Little House on the Prairie (TV series)
Overview
Little House on the Prairie is an American Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 drama television series
Dramatic programming
Dramatic programming in the UK, or television drama and television drama series in the US, is television program content that is scripted and fictional along the lines of √a traditional drama. This excludes, for example, sports television, television news, reality show and game shows, stand-up...

, starring Michael Landon
Michael Landon
Michael Landon was an American actor, writer, director, and producer. He is widely known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza , Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie , and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven...

 and Melissa Gilbert
Melissa Gilbert
Melissa Ellen Gilbert is an American actress, writer, and producer, primarily in movies and television. Gilbert is best known as a child actress who co-starred as Charles Ingalls's second daughter, Laura Ingalls Wilder, on the dramatic television series Little House on the Prairie...

, about a family living on a farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota
Walnut Grove, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 599 people, 291 households, and 178 families residing in the city. The population density was 577.7 people per square mile . There were 341 housing units at an average density of 328.9 per square mile...

, in the 1870s and 1880s. The show was an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder was an American author who wrote the Little House series of books based on her childhood in a pioneer family...

's best-selling series of Little House
Little House on the Prairie
Little House is a series of children's books by Laura Ingalls Wilder that was published originally between 1932 and 1943, with four additional books published posthumously, in 1962, 1971, 1974 and 2006.-History:...

books. Television producer and NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 executive Ed Friendly
Ed Friendly
Edwin "Ed" S. Friendly Jr. was a multiple-Emmy-nominated television producer who was responsible for creating several successful television programs, including Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Little House on the Prairie, and Backstairs at the White House.Ed Friendly served with the United States Army...

 became aware of this enduring story in the early 1970s. He asked Michael Landon to direct the pilot movie, who agreed on the condition that he could also play Charles Ingalls
Charles Ingalls
Charles Phillip Ingalls was the father of Laura Ingalls Wilder, known for her Little House on the Prairie series of books...

.

The regular series was preceded by a two-hour pilot movie
Little House on the Prairie (film)
Little House on the Prairie is a 1974 television film which is considered to be the pilot to the Little House on the Prairie tv-series...

 that first aired on March 30, 1974.
 
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