- - ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Star Recalls the Sad Moment He Was Replaced by a Look-Alike Kid

Victoria MillerJanuary 19, 2026 at 5:34 AM

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Ted Shepherd/NBCU Photo Bank

As a child actor in the 1970s, Patrick Labyorteaux was best known for playing Andy Garvey on Little House on the Prairie. The young actor joined the cast of the NBC historical drama in 1977, first appearing on the Season 4 episode “The Wolves,” per IMDb. Labyorteaux was a cast member on the show until the seventh season, when Jonathan Garvey (Merlin Olsen) and his son Andy left Walnut Grove for a new beginning in Sleepy Eye after the death of matriarch Alice (Hersha Parady).

Speaking with Remind magazine in January 2026, Labyorteaux, 60, looked back on the “sad” events that led up to his character’s exit from the show. “It was a really weird time,” Labyorteaux recalled. “Because we had on the show that I would lose my mom. …It was just kind of sad. I was leaving the show, and then you read the script, and it’s like, it’s sad.”

At one point, the Garveys' move to Sleepy Eye was considered for a possible spin-off series, but the network went in another direction.

“It was also a period of time where we thought maybe we would be doing a new show, so it didn’t feel like we were leaving. It felt like transitioning,” Labyorteaux explained. “And then later, they didn’t pick the pilot up, and then ended up doing Father Murphy with Merlin Olsen, and they couldn’t have the same kid on a different show with the same guy. So, they got another kid who looked just like me. That was a bummer. That was when it was hard, and that was about eight months later.”

NBC Wanted a New Series

Labyorteaux previously reflected on being unexpectedly cut from Little House on the Prairie. In a 2025 interview with Buzzfeed, he noted that the storyline about the Garveys’ move to Sleepy Eye was set up for the possibility of a spin-off centered on Jonathan Garvey's new job. “Jonathan and Andy move to another town,” he said. “It was kind of a backdoor pilot that they didn't pick up."

"The idea was that Merlin would be the sheriff of a town, and I was going to be his son," Labyorteaux added. “The network said, 'We want Merlin, but we don't want him as part of Little House.' So they did the show Father Murphy, and had to cast a kid who looked just like me for that show.”

Labyorteaux admitted that losing his role so abruptly was a blow to him as a young actor. "When you're 15 and getting fired, even though you didn't do anything wrong, you're losing a job, and it sucks," he said.

‘Father Murphy’ Was Not a ‘Little House’ Spinoff

Father Murphy premiered as a TV movie on NBC in November 1981. The series was created and directed by Little House on the Prairie star and producer Michael Landon, but had nothing to do with the Minnesota-set show.

Father Murphy starred Olsen as a 1870s Arizona frontiersman, John Michael Murphy, posing as a priest to save local orphans. Timothy Gibbs, the kid who looked like Labyorteaux, played Will Adams, one of the orphans whom Father Murphy eventually adopts.

Unlike Little House, which aired for nine seasons on NBC, Father Murphy was canceled after just two seasons.

In a 1982 interview with UPI, Olsen blamed the show’s cancellation on a schedule change. “The thing that killed us was moving over to Sunday night opposite 60 Minutes," he said. "We had ratings that were very healthy. …Then we moved, and when you lose an audience it's much more difficult to get them back than it was to pick them up in the first place.”

“One reason I was sorry to see Father Murphy go is there aren't many programs that families can sit down and watch together," Olsen said at the time.

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This story was originally published by Parade on Jan 19, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”