Post 45:
“Bunny” and “The Race”

Post 45:  “Bunny” and “The Race”

From 13-Year-Old Anne’s Journal —

January 7, 1983 – EXCELLENT

“Nellie somehow gets Laura’s horse. She whips it and it runs off. Nellie falls and she is temporarily paralyzed.Then she gets Laura to do her homework for her. She gets well and doesn’t tell anyone so they will continue to serve her. Laura finds out and pushes her down a hill. Ha, Ha!”

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Bunnylaura

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From Anne —

The prairie is sometimes sunshiny, sometimes sadistic.  In this pair of episodes, sadism triumphs. First, Nellie abuses a poor steed named Bunny.  Then she abuses her family, Laura and anyone who’s ever had a disability by faking paralysis. Then it’s Laura’s turn to inflict pain for fun! In an epic way.

Laura’s peeping at Nellie while Nellie dances with a doll to a diabolical music box seems lifted from Psycho. The close-ups of Nellie screaming while she barrels down a hill are absolutely a reference to the staircase scene in Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, the visceral film about the Russian Revolution:

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Love how Laura sits down and rests on a rock before she goes for the Big Shove.  The Nellie’s dummy body double flops over into the retention pond.  At this rate, they both deserve at least one night in jail.

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From Tracy —

Is it me or do these two episodes show both Nellie and her mother Harriet at their absolute worst? For the life of me I can’t remember any episodes where they acted this despicably.

But first let’s talk about the main actress in these two shows: Bunny the horse! What an actor! I swear you can read so much in those thoughtful eyes as she chews on Laura’s apple.

At the time I was watching these episodes as a kid I was actually riding horses and grooming them and mucking out their stables. I never had my own horse but ohhh how I wanted one. So the idea of Laura trading her horse for a stove just about killed me. Then when Nellie starts whipping Bunny like a red headed stepchild . . . well, I wanted to crawl through the screen and rip Nellie’s head off.

I will see your Battleship Potemkin reference Anne and raise you a Wizard of Oz reference. When Harriet goes out to the Ingalls to thank Pa and then discovers Bunny it’s so much like Miss Almire Gulch riding out to Dorothy’s farm to get Toto it’s uncanny:

Then there’s Nellie’s over-the-top rage when she sees Laura and Jason ride off together. That’s when I began to wonder if Nellie wasn’t in some part based on Bette Davis’ terrifying portrayal in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane:

But I digress. Onto “The Race” – not nearly as good an episode as “Bunny” but a hell of a lot less violent. Here we see Mrs. Oleson get taken for a ride literally by a thoroughbred she’s buying for the incredibly undeserving Nellie. And then she throws over her own daughter in order to win the race.

I wanted to smack both Mr. Oleson and Mr. Hansen who don’t even try to go up against the old battle-ax when she tries to con a win for Team O.

About the only thing that did my heart good after that was seeing Laura win, seeing a silver cup exchanged for shiny shoes and seeing that the Oleson’s had an outdoor privy like everyone else.

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