Little House on the Prairie’s Dean Butler Reveals Which Episode Left Him ‘Depressed’ During a Rewatch

Dean Butler was not fond of his character’s story arc in a particular Little House on the Prairie episode.

During the October 9 episode of the Little House 50 podcast, Butler, 69 — who starred as Almanzo Wilder in the beloved NBC series — discussed the season 8 two-part episode “Days of Sunshine, Days of Shadow” with his fellow co-star Alison Arngim, who portrayed Nellie Oleson, and co-host Pamela Bob.

The synopsis of part one of the episode reads, “The marriage between Almanzo and Laura [played by Melissa Gilbert] faces its first stern test when he falls seriously ill with diphtheria and later suffers a crippling stroke. Eliza Jane arrives to help care for her brother, but makes matters worse by babying him.”

In the “very angry episode,” Arngim, 63, explained that Butler’s character has a stroke, “which leaves him half-paralyzed and fully cranky.”

“He just loses it, he does not take it well,” Arngim remarked of Almanzo. “He’s bitter party of one.”

“There could have been a more noble way to play this problem, but it was written the way it was written,” Butler chimed in. “Michael [Landon, who starred and directed] never tweaked, he never turned me in a different direction because I was just getting what I got from it and so that’s the way it ended up.”

Butler explained that upon rewatching the episode, he disliked the way his character was written.

“I was so depressed thinking, ‘Oh my god, this is so not what I think of when I think of what this character was,” he continued. “I love the beginning, and I love the end.”

“This is so not what I think of, you know, cultivating who this man was,” he added. “That’s actor narcissism talking. I’m not separating myself from what we’re being asked to do.”

However, despite Butler’s take on the episode, it performed well.

“I have to say, for as depressing as it was, the numbers were spectacular on the episode,” he revealed.

Butler also shared how the episode came to fruition.

“The underlying motivation for the episode was Michael had made the decision that he was going to step away at the end of the eighth season,” he told listeners. “And [producer] Kent [McCray] said, ‘We need to find out if you and Melissa can carry this. So we’re going to throw every calamity we could throw at you.”