INTERVIEW: Dean Butler remembers ‘Little House’ as sixth season hits Blu-ray

Dean Butler, who famously played Almanzo Wilder on the hugely successful TV series Little House on the Prairie, seems eternally fascinated by the large group of followers who still watch and enjoy the beloved show. Now fans can grab remastered versions of Little House on DVD and Blu-ray thanks to Lionsgate; a documentary, coined The Little House Phenomenon, is featured on the first six seasons of the show, and Butler narrates the behind-the-scenes look.

“I just love the way it turned out,” Butler said recently of the remastered version and documentary. “And I think everybody in our cast who has seen The Little House Phenomenon and its various parts are just delighted with it.”

Butler had produced bonus content for earlier DVD releases, and his job as narrator had him exploring the many stories on and off the screen of Little House. “I was thrilled to do it then and thrilled to do it in this current release because it’s just a wonderful opportunity to continue touching the series,” he said. “The series has meant a huge amount to me in my life, and so to get a chance to support it, nurture it, for audiences to find it in a new way, is really an incredible experience for me. I wouldn’t trade it.”

The TV actor-producer said Little House is still popular because the “subject matter is so timeless.” The series is based on the classic children’s novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The saga, also starring Michael Landon, Karen Grassle and Melissa Gilbert, tells the story of an American family in the frontier days of the West. The books, and even TV show, are almost required in some households.

“I have my old-friend movies that I watch on television,” Butler said. “I can watch them over and over and over again, and Little House for a great many people is one of their old-friend television series. You just feel safe and comfortable, and you know what’s coming. You love the people, and so you love experiencing these stories with them again and again and again. … People could embrace it so easily, and those who love it really, really love it and adore it. And, of course, we’re really grateful for that.”

Butler joined the show roughly 36 years ago at the beginning of season six. He was in his senior year of college and had made a movie-of-the-week for CBS. So, he had his foot in the film community in Los Angeles and was looking for the next big break.

“I went on a lot of meetings, and so Little House was one of those many meetings that I went on,” he said. “And because it was Michael Landon, it was very special, and the show was hugely successful. … I knew right from the beginning this was something if I got the opportunity I would take it because this was really, really good stuff. And Michael always was confident that the show would survive the test of time, that it would go on and on. It would surpass fashion and fads precisely because it had this moment-in-time quality to it. It was old when it was new.”

The actor’s memories of working on the show included hard work, but not much overtime. Landon, he said, was a family man who enjoyed being home for dinner. The star and executive producer also wanted the crew to be home with their families.

“We shot pretty normal working hours,” Butler said. “Our days were generally about 10 hours. We could shoot six, seven, eight pages a day depending on what the pages were. Maybe we’d work a little longer on Fridays because you could shoot into the night. … There was very little overtime on our program, and I’ve certainly worked on other series where the hours are unbelievably horrendous. And Little House was not that way, and I think it really was a tribute to the fact that Michael being the star, the executive producer, the writer and the director could shoot exactly what he wanted to shoot, get it the way he wanted it, and he could do it very quickly because he wasn’t answering to anybody else. So it gave him a real freedom to do this efficiently.”

Inevitably, with new DVD and Blu-ray releases, reflective documentaries and anniversaries, thoughts may wander to a Little House reboot. Could this series work in the seemingly more cynical 2015?

“One of the things you look at with Little House is, could you do it better the next time?” Butler asked, “What would be the improvement that you’d do to it? And I’m sure there are producers out there who look at it and say, ‘Well, we can do A, B and C differently, and we can make it much better.’ But the fact that it’s been so beloved for so long, and it’s never gone off the air in 41 years — since 1974, it has been on the air somewhere around the world constantly — I think that says to a lot of people this was done really well and why mess around with it. And now with NBC and Lionsgate remastering it to high-definition and doing a beautiful restoration of the show … the show is more beautiful now than it was when it was new. Why mess around with it? Why change it? Why do it again? I’m sure it’ll happen, and we’ll all be watching closely to see how they do.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Click here for more information on Little House on the Prairie on DVD and Blu-ray from Lionsgate and NBC.