Little House on the Prairie

All posts tagged Little House on the Prairie

Va-Va-Villainess: Alison Arngrim

Published May 26, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

This took me decades to realize, but it’s so crystal clear now that I am almost embarrassed about my obliviousness. Some aging, glitter flecked homosexual had to have come up with the costume design for Little House on the Prairie‘s drag queen inspiring, all time champion baddie Nellie Oleson. This 19th Century troublemaker looks exactly like the twin to Bette Davis’ iconic Jane in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Sealing the deal, portrayer Alison Arngrim intuitively followed the flavor trail of those tresses and dresses, creating an indelible, much beloved (or is that hated?) character.

This perfect combination gave Arngrim’s rich and spoiled Nellie a nearly 7 year-run as the self-admiring tormentor of House‘s enduring heroine Laura (Melissa Gilbert). Her professional commitment even imbued a number of follow-up credits. Variations on Nellie’s saucy naughtiness can be found in Arngrim’s lingerie clad hooker on an episode of Fantasy Island and as a champagne swilling operetta actress in I Married Wyatt Earp, a 1983 television film. 

Of course, none of those enjoyable gigs hit the delirious brilliance of a manipulative (yet helpless) Nellie bouncing down a hill in a wheelchair, another visually reverential reference to Jane, in one of House‘s most famous episodes.

So, over the past 2 decades. Arngrim has smartly embraced her bewigged past – writing a book and performing a one woman show, nationwide, about her most famous creation entitled Confessions of a Prairie Bitch. With pitch perfect humor and startling insight, she weighs in on how Nellie’s nastiness has ultimately not only enhanced viewers’ lives, but her own, as well. A recent pitstop in Chicago even included a reenactment of her most famous exchange with Gilbert:

For information on further showings of Confessions and any other project announcements, be sure to follow Arngrim at https://www.instagram.com/alisonarngrim/ and/or https://www.facebook.com/AlisonArngrimFanPage,

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Unsung Heroines of Horror: Lucy Lee Flippin

Published May 19, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

For old school cinema buffs who revel in the stern antics of such character actresses as Fern Emmett and Margaret Hamilton, the divine Lucy Lee Flippin, nicely, offers up a contemporary answer to her predecessors’ judgmental, high-strung activities. Best known as Alonzo’s strait-laced schoolmarm sister in Little House on the Prairie, Flippin is highly recognizable to students of ‘70s and ‘80s television and film.

Her roles in such films as Summer School, Flashdance and Earth Girls Are Easy, often in administrative or secretarial roles, gained her widespread recognition. But much like Emmett, who played cameo bits in many of the Universal horror features, Flippin also appeared in such projects as zombie-comedy Surf II and the Chuck Norris slasher Hero and the Terror in blink & you’ll miss her performances.

Significantly, unlike Emmett and Hamilton who were stuck performing characters without an ounce of sexuality, Flippin got to indulge in earthier aspects with her characterizations. As the slightly vengeful Natasha Jones on The Munsters Today, she gave full essence to the lustful nature of the part, ending that experience as part of a May-December pairing the likes of which Miss Gulch never would have seen. Nancy, her arched eyed hotel worker on a popular episode of The Golden Girls, also rang with the heart of a manipulative grifter, a criminality that the citizens portrayed by her cinematic forebears never would have approached.

Even more impactively, Helen, the desperate character she essayed on the second season of (the original) Charmed would have caused Martha Steele, Babe in Arms’ show business folk disapproving miser, smartly played by Hamilton, much alarm. There Flippen essayed a woman willing to murder and conjure skin shredding demons, all for the hoped for pleasure of eternal youth.

Certainly, the distinctive actions of roles like that emphatically earn Flippin a place in the Unsung Horror Hall Of Fame.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan