls wilder museum lovely you should visit it it's great however we didn't film there.

We made a fake town over in gorgeous Simi Valley, California.

Gorgeous, way too hot, but gorgeous.

And Big Sky Ranch.

And we did a big fake town there where we filmed the show and pretended we were in Minnesota, even though it didn't look like Minnesota.

But that's where he did it.

And it's not there anymore.

I mean, the ranch is, but the buildings aren't.

So yes, when people say, I want to visit Walnut Grove, you cannot.

Yeah, they didn't.

Do you love Burst and Bumble?

Does that little bit of Nelly come out?

So you're like, isn't that terrible?

I know, it's just the worst like, it's not real.

It's not real.

That is like,

okay, so

got this, read it.

Awesome book.

I can't recommend it enough.

If you're, again, I apologize for my friend Walt, he's not upon it, head like my wife and I, Mary Penny.

But if you're at all into Little House, it's a great book.

I get a lot of stuff about like your upbringing that was incredibly interesting.

Yeah, I mean, I had a heck of time writing it.

I thought, well, you know, it's like throwing everything and the kitchen sink.

Yeah, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, How I Survived Being Nellie Elsa and Learned to Love Being Hated.

It's so true.

Yeah, you know, I had been talking about stuff in my life in my one woman show and telling more and more stories and with my work with Protek, talking more about my childhood and difficult times.

And as you know, in the book, during the time I was writing, a lot of people were dying.

I lost my mom in 2001 and then my father in 2009, right before the book came out, and all this stuff was going on.

I thought, well, I guess this is all going.

This is all going in the book.

But I also talk a lot about seriously the day-to-day, minute-to-minute, what it was like on the set to actually make this show, which people do, they find fascinating.

People are fascinated by Little House 50.

freaking years later, but they want to know, they go, how did they do that?

Why is there snow?

I know there's no snow.

You're in Calvary.

Why?

How what you were in the river?

Did you actually nearly drown in a river?

How did you do that without drowning?

And so yes, I go into detail on all that stuff.

And this this show is you do it throughout America, and you said earlier, because you're

the only folks there, you also do it all in French?

Yeah, yeah, I started doing, you know, my show, God, way back, you know, 2002, I started doing a show where I told all true stories.

I've been doing stand-up since I was like 15.

And then I started a whole one-woman show where I tell all true stories.

We have a question and answer segment, which people love.

I have actually cards that say ask Alice in anything.

And so I started doing that, very successful.

And then I was doing it everywhere.

And then I went to France.

And they were like, you know, we could kind of do this.

And I'm like, I would have to learn to speak French.

I have high school French.

It's not that good.

And they're like, well, you could go back to school.

And I went back to school.

And this guy wrote this adaptation.

This guy, Patrik, in French, wrote this adaptation of my American show, but in French.

Like, this joke, it makes no sense in French.

We take this one out, we put another in.

And so, made up this, it was brilliant.

And I did that, and then we had a new show called Malo Trezor de Nellie Olsen, which is Nellie Olsen's trunk of treasures.

That was really silly.

And we have a new show,

En Flamme.

It was Nellie Olsen Allumée Les Annes Cartrevin, but now it's actually Nellie Olsen en flamme, Les Annes Cartrevin.

Nellie Olsen sets fire to the 1980s.

It's really fun.

It's got like nostalgia stuff.

It's got game show parodies, stuff about 80s music, 80s culture in France, 80s TV in America versus 80s TV in France, and all kinds of crazy stories.

And yes, it's all in French, which I speak much better than I did when I started.

But yes, I do a whole comedy show in French.

That's crazy.

It's nuts.

I did a movie in France.

I did, yeah.

Now, Walt, if you want to watch Walt perk up, We're going to we'll talk about your parents.

Now, her dad's name is Four.

Now, we'll bought super into comics.

Named after the Norse god?

Actually, his full name, Torhuddler Marvin Arngramson.

And as he said when I said, God, last name of Arngram, this is really hard.

My last name is Arngram.

He said, think yourself lucky.

If you were a proper Icelandic girl, your full name would be Torhuddler Dotter.

The D-O-T-D-I-R.

So, yeah, so

raised by an Icelandic farm family named Thor and or Torhuddler, which is Thunderbearer, Thor God of Thunder, Thor Hudler, Thunder, he who brings the thunder.

Hell of a name.

And my mother was the actress Norma Macmillan, who was the voice of Casper the Friendly Ghost, Gumby,

Sweet Polly, Purebred Underdog's girlfriend, as in where

is my underdog?

Yes, that's her.

And yes, Davey of Davey and Goliath.

That's my mom.

Wow.

He's gone nuts.

And it's really really weird, too, because if you watch all those cartoons and stuff, you know, and then the claymation that there's only like two people doing, doing everything.

So, you know, Davey, Davey's mom, my mother's doing Davey's mom.

Davey's mom's voice.

She's Davey's mom.

She's Davey.

She's all of Davey's friends.

She's Davey's sister.

And then the guy is Goliath, the dog, but he's also the preacher, Davey's dad, the fireman, the policeman.

That's it.

So when like Davey has a party and his mom and his sister are there and four of his friends, it's my mother having a seven-way conversation by herself

bananas

uh her dad also managed liberace

wow

with liberace it's my father worked worked at the big 9000 building on sunset for seymour hiller and associates who handled debbie reynolds and liberace and the treniers and all this it's a huge deal and he was assigned to be the la person for liberace we actually rented a house in the hollywood hills around the corner for Liberace.

Like, I don't know, in case he needed something,

what?

Um, someone to come shine his diamonds.

I, and so we'd go to his shows, and it was kind of hilarious because I eight, but I'm a Hollywood kid, and my parents say, Now we're going to go see Liberace.

But don't say anything, you have to be in your best behavior.

Don't say anything because no one must know that Liberace is gay.

I'm sorry, I was like, I'm eight, I know he's gay.

um he just flew over the stage he's like wearing rhinestone pants I think I think people know I think his fans know I think they really know my parents like no no they don't know I'm like oh I think they know and he was brilliant he was absolutely brilliant he was like just like the gay Elvis this guy was a genius and all his shows all sold out he he gave us a phrase that is still in our language a critic said that Liberace show was was dumb that it was like just saccharine and silly and these ridiculous songs and all this

brother George and just Panam said he was awful.

And, of course, his entire tour was sold out.

You couldn't get a ticket.

He was making so much money.

And he said about the review, When I read the review, I cried all the way to the bank.

I cried all the way to the bank.

We say this, that is from Liberace.

He made, that's why we say that.

It's his.

And he was a riot.

And his fans, they sort of knew, but like they didn't care.

It was these old ladies.

And they were like, oh, yes, he's that way, you know.

So your father managed him?

Yes, he worked.

He was vice president of Western Regional something under Seymour.

Hello.

If you saw the movie, that whole thing about Liberace, that movie they did, and Seymour was played by Dan Aykroyd.

And my God, he did a good job.

When Dan Aykroyd came and sat down on the couch and went, hurrum!

I went like, ah, because I'd seen that in my living room.

But my dad's boss would come over for dinner.

I know that guy.

So, yes, my dad had to, you know, make sure

his LA shows, check in, make sure everything was being done correctly and that they had, you know, I don't know.

I don't know if it was like the Brown M ⁇ Ms backstage, what kind of rider he had, but, like, make sure it was all correct.

If he called instead of having a meeting at my house, can you come over?

Some agents here, and I don't trust them.

I want one of my team here.

My father would get in the car and go around corner and go to his house.

Well, your dad, your dad seemed like a wild guy.

He was a crazy guy.

He was.

I told him.

He was already, you know, sick as I was getting into finishing up the book.

And

he said, you know, I'd give him a couple sample chapters.

He was really excited.

He was like, oh, it's like that.

I'm like, yeah, oh, this is great.

And I said, now you understand.

I said, I'm laying it all out.

You're not getting father of the year probably from this book.

And he said, yeah, I lost that contest a long time ago.

I'm pretty clear on that.

I said, okay.

And I said, but, you know, and I started telling some of the stories.

He goes, wait, I'm a rogue?

I'm like a lovable rogue.

I said, yes.

I said, basically, what I can tell you is: if they made the movie, every actor in Hollywood would beat each other up on the studio steps to play you.

And he's like, yes, yes.

And then, of course,

you read the book.

He dies.

My father died of Parkinson's complications in 2009.

And the editor said, I know you got to do the epilogue thing.

Can you talk about that?

I know it's terrible.

But she said, everybody at HarperCollins, at the publishers, wants to know what happens to the crazy dad.

I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah.

But my father was an actor.

He was was an actor and a producer.

He was an actor on Broadway, and he was a producer.

So

I reconciled myself to it that he got the finale and he got a death scene.

And he would have wanted that.

It's like so twisted.

But yes, I have a chapter all about him called The Publicity Seeking Missile.

Yeah,

he snuck into that party, I guess.

Michael Landon was like, what the hell are you doing here?

We said, yes, the big NBC hoo-ha kickoff celebrity party, like Golden Globes people, like the like all the foreign press associated Golden Globes, like heavy-duty party.

And only certain people were invited, like the Waltons.

Remember, none of those people were famous.

Mike, Michael Lernet, incredible woman, she wasn't famous yet.

And Will Gere was famous.

None of those kids, nobody knew who they were, nobody knew who Richard Thomas was yet.

Will Gere was invited from the Waltons because they knew who he was.

Didn't know he was.

And the same thing, Michael had come off Bonanza.

Michael was invited, but nobody else would allow us in the party they weren't famous yet nobody really knew who anyone was but my dad had a friend who's in the foreign press Jean Lorraine this guy out of Montreal and he's like hey do you want to go to this party he knew he's like I can totally get you in I can totally get you should get it you've got to get go you just go just go I will get you in don't ask any questions just say I get when you come up you have my pass you say yes he lets said I can come and you get dressed up and you walk in and just do it and you will be photographed with and it was all the people there.

Barbara Eden was there, Karen Valentine, all the big stars of that year who had shows on.

He said, you will be photographed with all of these people and with Michael.

And nobody else, nobody else from the Lesson Prairie will be there.

They just won't.

And my father's like, we're going.

I got a new dress and everything.

And it was amazing.

And there is this picture of me with Michael.

And he's grinning, but he also, his eyes are like, all right,

how did you get in here?

How did you get in here?

I'm going to go in here.

And it's just like, okay, you people.

So, yeah, it was hilarious, right?

My father would go under the door, over the trance, whatever, to like get that publicity, get that dollar.

Yeah.

That's,

he might be, he might have been the hardest working guy on Hollywood at the time.

I mean, it seemed like he did a lot of stuff.

So you're like, really, like, with all the transgender stuff today, you are on the ground floor.

Because you were friends with Christine Jorgensen.

christine jorgensen back when

i mean what did what did we even call it there was a time where there was no name for this it was a i mean there have always been people who were trans there's people who are uh medically what they even call intersex which is a whole other thing i mean there's several people just don't even realize the things that do go on biologically as well as psychologically for people and there was this christine jorgensen and christine jorgensen was famous and did talk about her previous life because she was she she wasn't planning on the fame thing but she kind of got caught at the airport kind of thing the pepperazzi somebody leaked the story and she'd gone all the way to Denmark because that's what you had to do then you had to like go to Denmark and her family supported her her family when she was George said

yeah you need to do this you need to do this in fact you should probably go see this guy in in Denmark really seriously and she did and so she comes back and then it just hits the fan and suddenly she's famous and her family they kind of they circled the wagons and said, Okay, what are we going to do?

How are we going to approach this?

And stuck by her.

But years later, Christine has adjusted to life, and she's like written a book, and she's got a cabaret act and everything.

So her publicist is my mother's publicist.

So,

yeah, Liberace's manager is Nellie Olson's manager.

Christine Jorgensen's publicist is Casper the Friendly Ghost's publicist.

This is how Hollywood works.

And

so, we meet her, and she comes over to the house, and she is the nicest person you ever could want to meet.

And I really liked her because

you know how some adults, if you're a really little kid and like you look young for your age, they really talk down to you.

They're like, ning, ning, ning, ning, ying, ning, ning, ying.

And it's really annoying when you're a kid, especially.

And then there's the other adults who are like, so, you know, what do you do?

Do you like school?

Do you hate school?

Hey, I don't know.

What are your favorite shows?

You need any good movies?

And they talk to you like a normal person.

This was Christine.

And I called her Auntie Christine, and she was really nice.

And that's the things my parents said.

Well, God, I was like six, seven years old.

We kind of have to tell you who Auntie Christine is.

She's famous.

I'm like, cool.

I mean, a lot of our friends were famous.

Everybody we knew was on TV.

And then they said,

we don't know how to explain this because we didn't have the language.

This is the 60s.

They didn't have.

I mean,

people didn't say non-binary or transgender.

This is like words.

We know.

People know what to even call each other.

It was craziness.

And they said, well, Auntie Christine, technically, how do we say it used to be be a man?

And of course, I thought this was brilliant.

I thought this was amazing that a person could do this.

I'm like, wait, you can do that?

They can do that?

That's like science is on the march.

This is fantastic news.

Why is no one told me that?

You're like, well, what about your mom to all the voices?

I totally, I really admired her.

I was like, wow, that's great.

And then I was like, sort of embarrassed, like, do I say anything?

I was sort of staring at her because I'm like seven.

But no, she was a fabulous and gracious and lovely woman.

And it was interesting because

as seemingly very, very adult concept, my parents tried to break it down for me, ah, and I'm like, so it's an operation.

They go, yeah, it's really complicated.

And couple operation.

I'm like, but like, I could become a guy if that was a thing.

Like I said, I had, and they were like, technically,

yeah.

And the idea that that was put out, obviously

I stuck with this.

I am cisgender.

I am female.

I did like fine.

But

the idea that that idea was put out there, and I went, There really are these, this is a thing.

There are some people that this is their life,

and I knew this as a young kid.

I knew there were some people who were gay, and some people were lesbian, and some people were trans.

I only knew Andy Christine was, but it was a thing.

So, later in life, as all of these things became huge issues that were discussed every day in the news, and they made TV shows and movies about it, I was like, Well, yeah, well, yeah, what

where have you people all been?

I thought that was really interesting.

There's some stuff you say in the book, too, that I'm like, I'm glad that she said it because it makes the rest of the book credible.

Like when you're like, Melissa Sue Anderson, kind of a bitch.

Carrie, kind of slow.

It's the stage mothers.

It's the moms.

It's the moms.

It's always the crazy parents.

And, you know, you take a bunch of like tween girls, me and Melissa and Melissa Sue, we're like, what, you know, 12 and 11 and 10, oh, good lord, and shove us all in a sound stage for seven years.

And the pressure of being a child actor and the amount of work involved, and if you have a highly competitive, kooky stage parent, it you know, some of these child actors and these parents, it's like it's like a dog fight.

So these people just taking their kids,

and they're very competitive.

And there are, and we've heard stories about even some of the famous child stars where the parents were like, no, don't, don't talk to the other children.

No, no, you can't play with them.

And it's like,

and I think a lot of stuff got laid on her.

And I think she thought Melissa Gilbert and I were juvenile delinquents, and she may have been right about that.

So

yeah, it was really weird.

We were probably lucky we didn't just like tear each other's hair out.

I mean, a bunch of teenage girls in this situation.

But yes, it was weird.

And I come because it's sort of funny that The girl who's playing the most innocent, sweet girl who goes blind is actually the one who's copying the more Hollywood devatued of the three.

It was like, What is going on?

Yeah, and her character also was like, she was sort of like more sanctimonious than, say, Laura was.

So she, she was more like Pa, I think, than she was like Ma.

And that's a thing in the books.

If you read the books, Laura is kind of open about

Mary, that Mary is a little too goody-goody and a little too serious.

And like, as they get older, they even talk about why were you so difficult?

Mary's like, I'm sorry.

I don't know.

And they did a musical, they did a musical of a stage musical of Little House, and they have a song called So Good, which is Laura complaining about how Mary is such a just wet blanket narc goody good.

It's basically like Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.

Completely, utterly, utterly.

Oh, yeah.

They have a huge fight in one of the early books because Mary's blonde.

And some crazy relative remarks that her blonde hair is prettier than Laura's.

And Laura goes, nuts.

So that was a real thing in Laura's life and the books.

Do you think Paul Ingalls was the Mike Brady of the Frontier?

Kind of, right?

Had the hair, the hair, the hair with it.

Truly, truly.

And of course, it's interesting because we talk about like, it's so crazy.

You have three levels.

It's like, what, with Star Wars, you have the, you know, the comic books, and you have the cartoons, and you have the video, the other videos, near the movies.

You have the what is canon and what is not.

With Little House, you have the TV show, you have the books, and then you have Laura's actual life and history.

Because she started making stuff up in the book.

She kind of messed with the timelines and went, Well, let's talk.

I'll say I moved to that town earlier and sound better.

Okay, this is my favorite part.

The people at the Walnut Grove Museum said they love this when women who know all about the show and the books are there in the music and have dragged the boyfriend along.

And about an hour in he turns around and goes this shit's real

always

yes laura ingallswilder was a real live human um who was born in in uh pepin wisconsin and lived for some time in walnut grove uh minnesota as well as all over the states they kept moving And she eventually settled in Mansfield, Missouri, where she, with her husband, El Manzo, she sat down and said, hey, you know, I should write these books.

And her daughter, Rose, was by then an author, was like, mom, mom, Mom, you got to write about those farm stories.

It'll sell.

And she wrote Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie and Farmer Boy in a little town on the prairie.

And

there's like nine of them.

And eventually, what happened is a guy named Ed Friendly was shopping it around to networks trying to sell a show of it.

And then Michael Landon came off bonanza and went, that, that, that, I want to do that.

And suddenly we had Little House in the Prairie, the TV series with Michael Landon.

The books came out in the 1930s during the Depression and were insanely popular because the English were poor in the 1800s and now everybody was broke in the Depression so they really dug the books.

And then in the 70s we had a recession and people didn't have any food and they really dug the show.

So it all just kind of worked out seamlessly and was a gigantic, massive hit.

But yes, there really is, it was a Laura and she had a daughter named Rose.

Rose did not have kids.

There's a lot of cousins, people who are descended from the cousins.

Nellie, Nellie had a bunch of kids and I actually was on the phone once with, I believe, my grandson.

There are Nellie descendants walking, walking among us.

You said something in your book that I felt the same way about Fight Club: you said, like, Michael Landon and Ed Friendly looked at those books, which are, a lot of them are boring.

And

they saw a TV show.

And that's the way I felt with Fight Club.

Like, oh, I read the book, and I saw the movie, and I was like, whoever saw this movie is the real genius.

Right, right.

And that's the thing.

And they saw two different, very, two very different TV shows.

Ed Friendly's vision was a little kind of, you know, more PBS.

It was going to be more, you know, this endless shots of the prairie and sunrise.

And the children were going to be barefoot.

It was going to be super authentic and down like, you know, just, was that movie, Days of Heaven?

It was going to look like Days of Heaven, basically.

It was like that kind of thing.

Whereas Michael went, look, I just kind of came off a TV show.

It's very formulaic, but extraordinarily popular, and I know how it's done.

I've directed episodes of Bonanza, I know what I'm doing.

And he said, Yes, we're going to do Super Prairie Authentic, but we're going to include all these elements that people are familiar with from a TV show because it's got to be 22 minutes, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And he's like, He said, Well, as you once said, He said, in the books, there's an entire chapter on how to make an apple fretter, and I can't film that.

So, yeah, he's like, No, you add things, and that's that's why he chose not really the book Little House in the Prairie.

They were in Kansas.

He chose the book Banks of Plum Creek because he said, that's what you want to make a show from.

The pilot can be out in the prairie in Kansas.

He said, the show, you want to be in town where you have the school and the church and the store and the Mrs.

Mr.

Olson and the doctor.

And you have these people who make up a town for the Ingles to interact with.

And you have an enemy.

You have Nellie.

You have all this excitement.

And he said, that's a much more exciting book and has more going on that you can make a TV show out of.

And hello, Smart.

Yes.

I feel like I'm hugging up Allison.

Is there anything you guys want to ask?

Don't you say we have a bonnet head, a true bonnet head fangirl who is like shrieking and fangirling out right there.

Don't you want to ask something?

Let her ask something.

It's only by my good grace, isn't it?

She's here.

Well, she should be very, very grateful to you, but let her ask something.

I know too much of a big mess.

Go ahead.

You want to ask one of my questions?

I don't know.

It's like I'm like,

he's like dying here.

What do you want to know?

I'm here.

Look, yeah.

Did you take Walt's questions?

No, no.

I'm not taking Waltz questions.

Okay, what's your fast food guilty pleasure?

Really?

Yeah, that's Waltz.

I don't.

I mostly, I know I sound like, oh, thank you,

gentle, gin fast food.

I ate a lot of junk when I was a kid.

I ate all kinds of just crap.

Now I'm like,

I will go to Jack in the Box, Jacques Delabois.

I will go to Jack in the Box and I will get the

little Chinese Asian bowl thing with the rice and the chicken, the teriyaki bowl with the sauce because it's got like veggies.

It actually is like broccoli and carrots and chicken.

Are you in California?

I am.

I am in Los Angeles.

I will eat that.

Oh, okay.

I will eat that.

I don't.

I don't have a jack-in-box boxes.

You don't have jack-in-the-box everywhere.

I don't eat red meat, so I I don't eat the burgers.

I'll eat like a chicken sand, I'll eat chicken and stuff like that.

And um, so I like like the teriyaki bowl, that's kind of it.

Um,

I'm trying to think of other

there's a place near me that's not a chain, it's called like the old tiny diner thing, and they make a turkey burger and they don't put salt on their fries and they make all these sodas that they yeah, I'll go like there.

Um, but I generally do not eat very much fast food like at all.

Gotcha wall.

That was some gotcha journalism by Walt Flat again.

You said also in your book that, like,

this reminds me of back in the 80s, there was

a harm, a haunted mansion

up here by where we live.

And people would like go after the actors, like the guys dressed up as Frankenstein or Dracula.

They would like hit them and stuff.

And you said that, like, just going out, like, I think you and was it Catherine McGregor?

You guys went somewhere.

And they were like, we don't like you.

Oh, it was insane.

It was a very, very, very posh private school in LA.

And so for their Easter fair, they, oh, they had baby ducks.

They had everything at this Easter fair.

And someone, I guess, I think someone at that school either worked for the network or knew somebody because they said, we went, Catherine McGregor and Alison Iron Cut.

We went them in costume.

And normally that kind of request would be like, are you high?

No, that's not happening.

But somebody knew somebody.

So we get this call, hey, you guys, like somebody worked for some NBC executives kids went there or something they're like you're going like really and i remember my father said this is a bad idea and so we get we i mean the studio was in it we went to the studio and had them completely do our hair get the thing and the outfit the girls in the costume and we went in full prairie drag as mrs olson and ellie to this event

Everyone was horrified.

Nobody wanted our autograph.

Catherine made a small child cry.

These people cry.

Look, it's Mrs.

also like, eh.

The child was screaming and crying in terror.

And Catherine was absolutely, she was really upset.

She was like drama.

She was like, I think it children cried.

She was horrified.

And finally, kind of gave up.

We just kind of gave up.

And my father said, we should just, this is stupid.

And I went and got a hot dog and slushy.

And that's when two little girls ran up behind me and kicked me in the butt and knocked me onto the pavement.

Let me see my hot dog and slushy.

And I realized, though, that with that petticoat is so heavy.

I couldn't, I couldn't get up.

And then my father came and got me and was like, all right, this is a terrible idea.

And he got, he bought, before we left, though, he bought me another hot dog and a slushie, to his credit.

And he said, we're leaving and dragged me out of there and even called the people who set it up and said, I told you this was a terrible idea.

He said, what do you say?

That costume.

It incites people.

It incites people.

Like, seriously, he was very dramatic about it.

But he said, look, you're not Holly Hobby, you're not strawberry shortcake.

You're an actress who happens to play someone in the 1800s.

They really can't be going around in the freaking costume.

It's too much.

Because even without the costume, I mean, with the Christmas parade where somebody threw a McDonald's cup of orange soda in my face, as I'm going, Merry Christmas.

And Direct Hit, Moving Object, I will give him credit.

But yeah, no,

I still, I am 61 years old, and I still have people go, that episode

means the stuttering girl the horrible.

They're like, still

visibly upset

and come to me to yell at me in my face about things I did.

So, yeah.

All she can do is

stutter.

You said that in your book, you used PMS to motivate you at times just to be so bitchy as Nellie.

Like, was there anyone in your life or anyone you knew that you were sort of channeled?

Because it seemed like everybody in your life was pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, there were a couple of girls at school.

I mean, that's one of the reasons people liked this thing was everybody had a Nellie at their school.

Everybody had a Mrs.

Olson at their job.

Everybody knew somebody like that.

So they were like, yes, yes, yes, we understand.

And there were a couple of girls at my school.

There was like the girl when, oh, yeah, we were like passing a note to start.

We're having to have a, somebody's having a party at their house.

Once they're passing the note, you're coming.

And she intercepted the note and twisted this girl's arm behind her back.

and took the note out of her hand and said you'd better invite me and threatened to beat us all up if we did not have her over.

She was charming.

Charming.

Yeah.

Yeah, this girl.

And there was,

there were a couple of real beautes.

There were a couple of girls who were kind of hostile in elementary school and junior high that I had to deal with.

And I was kind of like, oh, what would she do?

Yes, it would be like, it would be like this.

And so I knew, I knew I'd had people act like Nellie and treat me that.

I was more the Laura at school.

I was more the bully fodder who got clobbered.

So I certainly knew what bullying looked like.

I'd seen it up close as it came at my face.

So I was like, well, here's my revenge.

This is my revenge on everyone who's mistreated me.

I'm going to send them up and parody them on national television.

You got to use it.

Do you have anything?

You want me to

keep it?

Let the crazy bonnet head lady ask a question.

You must have something all these years.

She just watched it recently, actually.

Like, that's the good thing about having a younger wife: now I can go back and re-watch all the 70s and 80s stuff that she hasn't seen.

I'm like, this is great, this is great, this is great.

We had the regular generation, the original, we had the rerun generation, the like after-school generation.

Then we had the

VHS generation, the DVD generation, and now people are watching it on their phones.

So we're like seven generations of viewers in at this point.

What day did it?

I know I recall it airing on Sunday nights.

Did it air on Sunday nights through its entire run?

No, it started on Wednesday nights,

September 11th, 1974.

It started on Wednesday nights, and then we moved.

We moved to Monday,

which was scandalous because we thought we were done for.

We were a hot show, so NBC was playing with the board, going, How can we compete against each other?

And they moved us and put us opposite Rhoda and Phyllis.

And I liked Rhoda and Phyllis, and they were big hits.

And I thought, well, we're going to get clobbered.

And we clobbered Rhoda and Phyllis.

They like changed their time slots because it was too often.

That was a CBS show, right?

Rhoda and Phyllis?

Yeah, yeah.

But I recall it being on Sundays.

Am I wrong?

Yes.

I mean, it may even be like reruns or something.

They did a Sunday night special.

But yeah, we started on Wednesdays and then we're on Mondays.

So you pretty much, there was only the three channels.

So like, what was like, what was the competition for all those years?

Like, what were you up against?

That you guys were.

There was Monday Night Football.

There was Rhoda and Phyllis.

Oh, my God.

There was Mel Brooks had a show.

What was it?

When Things Were Rotten?

I really liked that.

I wanted to watch that.

I'm on.

Harriet and Nellie,

I think, are two of the most iconic 70s bullies ever.

Billiness is both of them.

Thank you.

Did you ever, like, did anyone ever psychoanalyze Nellie?

Not officially, but I've noticed that over the years, people do have a slightly different attitude.

Back in the 70s, it was just, well, she's bad.

She's bad.

She's mean.

And then the 80s, 90s, it was sort of high camp.

Well, she's bad, but she's baby Joan Collins.

She's a bitch, yeah.

And they kind of liked it.

And now, I mean, when I was in France, I talked about that in the book, that blew my mind, they all started having this discussion like they were analyzing Nellie, and they said she was a child, a child without a smile, and that Nellie was jealous and lonely because here was Laura who had paw for and Ma Ingalls for her mom, and here was Nellie with Mrs.

Olson, and here was this lovely family, the Ingalls, and here she had her stupid brother Willie and everything.

And she actually had everything materially.

She had, you know, she was rich, but she didn't really have real friends.

And she didn't have the parents Laura had.

And people liked Laura and didn't really like Nellie that much.

And she was insanely jealous.

And that's why she was acting out.

And now people tend to say, well, of course, that poor girl was like, look at her mother.

Look at her mother.

That poor child.

And she was jealous.

She couldn't help herself.

So like now people are more sympathetic.

They kind of think about these things going, well, I mean, the mom's crazy.

Really, if you act like that, their kids, of course, she's going to be that way.

What do you expect?

Yeah, but like, but then you have Nels, who's so even, like, beyond even killed.

He's trying to be nice, and he's being very moderate.

I mean, he's trying not to.

I mean, he threatens to get the belt and go all 1800s and beat me.

But, you know, you never see him do it.

And you know that, like, even when he said, that's it, that, like, once we got up there, he's like, well, you really need to change your ways.

I'm so totally not beating you.

You know, you know, he didn't do it.

You know, they're being very forward.

He did have weird episodes, though.

Like one of the strangest and the most enjoyable episodes is The Legend of Black Jake, which is like later on in the series.

It's so out of nowhere.

Like I don't think you're doing anything.

And we had stuff like the James brothers show up, and I'm not sure timeline-wise if Jesse James, if that was even physically possible.

It was like, what's that?

Yeah, we got, oh, and the one, the famous Jump of the Shark episode, where, and it was meant to be stupid, where

this guy comes in and is explaining the concept of chain restaurants and tries to to have Mrs.

LaVinci don't tell him chain.

And at the end of the show, a guy dressed up as Colonel Sanders gets out of the buggy.

It's like, hi.

And it's like, get away, get away.

And it's like, aha, ha, ha, ha, KFC.

So, yeah, I mean, stuff like that.

There are moments, though, like, like, when we watch the show and, like, I watch it, and I look at your eyes, like, when you're, when you're interacting with someone, and I'm like, Nelly is a sociopath.

Like, there's no fucking doubt about it.

Like,

the minor shifts in your expressions, in your eyes, I'm like, that's a fucking good actress, man.

Thank you.

And see, people are catching the little subtleties now.

Like, they're noticing the difference between, like, me and like Nancy, my horror-adopted sister.

And when I met her, she even said, she grew up watching the show.

She had watched me.

And she said, well, I didn't want to copy you.

She was like 11.

And her mom was a psychologist.

So she was very aware of things.

She said, I didn't want to copy you.

I want to do something different.

And you were kind of, you know, bitchy.

She said, so I decided to go with crazy, which, as you saw Nancy really was Nancy was very disturbed and she was playing it that way on purpose that's why a lot of people find Nancy more annoying

but yeah there's many subtle things almost little Easter eggs that we actors put in little asides little like spit takes little jokes little tiny little things that we kind of threw in and back in the 70s I don't think people even noticed people were not that aware they were just kind of falling to bed and now everyone's going hey like in the wedding episode when you and Percy were driving away and he says to the honeymoon and you do this weird take and look at him, what was that?

I'm like, no one has noticed that for 50 years.

50, I made that fabulous.

We put in this hilarious take where it's like the honeymoon.

I'm like, wait, what?

And it's freaking hilarious and nobody has commented up.

50 years later, people are like, oh, my God, that was funny.

Yeah, it could be because it's funny

in the 70s, it's like, if you missed it, forget it.

You're not seeing it until the next year, maybe.

Right.

We'll get to now, it's streaming.

It's on getting people, oh, God, the bloopers think everyone's going crazy.

So did Albert die?

Because Albert was going to be a doctor, and then Albert dies of drugs.

When they wrote it, they never thought you would watch the two episodes back to back.

Those episodes were years apart.

They had no idea what was going to happen down the road.

They went, what are people going to do?

Watch the episodes all together and compare them?

No, they didn't know.

So they went, well, I guess we're going to kill him off now.

Didn't we have something in the narration that said he became a doctor?

Yeah, but who the hell is going to remember that?

Yeah, there was a lot of,

there were quite a few like convenient things like they would tackle stuff like racism, like Joe Kagan.

Like they don't want him going to church and then finally like the community accepts him.

Then you never see Joe Kagan again.

He's gone.

What happened to that mumpy stuttery girl that I was so mean to?

Where'd she go?

Chopped off her hair and hit the road.

She wound up on the TV show Hotel, actually.

Yeah, Kitty Christmas.

Got something?

Oh, I thought you were going to say something.

Nancy, I saw is more of like a psychopath.

She,

she was, like you said, she was truly crazy.

And

there's a moment where, like, when she goes to get adopted, it really kind of reminded me of Dexter.

When Harriet,

a kid's mother, yeah.

Yeah, and Harriet's like, don't worry, I know what you are.

That's so creepy.

When Harriet sits outside that door and goes, I know, I didn't, I knew she was spoiled.

I spoiled her, and I know I spoiled it.

I will spoil you.

That's like, oh my God.

I love that.

C.

She's so fun to watch on that show.

Like, she, she, like the way you described her in the book in some of the YouTube interviews that I've watched.

Bananas.

What was that?

Absolutely bananas.

And she was stunningly pretty off camera.

Someone recently on Facebook found some old pictures and put them up.

We're like, wait, wait, Catherine McGregor was beautiful.

Like, yeah.

She was goddamned up to be Mrs.

Olson.

She was so so gorgeous in real life.

She was tall.

She had beautiful.

She had this long black hair.

She said when she was really young, she had long black hair to her waist and wore bright red lipstick, like Chinese dresses, like Dragon Lady.

She had long black hair, and she was really quite attractive and very well dressed.

And one day after school, I was, because we all lived in the same neighborhood.

Like, I lived here.

She lived this many blocks over and up, and Richard Bull lived this many blocks over and down.

within walking distance.

So I came, was coming in from school and a friend of mine from school, this boy, he was about 13, and we ran into Catherine in the street, which is a common occurrence.

And so I was like, oh, hi, how you doing?

Yeah, I'm shopping, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And she goes on her way.

And this poor boy, this 13-year-old boy from junior high, he's staring at her like,

and he gets all like weird.

He goes,

is that like a friend of your mom?

It's like, you know, the Stacey's mom has got it going on kind of thing.

He's like, got a crush.

And I said, oh, I'm sorry.

Did you not know that's Catherine?

He's like, who?

I said, Catherine McGregor, who's the woman who plays Mrs.

Olson, you know, on the show.

He went,

totally traumatized, because he'd like fallen madly in love with her in a few minutes.

And he'd like, the idea that that was Mrs.

Olson upset him.

They did things where, like, I, I really didn't like what they did with your character in terms of like Percival shows up, he's going to straighten out the restaurant, but then he ends up like straightening you out to a point where like you become a Stepford wife, basically.

Redemption through marriage, kind of like, eh.

Um, I like that, you know, they clearly were madly in love.

I mean, that was one of the things that people were like, oh, first of all, no, it was like, huh, they have a relationship here.

Um, and and I adored Steve, but yeah, that last year, I was just kind of like, coffee, coffee, lamb stew, with anyone like toast with that.

I was like, what, what is happening?

Why is that bad?

And I kept hoping I'd have a relapse.

We could have an episode where I'd go nuts and have a relapse.

And Doc Baker has to be called in.

But they didn't and they weren't, they weren't sure what to do.

They weren't, once they'd done that, they did a huge thing when I first was getting nice.

And then I had the babies.

It was like, yes, this is brilliant.

We bring in his family and the whole Jewish.

And then they just went, I don't know what to do.

Well, now she's nice.

She's now like every other woman on the prairie and she's making food.

And we have no idea what to do with this now.

And I was like, I'm just

treading water.

What am I doing here?

I'm not, every, there's 10 other women on this show going, more coffee.

I don't, I don't need to be here.

Right.

Yeah.

You said you said like they weren't willing to cough up any more money in terms of

well, they said they sent the suits, as they say.

The suits were, and they were just like, this is how much it is.

I think that if they'd said the show's only going to go two more years to sign for two, I probably would have said, sure, two years, whoop-de-doo.

But they wanted us to sign for like five or more, like a long time.

And my father was teasing me, saying I was going to wind up like you know, Miss Kitty on gun smoke.

I was going to be there forever.

So I was like, it's like time, it was time to move on.

Yeah.

I watched, I also watched I Married Wyatt Earp.

I did it all.

You gone through the whole thing.

I did it.

You survived I Married Wyatt Earp.

Oh my God.

I did.

I was able to do it.

Climbing over rocky mountains, skipping river loot and discussing where the rivers quiver.

We'll be queens and make decrees.

They may follow them who please.

Yeah.

Marie Osman taught me how to do that.

Marie Osman taught me to dance.

I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

I caught that thing because they were like, we want Allison Argument.

And she's from the prairie.

It's just, they called my age.

It was like, there was no audition.

It was like, show up.

I'm like, great.

They paid a bunch of money.

It was lovely.

And so I, poof, I'm in Arizona.

And there's Marie.

And there's these girls.

And there's like, oh, there's a dance number.

I'm like,

and it was a dance.

They're doing this whole thing.

And the choreographer leaves.

And I'm sitting there going, ah.

And Marie sees it.

She's like, you have no idea of what, like, what to do.

I'm like, I don't dance.

She's like, okay, come with me.

And Marie Osmond drags me up on stage.

She gets down on the floor.

She grabs my ankles and puts my feet and goes, put your feet like this.

Okay.

And she just stayed like that.

And then she poses me, takes my arm.

She goes, make the letter C.

Yes, to this.

Very good.

Very good.

Just curve.

And she teaches me this she puts me in position she says no stay like that don't move and then she says okay play the music now she says just follow me just follow me stay kind of like you're and just do whatever I do just look at my feet do whatever I do and she taught me literally how to dance and how to do this entire routine and she said you're singing your lip sinking to track don't even worry about that and then when we got to the big salt my my solo

We'll be queens and make decrees.

They may follow that whole thing.

She came up with that.

She goes, okay, okay.

Yeah, we'll be queens and make decrees.

They may follow them who please.

And I'm like, That's insane.

She's like, Yes, it'll be hysterical.

Do it.

And she taught me to do that.

And she was in the wings of the theater when they shot it.

She's standing off to the side, and they're not recording anything because it's lip sync.

So I'm doing that whole thing.

And Maria Osmond is in the wings going, Go, Allison, do it.

Yes, yes, do it.

So she's a great, she's a great teacher.

Maria Osmond, dance teacher to the stars.

I'm telling you.

Yeah.

These are heavyweight names from the 70s that you hung out.

It was so bonkers.

It was really wonderfully weird.

It was a very strange movie.

But we were all these actresses that we were in Tombstone, and there was the real birdcage theater and everything.

So it was kind of like wonderfully weird and historic.

But yes, I survived three weeks in the desert with Marie Osmond.

The reason I actually wanted to go back and re-watch the entire series with my wife was because one day I had this vague memory.

I was like, I think there's an episode where Laura goes to hell.

I was like, I'm not sure what it is.

Yes, the dungeon.

Is it music box?

Yeah, it's the music box.

I didn't remember it was a music box at the time, but I was like, I think Laura's in hell.

And I remember Nellie hitting her on the head with a chicken bone or something.

And we hang her.

We execute her.

We hang.

We hang, Laurie.

It's an insane episode.

The stuttering girl, it's the poor little girl who has a stammer, and I am hideous to her.

And I call this the episode Reeve and I Hate Me because it was bad.

I'm sorry.

I had to go to speech class after school when I was a kid.

I had a lift.

I had a terrible lift.

And so my friends, I was friends with all the stutterers and stammerers.

I'm not going to like pick on a stutterer.

So I went to school.

So I'm like, this is horrible.

So I'm like, I'm like, Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers.

And she's crying.

And it's like, Katie Kurtzman, great actress.

So it's like so awful.

I'm like, this is horrible.

So we shoot this thing.

And then Laura steals the music box, but she's so guilt-ridden, she has these nightmares.

And she's in a medieval dungeon.

And Catherine and I are dressed up in like weird dungeon master clothes.

And I come down going,

and it's a turkey.

It was a big turkey leg.

It's like, you know, Renaissance fair.

And I whack her in the head with a turkey leg and then eat it.

And

then we kill her because she has to be hanged.

And she's on the cart.

And we take her.

They built a gallows, like in the middle of Walmart Grove.

They built a gallows in CZ Alley.

And I had a hood and an executioner's hood.

But with the ringlets sticking out, and then Michael B.

Michael's like, here, peppermint stick.

So I had a peppermint stick

sticking out of the mouth of the executioner's hood.

Sorry,

I started going, and I couldn't hear what you were saying for like the last.

I had actually the ringlets sticking out of the executioner's hood and a peppermint stick.

Yeah.

And then we put her and and we hang her.

And then, you know, she wakes up.

But I'm like, how many shows do you have a dream sequence where they execute and actually hang the lead actress who's like 12?

I mean, it's just like, what is happening?

It was a very, it's one of the weirdest episodes.

Yeah, it's bizarre.

And that's what I think a lot of people don't realize about the show is that like it has such a dark edge to it at times.

It's not like, it's not

correct.

Sylvia episode.

I just interviewed.

I just interviewed Olivia Barrish, who played Sylvia on my show, the the Alison Argum show, where I interview people.

I just had Olivia Barrish on the other day, and that was Sylvia part one and two, where Albert has this little friend, this darling little girl who's very like young for her age and gets sexually assaulted, gets raped by this guy who turns out to be the blacksmith.

And he's wearing a mask.

That's like a creepy, weird clown mask.

It's the creepiest, scariest thing ever.

And then she gets pregnant and Albert wants to marry her and take her away and make it all okay.

And this guy hunts her down and kills her.

He murders the child, the little pregnant girl.

It's like, what has happened?

And this was a two-part episode on Little House in the Prairie.

Yeah, that was an amazing storyline.

That one,

the blind school burning down.

I was sobbing.

Yeah, she was crying at that.

And poor Mrs.

Garby.

And Hersha, Hersha Parody played Mrs.

Garvey.

She's always saying, I was not using the baby as a battering ramp.

I was trying to break the window with my shoulder.

Yes, I still had the baby.

I was not using the baby's head to break the window.

Because people ask, they go, She's using the baby to break the window.

What is happening in that scene?

They said, No, I did not use the baby as a battery.

There was some dark stuff on there.

I always liked also that you guys, like Mrs.

Olson, had the idea to get the switchboard because if there's anyone who shouldn't be operating a switchboard in town, it's you guys.

And then you're going to be.

Yes.

You'd be like, why don't you ask your mom about her old husband?

Like, it's taking such glee in it.

It was great.

I love that.

Carrie's happening.

She had the newspaper and, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You got anything, Walt?

Yeah, I have a couple.

I mean, they're just the questions that I ask all our guests.

What makes Allison tick?

Large amounts of coffee.

That's, yeah, it's how I manage it all.

What makes me tick?

I'm just, I'm trying to survive and have a good time.

You know, i worked really hard as a little kid you know my sag card says remember since 1967 um so now at 61 it's like okay i'm gonna do stuff i still work but like do i want to do that is it's is it fun is will it be fun does it does it pay does it pay how much does it pay is it interesting is it amazing i tell people independent film producers go send me your script send me your scripts i will read them is it a good script is it well written okay good good um is it sag are you a union because we need it.

We got the pension.

You know, we need that.

Are you union?

And then is it funny if it's a comic?

Did it make me laugh?

And so is it a good part?

Is it a good part?

I'll look, oh, it's not a big part, but it's really interesting.

I've always wanted to play somebody like that.

Yeah.

And do you have any money?

Like, some money.

I mean, my age and a little hitch up, but you know, a reasonable amount of money.

And generally, if you're making an independent film and you can basically, you can pay people.

and you sign the union papers and your script is interesting that I might be amused to do it,

you know, sling it my way.

So I'm interested in doing things that are interesting and I'm interested in doing things that help people.

That's why I do a lot of my charity work, but even some of the fan events, we've been doing these wacky fan events all over the country, the cast of Little House, a whole bunch of us at a time, Pickers Marts, the antique mart garden things.

And we've been all over the country.

We're going to a thing in Oklahoma and we're going to a thing in Kentucky in August.

There are these very strange, it's way in the middle of nowhere and

everything involves like a riverboat ride now, apparently.

and but it's hysterical you get on a mark twain riverboat and have dinner it's actually it's kind of fun but we get together as a cast and we get to be with each other and hang out and we you know we sell stuff it's great we come home you'll get paid but we hang out with the fans and we meet these people people come and say i drove seven hours to get here just to meet you it's like oh my god so i like to do things that are sort of fulfilling for me and the cast it's not just like well i'll go do that how much is it paid yeah yeah i'll do that It's like, is it interesting?

Will somebody benefit from this?

Will it make somebody happy?

You know.

Okay, I got another one.

What keeps Allison up at night?

Again, the coffee.

Oh, God, mostly my cats.

The cats like to fight.

They like to get one on my feet and one on my head, or one's on my husband's head and one's on my head.

And then they decide to have a knockdown, drag out, yowling, screaming fight at three o'clock in the morning.

So that's kind of a problem.

Things that have kept me up at night,

menopause, but that's much better now.

But yeah, they're waking up at night, getting it, just crank the air conditioning, you'd be fine.

And uh,

um,

I strange noises, strange noises, and the queen of stroke.

What was that?

What was that?

What was that?

Did you hear that?

Did you hear that?

No, nobody heard that because Alice said you have a hearing like a bat.

Nobody heard that except me.

So, yeah, lots of things.

I got one more then.

What is something that isn't free, but you think should be?

Oh,

it's not free it should be gosh um

health care and toilet paper

i mean that would pretty much make life so that's just the two right there your whole day would be different

so you have uh like you said a little bit earlier we're over an hour now um

You do a lot of charity work, a lot of

you're involved in a lot of projects.

And one of them stemmed from your tv show husband percival uh steve tracy that is name who was a very good friend of yours

and uh he got hiv and he died of aids and from then on you've really sort of spearheaded some projects and

yeah he did he and he went public with his diagnosis now we don't know exactly and he probably was infected like right after the show maybe

i don't know he says in the 70s and he said and at the time he got infected they didn't know yet in fact when he started getting sick, and oh gosh, am I 85, 84?

It took him four doctors to get a diagnosis.

He showed up at a doctor and said, look, I'm up on things.

I've been reading the articles.

I think I have AIDS.

And they're like, no, you don't.

He's like, yeah, no, really, I do.

This is probably Kappasi's sarcoma, the cancer.

They're like, no, it's a bug bite.

And he's going, yeah, no, it's not.

Why do I know more about this?

This is terrible.

And he finally found a doctor and knew what they were doing and ran the right test.

And they were like, yeah, sorry, you're right.

You have HIV, it's decking your immune system.

It's like, oh, crap.

so he uh in in like late 85 early 86 he went public he's and he calls i'm going public and he did and he went on television and that wasn't a thing i mean rock hudson had like just died and he was not going to tell anyone and it was like a deathbed thing whereas steve was like okay i'm gonna do this more people need to know and he said people need to know they know me they've seen me from tv if my talking about it helps i'm gonna do it but he was that kind of guy i mean god it was like i think they came up with a zt like right after he died.

They didn't have a lot of drugs then.

They certainly didn't have the cocktail now or any of that.

They had very experimental stuff they were fooling around with.

The fact that he lived as long as he did, a miracle.

He was on an experimental drug.

He did one of the trials.

He said, yeah, let's try it.

And

Interferon D, I think it was back in the day.

And he had to do injections, like plunge a needle into his leg.

And I said, oh, that sounds awful.

I said, is that painful?

And he said, oh, yeah, I know.

It hurts like hell.

I said, really?

He goes, yeah.

Some of the other guys in the trial quit because it hurt too much.

Why are you still doing it?

He said, they kind of have a high tolerance to pain.

I can do that.

And I said, well, is it going to work?

And that's when he said, oh, it's too late.

It's too late for me.

It won't save me.

I'm too far progressed.

I'm doing it so they can study it and save other people after I'm dead.

So that's the kind of person David Tracy was.

So yeah, I started volunteering at AIDS Project Los Angeles and trying to help other people and do education about how not to get it and what to do if your friends are sick.

And I went all over the country and I did a lot for APLA.

I did the AIDS Project Los Angeles Summer Party at Universal, where I produced the comedy stage.

And

I hosted a thing called AIDS Vision on public television where I interviewed people about AIDS.

I did everything.

And so you have that going on.

You have your one-woman show that you're still doing.

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch.

Where's the camera?

Yeah, there we go.

I can't recommend it highly enough i found it thank you very much thank you

uh mary beth anything you want to say to allison goodbye maybe

it's been a pleasure yes thank you thank you for giving us your adorable

yeah she's all right she does she even got uh we're gonna do um because we have uh other projects and we're gonna do a retrospective of little house on the prairie and she has her bonnet her prairie dress and all kinds of stuff good good good i have a store online where we can hook her up with bonnets and you know stuff

an official bonnet for a bonnet

official little house bonnets you know do you have uh like any social media i didn't see that in the

i'm on everything i'm on facebook and instagram and all that stuff and i do have an online store i have a website bonnetheads.com and uh there's a store on square bonnet heads on square site and where you can buy all my stuff that'll autograph oriented stuff and um i'm everywhere uh you sign up for the nelly newsletter email loose gravel prod at AOL, loose gravel productions, loosegravel prod at AOL, and say, I want the Nelly newsletter once a month.

You get an email telling you where I will be.

Nice.

All right.

Anything else you want to promote?

Anything else you got going on?

Like I said, check my Facebook because we've got a thing in Kentucky and a thing in Chicago and a thing in Oklahoma.

I'm kind of taking June, July off a little easy, but then August, September, October, and then I'm back in New York, and then I'm back in France.

So I've got back-to-back appearances starting in August.

All right.

Well, thank you for joining us.

On a personal level, like I said, we've been doing this since 2010.

This is one of my favorite moments doing it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Walt, I'll turn this guy into a bonnet head yet.

Don't you worry about it.

So thanks again.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, Walt.

So that was it.

Nelly.

Wow.

Impressive.

Yeah, I had no idea she had so much connections to old Hollywood.

A lot of connections to the Hollywood that we're interested in.

Yeah.

I knew that

you weren't a little house fan necessarily, but I knew that when she started dropping the Liberace and Charo and all that stuff, it was going to get you going.

Karen Valentine.

That's her name.

Yeah,

that one almost, you know, that almost fall out of my chair.

And nobody knows who Karen Valentine is.

No.

What almost made me fall out of my chair was Mary Beth's stone silence for an hour.

What the fuck, man?

Put Nellie on.

You were so excited the whole way here.

I'm still excited.

I'm still excited.

You know, we got to get excited about Walt.

I'll just tell you,

she would never make it as a podcaster, you think?

She's too emotional.

Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry.

I mean,

I don't know if tears are the appropriate response to the tears.

I might have to break the bad news to Nellie.

We're not going to be doing that Little House retrospective after all.

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So that's probably it for this week.

Troy came over and he put together some furniture for me, some patio furniture.

He helped me.

He went to a conversation.

You called a homicide detective to help you put together furniture.

Well, if you can figure figure out cases and clues and shit, surely he's good with instructions.

You got a fucking office coach.

We got a mule out there.

And like,

here's not, I guess there's just no crime or

he was like, everybody's cool today.

No problems.

No, he

brought his wife and daughter.

He dropped them off at the Meadowlands because it was a Taylor Swift concert.

And I was thinking, like, because he was like, I'm not going to go all the way back to Long Island.

I'll just drop him off, go down and hang out with Bry for a while and then go pick him up.

And it was that moment I was like, I'll bet you Walt would be so glad to be bringing his daughter to a concert that has three or four people at it rather than 72,000 people trying to leave Secaucus at the same time.

Like, that's a major, major concert, man.

I'm thinking also, too, after the interview, I'm going to have to

have to tinker with my questions.

I keep asking this question thinking I'm going to get like some real insight, like profound answers.

And everybody keeps fucking answering it literally when I ask what keeps them up at night.

And it's not, I'm not getting the weighty response, I'm getting like these fluff answers like ghosts.

Yeah, so I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna

work on these questions.

Retool phrasing a little bit.

Yeah, all right.

Next slab will probably be Pam and Edgar.

So,

what keeps them up at night?

Each other, probably.

Whoa,

still, huh?

At their age, yeah.

Patreon, top tier.

Tell them, Steve Dave.