by Linda Kay
Original Air Date: February 15 & 22, 1982
Directed by: Michael Landon
This review contains a mild Kitty Carnage Warning for scruffing!
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains spoilers for this episode!
Synopsis: In this eventful two part episode, Laura (Melissa Gilbert) and Almanzo (Dean Butler) face seemingly insurmountable challenges when Almanzo suffers a stroke after a bout of diptheria and Laura gets caught in a tornado which destroys the home they were already thinking of selling.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): While Almanzo is recuperating from his illness, his sister Eliza Jane (Lucy Lee Flippin) moves in with the couple to offer her (sometimes unwanted) help. Laura goes into the kitchen and is distracted by a black cat coming through the window.
Laura pours the kitty some milk from a jug which gives Eliza Jane ample time to go into Almanzo’s room and baby him, something Laura was trying to avoid.
Later in the episode Laura goes outside and is surprise to see the cat seemingly stuck in a tree.
She climbs up to rescue the cat as Almanzo wheels out in his wheelchair, commenting on how she has always been a “get things done” kind of person.
As Laura sits in the tree petting the cat they discuss Eliza Jane’s offer to have them move to Minneapolis with her. Laura reluctant agrees to the plan.
In the next scene Laura opens the front door at night to let the cat out.
In Part Two, Laura returns home to find the cat waiting for her outside in a chair on the porch.
She gives the cat some milk and decides she should give the cat a name. She chooses Hungry because it suits him.
As she’s talking to her baby, Laura starts to hear banging noises and the cat starts to meow nervously. Checking outside she sees a huge tornado coming their way. Gathering the baby, Laura runs to the front door and calls for the cat, but the frightened kitty races upstairs instead.
Laura makes the quick decision to take her baby to the storm cellar first, then runs back into the house and races upstairs, calling for the cat. She finds him crouched under the bed.
Scruffing him, she snatches the cat up and then struggles against the storm to get to the cellar. But a piece of wood hits her (or rather her stunt person) on the head and knocks her unconscious.
The cat wriggles from her arms and runs away.
After the storm, the cat is sitting on Laura’s bed as her family anxiously awaits to see how she is doing.
Laura recovers and stays with her parents, not realizing yet that her house has been destroyed. Her sister Grace (Wendi Turnbaugh) is petting the cat when Laura suggests they go clean up her house. Needless to say she is shocked when she sees the state of her home. Later when her mother Caroline (Karen Grassle) shows her a plate which didn’t break, Laura is angered, pointing out that all they have is a baby, a cat and a plate (and she proceeds to smash the plate).
As a surprise to Laura, Charles (Michael Landon) and Almanzo work together to build up the latter’s strength to the point he can start being active and productive again. They begin to rebuild the Wilder home. Caroline coerces Laura to take a trip into town to see Dr. Baker and the cat scurries out the door after them.
In reality, Caroline takes Laura to see her new house and the progress Almanzo has made. At the end of the episode, the cat is drinking milk from a plate as the family enjoys a meal together in the frame of the new house.
This appears to be the same cat actor who played Pepper, Nancy’s beleaguered cat, in the episode Gambini, the Great which aired earlier this same season. Considering that Willie almost shot the poor animal out of a cannon it’s no wonder the kitty chose to go live with the Wilders instead. In the books Laura owned a cat named Black Susan, but this does not seem to be the same cat character.
Final Mewsings: Forget the baby and the plate, all you need is a cat!
Relevant Links:
To discuss this film and other cats in movies and on television, join us on Facebook and X.