Little House on the Prairie (TV series)
Little House on the Prairie is an American Western historical drama television series loosely based on the Little House on the Prairie book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The series is centered on the Ingalls family, who live on a farm on Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s–1890s. Charles, Caroline, Laura, Mary, and Carrie Ingalls are respectively portrayed by Michael Landon, Karen Grassle, Melissa Gilbert, Melissa Sue Anderson, and twins Lindsay and Sydney Greenbush.
In 1972, with the encouragement of his wife and daughter, television producer and former NBC executive Ed Friendly acquired the film and television rights to Wilder's novels from Roger Lea MacBride and engaged Blanche Hanalis to write the teleplay for a two-hour motion picture pilot. Friendly then asked Michael Landon to direct the pilot; Landon agreed on the condition that he could also play Charles Ingalls. Conflict between Friendly's and Landon's vision for the show ultimately led to the disinvolvement of Friendly in the production, leaving complete creative control to Michael Landon.
The pilot, which first aired on March 30, 1974, was based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's third Little House book, Little House on the Prairie. The rest of the regular series premiered on the NBC network on September 11, 1974, and last aired on March 21, 1983. In the show's ninth and final season, with the departure of Michael Landon, the title was changed to Little House: A New Beginning. Three post-series movies were made. Since the original series run, the show has aired continuously in syndication and is available on a number of streaming platforms.
Although initial reviews from critics were less than positive, the series ultimately became an audience favorite, with strong ratings through most of the series run. Initial reviews drew comparisons to The Waltons, which was getting solid ratings at the time. Ultimately, positive reviews followed the first season until cancellation, and continued through syndication as the show has remained popular with audiences.
Synopsis
Loosely based on the autobiographical Little House series, episodes of Little House on the Prairie usually concern members of the Ingalls family, who live on a small farm near the village of Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Many episodes concern the maturation of the family's second daughter, Laura. Other episodes focus on family and community members, providing a depiction of life in a small agrarian community in late nineteenth-century America. The show's central characters are Charles Ingalls, his wife Caroline, and their three daughters, Mary, Laura, and Carrie, though the family expands as the seasons progress.At the conclusion of season 4, Mary has gone blind and is sent to a school for the blind in Iowa, leaving Walnut Grove behind. This introduces Adam Kendall, a teacher at the school who is also blind. Meanwhile, in Walnut Grove, the school has closed, with no plans to reopen, as Miss Beadle marries and leaves Walnut Grove. At the opening of season 5, Adam, with Mary's help, starts a new school for the blind in Winoka, Dakota. The Ingalls move to Winoka, and the Garveys and Olesons soon follow, as the economic situation in Walnut Grove has soured. An orphan in Winoka, Albert, becomes a recurring character. When the families move back to Walnut Grove, the Ingalls take Albert with them. Later in season 5, the blind school in Winoka must close, and the decision is made to merge with another school from Kansas, moving both to Walnut Grove.
The story line in season 6 introduces the Wilders—Eliza Jane, who arrives to replace Alice Garvey as the teacher in Walnut Grove, and her brother Almanzo. By the conclusion of the season, the romance between Almanzo and Laura has blossomed to a marriage proposal, with the couple agreeing to wait a year to be married. As season 7 begins, Eliza Jane leaves Walnut Grove, with Laura being offered the position of teacher in the school. Although they still have six months of their agreed engagement period, Laura and Almanzo are married in the season's two-part premier.
Following season 8, Michael Landon decided to leave the show and the series was re-titled Little House: A New Beginning. The focus is now placed on the characters of Laura and Almanzo. Charles is forced to sell the house and move to Burr Oak, Iowa, to pursue new work. Laura and Almanzo remain to become the central characters and more characters were added to the cast. A new family, John Carter, along with his wife Sarah and sons Jeb and Jason move into the Ingalls house. Meanwhile when Almanzo's brother dies, Almanzo and Laura take in their niece, Jenny Wilder, and raise her alongside their own daughter, Rose.
Cast and characters
Main cast
Recurring cast
Guest stars
Little House had many guest stars and incorporated a number of well-known actors, including Academy Award winners such as Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, and Patricia Neal.Other established performers included Forrest Tucker, Richard Basehart, Theodore Bikel, Johnny Cash, Burl Ives, John Ireland, Nehemiah Persoff, Ray Bolger, Arthur Hill, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Ford Rainey and Barry Sullivan.
Some guests were second generation performers, such as Dirk Blocker, son of Bonanzas Dan Blocker, Anne Archer, daughter of Marjorie Lord and John Archer, and Julie Cobb, daughter of The Virginian's Lee J. Cobb.
Episodes
Background and production
Development
, former television executive and producer of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, had noticed that his daughter had a habit of reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's series of books every year and was convinced they had enormous licensing potential. The copyrights of the works were at the time owned by Roger MacBride. Friendly purchased the television rights to Little House on the Prairie to develop a family-oriented series, while he and Blanche Hanalis wrote the initial screenplay; but the result was not received well by the networks.Upon seeing the Bonanza episode "The Wish" directed by Michael Landon, Friendly thought Landon could possibly direct the series. Friendly's daughter delivered a copy of the screenplay to Landon, after which the latter not only wanted to direct the pilot, but also to star in it. Following the cancellation of Bonanza, Landon had been given an exclusive contract with NBC to develop new projects. When Landon discovered his daughter had been reading the book series and that his wife had also read them, he also saw the opportunity for a family-oriented series that would encourage children to read. NBC was hesitant; they would be committing to a project from an era the networks were leaving behind. But NBC ultimately trusted Landon's intuition and committed to a two-hour pilot movie and a series to follow if ratings warranted.
Although they agreed that the series should look authentic, Friendly and Landon had different visions of what that meant. Among other differences, Friendly wanted the Charles Ingalls character to have a full beard, while Landon thought it would be bad for his image. Friendly wanted to strictly follow the stories in the books. Landon, on the other hand, noted that a series run of several years would require much more drama and character development. Eventually, Friendly wanted Landon removed. However, NBC backed Landon, and Friendly ended up as a silent partner, leaving the show in mid-1974. Ultimately, Landon "closely-supervised dimensions of story and character that were not present in the original material... nurtured the cast and crew, directed and wrote most of the stories, and entirely supervised every detail of the series." As executive producer, his "personal vision is embossed on every one of the 204 color episodes". The result is a series that is "so different from the books as to constitute a separate body of work".
Casting
Following NBC's commitment to the series, Landon put his effort into casting. Forty-seven actresses were auditioned for the role of Caroline Ingalls before Landon settled on Karen Grassle. Hersha Parady had been seriously considered for the role. However, Landon thought Grassle was perfect because she "looked like a pioneer woman". Grassle had very little in the way of television and no film acting experience. She was primarily a theater actress with university training and a degree in theater, along with a number of repertory theater credits. Landon also cast other actors with theater backgrounds and minimal television exposure including Katherine MacGregor and Richard Bull.Landon's most difficult task was casting the children. He did not want "professional daughters with stage mothers". He wanted "real little girls". He selected Melissa Sue Anderson as Mary, and Melissa Gilbert as Laura, and gave them the nicknames "Missy" and "Half Pint" so they could be told apart on set. Anderson had only been working in television for less than a year, while the 9-year old Gilbert had been working in television since she was three. Hollywood's work rules for small children required the use of twins for the character of Carrie, who was played by Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush.
Writing
Writing was one of the many creative differences between Ed Friendly and Michael Landon. Friendly wanted to remain faithful to the original storylines of the books, while Landon saw that producing at least 22 hours of episodic television per year would make it necessary to build fictional stories around the incidents from the books. Landon also incorporated completely invented characters not found in the books. Thus, only some of the material for the series was taken directly from the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, as well as from the actual lives of the Ingalls family. While many of the stories were pure fabrications, each was meant to be true to the character of the book series.The original screenplay adaptation was written by Ed Friendly and Blanche Hanalis. As many as a dozen script ideas were later submitted by Ed Friendly and Roger MacBride, but all were rejected. Other writers, including Michael Landon, were used for the series and the post-series movies.
Some episodes written by Michael Landon were recycled storylines he had written for Bonanza. In season 5, the episode "Someone Please Love Me" had the same theme as the Bonanza episode "A Dream To Dream". Likewise, "Little Lou" in season 9 conveyed the same theme as the Bonanza episode "It's A Small World". To feature Karen Grassle, Landon wrote "A Matter of Faith" in season 2 based on the Bonanza episode "A Matter of Circumstance".