Little House’s Dean Butler and Karen Grassle Have Rare Reunion

Dean Butler and Karen Grassle had the sweetest reunion.

Butler, who played Almanzo Wilder on Little House on the Prairie, shared a TikTok on Sept. 8 where he embraced Karen Grassle. Grassle played his on-screen mother-in-law, Caroline Ingalls, better known as “Ma” to Melissa Gilbert’s Laura Ingalls. 

“Here with the beautiful Karen Grassle,” Butler said to the camera. 

“Oh, thank you,” the 83-year-old actress said. 

“My goodness, you are a national treasure,” Butler continued. Grassle laughed it off, saying, “Oh, please.”

But Butler continued, calling her, “One of America’s most beloved television mothers, you know?”

That, Grassle could get behind. “I did. I did win this year,” she said, referencing the Today show’s Best TV Mom bracket, which they did in honor of Mother’s Day this spring. “Did you know they had me come on an interview?” Grassle asked Butlet. “So I said, well, I’m going to be traveling.” She ended up doing the interview in a “totally obscure” place in Sardinia, Italy, where her boyfriend held up the phone for her so she could do the video interview. 

Butler shared that fans can hear more stories from Grassle at the Little House on the Prairie cast reunion in Strathmore Park in Simi Valley, Calif., this December. “It’s going to be a beautiful holiday celebration of Little House on the Prairie,” Butler said, adding to Grassle, “We’re so delighted you’re coming.”

Grassle teased, “I have lots of stories.”

Grassle beat The Brady Bunch’s Carol Brady in the final round of the Today show’s bracket. In her interview at the time, she told the hosts, “I’m thrilled. I’m just thrilled. Thank you very much.”

Today host Carson Daly noted that Grassle modeled Caroline Ingalls after her mom. “We went into shooting right after I was cast,” Grassle explained. “There was no time to be researching Caroline Ingalls as she really was.” But she knew her mom had “a hard-scrabble background,” went to a one-room schoolhouse and went to school barefoot. “ That’s my research right there,” she said.

Butler, who co-hosts the Little House 50th Anniversary Podcast, also shared another video of him talking with fans at a recent event. Some fans made a sign that said Almanzo was the “#OG thirst trap” and he asked fans to explain to him what a “thirst trap” is.

In August, he shared on social media that he visited the Heritage Village Museum in Sharonville, Ohio, a living history museum depicting life in Southwestern Ohio throughout the 19th Century. “I spent a wonderful day at the Heritage Village Museum in Ohio, where the ‘Laura love’ was alive and well!” he wrote. “It’s always amazing to see how much the Little House legacy continues to bring people together.” 

Last year, Butler released a memoir, Prairie Man: My Little House Life and Beyond. “It’s an iconic program. Little House is a part of people’s lives, and it has been for a long time,” he told PEOPLE that June.

And part of that legacy, he said, is meeting fans who have very deep memories of him. “I think what’s really beautiful is so many of these women walk up to me with their husbands and children in tow and will tell me that I’m their first crush, and their husband is standing there just like, ‘Okay,’ ” he said with a laugh. “I always say to husbands. ‘Thank you for being such a good sport.’ ”