The surviving cast of “Little House on the Prairie” recently celebrated it’s 50 year anniversary at a festival held at Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, California where the show was filmed during it’s nine season run from 1974 to 1982. “If you would have told us 50 years ago that this show would remain timeless, we would have thought you were crazy,” Alison Arngrim, who played mean girl Nellie Oleson, told Fox. “We had no concept that this show would still be airing on television 50 years later,” she shared. “We didn’t even know if there would still be TV in 50 years! We were stunned that this show became a hit.”

The former child star opened up about what life was like on set. “It was the ‘70s,” she chuckled. “People drank, people smoked. [Landon] did all of these things. It was kind of strange you’re… on set and people are standing around with cigarettes and glasses of gin. It seemed odd, but that was TV in the ‘70s. It was like ‘Mad Men.’ [Landon] was so not Pa. But then, if you think about it, what a brilliant performance. Here was this man who came to work in his unbuttoned shirt, in his gold chains, in his Ferrari with his Marlboros, and then he turned into Pa Ingalls in a matter of minutes.”

Arngrim recalled her late costar, Michael Landon, who played Charles Ingalls, who passed away in 1991 from pancreatic cancer. “Michael in many ways was a Hollywood person,” the 62-year-old explained. “Yes, he owned a Ferrari. He had fast cars. But… the show was therapy for people. And I believe it was therapy for Michael in a lot of ways… [What surprised me] was that… insecurity, because he was so powerful. He was the executive director. He was the producer. He was the writer and star of the show. He was everything. He was loved by millions, absolutely gorgeous, very much in charge… He’d be cracking jokes. He had a wonderfully twisted, warped sense of humor. He was hilarious.” She continued, “But you could see that there were moments when he was trying so hard, ‘Will this be good enough?’ He wanted it to be good enough to be perfect. And you could see that there were times when he’d get that look like, ‘Oh, my God, maybe this isn’t going to be perfect.’ And I think that was maybe the thing that drove him, maybe scared him. That it wouldn’t be perfect.” Arngrim said that unlike everyone else on set, Landon “always knew” that “Little House” would stand the test of time. “He told [co-star] Melissa Gilbert… ‘Long after we are all gone, they’ll still be watching this,’” she said. “And everyone he said it to shook their heads and smiled, nodded and went, ‘He’s crazy.’ No one believed him. Everyone said, ‘Oh, isn’t that sweet? He clearly lost his mind.’ No one thought this thing would be going 50 years later… We are dumbfounded. We are thrilled. We’re so grateful.”