Dean Butler shocked by reaction to his kiss with underage co-star on ‘Little House on the Prairie’: ‘This casting just couldn’t happen today’

Little House on the Prairie has been a household name and beloved title since its television debut in 1974. However, as beloved as the story is, its portrayal on television probably wouldn’t be well received today – or so thinks Dean Butler, the actor who played Almanzo Wilder on the show.

In the Little House on the Prairie In the books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Laura Wilder and Almanzo are ten years apart in age. The television series reduced this age gap by increasing the age gap to five years on screen, but cast actors who were eight years apart in age… including one minor.

Butler recently spoke to Fox News Digital about some of the trials and tribulations he faced on set, as detailed in his new memoir.Prairie Man.

“It’s just not possible today,” Butler told the outlet of the age difference. “There would have been way too much backlash. It’s remarkable that we didn’t get more backlash than that.”

When they were cast in the series, Butler was 23 and Melissa Gilbert (Laura Wilder) was just 15. While neither the age gap in the original story nor the TV portrayal became a major issue, Butler believes viewers in 2024 wouldn’t feel as casual about it.

“There hasn’t been a casting like they’ve done with us since then,” Butler told Fox News Digital. “That casting just couldn’t happen today. Certainly not on a mainstream television show.”

Butler revealed that the show received criticism for the age difference between the two characters after the episode “Sweet Sixteen,” in which Gilbert had his first kiss with Butler, was aired, which was her first kiss ever. Casting director Susan Sukman was threatened with being “burned alive” over the episode, in a letter published by a Midwestern newspaper, Butler revealed.

“There were letters … and comments about this age difference,” Butler told Fox. “Mothers were concerned … To see an obviously young Melissa Gilbert with someone much older than her in this romantic relationship was challenging for some people. But I think … people understood the spirit of the show. They understood where it was coming from.”

Gilbert revealed in her own memoir published in 2010 that kissing was an extremely uncomfortable experience for her as a young woman.

“The biggest problem I had during this whole time was the issue of physical space,” Gilbert said, as quoted by Butler in his own book. “I just wasn’t ready to have that kind of physical contact with anybody. As far as sex and physicality and all that, I was basically raised by a puritan.”

Although at the time the two men had to face a delicate situation, there are no more hard feelings today.

“The relationship I have with Melissa today is important in my life because of the work that we’ve done and what it means to so many people. She’s fine, I’m fine, we’re fine,” Butler told Fox.