When you think of “Little House on the Prairie,” Marvel movies and superheroes are probably not the first thing that comes to mind. But Hallmark star Melissa Gilbert, who played the beloved Laura Ingalls on the original show’s nine-year run, recently recalled a time when she performed some very “Spider-Man-esque” acrobatics on set.
The Card Game That Ended in a Somersault
“Yesterday we went to see the new ‘Spider-Man’ movie, which we throughly enjoyed,” she began her August 8, 2026 Instagram post. “It got me thinking about doing stunts, when, all of a sudden, I had a memory of a very Spiderman-esque maneuver I pulled off on the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ set.”
“I was in my full wardrobe and braids, sitting in a chair on the edge of the creek, near the little house, playing cards with one of the other kids,” the “When Calls the Heart” star continued. “I was in one of those metal folding chairs with the woven nylon back and seat. The whole cast and crew were nearby setting up the next shot and/or relaxing. Well, I won whatever game we were playing, and I threw my arms up in victory.”
How Gilbert Kept Her Braids Perfectly Dry
“The chair tipped backwards and I went flying over the bank of the creek and back somersaulted into the water,” Gilbert explained. Yet even in that unexpected moment, keeping her hair intact was at the top of her mind.
“I somehow landed on my feet while managing to hold my pigtails strait up in the air so they wouldn’t get wet. Everyone saw and there was absolute silence for about ten seconds. Probably from fear that I’d been hurt. Then everyone roared with applause. I was perfectly fine. I was submerged to about my waist, but from there up, I, and most importantly, my braids were dry.”
“Now that’s some prairie/spidey stuff if ever there was,” she added.
Gilbert and Arngrim’s History of Doing Their Own Stunts
While we’re disappointed that we can’t view Gilbert’s feat, we can imagine it thanks to her detailed description. And even though we didn’t witness her landing on her feet after doing a backward somersault, we have a treasure trove of high-energy moments choreographed moments to look back on. She and Alison Arngrim, who played Laura’s arch-enemy, Nellie Oleson, have talked about how much influence they had on creating their “fights.”
“The episode ‘Back to School,’ known often as the cinnamon chicken episode, but that I, of course, like to call the mud fight episode,” Arngrim told COZI TV in 2024. “The mud fight is incredible; this is at the point where Melissa Gilbert and I are doing our own stunts. They’re not even bothering to bring anyone in. We’re choreographing our own fights.”
No one is going to say that Laura Ingalls was a superhero. But Gilbert and the “Little House” crew proved decades ago that real stunt magic doesn’t always need CGI—sometimes all it takes is a bit of prairie grit, a deep creek, and a commitment to keeping those pigtails dry.
