Little House on the Prairie

‘Little House on the Prairie’: Nellie Actor Alison Arngrim Revealed Messy Details of Iconic ‘Egg’ Scene

Alison Arngrim is known as the actress who brought Little House on the Prairie’s “nasty Nellie” to TV screens. Now, she often talks about the hilarious and often messy scenes she was involved in. From wheelchair-related accidents to getting covered in egg, Arngrim’s Nellie certainly had to put up with a lot of mess.

Granted, I’ve you’ve seen Little House on the Prairie, you’d know Nellie often got exactly what was coming to her.

“Yeah, on Little House,” my character got to do things you just don’t normally do on other shows,” Arngrim said in an interview with The College Crowd Digs Me. “Eggs over the head. Falling in rivers. Going down a hill in a little wheelchair. Just, y’know…who does this? (laughs).”

That person would be executive producer and “Pa” Ingalls actor Michael Landon. He was often the mastermind behind Nellie’s most notoriously hilarious scenes.

“But that was just so Michael. Let’s pour a whole bucket of raw eggs over her head. And it was hilarious!”

The iconic raw eggs scene was from an episode where Nellie first meets her future husband, who has the nerve to stand up to her.

The ‘Little House on The Prairie’ Egg Scene Was Even Messier than it Looked

“When we shot it, it was over two days because we shot the first scene where he pours the eggs over my head at MGM Studios and then the next day we’re outside in Simi…where I go running to the Oleson’s screaming at Nels and Harriet that Percival poured eggs all over my head.  And I am just covered in egg,” she said. Essentially, there needed to be multiple takes, all of them requiring lots of mess.

“And since we shot that part on a different day, they kept the wig with all the drying egg on it. When it was time to shoot again, they put the dirty wig on my head and put fresh eggshells on it and sat there whipping up egg yolk to recreate the egg running down my face. I mean, it was disgusting,” she said.

But arguably, it was worth it. The hilarious scene is one of the most iconic in the whole show next to the scene where Laura Pushes Nellie down a hill while Nellie is faking needing a wheelchair. That scene required Arngrim to get in some very disgusting water. She really did have to take one for the team a lot on the show.

If Arngrim’s story made you chuckle, it’s no surprise. Arngrim is now a comedian. She often talks about her experiences on Little House on the Prairie, and what it was like after the show was over during her sets.

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